by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I went to a party a few weeks ago. A man sat down beside me. We talked. And we talked. And at some point I looked into this man's eyes and thought, damn you're an intelligent, witty bastard. That's always the first step for me. Desire can never arise unless a man is smart and sharp and somehow knowing. But that's not all that there needs to be. I've known intelligent, sharp, witty men before whose company I really enjoyed. I knew they were … [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.
Exploration of the no-self: A total waste of time?
WIN a copy of Kara-Leah’s new book ‘Sex, Drugs & (mostly) Yoga - Field Notes from Kundalini Awakening’, publishing in November 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 I started this article over two years ago... and never finished it. But thanks to suggestions from a YLB commenter, I found and read a book by Jed … [Read more...]
On letting life flow unimpeded through you – no drama, no angst, just… life
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Oh I'm giddy with delight right now. I was up at 6:15am, over an hour ago, and my child has yet to surface. I've written my morning pages. I've written an email to the 489 lovely subscribers on my book list. I've downloaded the software to review the Kindle and ePub versions of Forty Days of Yoga, which have just been completed. And now I get to write! Yes, write! I love writing. Love it, love it, love it, love it. Hence the website and the … [Read more...]
How identifying with NOT being something also causes great misery
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's 7am and I've been up for half an hour. Child-free time and totally blissful. Made even more so because since I returned from my book tour I've had no childcare at all. When my lovely Porse childcare woman told me she was stopping work to have a second child, I could feel part of me wanting to panic. "No, you can't! I need childcare. I'm a single mum with a start-up business who's just written a book! What am I going to do?" After all, I … [Read more...]
Do I dare open into the belly of my own desire?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm sitting in the Picton Ferry Terminal, about to head over to Wellington for my second book launch event. The first was at the International Yoga Conference and Festival at Kawai Purapura last weekend. It was both a blissful and challenging experience, and - as always - a learning experience. The bliss came in teaching a class to 40+ eager yogis and feeling the flow alongside them. It was such a joy to share my teaching and my yoga. It was … [Read more...]
What does ‘Yoga is a path to self-realisation’ mean?
By Kara-Leah Grant It's the eve of my book launch and I'm watching a talk on TED called The Gift of Asking. Earlier, I took time to sit on the front deck of my Aunt's house, high on a hill over looking Thames and watched the sun set. The views were panoramic, the insect life vibrant and lyrical, and as I sat I felt profoundly connected. I felt, in my bones, a sense of achievement and accomplishment as I realised I'd done it; I'd come back from insanity - all the way back. For the first time, I … [Read more...]
I can do it. (And so can you)
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Oh yes... the pressure has been on this week. I leave this Saturday for Auckland in preparation for launching Forty Days of Yoga at the International Yoga Conference Festival next Friday. My book hasn't gone to print yet. There's been issues with corrupted files. Scheduling difficulties with layout folk and designers. Couriers that don't deliver. Trimming accidents. And finally, font issues on the print proof. It's to be expected. There's always … [Read more...]
How to bring a dragonfly back to life
By Kara-Leah Grant, Yesterday Samuel and I went for our usual morning walk around the boardwalk. As I pushed his pram down the dusty trail beside the river I started and stopped. Was that a dead dragonfly on the trail? I doubled-back and carefully picked up a grey, wizened and dusty dragonfly and placed it on the palm of my left hand to show Samuel. I was startled when the dragonfly moved one leg out into a more comfortable position and I realized it wasn't dead - at least, not entirely. We … [Read more...]
There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t need fixing
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I wrote this article about four weeks ago. It's an example of how subtle our layers of reality are. It starts with a story I'm telling about my life and about myself. Out of that story, I extrapolate an unconscious belief, identifying this belief as something that needs fixing, changing, letting go, or releasing so my conscious reality will change. This has been a useful process that's helped me heal much over the last few years. Yet this process … [Read more...]
One way that Forty Days of Yoga has revolutionised my life
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Today I did something that has the potential to revolutionise my life. I set an alarm and deliberately got up before my three year old son. I wanted to be up by 6:30am and I wanted the early morning peace and quiet to do my yoga practice. This is a huge break-through for me. Once upon a time, I effortlessly arose before 7am and spent a couple of hours on the computer writing, often getting my day's work down before 9am. I loved this - it … [Read more...]