If you’ve been enjoying summer’s warmth for a few days in a row now, you might find that raging fire inside you needs a little cooling. According to Ayurveda, summer can bring feelings of agitation, heart burn, nausea, impatience and anger. It’s the time of pitta dosha, with its qualities of heat, oiliness and inflammation.

How do you know if your pitta is out of balance? If you suffer any of the problems listed above, you’re probably pitta-deranged (nice term, eh?) Eat light, fresh foods with minimal spices. Avoid fried and overly salted food, and drink cooled herbal teas such as rose or peppermint.

All of these are good examples of actions you can take, but in my experience, the best thing you can do is to slow down and start to really observe what’s going on in your body. I’ve seen it happen time and time again: people find solutions when they step into trusting the body’s wisdom.

This month I’m writing about this very topic in my second newsletter, Body Sense Yoga Therapy and Ayurveda

Words & Yoga

In case you missed last week’s post, I’ve decided to step away from Words & Yoga for the time being. This is the last Monthly Gathering you’ll get, though if you’re a paying subscriber, you’ll continue to receive the weekly recordings and be able to join my classes (founding members).

I’m focusing my attention on Body Sense Yoga Therapy and Ayurveda and I’d love it if you would join me there. The next article is due in mid June, and I’ll soon be writing weekly posts that link to the longer quarterly one.

I’ll be writing about:

• The hidden messages in wellness culture

• The subtle ways we learn to mistrust our bodies

• How language changes the way we experience being in our bodies

• Embodiment as relationship rather than self-improvement

• Seasonal living in the modern world

• Effort, ambition and overdrive culture

• What pain science reveals about how we move

• The hidden philosophies inside yoga cues

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

I’m taking a short break and will be back to the online classes on June 15th. They happen on Mondays, 9-9.45am, UK time. Get in touch if you’d like to join.

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House sitting for friends brings new experiences, unexplored deciduous forest and space enough to contemplate life without all the distractions that being at home brings.

And it’s a welcome space because this month I’m embarking on a new part of an old journey. I start my Ayurveda diploma, which is really just a continuation of a path I’ve been on for a couple of years, but is one that feels fresh and exciting all the same.

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As I meander my way down winding woodland paths, my thoughts ramble too, from new adventures to old journeys, and my mind is pulled back to a workshop I ran at the weekend. It was all about lymph, and I’m recalling how, unlike blood, lymph doesn’t pump around your body on its own. It needs warmth, movement and stimulation.

And isn’t that just like a new project? You can’t launch it without working. At the end of my weekend workshop, I asked people their main takeaways. This is what one person said:

“More music. More dancing”.

It was a revelation. During that workshop, I saw people that have been coming to my classes for years move in ways I’ve not seen them move before. Why? Because we had music to help the flow. So if

music provides that warmth and the movement needed for healthy lymphatic flow, should this become a standard part of my teaching?

I’d love to know your thoughts.

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I’ve avoided having music in my classes simply because I learned yoga without music and I’m a fan of tradition (sometimes). But seeing the joy on people’s faces this weekend taught me something: change is also ok.

Helping the flow

I stumble upon pines being tapped for their sap, a medieval practice that yields resin for glue and turps. And I notice how the wound made in the trunk of the tree invites the tree to give its gifts.

Sometimes you need to help the flow. Lymph needs movement. Pines need a wound. New ideas need space to move.

I’ve been holding onto what I thought was ‘right’, but this weekend, seeing the joy on people’s faces as they moved in time to the music, I realise I’ve been blocking that flow. And I wonder how many other flows I’ve been unintentionally holding back.

I believe that delving into Ayurveda will stimulate whole rivers I’ve not even recognised before, and as I stand on this threshold, my mind is on how lymph, that lovely watery fluid that gathers cellular waste from your body and carries it away, is literally keeping you alive.

And yet, most of us have barely given it a thought. With this in mind, I wonder, what other flows am I neglecting? What else needs stimulation that’s kept out in the cold?

