Building My Yoga Blocks I – Authentic Voice

Sometimes I truly regret What I've said, How I've said it, and even When I've said it.

This is often a post-class mindset. 'Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda' SO, the reason behind writing this blog is I have Time to THINK before I SPEAK.

I know I'm opinionated.

Passionate about things I really love (health innovations, pain research, current affairs)  yet equally fired up about any number of 'Dislikes', I really do wear my heart on my sleeve.

Sometimes I truly regret What I've said, How I've said it, and even When I've said it.

This is often a post-class mindset. 'Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda' SO, the reason behind writing this blog is I have Time to THINK before I SPEAK.

I know I'm opinionated.

Passionate about things I really love (health innovations, pain research, current affairs)  yet equally fired up about any number of 'Dislikes', I really do wear my heart on my sleeve.

'Off-the-cuff' anecdotes are true stories spilling out of my busy mind. 

Some of you have said I'm quirky and funny.

You like my honesty.

I also acknowledge the times when assertion and class management mean that I become strict!

It's all because I truly care about you. 

Your commitment to your own wellbeing is firm. Your loyalty and dedication to me, is outstanding. 

Yet, Self-Doubt has been a constant companion through the years.

​My intellect knows it's a kind of self-sabotage. 

I guess it's just another part of me, it's My Whole Nature that has shaped My Teaching; it's My Home Practice that informs the Lesson Plan; it's My Sciatic Back-pain history that led me to the path of Somatic Movement.

Maybe you've also experienced doubt, worries, or 'first-night nerves'.

We do need eustress to perform well. But when one anxious thought multiplies to create a state that feels like a disordered scatter-brain, your whole physiology can be adversely affected.

​Thoughts are mental objects of perception and are not the Mind itself  
– Shurangama Sutra

​Jon Kabat-Zinn invites you to reframe these thoughts as 'mind-objects' and as 'events in the field of awareness'.

The 3-Part Breathing Space may help. It forms part of Jon Kabat-Zinn's MBSR programme which I studied with Vanessa Hope in 2010.

Watch here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOne1P0TKL8

"When you dwell in stillness, the judging mind can come through like a foghorn....this type of thinking dominates the mind and weighs it down, like carrying around a suitcase of rocks...it feels good to put it down, to suspend all your judging, to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as Good or Bad". 
From 'Wherever You Go, There You Are'

AND, It's Your Bodies, Your Lives, Your dedicated Presence, that inspires me to continue to provide high-quality tuition and fresh approaches to the disciplines of yoga, pilates and somatic movement.

We  are on this path together. 
​
See You On the Mat!