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Making space and letting go

Last Monday morning I threw up shortly before leaving the house to go and teach. At 24 weeks pregnant, I haven’t totally put aside the sickness I had earlier, but it’s much better than it was. The tiredness remains and I need a daily nap.

I arrived at the venue feeling less than great and tried to start preparing the room for class around groups of mums and toddlers glued to the floor chatting at the end of their children’s weekly dance class. I found myself sweeping grass and mud that had come loose from one toddler’s shoes. An awkward conversation with the dance class teacher followed.

As my students settled into the space and found their breath, I sat at the front of the room preoccupied. Is this all really worth it? Why am I doing this?

And then it was a lovely class. Two women had come for the first time, new to yoga, and their smiles and kind words at the end provided answers to my ponderings.

The future of my weekly classes

But having spent time this week thinking things through, I have decided to stop teaching my weekly classes at the end of this month, coinciding with the start of my third trimester.

It hasn’t been an easy decision. I’ve been teaching for over six years now, firstly in London and then locally in Hertfordshire for almost three years. It takes time to build classes and reputation and I am attached to all my students. I love teaching you. I feel a duty of care towards you. I enjoy hearing about your daily lives. But I need to let go. I need to make space for the next phase of my life.

At the end of Monday’s class, one of you said to me that I shouldn’t continue teaching on your account. I know this is true.

I had previously thought I’d take a maternity break but I’ve decided to wholeheartedly hand the classes over to another teacher. I don’t want the pressure of thinking that I need to get back to teaching every week after x number of months. I know I’ll come back – but in what form and where – who knows?

Yoga teaching is what I know. I know what I’m doing. It’s safe. But caring for a baby human? Many of you have told me how wonderful motherhood is, and I can try my best to be prepared, but it really is totally unchartered water. I need to accept that my future life will be very different. I need to make space to prepare and focus on my own practice.

My teacher Norman Blair talks about how we must stay at our ‘growing edge’: if we’re behind our edge, we get bored. Things are predictable and comfortable. Go beyond our edge, and we panic and become fearful as we’re way out of our depth. We need to stay at this edge in order to grow as a person. We need new experiences and challenges to push ourselves. Hello motherhood!

Teaching/class plans post October 2016

Niki Clark and I
Niki Clark and I

The lovely Niki Clark will take over teaching the Monday and Thursday morning classes from 31 October onwards. I know you’ll be in safe hands. I will no longer teach the Tuesday Mysore Ashtanga class fortnightly. April will go back to teaching this weekly and has her own plans for this class.

I will however continue teaching my yin workshops at BAYoga in Berkhamsted for the rest of the year (Saturday 5 November and 3 December) and you are very welcome to book a place. April will cover the yin workshops at BAYoga from January – May 2017 and I plan to resume teaching these from June onwards (fingers crossed).

April and I will continue to send our email newsletter so please look out for this for updates. If you don’t receive this and you’d like to, email April.

We will go for a cuppa after my final classes on Monday 24 October and Thursday 27 October so please feel free to come along if you’re local and available.

Thank you to everyone who’s come to class over the past few years and let’s just simply be open to what the future holds.

 

The Open Door by Danna Faulds

A door opens. Maybe I’ve been standing here shuffling my weight from foot to foot for decades, or maybe I only knocked once. In truth, it doesn’t matter. A door opens and I walk through without a backward glance. This is it, then, one moment of truth in a lifetime of truth; a choice made, a path taken, the gravitational pull of Spirit too compelling to ignore any longer. I am received by something far too vast to see. It has roots in antiquity but speaks clearly in the present tense. “Be,” the vastness says. “Be without adverbs, descriptors, or qualities. Be so alive that awareness bares itself uncloaked and unadorned. Then go forth to give what you alone can give, awake to love and suffering, unburdened by the weight of expectations. Go forth to see and be seen, blossoming, always blossoming into your magnificence.”

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How has yin yoga influenced my practice?

I’ve written this in preparation for an advanced yin teacher training I’m doing with Norman Blair in June…

‘Practice’ is an interesting word. For me, it means:

  • moving in this body
  • being in this body
  • living with this mind.

That’s how I’ve structured this piece of writing.

Moving in this body

Yin has undoubtedly had an impact on how I practice ashtanga yoga. Although I pretty much discovered both simultaneously, it’s been more recently that I have considered how one affects your attitude towards the other.

I’ve seen people so focused in their ashtanga practice. They throw absolutely everything at it. It’s an attack or an assault and there’s no ease. I used to be a bit like that but now I try and bring the yin to the yang. I try not the force the asana.

Michel Besnard taught me on my 500 hour training and his favourite phrase is “who cares”. Who cares if you don’t get your head to your shin in paschimotanasana. Who cares if you don’t jump through. A good mantra if ever I heard one.

So I think about how I can create space. I listen inwardly and there’s less striving.

As a result, there’s more connection to breath. It really feels like a moving meditation and I feel more. I certainly notice more. How does my lumbar and glute medius feel in supta kurmasana? Am I really engaging my adductors in navasana? What’s going on with the bandhas?

