28. Jan
“Having spent over two decades studying with the teachers who inspired me,”
I have spent the last few years writing Yin and Mindfulness Meditation courses based on practices that I have felt were so inspiring and helpful to me in my transition from corporate life to motherhood and to yoga. Having spent over two decades studying with the teachers who inspired me, I wanted to unite and integrate the teachings into courses that were both practical to life today and accessible to all students of yoga. By drawing from self-development work that I have learned as a life coach into my teacher trainings, I have integrated both yin and yang yoga styles of practices to include mindfulness and meditation skills with a focus on psychological enquiry. Drawing on the wisdom of ancient teachings, Chinese Medicine and modern psychotherapeutic tools can also help build deeper insights into the awareness of ourselves and that’s a powerful combination when you can develop that within a yoga and yin yoga practice. How we persevere in our lives when confronted with emotional and mental distress is difficult when we don’t have the skills or tools to know how to practice skilfully when we are alone, without a teacher.
“In a Yin Yoga practice, there is more time to meet what arises,”
My intention is to teach the skills that I know that have helped me to be more self-led and self-generating and in turn to pass on these very skills to my students without the mystical and often confusing promises made in yoga communities.
In a Yin Yoga practice, there is more time to meet what arises, to learn how to let go of judgement or trying to solve or fix an issue and to simply be more willing to host tithe sensations that are present. It’s not just the increased length of time of the postures but rather what we do within the time. We can learn to care for our feelings during our time in the posture rather than reacting to them with discontentment. Yin Yoga is not just about stretching or stressing our fascia! With regular practice, I can begin to see the distinctions between my own beliefs and my irrational thoughts and that helps guide me to know myself better, to plan better and to have the confidence to know I’m on the right track when I come across a similar situation or feeling in life.
We all benefit from helpful methods and guidance from skilled teachers that can help us on this path of transforming our old or ‘set’ beliefs and habits and begin to develop healthier practices and kinder attitudes towards ourselves. It doesn’t happen by magic and it is simply that there is time to ‘investigate’ all of these possibilities in this style of yoga, where we are left to ‘marinate’ with our thoughts and feelings. It’s not an easy practice and takes a lot of patience to develop appropriate responses. But it’s wonderful and I believe transforming once we learn how. Having trained some thousand or so students now, I am so reassured that the feedback I’ve received from what has transpired in their lives has been in huge part from what they’ve learned in their practice through me.
The paradox is that everything we have is already within us somewhere but learning how to access this, listening to ourselves and responding more skilfully are the key ingredients to becoming more relaxed about who we are and how to live as we are and with one another.
This could be the start of living more happily within ourselves and what could be more liberating than that! Imagine that now!