Our yoga practice

I am increasingly aware of the many layers, which accompany our yoga practice, and the need to get quieter and quieter.

I am becoming increasingly conscious too, of the deeper teachings of yoga, and the limitless potential offered by this ancient practice, of the wisdom of the Vedas and the knowledge ‘downloaded’ by the ancient Seers.

This knowledge is tried and tested over thousands of years and I am sometimes astounded at our collective lack of consciousness over this, how we are always trying to reinvent the wheel, how science is placed on a pedestal and yet knows so little in comparison to the ancient keepers of wisdom on this planet.

We each have the opportunity to know ourselves on a much deeper level than the superficial and to experience greater freedom and contentment as a result. So much of our suffering comes from our lack of connection to truth and to self, of feeling confused, isolated, discombobulated, merely because of this lack of deeper relationship to heart, soul and indeed cosmos. So often we are out own worst enemy, at war with our self.

Yoga offers us a sincere path. But it does ask of us something in return. We cannot know yoga by merely reading a book, yoga is a practice and to gain the wisdom, to free us from our suffering, then we must practice. It is the same with Reiki - this too is a spiritual practice and asks us to do exactly that, practice. Ayurveda is no different, reading about it will make little difference until we start to put the wisdom into practice, eating more appropriately to ease imbalances and making changes to our lifestyle.

As far as yoga is concerned - at least if one follows the teachings of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras - our practice is anything which takes us towards attainting or remaining in a state of yoga. This state of yoga means that the mind is contained. Or at least more contained than it would be without a practice.

We are required to put in a certain effort. This is not just going to happens we have to put in the hours and have a certain degree of discipline and self regulation.

Furthermore, to really feel the benefits we have to practice for a long time and without interruptions.

We also need to have a positive attitude. This because we can start out with enthusiasm but then it can wane, especially if we come upon against an obstacle such as a mental or emotional block, which can be uncomfortable to work through.

Krishnamacharya always said that we should love our practice - that we should not stop until we reach our goal.

Yoga is real. It is in touch with realism. It helps us to realise our highest potential. This is potential to obtain clarity and stability.

Desikachar used to say that once we have stated on this path, the destination is assured. It is simply a matter of time. It holds open possibility. We can all do this.

Yoga is an extraordinary practice for us ordinary people. It is accessible to everyone, you simply start where you are and keep turning up and tuning in.

I love nothing more than sharing my practice with others and helping them individually where I can. Traditionally yoga was taught one to one for this very reason - so that the practice could be tailored to the needs of the individual, yoga is not one size fits all, we are all different, all at different stages of our journey and require a practice that will help us to grow an d thrive individually.

So practising with a teacher is best, so that we don’t fall into old habits and patterns in the body and mind complex that might limit us and keep us trapped. The body has a habit of following the path of least resistance, the mind too, yet this doesn’t mean that it is healthy for us, sometimes we simply reinforce more of the same and wonder why things are not truly changing.

Yoga is helps to release us from unhelpful conditioning and beliefs but sometimes we need someone to shed a light on these. I am eternally grateful to my teaches for sharing their wisdom with me and the teachings of yoga.

Practicing at home online is better than not practicing at all, but a guide is extremely helpful.

The practice makes the body, breath and mind healthy - but we have to remember that these are just side effects, not really what yoga is for. They help us to stay supple and healthy into late adulthood so that we have more time to work on ourself and sit for extended periods in meditation.

Essentially, yoga is very much a movement from the gross to the subtle. The more we practice, the less distracted we are with the things around us in this world. It is a gradual practice, not a goal focused process.

In fact we have to let go of the conditioning around achievement and our modern definition of success. Yoga is non-competitive, which is also difficult for people as we have bene conditioned by our society and education system to be competitive. We have to be careful not to take our perfectionist tendencies into the spiritual realm.

Saying all that, there is a goal - to realise the self - and we can reach for that, but without grasping.

Happy practising. And on that note, many of you know this already, but I now teach intimate group yoga sessions on Sunday mornings at STYX., just five students in each class, £28 each for the 90 minutes. If you are interested then please ping me an email as I give thought to my schedule in 2025. Meanwhile do feel to join a general class as I try to give people individual attention here too, I do ask for commitment however, and an awareness that I don’t teach exercise yoga.

Love Emma x

I am increasinof the need to become quieter as we go deeper inside ourselves. I am also increasingly conscious of the deeper wisdom contained within the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and how our interpretation can be limited if we are not careful.

That annoying thing called imposter syndrome

I have many talented clients who are keen to offer Reiki or other holistic and trauma-based therapies, teach yoga and/or write books, but let the imposter syndrome get in the way.

This is a syndrome which essentially tells you that you are not good enough to offer whatever it is that you are wanting to offer, that you don’t know enough, aren’t clever enough, expert enough, knowledgeable enough, that you don’t have the right qualifications, that you won’t be able to do a good job, that compares you to others and concludes that there’s too much competition anyway and that you will never be able to make a go of it etc.

But really when it boils down to it, it shows that you just care too much what others think of you and that you don’t recognise your own magnificence.

It also shows that you don’t trust spirit and/or have faith in whatever it was that gifted the idea in the first place.

And that you are Ok about selling out on your heart.

It might also indicate that you have forgotten that we co-create in this life and it is about so much more than you.

We let our ego get involved.

This is the self-depreciating ego which tells us that we are not loveable, or good enough, or enough of this and that, or too much, or whatever other negative self-depreciating inner narrative we repeat over and over again and make manifest in our lives simply because we are always seeking validation of this negativity and embedding it deeper into our psyche and belief system.

