Kara-Leah
I am a writer, and I am a yoga teacher.
Pretty simple really. It means I’m both endless curious about the human experience, and passionate about sharing with other people what I’ve experienced and whatit’s taught me.
I’m always looking for ways to turn my experience of life into gold. Take this bloody awful experience and at least learn from it – enough to not have to live through it again.
It could be the ultimate way to avoid suffering, the ultimate deception of Self really – turning in to face one’s self to see what the hell is going on in there.
But it’s worked for me. I’ve figured out that when bad things happen to us, we have the power to choose how we respond to those bad things. We can’t control them, we can’t change them, but damned if we can’t be creative in our response.
That’s yoga really.
Practicing to observe the mind and feelings in action and learning that one can choose to respond, or not respond. In that process, we change. From lead, into gold.
Ultimately, Yoga is the Journey of the Self - the remembering that you are a Divine Being.
And if we’re the raw material just waiting to be turned into gold, yoga is the secret formula just waiting to be applied. But this is meant to be about me right, not yoga.
Just know that yoga is the path back home, and I’m getting pretty familiar with that path.
Using yoga, I’ve explored my Self on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. I’ve seen how all these aspects of Self play into each other. How the feelings we suppress we show up in our body. How the thoughts we have affect our breath. How the simple act of breath awareness can profoundly shift our experience of life.
More about me.
I’ve been a freelance journalist, a speechwriter for Ministers of Parliament, a go-go dancer, a waitress, a traveller, an office manager, an event organizer, a radio presenter, a model.
I’ve written for the Prime Minister, although I’ve got no idea if he read what I wrote. I’ve interviewed politicians and sports stars and actors on live radio. I’ve been stood up on live radio by Jason Gunn. I bet he doesn’t remember, and yes I was pissed at the time but didn’t have the guts to call him on it. Maybe he forgot and was on the loo.
Oh there’s so many stories I could tell you, wild stories and heart-breaking stories, nail-biting stories and stupid stories. Oh the stories… the people I’ve been and the places I’ve seen!
Now I’m a mother, publisher of The Yoga Lunchbox, author of Forty Days of Yoga and totally passionate about yoga.
Yoga has totally transformed my life. I can hardly remember now, but ten years ago I was in serious daily agony with major back issues. My right foot was half numb, I walked with a limp, and I was headed straight to surgery for yet another spinal fusion.
So not cool.
Yoga was one of the tools that over time, with patience and persistence, healed my back. No more limp, no more numbness, no more surgery.
It was probably inevitable I’d end up teaching yoga – I was the child of two teachers, a teenage dance teacher and math tutor. Teaching was just in my blood. And in the end, I didn’t have much choice in the matter - one day our yoga teacher didn’t show up, so I stepped up.
Five years later, here I am, running my own yoga magazine with help from an awesome yoga community, teaching yoga and the author of a new yoga book.
Enjoy the website,
Much love,
Kara-Leah
Cross-pollination of music, dance, Madonna & yoga.
