During our lives, we might encounter a range of bigger transitions such as changing jobs, entering a new stage of life, moving and illness. But there are also more subtle transitions such as shifting from work to relaxation, the beginning and end of the weekend and returning from a holiday. Transitions, even exciting ones, can be daunting. They are filled with uncertainty and without always being conscious of it; we sometimes avoid them and what comes up for us for during them.

Transitions in yoga

In yoga, we also encounter transitions, for example between time on our mat and the day as a whole; the period at the beginning of the practice before we start moving, and the period of rest at the end. With a home practice it can be especially tempting to cut out these parts. We might feel restless or find it difficult to stop and feel an urgency to move on. There are also the transitions during our practice. One example is how we get from one posture to another and how we move during our flow. Again during those times we might witness a tendency to rush through and to want to get into the posture as quickly as possible. We might feel a resistance to slowing down, exploring the space in between postures as well as holding the postures themselves.

The Challenge of Transitional Space

There may be several reasons we are uncomfortable with the transitional space in life and in our yoga practise. We may have become so used to having a direction and targets that it feels unfamiliar just to be and let the experience unfold more gradually. The transitional space can sometimes feel endless and we might feel anxious about being feeling lost and directionless. During transitions we often have time for more reflection but perhaps feelings and thoughts might appear that challenge assumptions we have of ourselves, how we live and relate, and in yoga how we are approaching our practise and what we really want from it.

Pause and rest to connect

To manage the the transitional space we often set ourselves goals. Goals can provide a sense of control in the face of the unknown. Everything can then be evaluated and defined in terms of outcome and achievement. In our yoga practice, we might start targeting postures and become fixated on being able to do a certain posture in a certain way. As a result however, we might be less connected to what is actually happening in our body. We might not be aware for example, that we are overusing or underusing certain parts of our body or that a part of the body is starting to feel strain.

That’s why taking rest poses during our practise can be so important. Not just to rest, but to pause and take a moment to more fully connect with how we are feeling and how we might want to approach our practise. Something I often ask myself in the transitional space during practise is, “how can my practise meet me where I am right now?” We can ask the same in day to day life when we take a moment to slow down and pause – “how can life meet me where I am right now?”

Less attachment, more curiosity

When we become less attached outcomes, we can start to fully embrace the journey both in life and with yoga. Our whole experience starts to open out. Take the example of walking around day to day. Often, we are so focused on our destination (getting from a to b) that we remain unaware of what is happening around us. We might not notice the subtle shifts of seasons, the changing colours and smells and others changes to the environment. We might not notice someone who needs our help.

One thing I find helpful is to vary my walking routes. Rather than take the same route that tends to keep me on autopilot, I find consciously choosing a route that is guided by how I am feeling keeps me more connected and present in the experience of moving to my destination. I start to move slower and I become more curious. And that for me is really a key feature to transitions; that sense of being curious, open to enquiry and receiving what emerges in that space.

Using Transitions to establish deeper self-awareness

Similarly in yoga, I mix up my transitions and explore different ways to move in an out of postures. I used to be overly attached to the idea of doing chaturanga or focusing on the key poses that we transition through like plank and downward dog. Of course it’s important giving these postures and movements attention but there are a whole range of other subtle movements during a vinyasa transition that we can also bring attention to.

For example, the process of stepping back to plank can be just as significant as being in plank. It can provide a great opportunity to experiment with how we want to move into a pose. It is a movement we can potentially do quite softly and effortlessly or we can make it more challenging and create deep engagement by keeping our shoulders above our wrists, slowing down the pace at which we step our feet back and focusing on lightness. Suddenly, by shifting the focusing to the transition a whole range of opportunities appear and the potential to develop different strands to our practice.

Tuning into the subtle messages

I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with wanting to accomplish a certain posture or moment. As with life, dreams, aspirations and intentions are valuable. However, fixed targets can sustain us forever in pursuit. Constantly striving towards goals becomes relentless and exhausting and sometimes we lose sight of why we are doing what we are doing.

In life, many injuries and illnesses are often identified later than they could be because we are moving so fast and not stopping and taking time to listen to our bodies. We don’t notice we are tired until we feel burnt out. We don’t notice the beginning of feeling unwell until an illness emerges. It is the same in yoga when we rush into postures or try to force it. We do not give the body time to adapt and consolidate. We can become so obsessed with the final outcome and getting there as soon as possible that we are unable to hear the subtle messages along the way.

These messages might communicate that we need to pull back, make a slight adjustment or in some cases find an alternative posture. While sometimes we might get more from going deeper, just as often we can get more from integrating effortlessness and softness. Where we situate ourselves on that spectrum might vary from day to day and practice to practice. But by taking our time and focusing less on the outcome we might start to notice with more clarity what we need and when.

Developing our inner compass

Engaging in transitions sometimes involves becoming more at ease with not always having a clear direction or specific goals. The idea of giving ourselves permission can be supportive here. It’s okay not to be clear about where we are heading and to not have all the answers. When we are not continually in pursuit of something it can often create space for other things to emerge. The fear might be that if we slow down we will lose time and we won’t get to where we want to be. However, it can be quite the opposite.