If we look for trouble, we will see only trouble.

If we look for love, we will see only love.

If we look for validation of our uselessness, we will see it everywhere.

It is all about perspective.

And we have a choice.

We can keep limiting ourselves with all this negative crap, or we can choose to shift our mentality to something far more positive and expansive and live our best life.

It’s not our fault. We have been conditioned since birth to question ourselves, to doubt ourselves and to be down on ourselves.

We are constantly criticised for not being intelligent enough, or quick enough on the sports field, or arty enough, or musical, or thoughtful enough, or kind enough or polite enough, or not wearing the right clothes, or saying the right thing, or walking down the corridor correctly, or sitting still, or any of the other many, many ways that we are told how to be and judged for behaving differently.

No wonder so many are so tired.

This trying to be what others want us to be and this caring what others think and the hyper vigilance this requires, is really rather exhausting. It creates so much insecurity, anxiety and depression. It causes us to lose our centre, close our hearts and, at times, think we are negatively losing our mind.

Consumerism thrives on this insecurity. It thrives on our externalising of our worth. Of caring too much what others think. People make millions selling products that we are told will help us feel better about ourselves. Even in yoga, it has become all about the building or the mat or the clothes we wear, and this when yoga is absolutely an internal practice.

But that aside, it is crazy isn’t it, to base our self-esteem and sense of self on other people’s fleeting thoughts. Watch your own mind and ask yourself, “what thought will I think next?”, and watch the constant stream of thoughts that appear from the ether in all their randomness. Thoughts come and go. The trouble is we give them far too much energy and believe that they are a concrete representation of reality. They aren’t. So why on earth we care what other people are thinking about us or the opinions they hold one us (which are just thoughts) is quite beyond me.

If we don’t care about our own thoughts - and we really shouldn’t, especially those self depreciating ones, then why on earth should we care about other people’s thoughts? And this to the detriment of our experience and quality of life.

Because when we care too much, it stops us fulfilling our potential, it limits us and it keeps us stuck. And slowly a part of us begins to die, to give up, to feel hopeless, to accept our miserable lot. We close down to excitement and joy, we let our head drop, we drink more wine, eat more junk food, watch more TV, spend more time meaninglessly scrolling through social media, we might manifest illness and we tell ourselves all sorts of stories to justify why we won’t bother trying to move our life forwards and step into our power, share our gifts with the world, just yet.

Sometimes we are scared of failing. Or scared of our potential success.

Somewhere though, we have forgotten that there is a bigger picture.

You see spirit works through us. It wants to co-create with us. It needs us to be the channel and vehicle to bring more heart and soul onto this planet. The trouble is we block this flow by getting in our own way.

We make it all about us, rather than the people who may benefit.

We forget our place in the cosmos.

Maybe I am lucky. I didn’t intend to teach yoga or Reiki or offer Ayurveda. I only signed up for my yoga teacher training course because I wanted to immerse myself in yoga. Together with Reiki it had quite literally saved my life and I wanted to learn all I could about it. I also wanted everyone else on the planet to practice yoga because I knew how much it might help to ease our individual and collective suffering.

It was the same with Reiki. My Reiki Master had to really encourage me along to the first attunement session as I didn’t feel good enough. I was quite sure that the Reiki wouldn't work for me and when I was the only one in the room who didn’t feel a thing during the attunement itself and certainly didn’t see colours or have a sense of energy beings, i concluded that I definitely wasn’t good enough.

But alas a seed was sown and I found myself attending the Level Two training. It was the pendulum dowsing that got me really. I just couldn't believe that it actually worked for me. It was life changing. I slowly started to connect with, and trust, my intuition. It helped that I had by then started receiving spiritual life coaching using Reiki and the Reiki had been working its magic in my life, this to the extent that I wanted everyone else on this planet to benefit.

It was the same with Ayurveda. It felt like magic. I couldn’t quite believe how changing my diet in such an ancient way and taking some medicinal herbs could create such a profound difference in my energy levels and my relationship with myself. The pre-menstrual symptoms which had plagued me for years dissipated. The cysts on my ovaries healed. My disordered eating eased. The overwhelm and accompanying depressive moments abated. I was sleeping better. My digestive system was consistent. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I wanted everyone to try Ayurveda.

And so I ended up teaching yoga and Reiki and becoming an Ayurvedic lifestyle and nutrition consultant simply because I wanted others to experience the benefits for themselves.

I felt as if I had been given these incredibly sacred gifts and the only way I can truly thank the powers that be, is to share these gifts with others. My teachings and sharing then come from a place of deep gratitude.

Not only that, but I realise spirit is just moving through me. I don’t own any of it. Even Beinspired is not mine. It came in at just the right time and it has shaped itself.

The moments when I take myself too seriously, make it all about me, or try in some way to control things, especially Beinspired, is the time it all goes to pot. That I have learned the hard way.

And yes of course, I too have suffered imposter syndrome. Every time I offer something new, I can feel a creeping of anxiety and start questioning my ability and hear myself saying something like, “who do you think you are offering spiritual life coaching, do you really feel you have the qualifications/training/knowledge to help coach others spiritually, and can you honestly charge people for what you are offering?”

I hear those thoughts.

