by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Today, I sat down with a spreadsheet and whipped up a calendar for my month. I blocked out the hours when Samuel is in childcare and I wrote down all the weekly and monthly tasks I need to do to keep my business running. It was a sobering exercise. Even allowing for extra childcare hours by paying a family friend to hang out with Samuel two afternoons a week, I am trying to do more than I have hours available for. Even adding in evenings three times a … [Read more...]
Kara-Leah Grant gets up close & personal about life on and off the yoga mat as she puts her life back together after a Kundalini Awakening experience.
Are We Drowning Under a Deluge of Perfect Yoga Images?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat As many of you know, Wanderlust is coming to New Zealand and Australia next year - first with one-day city-based events, and then in 2015 with the whole four day festival she-bang. I'm one yoga teacher who's been selected as a Wanderlust Wayfarer. Wayfarers are a network of teachers who spread the word about Wanderlust to their local communities. As part of my role, I had to send in my bio and a photo of me. Should be easy right? I'm all over the … [Read more...]
What if Non-Attachment is Merely a By-Product of Liberation?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm sitting at my computer listening to a great DJ mix on Soundcloud, doing my daily work for The Yoga Lunchbox. Formatting and editing articles, dealing with advertisers, answering emails, posting on social media. Underneath the surface, as I work, I'm aware of a shift in my energy. This shift happened a few weeks ago. Maybe a month. I'm not quite sure. Whatever it was that had been driving me incessantly to publish on the internet - ever since … [Read more...]
Drinking Alcohol: A Big No-No for Serious Yogis?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It was one of those behaviours or activities that started softly, softly, slipping in under the mat and under awareness. A shared bottle of wine once a week. A shared bottle of wine twice a week. A bottle of vodka in the house - a cocktail before dinner four or five times a week, then a glass or two of wine. Never more than two or three drinks in a night, never every night of the week. But still... As time went by, this behaviour began to tug at my … [Read more...]
How to Change the World No Matter Where You Are or What You Do
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat This month marked nine years since I returned from overseas, after having two psychotic episodes and ending up in Vancouver's Lion's Gate Hospital's Acute Psyche Ward. I was a mess. Eight years prior to that, I'd left New Zealand after completing a journalism certificate, heading overseas to seek fame and fortunate. I'd been runner up to Dux at high school, invited into two Honours subjects at University and voted Most Likely to be Prime Minister of … [Read more...]
Can We Manifest our Way into True Love? (How about Yes!)
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Six months ago, I decided I wanted to step into relationship again. No big deal right? But when you're a single mother in your late 30s living in a small town with only 300 people... the chances don't sound very high. Factor in a serious commitment to yoga and conscious relationship - whatever that means - and it seemed the chances were even less. But I wanted a relationship, wholeheartedly, and so I did what I could to open up to this … [Read more...]
How to Consciously Face into Relationship Issues with Love
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm shaken to write this article barely three weeks after exploring the concept of loving without attachment. In that article, I faced squarely into the possibility of losing my man in order to let go of the fear and attachment I had around our love. And yesterday morning, my man packed his bags and left. Not because he doesn't love me deeply - he does - but because he can't take on my son as well. Stepping into a parenting situation with a … [Read more...]
The Kundalini Awakening Process: An Inside Story
WIN a copy of Kara-Leah's new book 'Field Notes from Kundalini Awakening', publishing in 2018. Guaranteed to take you on an intimate journey into the depths of the Kundalini experience. Click here to sign up for the book launch list and go into the draw to win one of THREE print copies. by Kara-Leah Grant It's 7:15pm and I'm upside down on the carpet in front of the fire, balancing on my hands and knees, head hanging low, not quite touching the carpet. I'm meant to be on the computer, … [Read more...]
The Emergence of the Gift Economy: Greater Wealth & Abundance for All
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I've been pondering money, value, gifts, offering and exchange this week. I met with a friend who talked about how she was doing work she was passionate about that barely paid her enough to survive on. This work is about how we create our societies and so benefits everybody. She said that she'd noticed it as an increasing trend - that on one hand we do what we need to do to earn the money to survive, and on the other hand we do our important work. … [Read more...]
Why Letting Go is a Crucial Aspect of Loving Well
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's the summer of 2000 and I've just come back to Whistler, BC after nine weeks living on the side of a volcano in Maui. I'd been on a mad adventure with a man I'd meet waitressing that winter in Whistler - but that's another story. My life is packed full of stories from that time, many of them involving men. I was young, carefree and a permanent traveller. It was four years since I'd graduated my Journalism Course and bailed on New Zealand, … [Read more...]