Sometimes, like pine trees, we need to be cracked open for the sweetness to flow. And I, for one, have decided something.

In my classes, we’ll have more music. More dancing. And I’m curious to know, what flows are blocked in your life? This month, I’m paying attention to the hidden things; the things that need warmth and movement to gush once more, and the things that need to be tapped into for their goodness to flow.

Perhaps you will too.

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Some news

I don’t usually publicise my events and workshops here, because, being run in small spaces, they tend to be invite-only. But next week I’m hosting a free event in Coja, so if you do happen to be local, please pop along.

Anxiety pulls you into the future, but your body only ever lives in the present. Yoga teaches you to use breath, movement, and body awareness to come back, not once a week in a yoga class, but in the small moments of your day.

Your nervous system is trainable, and that’s what we’ll be discussing and experiencing.

Tuesday 5th May at RIJU, Côja, 9.30-12.30

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

We’re focusing on lymph flow and twists this May, so if you’ve been considering joining my online classes (Mondays, 9-9.45am, UK/Lisbon time), now is the perfect time. Get in touch for the Zoom link.

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Another month rolls in. The first Tuesday of the month sees me sitting in grief. Not for anything or anyone in particular, but as part of a grief circle in which some grieve for loved ones, others for the land.

We all know loss.

When loved ones die, they leave a space inside that will never heal. It’s a void, the shape of which you never knew existed, but which may, in time, give shelter to other entities, just as the gorgeous wound in the tree protects a host of small creatures and creeping moss. It will always be hollow, and yet it breeds life.

And if you live in a world that burns, you’ll know that when it does, something inside you burns too. How can there be life in those flames, you might wonder? But once the blaze has passed, tiny flowers appear from the ashes, more than you’ve ever seen.

Ever opened up to grief and found life come bursting through?

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Here, there are those whose land has burned twice in a decade. And as we move away from the floods and the storms of winter, new terrors loom. Fire season has already begun.

Wherever you are, spring, in all its glory, can be fraught with overwhelm. The phenomenal speed at which everything changes offers the perfect opportunity for grief practices, because as soon as you glance away, the buds you were just admiring have gone, grown into something else. And just as quickly, the flowers have fallen and are plumping into fruits.

The cycles of the seasons are never-ending. But is this also the end of some larger cycle we can’t truly understand? Dimly aware of its edges in our peripheral vision, must we keep walking through this forest of life?

As the world, seemingly intent on its own destruction, teeters on the very edge of complete chaos, I’m reminded that life, like loss, is never-ending. Cyclical in nature, grief is a thing that, once you know it, visits frequently. So how will you greet her? As an enemy or a friend?

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Tips on working with grief

1. Sit with the hollow. Sit comfortably on a chair or the floor. Inhale, then let it go. Find the bottom of this exhalation and pause for a moment without rushing to the next in-breath. Notice how your body breathes itself back. You don’t have to do anything. The shape of what you lost is the space that makes room for whatever comes next.

2. Find your wound. Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. Gently recall something or someone you’ve lost without trying to fix anything. Notice where in your body you feel it, allowing your grief to have a shape, a texture, a colour or a sound.

3. Meet the grief. Sit comfortably in a chair or on the floor. Slowly circle one shoulder backwards, then the other. Roll both together, noticing any resistance or tension. Move on to gentle hip circles or shift your weight from side to side. Grief lives in these joints, but you don’t need to name it. Let it move like water.

4. Breathe for the seasons. Sit quietly and comfortably and inhale for spring. Feel its newness arrive. Pause briefly for summer. No straining. Take a long, deep exhalation for autumn, allowing yourself to fully let go, and pause gently for winter. Repeat as many times as feels right and notice which season your body wants to linger in.

The Monthly Wind-Down

Paying subscribers can join me once a month for a 45-minute Monthly Wind-Down session.

So far, they’ve been running on a Sunday, but this month’s session will happen at 8-8.45 pm on Thursday 23rd April.