But then I also know that the idea to offer spiritual life coaching was not about me, it was about the people who may benefit from my sharing my passion for yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda, and all the many spiritual practices I have explored these last 20 off years. That is not supposed to sound arrogant, as if I am better than anyone else, I am not. But with all that I offer, it just suddenly comes in as a possibility, I haven’t gone searching for it.

The yoga teacher training course was the first of its kind and arrived on my penultimate day in Byron Bay when I was wondering what to do next with my life, but knowing that I wanted to continue immersing myself in yoga (you can read more about this in Namaste and From Darkness Comes Light). The Reiki came in by encouragement from my Reiki Master. The Ayurvedic training was encouraged by my Ayurvedic doctor. A part of me was cynical - they just want my money. But I know now, as I do this to others, that it is never about the money, it's an intuitive nudge, because you know that other person will benefit - if I have been badgering you to come to class, or do a Reiki attunement or consult with me for Ayurveda, this is the reason, something is telling me that you will benefit!

In many respects I have felt that I have had little choice. My yoga teacher told me to go back to Guernsey and start teaching yoga. My Reiki Master encouraged me to establish Beinspired and start offering Reiki. My Ayurvedic doctor was super keen for me to offer Ayurveda and did all she could to help me. These people are conscious, they have benefitted themselves from these spiritual practices and they also see the bigger picture - that we are co-creating with the divine, we are playing our role in positively shifting the vibration on this planet. We have incarnated at this time in history for this very reason.

So each time I come up against imposter syndrome, I acknowledge it and sit with it. Where is it coming from? What is the fear? And how is my heart feeling?

And as long as it still feels aligned, my heart sings, my intuition is nodding, then I’ll go for it anyway.

I’ll put on my big girl leggings and I’ll face my inner demon.

I’ll trust in whatever it was that gifted me the idea or the nudge in the first place.

I have learned a ton of lessons along the way.

At my first yoga class no one turned up. I went home and cried on my Dad’s shoulder. But I didn’t give up because something was telling me that I just needed to be patient, that Rome was not built in a day, that we all have to start somewhere, that it takes time for people to find their way to you.

And they do.

I have learned to trust in that.

That the right people will find you. That the universe will connect you.

Sure, it helps to advertise, to make people aware you exist. But people will come when the time is right - and for both of you, because it’s a two way process - I learn something from every single client and students who has entered my life.

I have also learned that you can advertise as much as you like, but if you have some resistance within you because you are letting imposter syndrome get in the way then people will not find you because on some level you are blocking them, you are also manifesting the validation you need that you are not good enough so let’s back out now while you can. I have sene this happen lots of times, people make it all about them again.

We have to be careful with our thoughts as they do create our reality. So shift your thoughts. And pray. Pray for assistance. For the most perfect situation for all parties.

I have also learned that we are not in control.

And that we should never base our self worth on external validation such as the number of students in our class or our busy schedule.

Just like we should never look to someone else to make us feel whole.

Or look to love to save us.

Or someone else to make us feel safe.

Or assume we need a community or tribe to feel as if we belong.

Our primary relationship in this lifetime is with ourselves. That much I have learned.

We come in on our own and we will leave on our own. This is the journey of OUR soul.

I know this with absolute certainty.

We can hear the powers that be if we are still enough, quiet enough, gentle enough.

We just need to learn to trust in what we hear, and cultivate greater faith in ourselves and in spirit in the process.

We need to cultivate self-belief. We have to learn to love and accept ourselves. This takes hard work. No one else can do it for us. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, you cannot buy this. Sure others can help you, but only you can really make the inner changes.

We need to switch off and switch in. People love eating energy. Protect your energy. Don’t give it away or let others steal it.

Faith is our protection.

Discernment is our weapon.

I have also learned that we should never have an attachment to outcome. If we do, we will never write that book, or run that course, or offer that treatment.

We do what we do for the love of it, for the sheer joy of the creative process.

We leave others to receive our offering in their own way. We are not responsible for this.

We have to let go of our idea of success or healing or whatever it may be.

We cannot control outcome.

We cannot make someone better if they don’t want to be better.

And we need to remember that we don’t all think and feel the same. So just because we might feel a certain way after say a yoga class or a Reiki treatment, doesn't mean that others will feel similarly. Some may like it, some may not.

And the other lesson I have learned is not to personalise everything. Someone doesn’t come back to yoga. Big deal. That’s their choice. Maybe that one session was all they needed to move them forwards in their life, maybe they can’t get a baby sitter, maybe they have to work late, maybe yoga is just not for them. We don’t need to make up stories that revolve around us, “oh I don’t think they like my style of teaching, oh I am such a rubbish yoga teacher blah blah blah.

Who cares!

Do what you do, offer what you offer, for the sheer love of it.

Stop caring what others think.

And put your energy to loving yourself more instead. Of being your greatest friend.

I have spent thousands of pounds on various trainings, workshops, courses and treatments over the years, but one of my best friend’s gave me the greatest advice for free. He told me to stop caring what others think. No one had ever told me that. Not one single person. or if they did, I didn’t hear them. I started putting this into practice and I couldn’t believe how deep the conditioning around caring what others think. Every time I was triggered, when I traced it back to source, I realised it was always about caring what others thought. I cannot tell you how liberating it has been to work with this and stop caring. It automatically tightens boundaries and helps you value yourself - and - it increases interestingly your compassion not least for self, but for others, because you see how much they suffer by caring too much what others think.

To the extent they don’t live their best life.

And this, to me, is a real tragedy.

So too the fact that they are denying others the benefit of their gifts by not sharing them - it’s like a form of stealing.

