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...]
Unravelling the stories that shape our yoga practice
My life right now is a fluid mix of story & yoga. I'm studying creative writing at Victoria University and I'm finishing off my Prana Flow Yoga Teacher Certification (posted off all the book work in the mail on Monday! Woo hoo... now just have the exam to sit.) This combination of story and yoga has dovetailed into a deeper understanding of how we write the scripts for our lives, how we cast ourselves and the people around us as characters, and how we react to these scripts and … [Read more...]
The danger of thinking you know more than your yoga teacher
Back in February, I wrote an article called Why I may never take another yoga class ever again. And true to my word, I hadn't been to a class in six months, instead practicing daily at home. One of the reasons I'd been steering clear of classes was that in class I'd struggled with being told what to do by a teacher. Often it felt like what my body needed and what the teacher was sequencing wasn't right for me. But a few weekends ago I went to two yoga classes at a yoga studio that's … [Read more...]
I Didn’t Want This Life: Why am I Having So Much Fun?
by Kara-Leah Grant Life has been rich with opportunities to practice deep acceptance lately. Samuel is now 17 months old, generally awake from 7am to 7pm, and active, even measured by toddler standards. It's impossible to work around him anymore, or write morning pages, or meditate, or practice asana. These things were the mainstay of my waking hours - if I wasn't on the computer, I was doing some form of yoga or writing. In the last month, I've had to accept that this is just not … [Read more...]
On the Magic of Yoga Practice to Bring You Back to Presence
by Kara-Leah Grant I've had a rough few weeks, since moving into my new house with my three wonderful flatmates. First I caught a 12 hour vomiting bug that saw me curled up on my sister-in-law's bathroom for seven hours in child's pose, just moving to lift my head and vomit. Then I caught the flu and a nasty cough and was bed-ridden for over a week. Just as I was beginning to feel well, almost two weeks after first getting sick, I woke up with red welts all over my body and swollen … [Read more...]
Confession time people. I’ve been dodging a heart truth
I have a huge confession to make. I don't want the responsibility for The Yoga Lunchbox anymore, and I don't know what to do about this. Because even though I don't want responsibility for the website anymore... the website isn't just about me. It's a community website, and it's taken input from the community to create such an amazing resource for the yoga community. There's been all kinds of people who've contributed to The Yoga Lunchbox - regular writers like Alys and Jessica, … [Read more...]
Why I wouldn’t offer donation-style yoga classes again
Back when I first started this website, I was teaching Prana Flow Yoga classes where students paid whatever they thought the class was worth. This was an interesting experiment which generated a series of articles on how much a yoga class is worth. Recently I received an email from a teacher in Namibia who'd found these articles via Google and was excited about doing the same thing with her yoga classes. I've been thinking of switching to a donation based class and... I want the students … [Read more...]
Making peace with feeling guilty ‘cos I’m a single mum on the DPB
I'm now living in my new home, and it’s every bit as super-duper wonderful as I suspected it might be. The house is beautiful, my flatmates are wonderful, and it feels fantastic to be living in a real home with other people on the spiritual path. Yet in the midst of this heartfelt warmth and delight at moving into a wonderful home with fantastic people… I’ve noticed a lingering anxiety at the heart level. This anxiety is manifesting as a desire to rush through things. Must get the … [Read more...]
Suggestions on What to do if You’ve had a Kundalini Awakening
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 can be scary, disorientating, dislocating and downright awful when Kundalini awakens. Sometimes a Kundalini Awakening will look like mental illness, physical illness or emotional … [Read more...]
It’s ok to be happy you know?
I'm so excited right now. And really happy. There's joy spilling from my fingertips. I've had Massive Attack blasting in the morning as I dance my way through making breakfast and Madonna getting in to the groove when I get ready to go out... Not only have I found an awesome house to live in city-side, but I've also got three super-duper roomies moving in. Plus I'm building up my one-on-one yoga clientale, and LOVING teaching my students. I'm doing writers coaching via Skype … [Read more...]