Relaxing into Transitions
Where do the months go? Summer is transitioning to melt into Autumn. There is always an interesting blend of feelings and influences at this time as the changes start to appear with the end of somethings and new beginnings of others.
I have had a wonderful summer, full of sunshine and quality family time to really refill my well of happiness. Taking this time to slow down and enjoy simply being, I realised it was a well needed rest.
I have really enjoyed teaching more restorative and yoga nidra classes and more and more my own practice has a lot of restorative influences. While I was away I took a wonderful 'mini retreat' and we discussed the various ways that there is often a lot of prejudice in our culture around attending to fatigue and tiredness. Theanalogy which really resonated with me was of attending to thirst. You wouldn’t tend to thirst with a bowl of peanuts, and this is often what our culture encourages us to do when we feel tired – reach for sugar, coffee, or go to another meeting or activity. It is not uncommon to develop a habit of ‘pushing through’ or suppressing waves of fatigue instead of listening to our bodies and honoring the natural urge to stop and rest.
My yoga practice consistently inspires me to slow down on many different levels, and to integrate regular organic rest into my life while nurturing creativity and joyfulness. Senior Restorative Yoga Teacher Judith Lasater reminds us, our lives are too fast, too busy and too intense to wait for holidays to truly rest. We must learn how to incorporate and experience compressed ‘mini’ holidays throughout our daily lives and listen to when we need to rest and renew.
I have a number of wonderful restorative workshops coming up this Autumn as well as a day retreat to help cultivate this mini retreat experience into your life.
After teaching at Bishop Grosseteste Uni. for four years with each year a rental increase, I am now having to increase class changes from October with drop in's at £6 and new series pass £30.
Namaste Grace
This is a wonderful poem by Danna Faulds from her book Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga. On the theme of transitions she invites us like many wise sages do to relax into our life as it unfolds and possibly when we move towards this we find contentment.
It's enough to offer love,
no matter how imperfectly
received or given. It's
enough to try and fail at
a difficult task; enough
to fall and rise, stumble,
fall again, sigh, and start
to walk, however slowly,
in the direction the soul
points. It's enough to
seek peace and find pain,
to gain nothing but a
vision of truth, and take
the long route home.
It's enough to feel
temptation, the dance
of the senses, the hot
pull of desire; enough
to call on God, walk
through fire, sleep and
cry and fear or welcome
dying. It's enough to be
and breathe, to feel the
touch of wind on the skin.
It's enough to take the
day as it comes, to watch
the ripples on the lake as
the rock sinks to the
bottom, to see the wild
reflection of the surface
calm into a mirror once
again. It's enough to
hear the voice of fear
and hide—or seek it out
and face the same
or shadows. It's enough
to set out to tame demons
and watch them multiply
instead. It's enough to
be buffetted by the winds
of change and not blown
over. I and you and all
of us, more than enough.
Student Spotlight
Hi, I’m Kev and live in Lincoln. I work as Joiner and have a small joinery workshop. I have been practicing yoga for about a year now along with my wife Kath. in the past we have both been involved in a number of sports, Kath, tennis, aerobics and trail running, myself, Squash, Weight Training and Martial Arts until a car accident in the mid nineties left me with three partially prolapsed discs in my neck. This put an end to me doing any high impact sport. Ten years ago I took up Tai Chi which allowed me to study a martial art without aggravating my neck. Then, a few years ago we took up fell walking which lead to summer then winter mountaineering and rock climbing. It’s the rock climbing that really sparked the revival of interest in yoga.
I had practiced yoga for a time it in my early twenties and it is highly recommended for climbing to help promote flexibility and core strength. So, I started browsing the local yoga teachers via Google, found Grace, and went along very nervously (knowing I would probably be one of very few males in the class). I loved it from the first day although I do have to take care with certain poses and maybe miss out on others but over all it has improved my neck condition. For years I have had some muscle wastage to my left trapezium but after a few months of practice you can hardly tell the difference also my core strength, balance and flexibility has improved but what I didn’t expect was how much breathing would help in my climbing, unusually for a climber I’m nervous of heights but I found by concentrating on the breath I can calm myself and make the next move.
At work I run my own business, which can be very stressful. Since I have been practicing yoga I have found I’m calmer and don’t get so stressed at work. I have found the classes really good with Grace being an inspirational teacher that allows you to go at your own pace but will encourage you to advance and push as hard as you want to go and not to have to compete with anyone else.