If you are reading this, then the chances are that you too have something to share. That you have a passion for yoga or writing or holistic therapies or whatever it may be and that your life has been touched positively to the extent that you would like others to benefit from what you have to share, be that your healing hands, your story or just your ability to listen.

So my advice is to share it. Notice the self-depreciating and limiting thoughts and do it anyway. Dig deep. Find the courage. Trust in whatever it was that gave you the idea. Cultivate faith. Pray for assistance along the way. Please don’t deny others the benefit of whatever gift you are here to share.

If it helps then I am happy to work with you to move you forwards, but remember that I cannot do it for you. You have to do it for yourself.

To help others.

To liberate yourself. Fly free.

To raise the vibration on this planet.

And boy do we need it!

Love Emma x

Setting ourselves free of false ego identity

The moon has gifted many insights this cycle, but the one that has struck me the most is the reminder that we are not broken and don’t need fixing and that we need to shift this mindset if we truly want to thrive and appreciate our true divinity.

I have also been reminded that our mind is our worst enemy and creates our suffering through our forgetfulness that we are neither our thoughts nor our feelings. However, we have this self-depreciating tendency to allow both to run riot, getting caught up in, and stuck, the same mental and emotional patterns over an dover again, and creating our reality from this limited perspective.

We are not our thoughts and we are not our feelings. They come and go. You only have to ask your mind, “what thought is coming next”, to realise that you are not your thoughts. And you are not your feelings, because emotions are simply energy in motion. When we stop their motion and cling onto them, then we stop their flow and mis-identify with them as who we are - “I am sad”, I am depressed”. Not, you’re not! You are merely feeling sadness and depression. But they are not you. It is important to realise this.

Same with your thoughts. Did you know that ego simply means , “What you think you are”. So it’s just your ego that says, “I am fat”, “I am thin”, “I am a victim”, “I am clever’, “I am stupid”, “I am unloveable”, “I am ugly” and every other “I” statement. The collection of these thoughts creates our ego identity, so the ego is nothing more than a raft of self images bound together by your belief in them. Thus the way you identify with yourself is nothing more than fictitious construct, consisting primarily of self-images that exist because of your belief in them and attachment to them.

What is crazy is that each self image is based on a particle moment or moments of past experience that created a mental construct, “a story”, that was taken as static reality. For example, the moment you were praised or punished for something, told you are this or that, you believed it to be so, you bought into the story and by buying into the story, you acquired a self image to add to your forming ego that became a static reality - you believed it so and in believing it so, you made it so.

I have lost count of the number of clients who are stuck in mis-identification, believing they are this or that, usually something negative because of what has happened in their past. Not only does this keep them locked in the past, but it prevents them from expanding because they have limited themselves to the thought, “I am unloveable”, “I am unattractive”, “I am fat”, or whatever it is. The more we keep buying into these false identifications the more we make them so. We believe them into reality and create our own prison bars in the process.

It doesn’t have to be like this! Every moment of every day offers us the opportunity to remove the prison bars and set ourselves free. We choose how we relate to ourselves. I cannot tell you how liberating it is to bat those thoughts away, like they are tennis balls, to challenge every single idea we have about who we are, and to let our feelings flow, see them quite literally as the energy in motion that they are.

Yesterday we had an incidence at the beach where a very important person got annoyed at us for dumping our bags near to her shoes and towel. We’ve spent hours at Fort Grey this summer, hours an hours, and everyone has been really friendly, it’s one of the reason we love it there so much, let alone the opportunity for jumping, kayaking, paddle boarding, rock pooling and just absorbing it’s sacred energy, so it ws quite a surprise. It wasn’t until we got home, E told me that the lady in question, who actually accused us of intentionally leaving our stuff near her stuff to annoy her, is a reputable lawyer on the island, recently returned.

I realised then the reason for her reaction - she has over identified with her job title and believes herself better than everyone else, she has that entitlement that certain occupations encourage. This is not to say she isn’t divine, she is. We are all divine. But her ego has made her believe herself to be better than everyone else. But one day she will retire and what then? What identity will she take on. The lawyer that was? This is the reason so many company directors have heart attacks following retirement - they lose their job title and with that their identity and they no longer wield the same level of power that they did in the organisation.

So we have to be careful. One day we will die and we will become nothing more than dust or compost. There’s this lovely bit in Hamlet, in scene 3 of Act IV, when the King asks Hamlet where the late Polonius is, Hamlet replies, “At supper”. The king, knowing that Polonius is dead, asks Hamlet what he means, to which he curtly gives this riposte:

“Not where he eats, but where ‘a is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end…A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of the worm.”

Hamlet is very clever as he skilfully catches the audience off guard with his initial reply, “At supper”. This because we tend to think of the phrase, ‘at supper’ as, as meaning a person eating a meal. However Hamelt is referring to the person being eaten and emphasis with force the upheaval of hierarchies - the fat kind (and the lean beggar) serve the appetites of the imperial worms, “two dishes” end up on “one table”.

I’ve always thoughts this quote really interesting, reminding us that we are essentially all the same, and all part of the whole - of the continual cycle of life and indeed death on planet earth. Also a reminder that we are no better than each other. In death and indeed in life, we are essentially all equal. Admittedly some are more evolved than others, born with different karma and special qualities, but in terms of our treatment of each other, it is only our ego that says we are better, or indeed worse.

