by Kara-Leah Grant When Wanderlust asked me to submit four classes to teach at the inaugural four-day festival in New Zealand, I pondered how to theme those classes. One of my yoga students had recently told me how she thought my teaching was Goddess-focused and she always felt like I was helping her step into her feminine power in class. I pondered that for a few days. And then it hit me. I was a long-time Tarot enthusiast and love the symbology and depths of insight revealed in Tarot … [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...]
How Yoga Helped Me Deal with the Emotional and Psychological After-Effects of Trauma from Living and Working in Afghanistan
by Marianne Elliott 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 mobilize the body's 'fight or … [Read more...]
What if Non-Attachment is Merely a By-Product of Liberation?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm sitting at my computer listening to a great DJ mix on Soundcloud, doing my daily work for The Yoga Lunchbox. Formatting and editing articles, dealing with advertisers, answering emails, posting on social media. Underneath the surface, as I work, I'm aware of a shift in my energy. This shift happened a few weeks ago. Maybe a month. I'm not quite sure. Whatever it was that had been driving me incessantly to publish on the internet - ever since … [Read more...]
On having the courage to pull the plug at the 11th hour
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Last week, I wrote the acknowledgements and officially signed off from Forty Days of Yoga, completing the final draft. It was a surreal moment - as if I'd been here before and knew what to do. And of course I have, many times, in my dreams. I've been a writer since childhood and always knew I'd write a book. What I didn't know was how many people would join me on this journey, how supportive they would be and how humbling it would be to receive … [Read more...]
If you can’t publicly own it, don’t do it (easy to say right?)
Forget the Ten Commandments. Forget even the Five Yamas or Niyamas. Here instead is the Golden Litmus Test. Apply it to all your behaviour. Everything you do. Everything you say. And everything you think. (If you really want to up your game...) Can you publicly own this action, word or thought? Can you publish it in the newspaper? Talk about it on Tv? Answer to it on radio? Yes? Sweet... do it, say it, think it. No? Don't do it, say it, think it... At … [Read more...]