Slowing down can give us the gift of time. Sometimes it can lead us to places we couldn’t have even imagined or knew existed. When we are in transition, we can feel fragile, exposed and vulnerable. But it is then that we potentially discover who we really are and what we really need. Rather than focusing on our external direction, we learn to harness our internal compass and can learn to live more fluidly in the face of an external environment which is constantly changing.

I did a workshop recently with the wonderful Katy Appleton and, something she said really resonated. She said yoga was about ‘Being the best version of ourselves’. Yoga is about thriving in all areas of our life, not just on the mat. In its fullest expression, yoga is both a transformational toolkit and a measuring stick that allows up to weigh up the efficacy of our choices.

Tradition states that although we come into life full, as we move through life, make choices and experience things (some helpful and some not so helpful) our ‘Vital Essences’ (of which there are three) flux and at times, will run low. Furthermore, that it is the depletion of these master forces within the body that creates the gap between what we ‘want’ to experience in life and what we ‘do’ experience.

One of the things that I love most about the science of Yoga is that as a science, it is systematic and pragmatic. Yoga clearly outlines the hurdles we will face on the path and then the practical solutions to overcome them. No wishy-washy, airy-fairy nonsense. Ambiguity has no seat at the sacred table of Yoga. The stakes are far too high for that; our vital health is far too important.

In the West, we often think of ‘health’ as ‘the absence of disease’, but Yoga has a different take on it. The word for health in Sanskrit is ‘Swasti’, which means ‘to be established in your Self’. Self with a capital ‘S’ – the biggest version of who we are. To the Yogi, this is health; to be rooted, grounded and operating from the highest version ourselves. Swasti, health, is defined by the following 3 elements:

• Stability: mental and physical.
• Immunity: in regards to both inner bacteria and the negative energy of others.
• Emotional health: which speaks to the state of our relationships with others and also our self, including our capacity to easefully return to a state of joy, inspiration, motivation, gratitude and enthusiasm. It’s not about shutting down our emotions. Health is not holding onto them.

The sum of these three signifiers creates Swasti and is an indication that our three Vital Essences have been restored. The Vital Essences are Prana, Tejas and Ojas

Prana is the master guiding force within the body, coordinating our breath, senses and mind. It is responsible (among other things) for our adaptability. There’s a saying in yoga, “We’re only as good as the amount of Prana we have access to”. When our Pranic tank is full we ‘flow’ more easily, we can skilfully navigate change. Prana acts like the neutral space in a gearbox that allows the gear shifter to move between the gears. We always have to move through neutral to get from first to second, second to third and so on. We need Prana to gear shift, which is handy because in case you didn’t notice, life has a tendency to do that from time to time; shift gears.

Prana also governs our capacity to ‘take information in’. When we’re at ‘the end of our tether’, as the saying goes and the thought of one more email or car horn feels as though it will tip the mental stability scales, it’s a sure sign that we need a Pranic boost. Breathe!

Pranayama is the best way to build Prana, specifically working on increasing the length and quality of our inhalation and working with retentions at the end of inhalation. That’s the fastest way. Asana or the physical postures also builds it (although overdoing it can deplete it and doing it incorrectly can derange it). Time in nature is also a great way to build the vital force of Prana. On some level, even if we are not Yogis, we can sense how deeply healing that that is.

Tejas, the second vital essence is the subtle energy of fire and the transformative power at the heart of Yoga. Tejas allows us to metabolize life, to break down our experiences, digest and eliminate the waste and convert the knowledge gained into wisdom and maturity. Prana allows us to take information in, however whether we convert that information into nourishment is completely dependent upon our level of Tejas. These essences are the stuff life is made of and they work on all levels of our being.

Tejas is also the energy of will and vigour. It motivates us to change and inspires us to do whatever work needs to be done. Courage, fearlessness and insight all stem from Tejas and believe it or not, the most effective strategy for building Tejas…. is Silence. Control of speech is included under this heading as too much talking depletes our inner radiance. Great Masters say what needs to be said, but not more.

Concentration and focus practices also build Tejas. Many Yogis these days don’t like doing true Tejas-building work, known as Tapas. We think that sweating and jumping around and exhausting ourselves is Tapas… it isn’t. Tapas (the practices that produce Tejas) are the hard things we do that we really don’t want to do; like sitting still and being silent 😉

That is the deal – If we want more Tejas, then we have to cultivate a will like steel. No way to buy our way through or side-step around that one.

Ojas is the third and final essence. It is the energy-pool of our own pure vitality – the place from which we draw our vigour. Prana allows us to take things in. Tejas allows us to break it down. Ojas is the nourishment we extract – ‘Life minerals’. It manifests as our immunity and also provides us with stamina, stability, patience, peace, confidence and calm. Ojas is also the energy of protection.

Ojas as patience, peace, stability, stamina and calm is the framework and foundation for success in Yoga, behind the scenes protecting our practice and ensuring we don’t burn out. As the ancient texts proclaim, we have to stabilize the Moon (Mind) before we rise up the Sun (Prana). This is skill in action and the recipe for a vital life.

To build Ojas it’s important we minimize sensory impressions. Yes, exactly – get off your phone! Phones and computers deplete Ojas but Yin yoga, Meditation and Yoga Nidra are great tools to cultivate it.

One final suggestion; Bhakti or love builds Ojas. People who have a mate (the right mate) in their life live longer. So find someone to love!! Even if it’s a dog! Love builds Ojas 😉 Let’s share it!