Anyway my point in all this, is to remember that we are not the stories we create about ourselves. Which is the reason I have some concerns about our over identification with labels, because we then make it so and again limit ourselves in the process. We over identify with our states of being too and continue to perpetuate the story, buying into victimhood at times, and keeping ourselves stuck.

At some point we have to realise that we are more than our thoughts and feelings and the stories we tell ourselves - or the stories others tell us. We have to remember that other people’s opinions of us - which they share readily with us, especially when we are children - are just thoughts. They are just someone else’s perspective. They are not true. They are not based on a divine reality but on someone’s judgement which is based to their conditioning and way of seeing the world and our place in it.

I have lost track of the number of people who suffer simply because of being told they were lazy at school, or sloppy, or whatever it may be, that they have taken with them into adulthood and believed it to be a truth. Who cares what other people think?!

It’s our conditioning actually that needs shifting. We have layers and layers of it and much of it patriarchal and christianised. This is something else that has really struck me lately. As women especially we talk of being empowered, yet we are still subjected to our conditioning that tells us we can only be empowered if we dig into our masculine energy and do it like the men. We still buy into the idea of power and money equalling success. We still pedestal masculine traits of achievement, outcome, rationality and consistent and linear ways of being in this world over the feminine qualities of empathy, intuition and cyclical ways of being.

We still pedestal science as if this is King. Nothing is believed if it hasn’t been proven by science. Yet science in itself is so limiting. The ancient Rishis knew the workings of this universe and the teachings have been shared for thousands of years. But unless science proves it so then we are not to believe it. Of course science has its place, but our intuition cannot be proven, nor our empathic feelings, but that doesn’t make them any less meaningful or important. We also have this annoying habit of reinventing the wheel and then commodifying it.

We strip the sacred out of everything. We are hell bent on externalising our view of the world. It doesn’t become about your meditation, it becomes about the cushion you are sitting on and the room you are sitting in. Even yoga has become less about recognising our divinity and more about how your body looks in a certain pose. We have to be careful what we buy into. In my day you didn’t need a particular water bottle to remind you to drink water. You drank water from a water fountain when you felt thirsty and I am still here to tell the tale. I’m actually honoured by the many ways we buy into commercialism.

Furthermore, so many women I see are still beholden to feelings of guilt and shame for wanting to step into their sexual energy. This because the christianised concept of purity runs deep in our DNA. We hold ourselves up against values which were forced upon our ancestors. They didn’t have a choice. But were do. We don’t need to keep perpetuating the story that we are good or bad, pure or dirty, virginal or whore, pretty or ugly, success or failure. All this duality kills the soul and keeps us trapped in our ego identity.

We are EVERYTHING. Our spiritual practicer can be anything because everything is essentially a manifestation of the Goddess. One of my friend’s loves playing AirSoft. He takes his spiritual practice seriously. Seeing an AirSoft gun hanging on his wall, someone made the comment, “well that’s not very spiritual is it!”. but actually why is yoga spiritual and playing AirSoft not? What differentiates the two. If they both serve to take us deeper to the truth, and into this present moment where we realise our divinity, then why is one good and the other bad?

It is from this understanding that the Tantric tradition arose. Tantra teaches that even the most mundane actions like washing the dishes and hanging out the washing are opportunities for experiencing the joy which flows from being truly present - of being in full Presence. We don’t limit ourselves then to our spiritual evolution, our recognition of our divinity, arising only on say our yoga mat or meditation cushion. For me this is incredibly liberating, to realise my deeper Self by being immersed in the world, rather than separate from it, of being deeply in the body, not denying it, of feeling pleasure and pain and not making one good and one bad.

The other point here is around evolution. My use of that word is perhaps not helpful as it implies moving outside ourselves and leaning into our existing conditioning that we need to do more/acquire more/fix more/future orientation “to be ……”. We have to remember that we are already perfect in our divinity and that all our spiritual practice is doing, is helping to remove the layers which prevent us from seeing this clearly. Our suffering arises because we have forgotten our own true nature and we buy into our thoughts and feelings as real.

This moon is gifting us the opportunity fort greater freedom by acknowledging all that has been and letting it pass into the ether, loosening our attachment to it. What is done is done. We have all suffered trauma - the trauma of incarnation is felt widely, for example. We have all made senseless decisions at one time or another. We have all held false views and perspective which we have shared with others. We have harmed and been harmed. But at some point we have to let it all go. We have to wipe the slate clean and realise our inherent divinity and allow more of this to shone forth in the world. We are EVERYTHING. Our playing it small, our not loving ourselves, our giving ourselves a hard time is really pointless. We have one life. Let’s live it well - kindly, loving and compassionately.

I could continue, there’s a theme around pain and suffering bubbling through but I will leave you with a quote by Christopher Wallis, a Tantric scholar, which is food for thought on this full moon:

“The great master Abhinava Gupta suggests to us that if you practice from the perspective that you are not good enough as you are, or that there is something wrong with you that needs fixing, then your yoga cannot fulfil its ultimate purpose because it is a practice founded in wrong understanding. It can only go as far as fulfilling the limited purpose that has been conceived by your limited ego-mind. However, if you undertake the practice of Yoga with the right View of yourself, that you are doing yoga to realise and then fully express what is already true, then you have empowered your practice to take you all the way”.

Happy full moon!

Love Emma x

But it is more than that. We have to stop believing all we have been told about ourselves and buying into it as if this is a truth. Our teachers, caregivers, friends, family members, general public, all will have had an opinion about us at one time or another, but it doesn’t make them real or concrete, they are just someone else’s thoughts. Yet our whole life can be based on these thoughts, because we ignorantly take them on as a truth and then make them so - creating our own reality in the process.

