by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat A friend asked me this week (and I'm paraphrasing and editing for dramatic effect): How come you always write/talk about your struggles with life? Does your life suck that bad? And I explained that I had to write that way... that I loved writing about life, and only had my life to write about, and that meant sharing my struggles with the world - so other people could resonate, realise they're not alone, feel inspired and connect with me as a human … [Read more...]
10 reasons why I’m excited to choose corporate work over teaching yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Oh yes loyal Lunchboxers, after weighing up what I need in my life right now, I've decided to forgo trying to earn a living wage as a yoga teacher and website publisher, and instead head back into the workplace. I've been sprucing up my CV, writing cover letters, and getting in touch with recruitment agencies. It feels GREAT! Normally the story we hear is about people getting disillusioned with working for a living, with being in the corporate … [Read more...]
Confessions of an ex-relationship manipulator and control freak
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Ok, the headline is harsh. I admit it. But also true. See, over the last while, I've been working with a relationship pattern (a samskara) of giving away my power by not speaking my truth because I was afraid of the consequences. It's an insidious pattern because it has all kinds of detrimental effects on one's self-esteem, and the relationships one is in. Plus it creates suffering as the desire to hold on to something while betraying oneself can … [Read more...]
An interview with Swami Samnyasananda, a consultant neurophysiologist
Article courtesy Anahata Yoga Retreat Swami Samnyasananda is a consultant neurophysiologist whose research explores the effects of pranayama, meditation and relaxation on the heart, brain and autonomic nervous systems. He is a Certified Yoga Teacher, Life Member and Fellow of the World Society for Clinical Yoga (Lucknow, India), and has over 30 years of experience in classes, personal tuition & clinical counselling in yoga, meditation, relaxation and stress management (M.B.T.I. … [Read more...]
Dude, Love is the Guru
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Back at the start of last year I wrote a couple of posts be-moaning my lack of connection to a Real Yoga Teacher and a Guru. Dude, Where's My Guru? Dude, Where's My Teacher? This week I've been reading a most excellent book by Ram Dass (he of Be Here Now) called Be Love Now. And lo & behold, wouldn't you know, it's answered all of my questions about finding a guru, what a guru is, and the relationship we have with a guru. I'm stoked, … [Read more...]
If you can’t publicly own it, don’t do it (easy to say right?)
Forget the Ten Commandments. Forget even the Five Yamas or Niyamas. Here instead is the Golden Litmus Test. Apply it to all your behaviour. Everything you do. Everything you say. And everything you think. (If you really want to up your game...) Can you publicly own this action, word or thought? Can you publish it in the newspaper? Talk about it on Tv? Answer to it on radio? Yes? Sweet... do it, say it, think it. No? Don't do it, say it, think it... At … [Read more...]
Trust those feelings of yours… they’re trying to tell you something!
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's Monday morning and I have a stack of work to do. There's a multitude of emails in my inbox, two Wordpress clients expecting results, my personal website to re-brand, articles to load into The Yoga Lunchbox, numerous tasks for the website, accounts to do, workshops to prepare, classes to prep... The list goes on and on and I haven't even mentioned writing. Which - as you may have noticed in the last few months - keeps getting moved to the … [Read more...]
Economically, yoga doesn’t make any sense at all
We've all heard about those wonderful yoga studios delivering fantastic yoga to the community, but struggling to pay their overheads, let alone make any profits. On the flipside of the coin are the corporate yoga studios and centres paying yoga teachers as little as possible in order to maximise profits for the business owners. Somewhere in the middle are the yoga teachers that schlep themselves all over town teaching in community halls, gyms, offices and other studios, with low overheads … [Read more...]
How dropping my story helped me change my yoga practice
I've been practicing yoga for over a decade now, and I'm still tight and inflexible. That's not quite true of course, but when I compare my flexibility to that of the images of yoga we see in the media, or the popular teachers on DVDs... I fall well short. And I find it perplexing. It doesn't make me feel less than in anyway, and I'm well aware that the point of yoga is not flexibility, rather flexibility is a by-product of practice. But how long does it take to lengthen the … [Read more...]
Home is where the heart is, heart is what the home needs
The latest Musings from the Mat by Kara-Leah Grant Home. It's a deceptively small four-letter word, but oh how much punch it can carry. Our home is our whole world when we're kids, and when we grow up to be adults, we often unconsciously carry around that childhood home inside of us, even when it's not the kind of home we want to recreate in our lives. Home isn't just the place where we live though. Home is also a place where we are truly ourselves, where we let our guard, and our … [Read more...]