As we move into March and the beginnings of Spring, mother nature is gently pulling back the blanket of winter and asking us to wake up. January 1^st may be the calendar date we adopt for setting resolutions and intentions, but in terms of nature’s rhythms, Spring is really the season of new beginnings. If you’ve had a great start to 2020, make March the month to really solidify those positive aspects with your March Intentions and continue any newly ingrained healthy habits. If the past two months haven’t been the most abundant however, fear not, because if there was ever a time to ‘start again’ or re-set your mindset, this is it.

Monthly Mantra: “This is my season of personal growth”

In many traditions, March is a time of special celebration and signals the awakening of nature. Pagan communities celebrate the ‘Green Man’, who symbolises rebirth, and whose image of a green face surrounded by leaves can be traced throughout Europe, North America and East Asia. All over the world, no matter the language we speak, the symbolism of lush greenery, budding flowers and shoots has always been celebrated as a sign of rebirth abundance, newness and growth, reminding us that even if things have been a little sparse or difficult recently, there’s always the opportunity to start again, to grow new shoots, to leave behind the old and welcome the new.

Flower Power

The lotus flower is a symbol used throughout Asia to represent the journey of personal growth; starting life in the depths of murky, muddy waters and eventually emerging on the surface, unfurling pure untouched petals. In the same way, plants in our gardens start life in darkness surrounded by dirt, but eventually start growing towards the light, pushing their way to the surface and reaching upward, providing fruit, leaves or flowers. The flowers and plants don’t stay in the dirt where its safe, they don’t race each other to grow the highest, they don’t grow half way then retreat back to the familiarity of the pot. No, nature grows at a steady pace, is strengthened by withstanding strong winds, drinks up the heavy rain and turns towards the light of the sun.

Everywhere we look come Springtime, we’re offered a reminder of the power we have to keep on growing and keep on going. If the only thing holding us back from being our very best selves is fear (and most of the time it is), then perhaps let March be the month you take nature’s advice and grow. This month, I’m going to adopt the mantra – ‘This is my season of personal growth’. 

This can be used as a daily reminder to pursue your purpose and follow your dreams, but it can also be used throughout more challenging and difficult times – those times when you may need to remind yourself that even when we’re facing challenging times, we can learn and from each experience. So this month, I’m going to:

DO MORE – Things that frighten me. Naturally I’m a bit of a risk taker, but as of late I’ve got in a rut where when it comes to new things I’ve steered clear of them. This month though, I’m committed to doing things that make me a little frightened. The first step this month will be committing to putting together and publishing my online newsletter.

TAKE TIME TO- Be creative! Whilst I can be creative with my planning, I want to try to do something just for me. This month I want to try harder to try some more recipes and practise my calligraphy, a much neglected hobby.

LET GO OF- Things that don’t serve me! Self doubt is a big one for me. When I feel a class hasn’t gone to plan, I can be riddled with anxiety and do a good line in beating myself up.

WORK ON- Being m0re organised with my time planning and focus my butterfly mind on one thing at a time. Let’s just say, you don’t want to see how many icons are on my desktop!

TRY NEW- I’m going to challenge myself to try different styles of yoga and try to go to some workshops to open myself up to some new experiences.

Fancy making March your season of personal growth? I’ve attached a handy resource to help you stay on track. Let me know how you get on via Facebook!

https://www.wholeheartedeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/MARCH.pdf

According to National Health and Safety Executive figures,  musculoskeletal disorders accounted for 6.9 million days lost last year. Whilst these are shocking stats, they don’t really surprise me as a high number of people who attend my classes come with back issues. Some people have had a diagnosis but, the vast majority complain of niggles, tightness or discomfort in their back. That’s not to minimise their discomfort but simply that there’s no identifiable trauma or injury which has aggravated the problem.

According to physical therapist Bill Reif, author of the book The Back Pain Secret: The Real Cause of Women’s Back Pain and How to Treat It, those with back issues who’ve received permission from their doctors to practice yoga may find it to be a boon.

Reif says, “Yoga, like physical therapy, could help build core strength and improve control of the spinal curvatures, minimizing the effects of compression.” But he offers this caveat: “Yoga may be appropriate for those with mild, intermittent, or occasional symptoms. Those with moderate to severe problems with frequent pain may not be able to tolerate most active forms of yoga, and should probably seek out a more restorative practice that uses props to help maintain neutral spinal curvature.”

For most people, yoga is an affordable and enjoyable way to manage their back condition but, in order to ensure that the practice doesn’t exacerbate the problem, here are a few top tips to bear in mind.

Don’t lose your natural lumbar curve. Slumping, or rounding the spine, perhaps because of spending long hours in an office chair that encourages bad posture, can take a toll on the back. In most yoga poses and throughout your day, whether sitting or standing, it’s important to maintain the natural inward curve in your lower back, to keep the back of your head lined up with the back of your pelvis (not dropping the head forward or back), and to keep your shoulders broad and stacked right over your hips. Even though your yoga teacher may cue a “flat back” (often to prevent you from losing your natural spinal curves by rounding or overarching the back), a totally flat back is not what we’re looking for. The spine’s natural curves—a slight inward curve of the lumbar spine (lower back), a slight outward curve of the thoracic spine (upper/middle back), and a slight inward curve of the cervical spine (neck)—are important for shock absorption and for optimal spinal health, so we don’t want them to go away!

Do practice healthier sitting and standing postures to help strengthen the back. Practice sitting tall, either in a chair or on the floor using props such as a stack of folded blankets or a yoga bolster while being mindful of maintaining the natural curve of your lumbar spine. Use this new posture any time you sit. When sitting or standing, utilize core support, with a slight lift of the lower abdominals and pelvic floor, and “think tall” with axial extension (upward lift) of the spine.

Don’t let the feet turn out when standing or walking. For many people, external rotation of the feet is both a result and a cause of shortening the piriformis (a culprit in sciatica). When this deep hip rotator is tight, the psoas (which runs from the lumbar spine to the top of the thigh) can also become tight, possibly resulting in lower back pain.

To help stretch a tight piriformis, practice supine pigeon pose, lying on your back and hugging one knee toward the center of your chest, or a figure-4 stretch, lying on your back and crossing one ankle over the thigh of the bent opposite leg. For a tight psoas, a supported bridge pose with a yoga block under your pelvis and a high or low lunge(anjaneyasana) practiced with a slight anterior (forward) tilt of the pelvis can help.

Do keep the feet parallel. If your toes tend to turn out, move your heels out enough so that they’re behind your toes. You want the second toes of each foot to be relatively parallel to each other and your knees tracking in line with the center of the foot. Do this when standing (whether in mountain pose, while working at a standing desk, or any other time), walking, or sitting.

(Note that while parallel feet is a good guideline for most people, it won’t be appropriate for everyone. See Bernie Clark’s article Should Your Feet Be Parallel in Mountain Pose and Down Dog? to learn more.)

Don’t round up from a standing forward fold with straight legs. This action can compress the discs of the anterior spine and aggravate back pain.Instead, to come out of a standing forward fold, keep your knees bent, walk your hands up your thighs, and keep your spine long as you rise to standing.

Do rise up from a forward fold with knees slightly bent, and use core support (a slight engagement of the pelvic floor and lower belly) as you lift your torso.

Don’t forget core strength. Yoga sequences often focus more on stretch than on strength. Stretching can be great for alleviating tightness in back muscles, and poses we might associate with a nice back stretch such as marjaryasana (cat-cow), balasana (child pose), ananda balasana (happy baby), and supine twists may feel good, but they don’t contribute much to building core strength, which is important for back health. To strengthen the back of a structure we must balance the support in the front. That’s why poses that incorporate abdominal and back strength are important for back health.

You can build abdominal strength with postures like paripurna navasana (boat), utkatasana (chair), plank and forearm plank, and vasisthasana (side plank), and back strength with postures like salabhasana (locust) and virabhadrasana III (warrior III). Strengthening abdominal and back muscles supports better spinal alignment, and these are the types of poses you might look for in a back-health-focused yoga class.

Caring for your back means developing healthy postural and movement habits and practicing postures and exercises that can build the muscle strength that will give your spine the support it needs. Now medical professionals are even beginning to recommend these methods over medication for the treatment of temporary or chronic low back pain, so if you suffer from back pain try putting down the pills (with your doctor’s OK), sitting up straight, moving about with more awareness, and hitting the mat for a strength-building, tension-busting yoga session to subdue that troublesome ache and find the joys of unimpaired motion once again.

Don’t practice full inversions.

“Any inversion compresses the lumbar spine because of the additional body weight from above, potentially further narrowing the space through which the nerves must pass freely,” Reif says. “Additionally, inversions may make it more difficult to maintain a neutral spine for some individuals.”

Headstand, shoulderstand, forearm balance, and handstand should all be avoided unless a student is a longtime practitioner who can maintain a neutral spine in these inversions and can maintain control as they come into and out of the pose. Try milder inversions like downward facing dog and legs up the wall instead.

Do avoid deep backbends

“Lumbar extension, which can close off the spinal canal, is unlikely to feel good to those with lumbar issues,” Reif says.

He recommends avoiding backbends like upward dog, wheel, locust, and camel. Milder backbends, like sphinx and bridge, in which the arms can be used to channel the backbend only into the mid and upper back, may be suitable for some with LSS as long as they don’t lead to any increase in symptoms.

3. Don’t twist to an extreme and/or with a rounded back if it doesn’t feel good.

“Twisting can often lead to or exacerbate symptoms,” Reif says. Twists like deep versions of janu sirsasana (head to knee pose), revolved chair pose, and others that involve a rounding of the lower back could place uncomfortable pressure on the lower back, and should be avoided if they make any symptoms worse.

Reif does acknowledge that some measure of twisting may be accessible for those with mild stenosis.

“I would encourage only the twists that allow a neutral lumbar spine,” Reif says. He recommends “thread the needle twist” (sometimes called parivrtta balasana, revolved child’s pose) from hands and knees, and windshield wipering the legs.” Warriors I and II also involve minor twists that may be tolerable for many of those with spinal problems.

Those with more severe symptoms may be better off finding only the barest hint of a twist or may be able to twist only to one side: If the problem occurs along the right side of the spine, rotating to the left may decompress the compressed area, whereas twisting to the right, toward the compressed area, could increase symptoms. Skip twisting to one side if it causes pain.

