by Kara-Leah Grant One month ago I wrote about creating a new vision to orient The Yoga Lunchbox behind. Normally when I set sail on a course of action like that, things move fast. Normally that vision would be laid out clear by now.But these are not normal times, at least, not in my world.Over the last six months I have been on the super-highway to facing reality as it is. At least, that's what it's felt like. A perfect storm of people and circumstances have given me ample opportunity … [Read more...]
The New World Paradigm: Get Clear, Create a Vision, Take Action
by Kara-Leah Grant Eight years ago this week I began The Yoga Lunchbox with a vision in mind - to Bring Yoga to the People.Daily practice had made an enormous difference to my physical, mental and emotional well-being and I envisioned a world where everybody knew about yoga and meditation, and 10% of the population was practicing regularly.That vision has now been fulfilled. Yoga is everywhere. And people are practicing. So now what for The Yoga Lunchbox? That's what I've been … [Read more...]
What Women Need so They Can Invite Men to Step Up
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I attended an all-girls high school in Dunedin and remember clearly one year the annual production was Lysistrata. Written by Aristophanes and first staged in 411 BCE, it's a comedy detailing one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War.Her method? Lysistrata convinces the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands until their men agree to negotiate a peace.As a teenage girl, I loved this play. I loved … [Read more...]
Where Next for The Yoga Lunchbox? You Tell Me
by Kara-Leah Grant A few weeks ago was the seventh anniversary of The Yoga Lunchbox, which began life as Prana Flow NZ after I did my first Prana Flow teacher training module with Twee Merrigan.Within the first year though it became clear this website was about far more than one style of yoga, so two weeks after my son Samuel was born, I rebranded the website as The Yoga Lunchbox, NZ's online yoga magazine.Since then, I've been dishing up two or three articles every week on all things … [Read more...]
Russell Brand’s ‘Revolution’ – A Book Review, of sorts {Video}
by Kara-Leah Grant If you prefer video over reading, click here to jump to the end and watch my video review of Revolution. The article doesn't review the book so much as give relevant background. Russell Brand first entered my consciousness when I saw a clip of him via Facebook being interview on MSNBC (below).In the eight minute interview, he reduced one female interviewer to a quivering heap of hormones with his mere presence while stepping outside the proscribed boundaries of a … [Read more...]
Is Meditation Dangerous?
by Kara-Leah Grant I got a call from a journalist at the Waikato Times a few weeks ago who wanted to interview me for an article on the 'pros and cons' of meditation.I wasn't sure if I could help her out - after all, I don't teach meditation - however it turned out she wanted to interview me about my experience of awakening and psychosis. Ah... I was to be the con in the article. Yes, meditation is dangerous, it can send you crazy! I pondered whether to do it or not. I understand … [Read more...]
This Moment is Enough: A Simple Practice for Peace
By guest author Mary O’Malley In this moment, I invite you into the peace and the ease that you long for.After your next in-breath, allow yourself a long, slow out-breath. Melt into your out-breath, letting any tension in your body melt with it.Now, on the next in-breath, tighten your muscles. Exaggerate the tension in your body and then say “ahh” as you melt again into your out-breath.Revel in the deliciousness of a deep out-breath coupled with the powerful healing sound of … [Read more...]
Is Awakening the Evolutionary Destiny of Humanity?
by Kara-Leah Grant I once knew a yoga teacher who would joke how awakening would never happen to her - she wasn’t far enough along the path, or didn’t know enough, or wasn’t enough.She had this idea that awakening only happened to spiritually advanced people, or special people. Yet by all accounts, awakening can happen to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Why? Because awakening is nothing special. It is merely the shift from total identification with the mind - I am my thoughts - to an … [Read more...]
What if Enlightenment was just Dropping into Total Ordinariness. What then?
by guest author Emma Fernbloom, author of Conscious Creation of Wholeness & Community It’s strange to find myself free of ambition.It’s been a slow change, but now it’s happened completely, it feels a bit weird.It leaves gaps in conversations, like when everyone is talking about some TV programme you haven’t seen and they’re all wrapped up in the drama of it, but you haven’t been pulled into it so your smile is merely polite with a tinge of enjoyment or irritation at their … [Read more...]
An Ordinary Life: An Experience of Awakening
By Karen Le Cussan A little over a week ago I had the most amazing experience of my life, something which has now changed forever the way I see the world and how I feel. Before I go into any detail, I'd like to tell you a little about myself: I am forty nine years old, and I am married with three teenage children, two of whom live at home. I am a personal trainer, Balance and Pump Instructor and I work at a local ladies gym in Queenstown, New Zealand.I do not follow any particular … [Read more...]