Hacking Happiness

“Sometimes I feel like I'm actually on the wrong planet. It's great when I'm in my garden, but the minute I go out the gate I think, What the hell am I doing here?” So said George Harrison in the 80s.

Many of us will relate to this sentiment, home feels safe & the world outside is crazy. But we have an additional problem today, which is that we all have a small computer in our pocket that brings the outside world to our garden, our bed, our sofa at all hours of the day and night. The boundary of the garden gate has dissolved & our safe space has been invaded.

Without that safe place, humans struggle. Our bodies are built to be able withstand stress for short periods of time & afterwards need to withdraw, rest & replenish. We all know what happens when we don’t: prolonged stress causes high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, heart disease, over-eating, weakened immune systems, IBS & insomnia. We don’t want any of this.

Happily, our systems can be hacked in the opposite direction. We can raise levels of the neurotransmitters & hormones that help to reduce stress & anxiety, regulate mood, increase feelings of pleasure & overall well-being. We can choose to feel better.

It’s simple, it’s free & it’s not strenuous. A lot of it is fun. But it does require a little self-control. You are going to have to consistently make a few good choices.

They’ve deliberately designed apps, websites, notifications & games to be as addictive as possible. Click click clickety-click. But you’re rebel & a yogi, I know who my money is on.

Love,
Sarah x

The Quieter You Get the More You Hear

Yesterday, one of my long-time students asked me why I got into teaching yoga to folks with special needs. I told her I don’t know, I never knew, I just wanted to do it. So I began and it has become one of the richest sources of joy and meaning in my life.

We might call this “just knowing” our inner wisdom and yoga practice simply a way of digging deep to mine that rich seam of personal, powerful intuition that is always there, waiting.

The world is noisier than ever and stepping away from all of the ways it has of talking to us becomes an ever more pressing requirement. Yet the reason we seek silence in yoga is the same now as it was for a 1st Century student, withdrawing to his forest school: we wish to befriend our inner voice, to trust it and to live from it’s wisdom.

The things we know we must do cannot always be explained in a way that makes sense to others. This is why asking advice and looking to external sources for guidance so often fails to help us. It’s also why an intellectual approach (working things out) so often yields only strife and sleepless nights, rather than progress.

It takes courage to live according to your inner wisdom: nobody else has drawn this roadmap for you, it is yours alone, and others might not understand. But a good decision does not need cheerleaders.

As the years pass and you flourish in your own way, you know that listening and adhering to your inner inkling has made your life better. You have been brave and you have trusted yourself. The proof of life is in the living of it.

What's Good For You

Multiple studies have made the physical benefits of yoga very clear - if you do it regularly, you will see improvement in balance, flexibility, strength, cardiovascular health and muscle tone. 

But to describe it in purely physical terms is to miss out on yoga philosophy, the purpose of which is to connect our physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and energetic selves so that we no longer feel fractured inside as we move through life.

Because yoga reduces anxiety and stress, it also helps us to overcome a whole suite of other issues that stress makes worse (and which in turn are stress-causing): arthritis, poor digestion, broken sleep, auto-immune diseases, migraine headaches.

It's simpler to say that yoga just makes everything better.

I really hope you find your way to your mat this week. There really is something for everyone our Yogi’s Library now and as the Bhagavad Gita tells us:

“On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear.”

Lots of love to you.
Sarah xx