My other concern is our over identiifcation with

Why yoga?

Why yoga?

“The success of Yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our life and our relationships.” Desikachar

Yoga firstly helps us to gain clarity and reduce our suffering. Then eventually it helps us to overcome that suffering and realise our true potential.

When we comment on the world being chaotic etc., we are really talking about ourselves. We need to change. It is only when we change ourselves that we change the world. 

Yoga changes our life in a more positive direction. That is the potential it offers ALL of us. 

Although the teachings of yoga are over five thousand years old, they’ve never been needed more than now to bring stability and clarity into our lives and to this Planet. 

The very first sutra of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, is written:

Atha yoga-anuśāsanam

Atha means ‘now ‘and ‘now’ is very significant. 

Yoga is practised NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week, not when we can be bothered. It means yoga is practised in this moment. It means ‘Now I am going to follow the path of yoga, now I am going to follow the teachings’. 

The only reality we have is THE moment as it unfolds.

The past has passed and what we call the future is no more than imagination. The only reality we have is the moment we are in.

I need to start NOW and I need to continue in each moment, breath by breath, movement by movement and moment by moment. Yoga is not something I can pick up and put down. If I really want to enjoy the fruits of yoga, I have to make that commitment to yoga. I have to start now and each moment that follows, I need to be present.

Historically yoga was not practised alone. Any of us who have practised alone will know how easy it is to switch off, for our body to be doing one thing and our mind quite another. There is a lack of presence. The mind is usually caught thinking about the past or planning into the future. A whole thirty minutes can pass. The box for ‘yoga practice’ is ticked, but the effects are much less than when you are practising with a teacher and are encouraged into the body and to the breath.

If a guide takes me over a mountain on a particular known path, then that is going to help me enormously in navigating the mountain. So it is the same with yoga; a teacher can act as a guide in helping me navigate the path. I have two teachers for this very reason, because it would be much more challenging to navigate the path without them. They pull me up when I need pulling up, and provide a point of reference, bringing light when it is otherwise dark.

But a teacher cannot make us commit. We need to find the strength to commit ourselves, not least to a teacher, but to a practice too, we need to trust in the process. 

Practice (abhyāsa) should be anything which takes our mind to a place of stability and clarity, to a state of yoga.

Patanjali qualifies this practice as follows:

• Practise for a long time;

• Practise without interruptions (so don’t take time off from practising, there should be a regular commitment);

• Practise with a positive attitude;

• Practise with enthusiasm.

He stresses that yoga is not going to be a quick fix or an easy journey. It has two main drawbacks in that it requires time and effort. However if you are prepared to put in the time and effort then many things are possible. 

But you have to participate! Yoga – like Reiki – doesn’t just miraculously land on us. These are spiritual PRACTICES, they demand that we practise. Sure, we can read about them and acquire knowledge on them, but it is not until we actually practise that we experience the benefits and come to realise the potential of yoga, and even then, we do this with increasing detachment.

The practice will help us to increasingly let go of things we no longer need - including behaviour patterns, mental conditionings, limiting beliefs and ways of being - which are no longer helpful. These will drop away gradually. This is the benefit of a regular yoga practice. We put in the time and effort but we begin to feel lighter, there is more stability, clarity and joy in our lives.

It helps that the practice will make our body, mind and breath healthy. But at its essence, yoga offers us much more than this – it offers us a way of living, which supports our self -realisation, we are gifted the opportunity to see our eternal self, to literally realise that we are indeed a reflection of the highest power, that we contain the whole universe within ourselves. 

The problem, particularly at the start is that it is very easy to forget the support yoga can give us. It can also be hard work – we are encouraged to look at ourself more truthfully, and release our long held tensions and the accompanying emotions and thoughts, which no longer serve us and cause a loss of wellbeing. 

All you have to do is practice. 

“Practice and all is coming.” Pattabhi Jois 

Certainly my life has changed beyond recognition since I brought yoga into it, 20 years ago now. It is a way of life with a philosophical underpinning, not an exercise regime, albeit it can be met solely on this level. But to be truly changed by yoga, one has to surrender to it and trust in the teachings, which is the reason it is so important to be guided by a teacher, to truly know its essence.

I’m delighted to offer you the opportunity to practice, with a dedicated Yoni Yoga class for women each Tuesday evening starting 9th January, upstairs in St Martin’s Community Centre, 6-7pm. This will be a drop-in class, no need to book, £12 drop-in or buy 5 tokens in advance for £55

This is a gentle and introspective class using Tantric techniques to essentially help you to come home to yourself, to deepen into the loving guidance of your heart and the power and wisdom that comes from the pelvis. This is also a very healing session, incorporating various pranayama (breathing exercises), asana (postures), yantra (visualisation), mudra (hand gestures), mantra (sound) and a yoga nidra (deep guided relaxation/meditation).

The Friday morning Tantra class starts again Friday 5 January from 9.30-10.45am upstairs in St Martin’s Community Centre, £12 drop in and £55 for 5 tokens payable in advance. All welcome, no need to book.

I will be teaching a Monday evening Tantra class from February, 6-7pm, at St Martin’s Community Centre (upstairs).

Jo teaches two Hatha classes a week, please view the calendar below for specific class details.

