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About Kara-Leah Grant
Kara-Leah is an internationally-renowned writer, teacher and retreat leader. Millions of people have been impacted by the articles, books and videos she has published over the last ten years. Her passion is liberation in this lifetime through an every day path of dissolving layers of tension into greater and greater freedom and joy. You can find out more about her, including when her next retreats are, on her website. Kara-Leah is the visionary and creator of The Yoga Lunchbox.
Eve Grzybowski says
Hi Kara-Leah,
I appreciate your courage in revealing yourself in this post. Thank you.
I thought you might like the Pema Chodron quote featured in our YogaAnywhere newsletter:
Take good care of yourself, and stay vulnerable!
XO Eve
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Eve,
I loved the quote – and added it to your comment so other people can read it easily. Thank you so much for sharing it.
KL
Nobody says
99.99% of all Yogies, seekers & spiritual folks all are not free thinkers. They enjoy the camradire, seeking and spiritual aspects of it all. But never go beyond that.
They all live in the cage they were born into. They exist there without question. They love the drama and suffering of life. If they didnt, they would leave.
It is clear however, that you do not fall into this category. You are a free thinker and question everything. Most importantly however is the fact that you are asking the correct questions.
You know you are in a cage and you are questioning it. You have been for a long time.
Knowing you are in a cage is the first step into leaving.
The door is open. All one has to do is open ones eyes and see.
Simple…but unfortuneatly simple is not easy.
From the way you describe and talk about you on this website I feel that the following books may aid you in fine tuning your questions.
They wont give you answers, but may help you nail down the questions.
They are simply written, without religous mumbo jumbo.
Jed McKenna Trillogy
Pefect Brilliant Stillness – David Carse
The End of Your World – Adyashanti
Haunted Universe – Steven Norquist
Please know, that all the answers to all the questions you seek, are inside you. Keep asking questions.
If you keep doing so, something interesting might happen.
Peace & Happiness
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hello Nobody,
(Is anybody out there?) Great book suggestions – thank you. Simple is never easy, is it? I shall look forward to reading those books and to something interesting happening 😉
KL
David says
YES! The concept in yoga/meditation of needing to fix something is very similar to the psychology behind selling women beauty products etc (men are not immune to this either). Its the whole idea that something about us is not right. Yoga uses a very effective marketing tool to promote itself. Well done on sharing your experience about all this ‘I am broken and need fixing’ yogic tradition.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey David,
I don’t know if it’s a yogic tradition so much as a part of our Western Culture. Regardless, it’s a subtle layer that affects many of us.
KL
lezzle_nz says
Look up the teaching of Sydney Banks, the 3 Principles. He expands your idea of ‘I’m OK, it’s ‘thoughts’ that make me not-OK’. Inate health and wellbeing are our default, there’s nothing to ‘do’ to get there. We’re already there, under all the thoughts of I’ll be happy/better/healthier/safer etc. when…….. (insert your own version of when I’ve lost weight/practice yoga EVERY day/earn more money/change job etc).
Such a simple concept but boy, you can lose sight of it so easily! Just requires self compassion and practice, practice and practice. Just like yoga.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Lesley,
Thanks for the tip – I shall check out Sydney Banks. It is such a simple concept – but simple is never easy! Sometimes I think that the key learning of humanity is to move towards simplicity instead of getting all caught up in the bells & whistles of our own cleverness & complexity.
KL
Jessica Powers says
Love this. I’ve been really upset by a sign on a local yoga studio saying ‘Happy Yogi is a Healthy Yogi’ and the equation it’s making to between a state of being and a state of body. I get it on one level, yes we need to take care of ourselves, but some of my worst emotional times (insomnia, depression) were during times of greatest physical health (diet, exercise, weight). There’s a fine line with taking care of ourselves and seeing the connections and causality of things and working to improve/expand/grow ourselves, and letting go and accepting that, as you say, we are worthy simply for being here. Nothing else trumps that, it just covers it up or distracts us from it.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Jessica,
It is insidious – this idea that if we’re not ‘healthy’ there’s something ‘wrong’ with us. Yes we need to take care of ourselves and yes sometimes we can understand the causes of ill-health and bring ourselves back into balance, but when we are sick, that too becomes something else to accept. That’s where we are… in that moment at least.
Lovely to hear from you!
