By Victoria Bruce I first stumbled across the 2016 Great Emptying Out Yoga Retreat on Facebook and after reading the theme of the retreat – Self-Love – I knew I needed to attend. Why? Because I had a shitload of stuff to empty out and filling that void with some self-love sounded like a brilliant idea. At thirty one years of age, as a journalist and solo mummy to an amazing little soul called Emilie, I often feel like I should have my shit together by now. Yet despite being equipped with … [Read more...]
Inspiring stories of how the practice of yoga has changed and shaped people's lives.
Why the World needs You to go on Retreat
by Ben Ralston, co-facilitating The Heart of Freedom in May, 2016 I started this year with a vision quest. 4 days and nights without food, water, or shelter, alone on a mountainside. In those four days and nights I remembered what it is to be a human; the simplicity of what it is to be alive between the earth and the sky. I reconnected with an essential part of myself. Yes, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – I thought I was going to die and almost, almost quit. But … [Read more...]
No Going Back: On Listening and Not-Listening to That Inner Voice
By Leza Lowitz, Sun and Moon Yoga I never thought I’d open my own yoga studio, let alone do so in a foreign country. Years ago, while I was meditating at a yoga retreat in Haiku, Hawaii, a voice had said, "You must move to Japan and open a yoga studio in Tokyo." Was it my inner voice? The voice of island’s Goddess Pele? It didn’t matter. I didn’t listen. I had no intention of returning to Tokyo, where I’d lived once before. I loved California; there was no going back. Until the day my … [Read more...]
How I Learned to Live My Yoga and Rock My Life
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...]
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...]