blog : Yoga and me

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share with you my journey with yoga. I came to yoga in the late 1990s, to start with it was just another class offered in the gym and I used it as a counter to pounding on the treadmill. Burning the candle at both ends, with a work hard play harder philosophy to life, I kept coming back to yoga finding it a grounding practice and an antidote to the high stress I put on myself at work and the partying I enjoyed (every) weekend. I dipped in and out over the years, and it’s difficult to pin point just what I found in yoga that kept drawing me back to it, but I think it was the feeling a spaciousness it gave me – both in my body and also that little bit of headspace in my crazy busy world.

Many years later I decided to do my yoga teacher training, inspired by the totally amazing experience I had when practicing yoga during my pregnancy. It was during this time of true wonder, countered with real worry, that I found just what yoga meant to me and what it could mean to other people, a real shared experience.  I attended several yoga classes each week, and I practiced at home on most other days. It became a defining part of my pregnancy, and I felt that it’s wholeness in connecting body, breath and baby was quite simply mind blowing, yoga helped my feel totally connected in my pregnancy.

Now as a mother of two small children, I find my own yoga practice has again changed and developed, and my teaching reflects this. Using yoga to connect with my body again, to allow my mind some space to just be, and to use yoga as ‘me-time’ and a form of self-care and relaxation (much needed) has proven just so invaluable. Not being too hard on myself in my yoga (and my life), taking time to play and move in poses and practicing the deep relaxation of Yoga Nidra have all come to form an important part of yoga for me in motherhood.  I enjoy yoga more now than I ever have done, as it’s become ever more important to me, and I find I have learned so much from it and those I practice with and teach.  I really can’t wait to see where yoga takes me next on its wonderful lifelong journey.