“Yoga is good for man because the physical body improves, the nervous system improves, the mind improves, the intellect improves—so, how can yoga not be good?” Desikachar

Navigating change

The winds of change are definitely here, we’re at the end of Autumn after all, the Vata time of the year, when the elements of air and ether are at their strongest, ushering greater movement in our lives.

People tell me that they love change but I beg to differ. Even the Yoga Sutras (sutra II.15) tells us that our greatest suffering (dukkha) occurs due to change (parinama).

Sure we love change once it has happened and we can be assured of a happy and positive outcome but the process of change, of moving from one state of being to another, of stepping into the unknown without any guarantee of what might happen next – will we enjoy the new job? Will it work out moving in with our partner? Will we love the new country ? – All of these things can be potentially positive but there is always a moment, always a doubt, a last minute questioning whether we have made the right decision and wouldn’t we be better to maintain the status quo?

This because change brings fear and fear can cause us to resist change.

The mind LOVES certainty. The mind LIKES to ensure safety. The mind will do ALL it can to protect us even if that protection keeps us stuck, scared to make changes and move forward in our lives.

The mind also seeks to find evidence from our PAST to validate its resistance to change, and it LOVES to IMAGINE a FUTURE, usually from a worst case scenario perspective. The mind flip flops frequently between the past and the future and forgets to focus on THIS moment, NOW, when everything is OK. You’re OK aren’t you, right now, reading this?

Our life actually is one of trying to be OK. 

Always we are making decisions based on our motivation to be OK. Sometimes the decisions don’t work out as intended, sometimes our judgment is clouded because we don’t see clearly (Per Yoga Sutra I.6, the first of five activities of the mind is correct perception - sometimes we don’t perceive correctly – the second activity is wrong understanding/mistaken knowledge – we don’t understand correctly). Furthermore we can easily delude ourselves (Avidya, ignorance, appears as a klesha, an affliction of the mind, see Sutra II.3), especially if we are confronted with something scary, like change.

However, life is one of constant change, we cannot avoid it; every day the planet is turning, every day the sun sets farther south or north than it did the day before, every day the moon is in a constant process of movement from full to new and new to full, every day In our own lives we move from morning to midday, wake to sleep, birth to death. Even one second turning into the next brings miniscule (or sometimes huge) changes - we are a different person to the one we were ten years ago and no doubt we will be different in ten years’ time from how we are now. 

The change of any season is a great way to observe ‘change’ at work but especially now in Autumn. Supported by the increase in air and ether (and the resulting wind), the trees drop their leaves and those leaves return to the earth, where they started the first signs of life in the first place. As the trees move from full-life to a state of dormancy and hibernation throughout the winter period, they are preparing to burst into life again in the Spring. If they didn’t do this, the trees would waste valuable energy and nutrients trying to survive in conditions which do not support them.

So it is with us too. In this Autumnal time of year, by its very nature, Vata is all about movement and we are being asked to create movement in our own lives by letting go to create the space (remember Vata is space/ether and air) for the air to blow the new in - think of the heart chakra, represented by the element of air, sometimes we have a change of heart, sometimes something touches our heart and this changes everything. 

Our suffering arises when we resist this process, when we hold on to our leaves when they are ready to drop, when we listen to our head rather than our heart, when we stay stuck in unhealthy relationships, jobs and  friendships, when we keep feeding the same unhelpful and limiting mental patterning (habits, thought processes and behaviours), when we cling on and keep doing what we have always been doing because we THINK we know what’s best when all the time our body is screaming at us to let go and rest. 

How best then can we navigate change?

1. Acceptance is key 🗝

But acceptance can take time. We need to accept that we need to make changes in our lives. Spiritual Life Coaching is really helpful here.

More often than not we know we need to make changes, but we don’t always know what changes to make or how to make them. Often the change that needs to be made is internal, setting ourselves free from our conditioning and habitual thought processes and behaviours, healing old wounds and shifting core and limiting beliefs, letting go of outmoded ways of seeing the world and ourselves, changing perspective, as if awaking for the first time. 

Having someone help and hold space for us while we navigate all of this is incredibly helpful. Worksheets are provided between sessions for us to consider our limiting beliefs, our relationship with our body, our emotional state, our mental patterning, and the option of considering our diet and lifestyle from an Ayurvedic perspective too, as well as being supported by various spiritual practices including yoga and various breathing and relaxation techniques.

If this resonates, if you know you need to make changes but fear is getting in your way then do reach out and we can discuss how Spiritual Life Coaching may help you.

2. Cultivate greater faith 🙏🏽

Faith is the antidote to fear.

There is a wonderful Vedic chant from the Rig Veda called Shraddha Suktam, which is chanted to strengthen faith. The chant contains a verse, “Shraddha devanadhivaste” which translates as faith is our protection -  it really is!

Faith gives us the strength to make changes in our lives, to choose differently, even when there is no certainty of outcome, when we are asked to step into the unknown. 

3. Yoga practice 🧘🏻‍♂️

To cultivate greater faith we might delve deeper into our yoga practice, getting on our mat and taking conscious, comfortable, slow and steady breaths, lengthening into our exhalation, practicing asana (postures) in a steady and comfortable way, taking time to rest, engaging in a Yoga Nidra to work with a Sankalpa (intention) and take us deeper into the body. 