I’ll be sending the Zoom link to paid subscribers soon. If you’re not a paid subscriber but would like to join a session, get in touch to book your place.

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

We’re focusing on awakening the body through gentle backbends this April, so if you’ve been considering joining my online classes (Mondays, 9-9.45am, UK/Lisbon time), now is the perfect time. Get in touch for the Zoom link.

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See how spring flowers unfurl out of the Earth? If you naturally find yourself stretching and yawning, stepping outside with a blanket at s…

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On foot, you recognise more easily the small things.

Round, shiny pebbles, cracks in the pavement, tiny flowers blooming out of them, and shimmering shards of broken glass. They all have their stories, but who has time to wonder?

I’ve been gifting myself time of late; time to read the little stories in the world, and with the world’s really big stories collapsing before our very eyes, finding meaning in life’s crumbs is a gift indeed.

My fingers trace history in the creepers strangling a tree. I gaze into the future each time the sun rises. I listen to the jungle grow beneath my feet, and breathe in and out the scent of pure sunshine.

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As I write this, I’m on a 6-day retreat in a quiet location in the north of Goa. The Asian koel sounds overhead. Eeu, eeu, it cries, and a boy stands in front of me, hosing down the garden. The scent of the earth rises as the sun grows heavy in the sky, and as the ripe day nears its end, I bear witness to this place, right now.

I could be anywhere: back in Europe where friends have been building snowmen in their gardens and battling high winds; on the beach down the road, feeling the froth of the sea on my feet; or somewhere else entirely, somewhere I’ve never been before, with wind whipping in my face.

I could be watching my river swell and burst, could count the flowers blooming pre-spring, and witness the rain that falls in all directions (not just down). At some point, I realise that where I am and what is happening matter less than my presence.

Established in awareness, I don’t react to the unspeakable pressures of witnessing this crumbling world. With attention, I see what yearns to be seen right here: delicate flowers unfurling on the lotus pond; the dainty fronds of the touch-me-not plant that curl up in response to my prodding them. The plant reacts. I try not to.

Winter isn’t the time for taking huge, life-changing steps

But it’s the perfect time to take a tiny turn: one of those subtle hip movements you learn in a martial art practice. It takes a minuscule amount of energy to perform, but has, potentially, a huge effect.

I find myself sharpening my tools, ready for what’s to come.

I find myself with big ideas that, I realise, can come about with just a tiny shift.

With this in mind, I’ve rewritten my start here page, and I’d love for you to read it because it describes exactly what I want to share with you in this newsletter. It’s not exactly a manifesto—more a mission statement. But I want you fully on board before we take this flight any further together.

Because Words & Yoga is changing … ever so slightly. I’ll let you know more next month, but I’ve tricks up my sleeve.

You’ll notice already, the format has changed. Where once I would share hints and tips in the first post of the month, now I share only ideas. I present them to you on a platter—my gift to you. And you can choose what to do with them.

I’m viewing life—and yoga—through a poetic lens, and I invite you along for the ride.

But as Krishna reminds Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, we have only the right to act. We do not have the right to the fruits of our actions.

So it’s entirely up to you whether you choose to contemplate the small things in life this month or whether you stop reading before you reach the end of this article.

It’s up to you whether you hit the like button or choose to leave a comment. And it’s your choice entirely whether to use any of what I’ve said here in your own life.

Instead of sharing hints and tips, I leave you with a list of small things I’ve noticed recently. I’d love to hear about anything you have to add to the list!

• Broken pottery just visible in the dust of Earth

• A gold lamé sandal thrown to the side of the road

• Plastic bag upon plastic bag littering the roadsides

• A mangy dog with sad eyes and overly long nails curling around his paws

• Tiny yellow flowers dancing in the morning sun

• An old piece of yellow saaf (cloth) tied in tattered shreds to a banyan tree

• Money glinting on a countertop

• The sharp flash of a black-tailed golden oriole landing on a branch overhead

• Water lapping

I wrote this entire list from memory before realising there’s a pattern to it. The colours I’m noticing are yellow and clay-coloured, golden and shimmery.

What colours are you noticing of late?

Leave a comment

The Sunday Wind-Down

As you probably know, I’m taking a break this month, so there will be NO SUNDAY WIND-DOWN SESSION this month. We’ll meet again in March.

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Have a beautiful month, dear one.

Read more

I distinctly recall, in years gone by, the feelings of gloom that accompanied January; the hangover from Christmas and New Year celebrations, cold, wintry days, and the extra daylight only serving to shed light on the harshness of the world.

These days. I like the quiet of winter. I’ve learned that you can decide how you view things, and I choose to see January as a magical month.

Winter is bone time, the only time it’s really possible to go right to the core, and this month, in my classes in-person and online, we’ll be focusing on the sacrum, that most sacred of bones.

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Os sacrum

In Latin, the sacrum was os sacrum (sacred bone).In ancient times, it was associated with fertility and life force, and is said, in the yogic texts, to be where kundalini resides: that potent, vital energy oft-described as a coiled serpent. When the snake awakens, it is said, it moves up the spine, bringing nourishment, cleansing and transformation.

I was taught the sacrum was the last part to burn during funeral rites, but this turns out to be a myth. No bone fully burns, and many large bones will remain intact: the skull, pelvis, femurs and spine, as well as the sacrum.

But still, the sacrum has its own charms.

Crucial for spinal health and stability, your sacrum is a bony structure that was once five extra vertebral segments. They fused when you were around ten years old, so there’s not much movement there these days. However, it does move gently:

• When you walk (from side to side)

• When you breathe (backwards and forwards)

• In rhythm with the fluid that bathes your spine and brain.

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Your brain and spinal cord are wrapped in a fibrous membrane that attaches inside the sacrum. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) rises and falls along the spine, making wave-like movements to nourish your nervous system, bring safe movement into the spine and remove waste.

This wave moves in time with your breath and your heartbeat, and your body, rather than attempting to control it, adapts to its rhythms. The movements affect your sacrum, creating tiny changes in tension in the membrane, so that it responds with its own minuscule movements.

You don’t necessarily feel these movements, but they ease pressure in the spine, pelvis and legs, guiding how forces move through these areas. You can imagine your sacrum like a rudder, gently navigating, balancing movement, responding to your breath.

Bridge between heaven and earth

In ancient times, the sacrum was seen as the seat of the soul, linked to resurrection. It was regarded as the home of your spiritual energy, nicknamed one’s own dwelling place.

As a centre of gravity in your body, the sacrum can be experienced as a bridge between the grounding sensations coming from the forces in your legs and the lightness you feel in the upper body when breathing smoothly and easily.

Your sacrum is a meeting point where balance and movement organise themselves. A yoga practice focused on the sacrum can be soothing and anchoring. What better for a cold January day?

Just as your vagus nerve plays a major role in the ‘rest and digest’ functions of organs in your upper body (heart, lungs, liver), so your sacral region houses nerves that support ‘rest and digest’ functions in the lower body (bladder, bowel).

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Sacral problems

Your sacrum can become a holding place for trauma and stuck emotions and its central position can make it a hub for pain and discomfort.

Here are some things to look out for:

• SI joint issues. Your SI (sacroiliac joint) links your sacrum to the pelvis and is responsible for transferring weight between the upper body and legs. Excessive ‘hip opening’ poses can stress the SI joint, leading to pain here.

• Sciatica. Inflammation of the sciatic nerve, which is part of the sacral plexus nerve bundle.

• Being a woman. Women are more likely to have problems here than men, because a woman’s wide hips (for birthing) can increase torque on the SI joint.

• Prolonged sitting and leg crossing. This can put more torque on the joint, leading to pain and discomfort.

Mid-winter practices for soothing and anchoring

If you have pain in the sacral region, proceed with caution. But do proceed. You want your pelvis and SI joint to move with your spine, so letting go of tension here (through mindful breath and movement) can help.

Remember, while gentle forward bends may release tension, asymmetrical poses can torque the ligaments. If you’re experiencing a flare-up, practice symmetrical movements only.

As always, move with care and curiosity.

1. Find your sacrum. Place your hands on your hips to find the hip bone, then walk them around to your back. Your sacrum is the triangular bone that sits between the iliac crests and above the tailbone.

2. Child’s pose. Curling upon yourself, your sacrum widens as your spine lengthens and your pelvic floor softens. This is a perfect position for introspection.

3. Lie on your back. Draw your knees to your chest. This is child's pose in reverse. What happens to your sacrum as you make gentle circles? As the knees come together, do you feel a gentle pressure? As they come apart, can you connect with the spaciousness?

4. Pelvic tilts. Flatten your lower back onto the floor and then gently arch it away. You can move with your breath. See what naturally arises.

5. Lie on your front. How does your sacrum feel here? You might experience a ‘pulling in’ sensation. Maybe it’s uncomfortable. Prone backbends (sphinx or cobra, for example) can build tone and strength in this region.

When moving from your sacrum, you’ll notice that all movement is connected to either your:

• Lumbar spine (above)

• Pelvic bones/hip joints (next to)

• Tailbone (below)

On this cool winter morning, I wish you joy in your practice and beyond.

The Sunday Wind-Down

I’m offering all paying subscribers the opportunity to join me once a month for a 45-minute Sunday wind-down session.

This month’s session will happen at the earlier time of 2-2.45 PM on Sunday, 25th January.

I’ll be sending the Zoom link to paid subscribers soon. If you’re not a paid subscriber but would like to join a session, you can do so here.

Interested in becoming a paid subscriber?

What you’ll get for the price of a posh coffee

🪷 All free subscriber benefits.

🪷 A monthly recording of one of my online yoga classes and access to the full archive.

🪷 Join my 45-minute Sunday wind-down session every month.

And don’t forget,

If you upgrade to a founding member, you can also join me for a gentle yoga session EVERY Monday morning, 9-9.45 am (UK/Lisbon time).

Please note. I’m taking a break from online classes in February.

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Have a beautiful and sacred month, dear one.

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Are they etched with scars and callouses, or are they smooth and unblemished? Do your hands feel dry in these winter months, or do you suffer from sweaty palms year-round?

Carpel tunnel, broken fingers, sprained wrist, tendonitis, trigger finger, arthritis, Raynaud’s, peripheral neuropathy, overuse … the list of problems you might have with your hands in a lifetime goes on and on.

Imagine a day without hands. How would you clean your teeth, wash your face, tie your shoelaces, or make a cup of tea? How would you provide for yourself? It’s possible to live without hands, yes, but it would require a lot of effort.

Yet despite the work they do, unless you have something ‘wrong’ with your hands, you probably never stop to consider them.

You might work on your lower body or upper body. You’re probably aware of your need to twist from time to time, and to mobilise your neck and shoulders, but what thoughts do you spare to your hardworking hands?

This month, it’s all about the moving, sensing, expressive parts that live at the ends of your arms. Your hands have more space in your brain devoted to them than your legs or your torso.

Your fingers are so precise that they can type words like this on a keyboard made of little plastic buttons. They can pick up the tiniest of seeds, and they’re lined with veinlike patterns that are unique to you.

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All this and yet there are no muscles in your fingers. The work they do is thanks to a system of long tendons and muscles in your forearms. Having strong hands keeps your wrists and shoulders healthy, but that’s not all. The strength of your grip predicts your overall strength, bone mass density, and your risk of falls and fractures.

If you suddenly lose grip strength, it’s a significant predictor of mortality, meaning those with better grip strength have better rates of longevity.

But it works both ways. Not only is grip strength an indicator of neuromuscular health and vitality, but if you strengthen the muscles in your hands, you’ll support whole-body function as you age.

Your hands are extensions of your heart

Do you use your hands to gesture as you speak? Your hands are extensions of your emotions, instruments of expression in their own right.

