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The Joy of Discovering a Fear of Failure

April 13, 2017 by Kara-Leah Grant Leave a Comment

by Kara-Leah Grant Recently, I moved back to Glenorchy, a small mountain town where I've lived a few times previously. I was exciting about the move, and also feeling some anxiety. Preparing to write my third book, Love's Shadows, I felt called to come home to the mountains. Yet it also meant moving my son, now seven and at school, yet again. We were meant to be staying put in one place now he'd started school. I was meant to be done with moving around. I was meant to be embracing a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Deepening • The Yoga of Life, Musings from the Mat Tagged With: failure, family, fear, patterns, The Heart, unconscious

Home Yoga Practice: What Counts if You Are a Yoga Teacher?

July 12, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 9 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant A few months ago I wrote an article stating that if you teach yoga, you must have a daily self-practice. That article was widely shared, and read. And it triggered some strong reactions. There were comments, and emails where people shared with me the reasons why they couldn't practice yoga every day. Some of these teachers were only teaching one class a week, on top of working 50+ hour jobs, and they were often teaching disadvantaged groups. They felt like what they were … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home Yoga Practice, Teaching Insights Tagged With: failure, guilt, home yoga practice, mat resistance, self practice, teaching yoga

I Give Up

June 18, 2015 by Kara-Leah Grant 28 Comments

I give up. An act of surrender

by Kara-Leah Grant I just wrote some 700 words and I realised that I've been telling the same damn story on this website for the past five years. A story of struggling to earn money through teaching yoga and writing. And now, I'm dropping the story and simply saying: I give up. I've had enough. I don't care anymore. I'm going to stop trying to earn a living from writing and teaching. Oh, I won't stop writing, nor will I stop teaching. These things I will continue to do, always and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Musings from the Mat Tagged With: failure, give up, letting go, surrender

When the Price of Beauty and Presence is Sadness

April 21, 2015 by Kara-Leah Grant 3 Comments

Beauty is all around us

By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Yesterday we got home from six days away - my son with his father, and me in Napier teaching yoga classes and workshops. I love being on the road, catching up with the many friends I have around the country, teaching at a variety of studios, sharing my passion for yoga in workshops. I love home too but when I'm at home, I'm reminded of the home I don't have, the life I'm not leading. In that life I'm coming home to a man I love, who loves me. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Musings from the Mat Tagged With: failure, Relationship, sadness, The Heart

The Conundrum of the Inflexible Yoga Teacher

October 29, 2014 by Kara-Leah Grant 14 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat One Sunday recently I retired to the beach for 90 minutes to work my way through a set yoga sequence a friend had posted on their Facebook page. It was total luxury. My son was with his uncle, I had no-where to  be and nothing to do, but soak up the sun, the salty breeze, and washing sound of the waves while immersing myself in a yoga sequence. I hated it. Oh, not the scene, or the setting, or the child-free time but the sequence. From the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Musings from the Mat Tagged With: failure, flexible, good enough, success, yoga teacher

How My Ashtanga Practice Taught me to Practice Courage

September 22, 2014 by Guest Author 1 Comment

Eight limbs of yoga, as defined by Patanjali in Ashtanga Yoga (as opposed to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga as taught by Pattabhi Jois)

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...]

Filed Under: How Yoga Helped Me Tagged With: ashtanga, commitment, confidence, courage, dark spaces, dissatisfaction, failure, home practice, iyengar, philosophy, running away

Forty Days of Meditation and Manifestation – Did It Work?

June 29, 2014 by Kara-Leah Grant 3 Comments

Meditation is awesome - really!

by Kara-Leah Grant I've just finished a Forty Day Meditation and Manifestation practice. It's something I completely made up. I'd been wondering for many months about combining daily meditation with a conscious manifestation process because I'd observed in my own life that the first key step for creating anything new is always getting clear. Usually, before I write, I meditate or walk first. This helps to shift me into the ground of being, and out of my head. Out of this space, creativity and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home Yoga Practice, Musings from the Mat Tagged With: failure, fear, manifestation, meditation

If All Ambition Falls Away, How Does Anything Get Done?

June 23, 2014 by Kara-Leah Grant 13 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's a crisp, clear, clean autumn morning in Napier, New Zealand. Almost a frost, but not quite. Cold enough for me to see my breath as I stood waiting for the jug to boil. I have entire day stretching out before me with no appointments and no yoga teaching. My only commitments today are to The Yoga Lunchbox and writing. Something's missing though. Something that's been with me for a long, long time. Possibly since childhood. Actually, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Musings from the Mat Tagged With: ambition, failure, fear, Krishnamurti, Osho, success, The Heart

Transmutation of Feeling States or What To Do When You Feel Like Shit

May 20, 2014 by Kara-Leah Grant 3 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm making video tomorrow, of me teaching, to you, a home yoga student who wants to be inspired in your practice. I've done this before, a couple of years ago, when I started the Yoga Exploration Series. This is more of the same, yet different. Then, I stopped filming because I didn't have the audio quality necessary and was getting complaints from people about not being able to hear what I was saying. That project went on the back-burner while I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Musings from the Mat Tagged With: failure, perfectionism, success, video

I can’t do that. Actually, maybe I can. Hey, I can do it!

May 9, 2013 by Guest Author Leave a Comment

Sara Foley

by guest author Sara Foley, Smells Good, Feels Good I'm not really sure how to begin this post, except to say: These ideas that you have about what you can and can't do, the things that are too hard or to big to begin - often these ideas are formed in a time of perceived failure. We don't think to ourselves; Oh, right, maybe I am not ready to do that yet, or maybe if I try that a different way it will work, or maybe I need some help to do that, or even let's sleep on that and try again … [Read more...]

Filed Under: How Yoga Helped Me Tagged With: disipline, failure, forty days of yoga, headstand shoulder stand, perception, sara foley, success

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