We might also enter into prayer - See Sutra I.23 where we are introduced to the concept of Isvara Pranidhanadva, an ultimate being, God, Universe and later, Sutra II.1 defines Kriya yoga as being the yoga of action with three key components, namely Tapah, which means heat/purification, doing something positive like getting on our mat, Svadhyaya, which means self-reflection, such as reading spiritual texts and seeing how they we can incorporate the teachings into our life and Isvara Pranidhanadva appears again as a reminder to surrender, appreciating the notion that we are not in control, that the world does not revolve around us, thus encouraging us to accept our place in things, that there is something higher.

The Yoga Sutras also reminds us in the first chapter (sutras I.13 and I.14) to develop a steady and balanced practice, which takes place over the long term, without interruptions, with a positive attitude, with enthusiasm and thoroughly if we can expect to see any positive changes.

We are basically reminded that there is no quick fix, that we are in this for the long run, NOT just when things are critical but all the time, so that the challenging times, like when we experience change, do not have to end up putting us into a critical state of mind – practicing regularly reduces our suffering. 

Explore the first three chapters of the Yoga Sutras with Emma, discussing various sutras and considering how they might be relevant to your life. Each session lasts 60 minutes and can be enhanced by a regular yoga and/or Reiki practice to help support general healing and personal and spiritual development. 

4. Spiritual practice 👁

We can expand our spiritual practice beyond our mat, to make all of life an opportunity to cultivate greater faith and help us manage change. We might visit sacred sites, spending time outside in nature, sitting against a tree, taking walks on our own by the sea, reading spiritual books, attending spiritual groups, studying spiritual subjects.

Spiritual Life Coaching can assist in helping you cultivate an authentic and consistent spiritual practice.

5. Reiki 👐🏼

Reiki not only supports our ongoing healing but also promotes our spiritual and personal development. Reiki helps to release energy blocks which will help to free us from the effect of previous trauma and the resulting mental, emotional, physical and energetic patterning that continues to inform our daily life.

In this way, Reiki helps to restore wholeness, positively changing the way we relate to ourselves and others, while increasing our energy and helping us to see our life more clearly. It is extremely helpful through periods of change, when we know something needs to shift, but we don’t quite know how to make it happen.

Becoming attuned to Reiki can also help as you can lay your hands on yourself.

6. Ayurveda 🌿

Staying grounded will help immensely too. Ayurveda offers us many options to help ease anxiety and fear when it arises, eating warming stews, curries and soups, using our hands to consciously prepare food or hands in the earth gardening, massaging our whole body with coconut oil and then lying in a warm bath (adding dead sea salts is really helpful too). 

There are herbal medicines we can take too, albeit these need to be prescribed individually for our specific needs.

7. Positive thinking 🔋

As stipulated in Yoga Sutra II.33, when we find ourselves disturbed and not sure of the best way forward, we can look at it from the other side, so we cultivate looking at things from a different perspective to try to resolve doubt and the lack of clarity. This can be like thinking, ‘well what will happen is I don’t do it versus what will happen if I do’. Or put ourself in another person’s point of view.

Thus if we are stuck in an attitude of fear or resentment, we have to positively cultivate the opposite. This involves working with the mind to see things differently, especially when we are stuck.

At such times we are encouraged to divert attention, reflect on potential consequences, take a step back to ask for advice, practice yoga and in such times seeking help from a teacher is invaluable. Spiritual Life Coaching can help enormously as referenced above. 

8. Loosening the grip 🌏

We take on habits, or a habitual thought process, and at the very beginning it might serve us in some way, keep us safe for example. But after some time, this way of being and living no longer serves us and it is time to let go and change, make new healthier habits or thought processes. The trouble is we humans are very good at grasping and attaching ourselves to there being one way. It is this inflexibility that ends up causing our suffering. 

If we can loosen our grip – aparigraha, the fifth yama or ethical principle/relationship to the world around us as noted in Sutra 11.31 means non-grasping, non-possessiveness, non-attachment – then in theory we can flow more easily moment to moment, adapting to change as it arises, allowing our transformation, and actually arriving in the present moment, experiencing it exactly as it is without needing to react to it.

9. Going with the flow 🌊

Sutra II.3 refers to the ‘kleshas’, the afflictions including attachment/desire (ragas) and aversion/hatred (dvesa) and how we alternate between the two, wanting and rejecting, liking and disliking, and how this causes unsteadiness in the mind.

If we can just let go of our preferences, then we can find greater equanimity. This is particularly relevant if change is forced upon us, sometimes we just need to go with it, let go of our preferences, to be shown that there may be another way – more often than not, redundancy, for example, while a shock, can be a blessing in disguise, presenting new opportunities. 

10. Bach Floral Remedies 🌸

Taking Bach floral remedies, the one for fear (Mimulus) or shock (Star of Bethlehem), or overwhelm (Elm) or the Rescue Remedy to help support generally.

11. Spending time with positive people 🪷

When we are navigating change, it is very helpful to spend time with people who are supportive of this.

More often than not people come from a place of self-service and they can be threatened when we make changes in our life, not least because they fear losing us (and their grip over us), but also because we indirectly encourage them to come out of their potential denial about the state of their life.

Many people like to put their head in the sand and they prefer it is those around them to do the same, so they don’t have to face their reality. 

12. Feeling into it 🫀

It can be really helpful to feel our fear and anxiety as they arise. To understand its root – which is more often than not, around our safety.

Remember FEAR as False Evidence Appearing Real and challenge it – where is the evidence that we will end up homeless, unwell, dead etc?

For more help please do reach out. The more comfortable we can be with the change, the easier it is for us to weather it when it appears in our lives.

Warming, Ayurvedic, vata-balancing recipes: