by Kara-Leah Grant Ten years ago I was six months out of an Acute Psych Ward after two psychotic episodes, and was just beginning the process of cutting down the medication I'd been given after a diagnosis of bipolar. The emotional pain of being dumped by my fiance was still fresh and raw, and I'd only just stopped sobbing my heart out every day. Not that I was crying only about our break-up. The psychosis had ripped open decades of unexpressed emotion plus the spiritual awakening I'd had at … [Read more...]
Inspiring stories of how the practice of yoga has changed and shaped people's lives.
How Yoga Helped Me Find My True Voice and Share it With The World
By Premratna, Premratna Music If I try to imagine what the course of my life would have taken without yoga, I get an image of the movie Life of Pi: a small boat, huge swells, a tiger on board and a lot of fear. Yoga found me while I was doing my ‘big O.E.’; that phase of life where we are typically searching for adventure. I was no exception. In between hiking, skiing, singing and songwriting, I went to a yoga class at the gym in the Canadian Rockies where I was living and working. The … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me Emerge From the Darkness of Depression
By Astrid Vause I have been practicing yoga for a while now, in fact I am a yoga teacher, but it wasn't until I got sick that I fell deeply in love with this beautiful practice and it's healing powers. It was a warm sunny and vibrant day in my new home in Los Angeles and my children were building towers with wooden blocks and laughing as they toppled over. I sat on the floor with my knees tucked up to my chest and watched the crashing blocks, wincing as they hit the ground. I felt like … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me at Every Stage of Life
In celebration of the launch of The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga, I’ve invited some friends and colleagues to write articles relating to the theme of the book’s subtitle: Because yoga is for every body. Sara is an Australia-based writer and I first met her when I asked for volunteers to be Beta-Readers for Forty Days of Yoga. Little did Sara or I know how that was to be the beginning of a strong connection. Sara is a talented writer and courageously faces into the difficulties of modern … [Read more...]
How My Ashtanga Practice Taught me to Practice Courage
by guest author Pip Bennett After all that darkness of my last article, I decided I wanted to up my practice. I wanted to devote myself and commit to the Ashtanga practice as it demands: six days a week. To take on the challenge and see the benefits of a regular practice. Two weeks later, I hadn’t practiced yoga even once. It’s now been a couple of months since then. I did get myself back into the yoga room, but only for a couple of weeks. Turns out that although you can do yoga anywhere and … [Read more...]
Embody Your Purpose: Insights from an Off the Mat Workshop
by guest author Jen Wilson, Off the Mat, Into the World I had never been to a ‘proper’ yoga workshop before despite I’ve practiced on and off since my teens. To start with I guess I thought yoga was cool, a bit hippy – I dug that. As life went on I wanted and needed more yoga, but I wasn’t sure where to find it. I was often overwhelmed, prone to the black dog, and scared of everyday life. I started to realise yoga was always there when I fell down. I committed to my yoga practice and … [Read more...]
Five Ways Yoga Improved My Body Image
By guest author Anna Guest-Jelley, Curvy Yoga When I began practicing yoga in the late '90s, it didn’t occur to me that yoga would have any impact on my body image. In fact, I wouldn’t have wanted that at the time because I was spending my days bouncing between diets, waiting for the day I’d finally have the perfect body I’d always wanted. Who needs a positive body image when they have the body of their dreams, right? Ha! What I got instead, much to my initial chagrin and later delight, was … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me Deal with the Emotional and Psychological After-Effects of Trauma from Living and Working in Afghanistan
by Marianne Elliott, author of Zen Under Fire When it comes to working with fear, yoga is one of my secret weapons. Fear is not just a thought or idea. Fear is a neurobiological reaction to perceived threat. This is where modern neuroscience catches up with the wisdom of yoga and meditation. The autonomic nervous system (i.e. the part you don't consciously control) is divided into two sections: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system acts to … [Read more...]
Video Interview with Bikram Teacher Lucas Miles on Drugs, Addiction and Yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant I first met Lucas Miles at the lecture Bikram gave in Auckland in January of 2012. He was this crazy tall, lanky tattooed guy who spoke a mile a minute and had some damn interesting things to say. Later, he sent me a link to some articles he'd written about his journey into yoga. It was intense reading - Lucas has lived one helluva life. I attempted to cajole him into writing something for The Yoga Lunchbox, but he never got as far as sending me an article. Then this … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me Overcome Depression
by Caren Baginski I remember the first time I took an antidepressant. It was my third year of high school and I couldn't swallow pills, so I had liquid Prozac in a tiny cup. It didn't taste like anything, but during that time nothing did. I looked intensely at that drug for an hour before I took it, tears streaming down my face, feeling like a big fat failure. I remember the last time I took an antidepressant. I had moved to a new state, was on Zoloft, and weaned myself, thinking I … [Read more...]