Moving slowly suits me. Given half the chance, I’d happily lie in bed all morning. I’m a naturally tamasic person. I find it more challenging to gee myself up to practice ashtanga at home. But yin? I’m there in a flash – sprawled out across the living room carpet – I need to be peeled off with a spatula.

Being in this body

I remember being at university one day and walking across campus only to be brought to a standstill by the sight of a huge flock of Canadian geese flying overhead in formation, above the spires of the neo-gothic buildings. The sky was bright blue and they stood out against the grey Yorkshire stone.

I looked at all the other students scurrying around me, anxious to get to their morning lectures on time. No-one else saw this natural beauty. The geese were so peaceful and elegant, quietly making their way to wherever they were heading. The encounter inspired me to create scribbles in my sketchbook.

At that point in my life I’d never even been to a yoga class, didn’t know what yin meant but that act of noticing the little things has always been in me. I was brought up with a father who made me look at the tiny flowers growing on dry stone walls on country walks and I’m pretty good at spotting a typo. I’m all about the details.

But at the same time, I’d say that I’ve lived my life quite detached from noticing the subtleties of this body and what’s going on inside.

In my twenties, I got terrible anxiety. I couldn’t eat in some social situations and I got really stressed about it. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I remember going to see a lady for some cognitive behavioural therapy. She said, “You’re going to do a yoga teacher training? Oh that’ll sort you out!” She was right. It was through yoga that I realised it was tension-related – where do I hold my tension? In my stomach. It made sense why I struggled to eat.

While the process of looking inward can be scary at times, I’ve learnt that it’s so beneficial. Being still in a yin practice facilitates this. You notice the sensations. It’s a practice you can take off the mat and into your everyday life.

I had a run-in with someone not too long ago and there were a few very tense phone conversations where I had to make it clear that I wasn’t a happy bunny. Every time I came off the phone I spent a few breaths noticing the impact on body – the tightening, the holding, the shortening of breath. I wouldn’t have thought to do that before I’d discovered yin or Martin Alyward.

Living with this mind

Yin has allowed me to reconnect with a meditation practice.

Having done my initial teacher training with Sivananda, I was given a mantra and for about six months after coming home from India, I’d religiously get up early, silently chant my mantra for 20 minutes and then get on with my day. And then winter crept in, I got busy at work and the Sanskrit went out of the window.

Ryan Spielman introduced me to the teachings of meditation teacher Martin Alyward and I began doing my yin practice at home listening to his podcasts. So much of his teachings resonated. They applied to a yin practice and to life in general.

I began a sitting practice again and went on a five-day silent retreat to Gaia House with Martin last October. Since then, I’ve made time to sit during the week. For me, it feels right to spend this time noticing my breath – its nuances – and noticing sensations. I notice how distracted my mind is – and that’s ok. An insight meditation practice does exactly that: it provides insight. I notice what is instead of filling my mind with something else like a mantra.

My mind now appreciates the quiet. My boyfriend Rob likes listening to BBC Radio 5 Live and it’s a lot of talking. I struggle to have a conversation with him if it’s on in the background. I like eating in silence and enjoying the taste of food. I like listening to birdsong and watching the squirrels.

Yin has taught me about acceptance – again, the softening around the striving – accepting situations and people as they are, not willing them to be different. Of course, it’s a work in progress.

Martin talks about how we’re so fixated on ‘letting go’ and that it’s an overused phrase in today’s yoga and spiritual industry. He says we should focus instead on ‘unclinging’. I like this. There’s the unclinging and softening in yin poses and then how this translates into the everyday.

I’ve been a cling-on. In the past I think I’ve verged on the control freak end of the spectrum. My organisational skills have been praised in past jobs and I’ve taken pride in being on-the-ball. I’ve tried to find the ideal man that ticked all the boxes. But since practicing yin and finding this softening, I’ve been able to open up – physically and mentally.

I’ve relaxed my tick box exercise and now I’m engaged to be married. Would I have dismissed Rob in the past due to his love of football and for having never stepped foot on a yoga mat? Probably. But now I’m able to see deeper and recognise his wonderful goodness.

Recently I met with a friend of a friend who was considering resigning from her safe, well-paid but boring job to try freelancing. She was full of ‘what ifs’: What if I don’t get any work? What if I’m no good at it? I was talking to a mirror. I was looking at me from a few years’ ago.

I talked to her about fear. I told her that she had good skills and experience. If freelancing doesn’t work for her, she can get a job doing something, anything. Fear can paralyse us. I wouldn’t know this stuff if I hadn’t practiced yin and worked on unclinging.

I could go on talking about the way yin has had an impact on my life, but I’ll stop now. Suffice to say, it’s all about the noticing. I’m much happier as a result. And for this I’m truly grateful.

I’ll leave you with Roger Keyes’ poem about the wonderful Japanese artist, Hokusai:

 

Hokusai says look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious.

He says there is no end to seeing…

 

He says everything is alive –

Shells, buildings, people, fish

Mountains, trees. Wood is alive.

Water is alive.

 

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.

He says live with the world inside you…

 

It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you…

 

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

 

Hokusai

How has yin yoga influenced your practice? I’d love to know. Feel free to leave your thoughts below.