 Do avoid or modify deep side bends if they worsen symptoms.

A modest amount of side bending can strengthen and even decompress the spine, but, “Again, an extreme of range will possibly exacerbate symptoms,” Reif says. As is the case with twisting, side bend only to the extent that feels good, and if side bending to one side feels compressive, skip it.

In poses like gate pose or a standing side bend, stay as high as you need to in order to be comfortable.

In Daily Life

In addition to following the do’s and don’ts that make sense to you, as often as possible, return to the self-awareness you’ve cultivated through your mindful yoga practice: Notice how the activities of your daily life affect how you feel. Which activities seem helpful? Which less so?

If some activities aggravate your symptoms, could you change the way you do them, repositioning your body to take stress off your lower back, or taking breaks to sit down and lean forward, elbows on thighs? Or perhaps you could approach those movements with more breath, or less hurry?

You may find that devoting some attention to your spinal well-being throughout your day—and night—gradually becomes easier, as do your movements themselves.

I’ve been thinking about love.  February is always a struggle because of Valentine’s Day. I loathe it. I always have. It’s not about love. A hastily purchased card, a gift, a bunch of flowers, an expensive dinner is not about enduring love. It’s about an expectation that on a particular pre-named day each year we will receive something that validates us as worthy of love and the absence of it marks us out as not belonging to the tribe of real lovers. It’s nonsense and yet we are made to feel it so keenly. I think Valentine’s Day represents the ‘fast food’ of love – it’s so easy but real love is not. It’s hard.

So this year I decided I would write about love. Enduring love. The love that ebbs and flows over decades of being with a partner. It’s not about roses (I prefer a bright bunch of daffodils at this time of year), or gifts (they are beautiful and arrive, but rarely coincide with a traditional event such as Christmas or birthdays), or expensive dinners (I prefer hearty breakfasts). It’s about me and him. Us. It’s about good times and bad. It’s about knowing that even in really difficult times there is a silken thread that keeps us connected to one another. It’s about moments of intense loneliness, the kind that feel overwhelming, when you find the person you love is so very hard to reach – when you are just holding on in the storm, waiting for quieter waters, knowing they will eventually be found. These are the challenging times, the ones that test your mettle, that make you question the very foundation of your life together. This is the nature of life and love.

The good times are plentiful, wonderful and numerous. Jokes that evolve over a lifetime together, knowing how to make the perfect cuppa presented in the right cup (yes, it is a thing), tenderness and care, gentle touch, a passing caress, giving each other breathing space to develop individually – all these things reaffirm and support a loving relationship.

We have been together for 17 years. His work has remained more or less constant as a teacher, mine has changed and evolved over the years, each new skill adding to another to bring me to this wonderful point where I do what I love every day. He says on my gravestone he will have inscribed, ‘could this be her final career change?’ – I hope he does, I’ll be chuckling tucked up in my winceyette lined wicker coffin (yes I have thought about it, one needs brushed cotton for such a long subterranean trip).

Love is not the grand gestures, it is the everyday accommodation of the weirdness of one’s partner and their understanding of you – because we are all weird in our own way. It is the melding together of disparate personalities and somehow making a whole that works for the benefit of both. It takes a massive investment of time and energy for a relationship to survive and prosper in spite of the unexpected challenges that life hurls at it. That is enduring love.

Love is encouraging your partner in the direction they need to go even if it makes life a little harder, because you know they would do the same to see you happy. In long term relationships there is give and take, passion and fury, stillness and intensity but most of all there is acceptance. An understanding that on a cellular level the person you have loved for so many years has become a part of you, as familiar as your own heart-beat.

I look back over our life together and am content that it has been a life well lived. We are better together than we would have been apart. We are happy, we have had mad adventures, laughed ourselves stupid, struggled and thrived. We don’t need heart shaped cards to validate that.

e.e. cummings puts it all rather beautifully…

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

At least once a week I will hear someone say – “I would love to do yoga but I am so in flexible, I can’t even touch my toes”….

Yoga seems to have (yet another) pre-conception, that it is only for flexible people to strut their stuff and show off on the mat. There’s an illusion that to do yoga you need to be a zenned out ballerina on a mountain with her leg behind her head omming away in bliss…. This is not yoga, well at least not for 99.99% of the yogi’s I know! So this post is for all you stiff people out there, to strip away the excuse of not being flexible enough to give yoga a go and give you a reason to try it!

Why You Don’t Need to be Embarrassed:

One of the first things we learnt in my Yoga teacher training, was “don’t worry about the stiff rugby player at the back of the room injuring themselves, worry about the flexible dancer at the front of the room”. Yoga is a controlled discipline, and requires strength and control. A lot of injuries occur from hyper-extension and relaxing to far into a posture, repeating this over time without using correct muscle tone and control. Flexible people are often more prone to injuryin Yoga, even those trained in other athletic disciplines, as they can be used to relaxing and letting their body go into full range in poses. This is a lot more risky than the stiff people who aren’t anywhere near their toes!

If you are stiff your teacher may try to adjust you to get you more comfortable and help get you into the right position to feel the stretch correctly. As teachers we see so many different bodies every day and no pose looks the same in two people are the same. Yoga is not a competition. The teacher is not judging you, they will however help you to use control and not force or push so you can find your version of the pose.

Not all Stiffness is Muscular:

Another common question from students who have been working for some time on flexibility, is why has progress stopped? Sometimes you just need more time and sometimes this can be due to bone structure which plays a big role in your body’s range of motion. Our bone structures are all unique, continuing to grow and adapt to give us a strong framework for movement. When you are working on a pose and you no longer feel the stretch but you cannot get further the most likely cause of this is compression of the bones. Compression and bone structure has particular impact on the ball and socket joints – hips, and shoulders and also on the vertebrae with the range of motion in your back bends. The moral of this information is, don’t get too fixed on an end result for your flexibility. All progress is progress and its all about exploring the body and finding your version of the poses, and creating space and comfort in your body.

Why You Should be Coming to Class:

Yoga builds strength, endurance, spacial awareness, stability, balance and flexibility. For every flexibility based pose in class there will be a balance or a strength pose. Yoga is more than just flexibility, it is a well rounded practice with benefits for every body and every level of fitness.

If you are stiff when you start practicing, you have the added advantage of being able to see real progress relatively quickly. With a regular practice you will  quickly notice some poses becoming easier, getting a little deeper with each class. Whenever starting anything new seeing progress is a great motivator so don’t let yourself be put off by the very reason that will keep you coming back for more.

Using the excuse I am too stiff for Yoga, is therefore a little bit of a contradiction… Plus if you have ever watched your grandparents putting on their socks you will know, that extra inch you can reach towards those toes may mean a lot more to you in 30 years time than it does right now, so it may be good to get that work in early!

What Are you Waiting for…

If you are feeling ready to get on your mat and give it a go, check out my timetable at www.limyoga.co.uk for my classes.

If you have read all of the above and you still think this yoga thing is not for me, then no problem, but the next time someone asks you why, hopefully you’ll think of a better reason than because you can’t touch your toes!

As we enter the second month of 2020, how are you feeling? Are those resolutions holding strong? Are you glad dry January is over? Have you faced challenges already, or is 2020 a breeze so far? However your experience of the past month has been, it’s always worth re-committing to any selfcare resolutions or promises we’ve made to ourselves, so we can ensure the positive changes we might have made are long-lasting and authentic. Whilst February might see those ‘quick fix’ resolutions and unrealistic expectations of ourselves fall away, the second month of the year often sheds light on where we really need to focus our attention. Our February intentions are all about setting boundaries and working on showing yourself some love.

Monthly Mantra:

“I unconditionally, respect,

honour and love myself”

With Valentine’s day popping up on February 14^th, there’s a lot of love-talk in the air, so how about we focus on our own self-talk, self-respect and set some boundaries to show ourselves some love? The more confident we become in setting boundaries with regard to work, technology, social life and stress-relief, the more we show ourselves that we really do respect ourselves, thus triggering the world to respect you and your boundaries too. Want to show someone you love them this February? Start with YOU first.

Seven Self-Respect Boundaries To Set

Opt For Airplane Mode:

Let’s start with a relatively easy boundary to set in place; switching your phone to airplane mode at night. If you’re not already doing this, you’ll notice the benefits as soon as you press that button. Staring at phone screens late at night not only plunges us into a social media hole of comparison and anxiety at a time when we should be relaxing and sleeping, but the light from the screen also prevents us from producing melatonin, an essential sleep hormone. Pretty much all screens emit a blue light-wave that prevents us from experiencing optimal sleep, so keeping phones out of the bedroom and away from your eyes can not only prevent a night-time scrolling session, it can physically help you re-set your sleep cycle too.

No More After-Work Emails:

If you’re passionate about your job, self-employed or in the midst of career anxiety, truly ‘switching off’ from work can be difficult. The thing is though, when we start feeling overwhelmed by our work, it becomes far less enjoyable, and we end up feeling as though ‘down-time’ is non-existent. Doing something that takes you away from your phone and laptop after work can be an effective way to create that boundary between work and leisure time, and means you’ll stop the habit of checking those emails constantly. Go for a walk, head to your local yoga class, read a book or cook dinner from scratch (all without your phone). Do something you find immersive so your mind is fully engaged.

Push Off Push-Notifications:

Do we really need to know every time someone comments on a photo or ‘likes’ an Instagram post? Constantly receiving push notifications from social media and emails is like having someone nagging at us 24/7. Those beeping, pinging sounds and flashing screens were made to get our attention, and indeed they do; each time we get a notification, we get a little hit of stress, demanding we stop whatever we’re doing and react. Not only do these notifications prevent us from being truly present with friends and family, they disempower us and virtually control where our attention and energy goes. Once we turn those notifications off, we regain the power to choose where our attention is placed.

Make Mornings Matter:

A non-digital boundary now, and one that can make a huge difference to the whole day. How we begin the day sets the tone for how we’re likely to feel the whole week. Hitting the snooze button, rushing around the house and turning up for that morning meeting late in a state of guilt-ridden panic puts us on the back-foot, so we’re likely to spend the rest of the week in a worse mood than necessary. At a time in which so many of us complain about ‘not having enough time’, we can break that perception and habitual thought pattern simply by getting up ten or twenty minutes earlier to start the day at a slower pace.

