Looking After You

It has been a lovely summer of yoga for me … two blissful retreats in Sweden and one happy weekend in Menorca. It has been wonderful to see all those beautiful faces and to connect with friends old and new.

There is much to celebrate when when we come together on retreat: the simple joy of yoga is reawakened, there is a lot of laughter, acceptance of challenge, sometimes healthy tears and always space for quiet reflection. We get deeply into the root of peace and we stay there. We are cared for by our teacher and by those who prepare our meals for us.

We need this. Now more than ever.

For I have seen this summer how we are embattled, exhausted and struggling. We are smiling, we are lucky and we are grateful. But the last three years have been long and hard and we never really got a chance to catch up from one thing before the next thing came to overwhelm us.

Our bodies are telling the story of these past few years in tightened jaws and raised shoulders, in weak middles and a thousand creaks and groans. We have neglected ourselves. We have moved, kept fit, done our practice, but that deep river of peace within has been harder and harder to find.

Consequently, I saw much more gentleness in students this year and a real need for deep peace and silence. I saw people remember that they are stronger than they think (so hard to remember when life feels like a struggle). Others realised they’d drifted away from their practice and found themselves coming home once more to their body, soul and sense of love and joy.

Maybe next year you will join us in Sweden or in Spain and that will be wonderful. But maybe right now, this weekend what you need is your own retreat from the world, from the pressure, from your endless thinking. Imagine your teacher with you, how she puts her hand on your back to calm you, how she smiles at you because she loves you, how she encourages you to believe that you are already enough and that all of the striving only moves you further away from your goal. Breathe deeply: into your back, down to your boots, softly and for a long time.

Give yourself a break and hold yourself kindly in your own embrace.

Namaste x

Calm Counts

When you are calm, people are drawn to you. And the ones who aren't drawn to you don't matter

When you are calm it's easier to hear what you need to be well, so you care for yourself, gently.

When you are calm you heal. Your immune system is able to do its job properly and your troubles are there to be encompassed, not hidden from, run from or pushed away.

When you are calm things slow down. No more grasping, seeking, striving for perfect.

Things get easier. Life gets simpler and has more joy in it.

Calm counts.

Sarah x

Chakras 101

In our classes online this summer, we will be working systematically through all seven chakras with movement, breath and meditation work. As a basis for this teaching, it will be helpful to understand exactly what chakras are in the yogic sense.

Chakra means wheel, literally “that which revolves” and in yogic literature the word refers to the seven vital centres in the subtle body, where important energy lines (nadis) cross. 

The chakras have become a popular topic in New Age thinking, alternative medicine, and yoga, but there is a growing gap between how the chakras are viewed today and how they are regarded in traditional yogic literature.

In new age thinking, the chakras are used mainly for physical healing; in this system each chakra is said to be related to certain organs or bodily functions, which can become diseased or healthy based on the relative clarity of the chakra itself.

The yogic approach is different to this and aimed purely and simply at clearing chakras as part of the process of growing Self-knowledge, spiritual development and enlightenment. The techniques of yoga - asana, mantra, pranayama, and meditation - all lead to towards clearing energy, cleansing chakras and personal development. In yoga, chakras cannot be moved, influenced or opened by another.

According to the yoga system, in the ordinary human state, which is rarely transcended except by sustained spiritual practice, the chakras are closed; that is, they do not truly function. The result of this is not disease, but ignorance, known in yoga as avidya: the mistaken belief that we are separate from everything and everyone else. Someone’s chakras can be closed and yet they can be healthy, emotionally balanced, mentally creative, and successful in many areas of life.

To bring the subtle centres called chakras towards clarity, the body and mind must be put in a state of rest and balance.  You lay the groundwork for this in the all of the work you have done in yoga to create stillness of body, breath, senses, and mind.

Opening chakras requires opening to universal feelings of compassion and devotion and connection with a sense of the universal life force. For example, to open the heart chakra is quite different than being in a heightened, vulnerable, or overly emotional state; rather to awaken this chakra is to go beyond mere personal emotions to understand the cosmic energy behind all emotional fluctuations.  

Opening the chakras requires an open and receptive attitude, it cannot be forced. You may have experienced chakra opening for yourself, those quiet but meaningful inner shifts that take place during the practice of yoga. Conversely, you may only understand ths chakras intellectually, knowing where they are and what has been taught about them and their significance to yoga practice. Either path is valid and seeking sensation for the sake of it won’t get you very far.

The best way to begin chakra work is deep within the quiet, peaceful state that we find ourselves in when we practise yoga. Be alert to that which is shifting within you and learn to be curious about it.

Sarah xx