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Lucyogini

Yoga classes, workshops and inspiration for every body

Honouring the seasons

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This is usually how my practices look these days… impromptu, interrupted (regularly!), imperfect.  But still, I practice when I can, in whatever way that presents itself on any given day.  Even if it’s just a few moments of focussed intention, a deep breath, a little stretch out.  We spoke about the inner seasons in our final classes – that we are not static – we are in flow, changing, just like the seasons of the natural world.  Our lives, our situations, our bodies change – so why would our practice be a static unchanging thing?  Taking time to tune in and listen to what it is we need today is what will guide us to useful, compassionate living.  The seasons, our lives, our days, even our hours and minutes – things are moving, shifting, changing, even when we can’t see it.   Spring emerges from the quiet of Winter. Summer blooms. Autumn beauty returns.  It is all here in the breath itself: energy begins to rise like the spring; we feel the fullness of our body expanded and open at the top of the inhale (summer); the breath pauses and begins to release like the autumn; the winter leads us to the quiet stillness, the body momentarily quiet before the next breath, begins again.  And so it is in everything – the seasons turning with quiet surety, all around us and within us. Take solace in this ever moving dance.  We are a part of it, not aside from it. Listen.  What season are you in today?  What is that season telling you? What do you need to do, or not do, to honour that season inside?

I am now on maternity leave – but fear not, yoga is still on hand for you!  Janice Woods will be covering our Monday evening and Saturday morning classes at The Good Health Clinic in Selby.  Full details are on the classes page. 

I’m also very happy to recommend Linda O’Connor’s classes in Cawood on Wednesday mornings – you can contact Linda directly for information on townsleyl@hotmail.com.

I will be back of course!  I plan to return to teaching next year once we’ve got to grips with this new version of life! I will keep you updated.

Until then, with fondest love and deep gratitude,

Lucy x

 

Big change for a little yogi!

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It’s been a real pleasure to share our happy news with you all over the past couple of weeks that we’ll soon be welcoming a new tiny yogi to the world – in just a few months (eek!)!!  We’re really excited!  Our little yogi is due to arrive in April, so all being well we’ve still time for yoga up until then. I’m planning on taking a few months off over the Summer to get acquainted in my new role as a Mama, returning to classes (in some form) in September.

So, big changes are coming! Change is always coming.  In the month we learned that not even David Bowie is immortal, it can come as a shock as we are reminded that even our icons are truly human. This body is not forever; we are not unchangable.  As I move through pregnancy, it often feels that it is my mind that is constantly playing catch-up with my ever-changing body.  My body and this growing little person inside have no concern for my slow, resistant mind! I have come face to face – joyously, wonderingly – with the impermanence of being.  Every day different. This is true for us all.  We get sick, we get older, we get better, bigger, smaller, we tire, we recover.  It is all ever-changing.

And yet, our human minds are conditioned to resist change! We like things to stay the same – often even things that we’re unhappy with! Rather stay within safe confines of what is known, than the risky ‘other’ – ever if that other may be better. We try desperately to stay the same, stop time, wish that things were as they once were.  How strange we are!

But in a world that is constantly changing, living in a body that is constantly changing, our resistance to change can make us tight and anxious as we try to hold on to what we know.

And this is why we practice.  To stay flexible, not just in body but in mind. Flow. One breath at a time. One breath comes into being, rises, peaks, releases and comes to an end.  Just as our lives start as one cell, two cells, we come into being, and eventually we will all release back into pure ethereal energy. Just as the Universe itself was born of one moment, it too will eventually peak and return to energy.  Everything is in flow.  All of this is encapsulated in the single rise and fall of one breath.  This is why we practice.  To stay in touch with the flow of ourselves, the flow of all things and to welcome these state-of-being changes as events that will rise and peak and will pass into the next. To trust in change and our ability to flow with it. We practice so that our hearts stay open and courageous and not become tight in the face of change.

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape” – Unknown

The same, but different

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Each September, I find myself hesitating at the thought of the new term ahead  – longing for the return of Summer, reluctant to get back to the familiar turns of the days and weeks.

There is something about the mid-Summer months that feels different; routines are cast by the wayside, there’s a certain degree of topsy-turviness to life.  All is a riot of colour and bloom in the height of warmth and light.

And when September and the cooler months come along, it can feel a little flat.