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Gain and loss

Monty Wener
Monty Wener

My family cat is ill. He’s 15 and a Burmese blue. Like a lot of family pets, my family think he’s pretty special and at times, a little monster.

My mum and dad went away last weekend and asked if I’d pop by to give him a tablet. Monty and I spent time sitting on a bench in the garden: me feeling the warm glow of the March sun on my face, him sprawled out over the wooden slats basking.

As I stroked him, his fur wasn’t as sleek as it used to be and my palm felt each and every one of his more noticeable vertebrae. He’s lost weight. I cradled him in my arms and he felt limp and lifeless.

He’s not going to get any better and it’s now just a case of us deciding when we’re ready to let him go.

‘Let him go’

I know we’re clinging onto him. I’ve been listening to Martin Aylward’s dharma talks recently and he says about this ‘clinging’. We hold onto things, views and experiences and because of this, we never really taste freedom. We’re tied.

It’s only when we let go of our stuff that we can be more open and more fluid in the way that we approach life. Perhaps we need to think less about ‘letting go’ and more about ‘letting be’ and cultivating acceptance.

The worldy winds

Martin also talks about opposites and this resonates particularly.  These opposites are called the ‘worldly winds’ and they buffet us and all our experiences:

Success and failure

Pleasure and pain

Praise and blame

Gain and loss.

We all fear loss. I don’t want to lose Monty. He’s a little member of the Wener family. I’d much rather have only ‘gain’ in my life but it doesn’t work like that.

Martin says that we live our lives thinking that we should only have the positives but we have to know both. We have to experience the negatives in order to know how great the positive feels. Life really is about balance.

I’ve met someone recently and I think he’s pretty special. In this sense, I’ve gained a lot. It’s Bliss.

Find out more about Martin Aylward.

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For the love of art

I have spent the last few weeks under an unprecedented amount of stress. I appreciate that that’s not an opening statement you expect to find on a yoga blog but it’s the truth. The reason being that I’m working on the marketing for a new London art fair taking place next month.

Having difficult conversations and cursing to the heavens has unfortunately become the norm and I wake up at 2am composing emails in my head. My brain is full of artwork deadlines, red-flagged emails and often the computer says no.

Deva Premal’s soothing chants are permanently on repeat on iTunes and I’m having to run my fingers over my forehead to release my furrowed brow. After sitting hunched over my laptop day after day I can feel my right shoulder inching up towards my right ear after hours of mouse-clenching.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I look at myself and it makes me think about why I started doing yoga: to cope with a stressful job in London.

My sister reminded me that it was only a few months ago when she was in a similar situation and I was spouting yogic pearls of wisdom about letting go, not being so attached to the results and offering tips on dealing with perfectionist tendencies.

It’s so much easier to give advice than listen to it yourself.

The other day in a yoga class I mentioned that, as well as teaching, I did freelance marketing work. “Oh I can’t imagine you doing that” said a regular student.

But teaching yoga is just one part of me. Ok, it’s a big part of me, but just because I calmly tell people to “inhale deeply” and “feel yourself sinking deeper into the mat” doesn’t mean that I have all the answers.

Us ‘teachers’ may be just as likely to have our feathers ruffled. We’re certainly not all perfect.
Perhaps it’s just that we have awareness to know that getting on our mats or repeating our mantra can help try and deal with stress and banish these negative thoughts and emotions. And you don’t have to teach yoga to figure that one out.
Fortunately this art fair will be over in a few weeks and I can return to spending my days wafting about on a cloud of omms and namastaying people in the Post Office.
It’s certainly hammering home the point that I am very much still a student.
How do you deal with stress? Any tips?
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(High) thinking outside of the box

In preparation for my trip, yesterday I moved the contents of my flat into a storage unit on an industrial estate in South London. It was quite humbling to see all my wordly goods crammed into a 40ft/12m sq box. I was less impressed when I realised the cost of storing it all could easily sustain me in India for a month or so.

Door ajar into storage container
My belongings in a storage unit.

These possessions felt a bit like a millstone. No matter how many trips I’ve made to charity shops, it’s like lava flow – it’s all-pervading. I was at a satsang at the London Sivananda Centre at the weekend and Swami Krishnadevananda was talking about the importance of simple living and it was Gandhi who described his ideal lifestyle as “simple living, high thinking.”

In the West, we often we turn to material possessions for happiness but we forget that happiness can be found within. We become attached to these items and what they say about us: “I’ve got a huge flatscreen TV therefore I’m successful” or “I read intellectual books therefore I’m educated” but it’s really just our ego and we’re masking our true self.

It’s like in meditation. The Tibetan Lama Sogyal Rinpoche talks about how clouds obscure the blue sky beyond. The clouds are our thoughts, getting in the way of the blue sky or our ‘true nature’. By calming our mind, the clouds are lifted and we reconnect with who we really are.

So there you go. Who’d have thought that a warehouse in Wimbledon could allow us to think about the teachings of such great minds. In the meantime, next Friday I’m off to Thailand for two months to do more teacher training. I’ll then be visiting Sri Lanka and India and I look forward to keeping you all updated!

Om shanti.