Say No:

FOMO is real, but more and more of us are now experiencing the pleasures of JOMO instead (the ‘Joy Of Missing Out’). A full calendar and ‘busy’ lifestyle might seem enviable on the outside, but feeling busier than necessary with no time to simply be can seriously take its toll on physical and mental health. If you find yourself always saying ‘yes’, perhaps reflect upon why this is, and whether all the ‘yes’s’ are really worth it. So much of the time, a fear of saying no indicates we’re acting from a place of ‘lack’ (i.e. feeling unworthy, anxious and with deeply rooted imposter syndrome). Saying no to the things you really don’t want and don’t need to do are a liberating way to show yourself you care, and show others you have your priorities right.

Make Mental Health Non-Negotiable:

If your mind can be a little wobbly at times, you’ll know how important it is to make sure you’re doing things that keep your wellbeing in balance. Whether it’s a chat with a friend, a morning run, time spent in silence or a daily meditation practice, doing the things that keep your mind healthy means you’ll be far more resilient in the face of challenges, and have far more energy to give in life.

Drop Other People’s Emotional Baggage:

If you’ve always been the ‘shoulder to cry on’ or the ‘listener’, its likely you’re also the one carrying everyone else’s emotional baggage, as well as your own. Emotional baggage can get very heavy and cumbersome over time, eventually engulfing us entirely so we’re no longer aware of who we are without it. Being a good friend or family member by listening to others is what community is for, but the way we do it can make or break us. Two words are vital when it comes to compassionately listening but not absorbing others’ issues: loving and Listen and love all you can, then drop the issue and get back to focussing on the things you can control in your own life. Some people find creating an imaginary cloak or circle around them before entering into a heavy situation helpful, cultivating an energetic barrier that prevents your energy from being zapped.

As we emerge into a New Year, bleary eyed and three boxes of Quality Street down, the long cold months of January and February looming ahead can seem like a daunting prospect. To some people anyway. I happen to love this time of year. Once the crowds return home and the incessant consumerism ceases, this month arrives as a much-needed pause – an opportunity for rest which I’ve always found refreshing after the decadence and debauchery of December. No forced fun, no five gold rings, no mulled wine or mince pies. Time to breathe.

Of course, there’s the small matter of heading back to work after two weeks of binging and watching box sets. Getting up in what feels like the middle of the night and hauling yourself into the office is never easy – but in spite of the unwelcome crash back to reality, January is still a time for quiet contemplation and much needed rejuvenation. Unlike most normal people, I adore the cold, dark evenings – it’s as if they were made for curling up on the sofa with a cup of tea, a packet of hobnobs and a brooding Scandinavian thriller

From now until March, my free time is just that – free. I plan to read the books that have been on my bedside table for the best part of a year, to take long walks and listen to podcasts – to rest, the way nature intended.

Rest, I should specify, isn’t code for being lazy or doing sod all. It’s not about lying on the sofa gawping at Bargain Hunt because you can’t be bothered to change the channel. It’s intentional. It could mean slowly stirring a risotto to enjoy with a glass of wine, instead of darting into Tesco Express, picking up a ready meal and shoving it in the microwave before diving back into your emails. It doesn’t mean staying in bed all day or never exercising. It means recognising when and how you need to unwind and doing exactly that. That might mean a jog through the park one frosty morning or a night in with a novel (probably more likely to be the latter…)

Intentionally investing in rest – not seeing it as an indulgence but a necessity – is integral to our health, both physically and mentally. Any athlete training for an event will tell you rest days are just as important as high energy workouts – the body must recover if it is to get stronger. If we work hard and don’t take the time to enjoy quality rest, we’ll eventually break.

I feel remarkably better if I am well-rested. I’m more pleasant to be around too: don’t snap at my husband, am more patient, more decisive, my skin looks healthier, I feel energised and alert. My mind, which so often whirrs as I try to go to sleep, feels content and calm if I’ve managed to wind down. Rest also makes me better at all the things I do during unrest – I can work more effectively, write more eloquently, even read more efficiently. Some people believe stress and overwork are the keys to success, but I think rest is equally important. What’s the point in climbing the mountain if you don’t get to stop and appreciate the view?

When it whooshes in, ripping away the tinsel and wiping out the cobwebs, January offers the perfect time to invest in our rest. It’s a glorious yet underrated time of year during which we are given full permission to take care of ourselves after a month of binge drinking and boxed chocolates. For me, it’s not about dieting or re-inventing myself – it’s about being kinder to myself and recognising when rest is required.

Nature too, is enjoying a much-needed break. Colours are muted and trees are bare, but if you manage to pull on your jumper and venture out to the park, you’ll see snowdrops are beginning to break through the undergrowth – the first sign spring is on its way.

Soon daffodils will be swaying in the breeze and delicate cherry blossom will adorn all the trees. Soon the sun will sit higher in the sky and days will be longer. Soon you’ll barely be able to walk through the streets of Soho without rubbing shoulders with beer swigging suits enjoying after-work drinks in the sun. Soon the leaves will start to crisp up again, turn amber and fall from the branches. Soon blackberries will bejewel the hedgerows and the air will turn crisp.

Soon it will be Christmas once more and the chaos will ensue again. But now nature rests – and so should we.