The return to old routine…

But things are not the same.

Because we are different.  The same, but different.

Whatever our experience of this Summer, the past few months, even days, even minutes, becomes a part of who we are.

Each of our reactions, inactions, interactions effect us deeply, become part of our consciousness and what we take forward with us.

We might well feel the same, the routines soon feel familiar and the hazy days of misrule of the Summer soon feel like long, long ago.

But fear not. They are not gone.

They are a part of us, things to be cherished for the things we have enjoyed; lessons to be cherished for what we have learned.  The big, the small, the joyful, the disappointing, the heart-breaking.  All of it experience.

And so it will go on.

Once we find ourselves back in the routine of daily life, it can be easy to overlook the subtleties and differences in the everyday.   We as humans are so deeply adaptable, it is almost a human condition to take things for granted.

Including the fact that we have these tools – yoga included – of awakening to living a more conscious life and finding the path to true happiness.

I listened to a TED talk recently that proposed to reverse the formula for happiness and success, suggesting that it is not SUCCESS that makes us happy, but HAPPINESS that makes us successful.

Doesn’t this make perfect sense?

How we process our experiences, how we process our experience of the world – as positive or negative – has a direct impact on our productivity.   The more positively we view our place in the world, the more inclined we are to think bigger, reach higher, believe in our potential.  The more successful we might become and the more successful we understand ourselves to be.

And luckily, the tools of yoga are perfectly designed to enable this mind-shift:

  • Practicing gratitude makes us more aware of the rich abundance of our lives
  • Meditation helps us to unplug from the frenzied pace of life and learn focus
  • Exercise teaches our body that our behaviour matters
  • Practicing kindness: Random acts of kindness to others create ripples of positivity beyond ourselves.

These simple practices retrain our brains to look for the positive first, and to scan the world around us to see positive, rather than negative.

Things might look the same; same body, same routine, and yet things are constantly evolving on the inside.  We can choose how we evolve.  We can choose subtle shifts to live more positively and become more awake.

We are the same, but different.

Shift happens

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If there’s one thing in this life on which we can be certain – it’s change.

Sometimes it’s change we actively seek and welcome; sometimes it’s change that comes to find us.  Either way, it’s coming!

As human beings, we’re programmed not to really like change.  On a biological level at least, we like things to be constant.  Change means uncertainty…and that means stress.  Even if we hate our current circumstance, and even if it’s a change we’ve chosen gladly, there’s always that pull back to the devil we know.

In just a few days time, I’m moving house.  I’m really excited, but not without some trepidation too.  It’s a big shift.  A new chapter.  The start of the next phase of my life.

What can we do when facing change?  Our practice, as ever, has the answer.

Return to the breath.  Get our feet firmly on the ground.  Reconnect to the present moment – without catastrophising; recognising fantasy.  Return to this moment and observe.  This is how we learn to flow; bending with the changing winds; allowing the waves to break over us…rather than trying to hold back the inevitable tides.

This too will pass

Is any phrase, any four small words, more full of humility and hope?  I return to it often; and in times of shift and upheaval – with all their excitement, frustration, newness – it seems to me deeply yogic in it’s message of now-ness.

Shift happens.  It’s how we choose to respond that is really the measure of the outcome.

Yoga for when the winds of change blow:

1. Breathe.

No mat, no studio, no lycra required.  We always have our conscious breath to return to.  Take a deep breath in, and s-l-o-w-l-y let it all out.  Consider this your haven; safe ground to which you can always turn, whenever things get a little….cuckoo.

2. Connect with the earth.

Feeling sure and steadfast underfoot underpins our posture and our inner sense of security.  Be the virabhadrasana Warrior!  Confident, strong, looking ahead with poise and equinimity.

Send roots down through the souls of your feet – Vrksasana (Tree Pose) is a nice, playful way to root down to rise up and really feel the bend, sway and readjustment.

3. Be kind.

Kindness is king in a world of endless change!  Look after yourself. Tend to your needs. Be compassionate towards yourself – as you would to your child, your parent, your best friend.  Notice what you are noticing; newness can be uncomfortable; joy can be unsettling – but this discomfort is all part of the growing.  New feels disturbing until – it becomes the way of being.

As my mother always tell me – nothing is wasted.  It is all a lesson; all opportunity to expand.

Times they are a-changing; and we are flowing.