KLx
Sara says
I love the way you write your process down so honestly. It shows true courage. Your clarity, honesty and courage are gifts to the world, and so is your suffering. xxx S
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Sara,
I’m not sure if it’s courage, or just a learned sense that writing it all out gives me clarity. Regardless, it works for me and for people that read it and that’s what matters.
Klx
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Terimoana,
Lovely to hear how your journey is going, and yes I remember our emails. I’m so glad that the grounding practice is bearing fruit for you.
Am I bi-polar? I don’t even know what that means, and to a degree, neither does the medical profession. It’s a label to describe a collection of behaviours that can surface in a persons life. Do those behaviours show up in my life? No, not any more. Did they show up in the past? Some of them did. Does that make me bi-polar? I have no clue.
Blessings,
KL
Nikki says
Kara Leah do you know how much by being so “real’ helps people?
I met you at the yoga retreat in Auckland recently and put you on up on a pedi stool because you are beautiful and warm and amazing at what you do. And I so I got your book while I was there, which was perfect timing because I had just had a month of depression outta no where….. I thought that I had cured myself and bamm!I started being fascinated by yoga and meditation about a year ago after I myself reached burnout and major bowts of depression. And until recently had been feeling amazing….. by hearing you keep it real and say it’s ok to have crap days and it’s ok to not have to be perfect at your yoga practice has helped me so so much. I had been to try different ones and some how yoga was starting to feel out of reach….So by being the amazing woman that you are will be helping so many others. Thank you so much, I hope that you too are finding your happy xo
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Nikki,
So lovely to hear from you. Meeting people like yourself at the conference was the highlight for me (that & teaching a room full of eager yoginis!). It is so easy to put those in the public eye on a pedestal as often we only see their game face, never the anguish of life going on in the wings. I would hate to think that yoga was ever inaccessible for anyone, but I know that for many people, the way yoga is portrayed in the media can make it exactly that. I’m so glad you’ve found your way to a practice.
What I’m learning is that sadness & happiness are both a part of life – they’ll always be there. We’ll always go up and down. Shit will always happen. We’ll mess up, get sick and die. However, by leaning fully into those experiences – truly living them – a deeper layer of eternal joy reveals itself. So even in the midst of the deepest grief, we can feel the pure joy of being alive.
Much love,
KLx
Stacey says
I just wanted to share a bit here:
I just had this realization this past Sunday, May 4, 2013 and have been processing it all week. And then I come across this article of yours. I never heard of you or your site before now. But I love that the Universe (or whoever/whatever) guided me to this article of yours…such Beauty is the life, eh? So thank you for putting so eloquently my realization into words, haha. Really, beautifully and wonderfully said…I am right there with you….
Thank you,
From the other side of the world….Pennsylvania, USA.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Stacey,
Oh I love that too… glad you found me & the site! Such is the beauty of life.
Many blessings,
KL
Omy says
Thank you thank you!!! Reading this is like Reading my own words. Im a bipolar and im being trying to fix myself all the time because all the “failures” in my life (relationships, Jobs). Im a single mom of a 5 yo girl. I struggle every day, i struggle with yoga i started more than a year ago and then stop practicing and now im trying to take it back and it seems i cant find my path back in yoga. im lost and I know that….. but everyday I try to find myself again.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Omy,
I’m so glad you found this article, and got something out of it. Stick with the yoga practice… it’s been the most valuable thing I’ve ever done!
Adrienne says
What if we are 100% responsible for what we manifest in our lives BUT what we manifest is sometimes to help us learn something about ourselves or to help us become who we want to be by sending us down a path where we are faced with who we don’t want to be or mistakenly believe on some level it is who we are? What is it’s all perfectly orchestrated for our benefit and we just don’t see that part of it and instead focus on the thing that happens rather than how there might be some opportunity within it that is exactly what we want or what we need to further us on our path to happiness or what we want?
Maybe you needed to see that you are lovable and there is nothing wrong with you just because some guy decided he was no longer in love with you (which is more about him than you – who knows what was going on with him internally? People making decisions in their life doesn’t mean something about us. It means something about them but we make it about us.). Maybe you were meant to learn it then, that there is nothing wrong with you and you are wonderful and perfect as you are or at the very least okay as you are and you didn’t realize it then so it comes up again.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Maybe… it’s been years since I wrote that article so this situation is very much long gone in my life. I’d have to re-read the article and then your comment to answer probably… but don’t have the inclination right now.