Being busy all the time is part of the way we live. But, whether gardening, reading or spacing out on the sofa, taking time to rest is just as important

I’m not very good at resting. More generally, if someone asks me how things are going, my stock answer is, “Fine, busy, too busy really.” But while this claim feels true of my life, how much is it also a claim to status? If you say you are busy, then it implies you’re important, you’re in demand. As the time-use researcher Jonathan Gershuny puts it, busyness has become “a badge of honour”.

In contrast to the 19th century, when the upper classes were happy to flaunt their idleness, in the 21st century it is work and not leisure that gives us social status. Think of celebrities constantly taking on new projects and posting everything they do on Instagram.

I’m surely not alone in yearning for a state where I’ve done everything I need to do, where all the items on my to-do list are neatly ticked off, and at last I can relax, with nothing hanging over me. Jobs done. Worries over. The problem is that I not only fail to reach this blessed state, but I constantly say “yes” to new projects and additional demands.

 We yearn for rest, but feel anxious that we’re being lazy

At the heart of our attitude to rest is this ambivalence: we yearn for rest, but then feel anxious that we’re being lazy. We feel we’re not making the most of our lives and really should be doing something. And these days, for most of us, “doing something” is defined very narrowly. It means, being busy. And not just some of the time, but all of the time.

Yet as far back as Socrates we have been warned of the barrenness of a busy life. If we’re busy all the time, life lacks essential rhythm. We miss out on the contrasts between doing and not doing. Of course, the art of rest does not lie in replacing constant busyness with total inactivity. If you are unemployed or have depression, enforced rest is far from relaxing.

The state we want to reach is where we’re active and engaged a lot of the time, but we have proper breaks away from it all. Rest without guilt, rest without stress.

I wondered whether other people found it hard to rest, too, and decided to find out not just what a few people thought, but what, as it turned out, 18,000 people from 135 countries thought. In 2016, a group of psychologists from Durham University designed a survey called the Rest Test, which was launched on the All in the Mind on BBC Radio 4 and Health Check on the BBC World Service.

They discovered that the sense of experiencing a rest deficit is widely shared. Two-thirds of the people who chose to fill in the survey said they would like more rest. When asked what rest meant to them, they often used words such as restorative, sublime or precious, but they also used words like guilty and irritating.

If a lack of rest is a shared problem, is there a common solution? Can we learn from each other how to rest more and rest better?

Sometimes it’s only by exerting your body that you can rest your mind

To make one thing clear, the rest I’m referring to is not sleep. I’m talking about any time while you are awake that feels restful. This could mean lying on the sofa staring into space, but it could mean something more active. The most popular restful activity in our survey was reading. Other people chose activities that might not be seen by some as restful at all. In the Rest Test survey, 38% of the respondents said they found walking restful, another 8% listed running. Sometimes it’s only by exerting your body that you can rest your mind. People who do more exercise believe they get more rest, and in fact they do – they reported more hours of rest in the past 24 hours than people who exercised less. The point is that a restful activity doesn’t have to involve lazing around; it can involve intense exercise, but crucially it must help to relax, refresh and restore you.

It was clear that I had to find things that were restful to me personally. I am more of an active than an inactive rester. I’ve never been one for holidays that involve more than one day lying on the beach or lazing by the pool. I soon get fidgety and want to do some sightseeing.

At home, my choice is walking. It does, of course, require some effort  and a little exertion but, I find being outside instantly restful. Within moments of putting on my trainers, stepping outside and feeling the sun (or more often than not, rain!) on my face, I feel better. By the time I’ve hit the corner of my street, I am relaxed and happy.

 I’ve reframed my resting time outs as a way of protecting my mental health

So now I prescribe myself at least 15 minutes of walking every day. In the past I would have felt guilty about being away from my planning, but now I’ve reframed the time out as a way of protecting my mental health and enhancing my wellbeing. Although I have slightly less time to work, I return to my task feeling calmer and I end up being more productive.

In fact, I probably should make myself take longer breaks, though it’s hard to prescribe the exact amount of rest each of us should have. In the Rest Test, wellbeing levels were highest in those who had rested for between five and six hours the previous day, with levels dipping again if people rested for more than that time. To me, five hours of rest seems like a lot.

Yet it might depend on how I am defining different activities. I spend quite a lot of time driving between classes. Now I try to view this time not as wasted, but as an opportunity to rest. Similarly, when I get into the long queue at the supermarket, I know reframe that as an opportunity to take a 10-minute break during which no one can demand anything of me and I’m free to let my mind wander. If all this time is counted, along with my obvious resting periods, such as reading, or listening to podcasts, (a personal favourtie!) then I’m getting closer to the optimal time.

I’m still busy, of course, and probably always will be, but I’ve learned to take rest more seriously, to view it not as a thing to do when everything else is done, but as an essential part of life.

1. Thou shalt not be perfect or even try
2. Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people
3. Thou shalt leave undone things that ought to be done
4. Thou shalt not spread thyself too thin
5. Thou shalt learn to say “NO”
6. Thou shalt make time for thyself
7. Thou shalt learn to switch off and do nothing regularly
8. Thou shalt be boring, untidy and unattractive at times
9. Thou shalt not feel guilty
10. Thou shalt not be thine own enemy

If you feel like:

• there aren’t enough hours in the day
• you can’t think of what day it is
• you haven’t done anything that YOU want to do for ages
• you can’t see too far into the future

…then these commandments are for you.