Yoga for EVERYBODY

Hey everyone, I hope you are well today and having a good week.

So this week I wanted to open up a chat about bodies.

Physical bodies.

How we feel about our bodies.

How I feel about my body, and bodies in yoga.

Quite a big subject which I will start discussing this week and come back to in the future for sure!!

I have recently signed up for a 12 week business mentoring coach, to help me focus, direct and drive my yoga and textile businesses forward. I'm not sure about you, but the last 12 weeks on lock down have made me really re look at what I am doing, and how I channel that energy to make me more productive, but I digress!

Part of my work this week was to do a SWOT on both businesses. If you don't know what a SWOT is, its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

When writing my yoga SWOT, I had put down as a weakness, how I look. Not just physically, but also how I look in my online presence as a yoga teacher. That I felt that I didn't and don't physically live up to the expectations of what a yoga teacher 'should' look like, which I think is the long, slim, woman, who is bending and flexing into every fantastically almighty shape making it look like a piece of cake, and that this is what ‘online insta' yoga looks like and is. Which is not me. And lets face it, probably not the majority of people. But this has a tendency to make me feel inadequate as a teacher, and as a person doing yoga. It made and regularly makes me feel that I am not good enough and people will not want to practice with me, follow me, learn from me, attend my classes because I don't look like that. And this, I view, is a weakness.

As I was explaining this to Helen she stopped me in my tracks and said NO. This is not a weakness, but in fact a strength. (Helen is also a fellow Yogi!) That actually it is more relateable to the majority of people to see a teacher who is not doing all the crazy shapes and making it look easy, but seeing a person who also has to hard work at there yoga practise, to acheive an asana, which everyone else has to do, but that they can see the love and passion and I have for yoga which is why I want to teach and share this with everyone.

One of the things I really love about yoga is how inclusive it is. It is not only for a certain person, its for all, for everybody, regardless of your gender, age, ability, ethnicity, shape and size. Its about getting into your body and accessing your true higher self. No judgement, no pressure, no ego. If you are practising and you are feeling the posture, then you are doing yoga no matter what it looks like aesthetically on the outside, its all about how you feel on the inside. Letting go of the ego and getting out of the head and into your soul.

We are all different. Every single one of us. No 1 person is the same. We are all built differently, with different physicality and structure. Some people are going to be able to do things easily, which for you on the other hand take time, practise, effort and work, and vise versa for them, but the REAL part of the actual disipline of yoga, is letting that go. Completely and utterly, letting that all go. Letting go of the judgement, not listening to that voice, the inner critic inside your head telling you that you are not good enough, but quietening that voice, turning it down, and being kind and compassionate to yourself

Im going to be turning 40 next month (eekkkk!), and I never imagined that I would train as a yoga teacher in my late 30’s and teach to you all now. I am proud of myself for what I have acheivied and I am proud of my body for allowing me to be able to practise and to continue to practise yoga everyday. I need to remember to be grateful and thankful, and none judgemental towards myself, but its a hard thing to do and something I am working on every day. But this is my lesson, on this journey, but just know that if you are struggling too, then you are not on your own, and I hope this helps.