by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Six months ago, I decided I wanted to step into relationship again. No big deal right? But when you're a single mother in your late 30s living in a small town with only 300 people... the chances don't sound very high. Factor in a serious commitment to yoga and conscious relationship - whatever that means - and it seemed the chances were even less. But I wanted a relationship, wholeheartedly, and so I did what I could to open up to this … [Read more...]
Grief: The Shadow Side of the Heart Chakra
by Kara-Leah Grant It's all good and well to do these wonderful heart-opening or heart-balancing yoga practices, but without a proper understanding of all aspects of the heart chakra, we can easily hit a wall of resistance that stops our practice cold. The heart chakra is about our ability to love - which requires that we open to the possibility of grief, sorrow and disappointment as well as the wonderful sensations of love, joy, fulfilment and compassion. Working with this kriya meant I was … [Read more...]
How to Consciously Face into Relationship Issues with Love
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm shaken to write this article barely three weeks after exploring the concept of loving without attachment. In that article, I faced squarely into the possibility of losing my man in order to let go of the fear and attachment I had around our love. And yesterday morning, my man packed his bags and left. Not because he doesn't love me deeply - he does - but because he can't take on my son as well. Stepping into a parenting situation with a … [Read more...]
Why Letting Go is a Crucial Aspect of Loving Well
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat It's the summer of 2000 and I've just come back to Whistler, BC after nine weeks living on the side of a volcano in Maui. I'd been on a mad adventure with a man I'd meet waitressing that winter in Whistler - but that's another story. My life is packed full of stories from that time, many of them involving men. I was young, carefree and a permanent traveller. It was four years since I'd graduated my Journalism Course and bailed on New Zealand, … [Read more...]
Do I dare open into the belly of my own desire?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I'm sitting in the Picton Ferry Terminal, about to head over to Wellington for my second book launch event. The first was at the International Yoga Conference and Festival at Kawai Purapura last weekend. It was both a blissful and challenging experience, and - as always - a learning experience. The bliss came in teaching a class to 40+ eager yogis and feeling the flow alongside them. It was such a joy to share my teaching and my yoga. It was … [Read more...]
There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t need fixing
By Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I wrote this article about four weeks ago. It's an example of how subtle our layers of reality are. It starts with a story I'm telling about my life and about myself. Out of that story, I extrapolate an unconscious belief, identifying this belief as something that needs fixing, changing, letting go, or releasing so my conscious reality will change. This has been a useful process that's helped me heal much over the last few years. Yet this process … [Read more...]
Thoughts on living in an awakening world
An Interview with Prajnaparamita, an awakened Master Prajnaparamita is leading a retreat at Kawaipurapura on Feburary 16 and 17. Find out more here. 1. There seems to be a big shift in the way businesses are being run and in the way people are reconsidering their lives. What do you see happening? Globally, structures are breaking down on all levels. They can no longer hold themselves. The banks, politics and many corporations, the way they were used to operating is no longer … [Read more...]
Treading water on the void – an interview with Zoë Wild
by guest author Peter Fernando, A Month of Mindfulness This interview is part of a one hour conversation I had with Zoë, a former Buddhist nun, in April 2012. You can the rest of her insightful and heartfelt reflections on the Month of Mindfulness blog, here. Peter: You seem to have a fluidity in terms of your relationship to spiritual forms. Looking at your path so far, there seems to be a real sense of an understanding of the transparency of forms, as well as a great respect for them. … [Read more...]
10 reasons why I’m excited to choose corporate work over teaching yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Oh yes loyal Lunchboxers, after weighing up what I need in my life right now, I've decided to forgo trying to earn a living wage as a yoga teacher and website publisher, and instead head back into the workplace. I've been sprucing up my CV, writing cover letters, and getting in touch with recruitment agencies. It feels GREAT! Normally the story we hear is about people getting disillusioned with working for a living, with being in the corporate … [Read more...]
What’s Love Got to Do with Meditation?
by guest author Peter Fernando, Meditation and Mindfulness In many traditions, the practice of kindness and love is an integral part of the meditative journey. You may wonder, 'why?' Sometimes the way that the concept of 'mindfulness' is presented can make it seem like a utilitarian technique to become more efficient, or more functional in the world. This is certainly a part of it, of course. But then there's the love thing. You can't go too far into any authentic contemplative tradition … [Read more...]