Bringing the hands together is fundamental in yoga. You might do it at the start and the end of a practice, as well as in poses such as Virabhadrasana (warrior) I and III and Vrksasana (tree). Yoga (to yoke) is a coming together: Two becoming one.

In the simple namaskar mudra, pressing the palms together in front of your chest, the two hands become one. A circuit is completed, and it might bring feelings of calm. Try it and see. There’s a reason why people in prayer all around the world have adopted this position as one of pacifism and humility.

In modern science, stronger hands are illustrative of a healthy heart, but you’ve always known that your hands were connected to your heart. Why else would you reach out to touch someone in pain?

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They’re also gateways to your nervous system

The matrix of nerves carrying sensory information from your hands to your brain also carries motor commands back to your hands. That comforting touch you receive from another helps your nervous system return to homeostasis when something knocks you off balance.

As objects of expression, your hands can voice your innermost feelings. Have you spoken to someone whose voice said one thing but whose hands said quite another?

When you lie down to relax, do your fingers unintentionally twitch?

When you turn your hands into fists, can you feel it in your belly? This illustrates the brain-gut connection, where muscle tightness in the hands (often caused by stress) can affect the gut, inhibiting digestion.

If you suffer from IBS, bloating or constipation, check your hands the next time you eat. Tension there is indicative of the stress response, which will divert blood away from your gut to your muscles and brain (ready for fight or flight). A few mindful breaths and a stretch of the hands before eating can help.

Your hands are also anchors. In yoga, you often push your hands into the ground for stability. Like this, your hands become feet, anchoring you to the earth.

Tips on working with your hands

1. Strengthen them. If your hands ache, strengthening them can be way more beneficial than stretching them. You can use weights and resistance bands, but even the simple actions of pressing your palms firmly into one another (or the ground) and then curling the fingers of one hand around those of another and pulling can help strengthen the muscles of your wrists and forearms.

2. Stretch them. Spread your fingers and make fists. Make light fists and circle from the wrists. Gently grab hold of the fingers of one hand with the other and pull so you get a lengthening sensation in the back of the forearm.

3. Massage them. Give your hands some love! You don’t need to know any fancy techniques. Just rub your hands with one another using scented oil if you like.

4. Remember them. Start noticing your hands as you move through your day. What are they telling you about the state of your nervous system? Are they soft and relaxed, or itching to keep moving?

I’ll be honest. I didn’t tell my students we were focusing on the hands this month in class until we started. I thought they might find the hands so boring that they’d be tempted to stay in bed!

But I’ve had excellent feedback from my classes. It turns out that people’s hands are feeling neglected. And a little bit of attention goes a long way.

Here’s my challenge to you this week. Watch what your hands are doing. Do you hold tension in your fingers? What are your hands telling you about the state of your nervous system?

The Sunday Wind-Down

I’m offering all paying subscribers the opportunity to join me once a month for a 45-minute Sunday wind-down session.

This month’s session will happen at 8.15 pm on Sunday, 28th December

I’ll be sending the Zoom link to paid subscribers soon. If you’re not a paid subscriber but would like to join a session, get in touch.

Interested in becoming a paid subscriber?

What you’ll get for the price of a posh coffee

🪷 All free subscriber benefits.

🪷 A monthly recording of one of my online yoga classes and access to the full archive.

🪷 Join my 45-minute Sunday wind-down session every month.

And don’t forget,

If you upgrade to a founding member, you can also join me for a gentle yoga session EVERY Monday morning, 9-9.45 am (UK/Lisbon time).

One last thing

If you are a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Have a beautiful week, dear one.

Read more

Are you sure?

In the words of Krishnamurti:

“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

So it depends on what you’re measuring your health against. If you’re judging it against industry standards, the norms of late-stage capitalism, or the guidelines set out by our post-truth culture, you’re going to get skewed results.

We live in an era in which harmless (and quite nice) words such as wellness, self-care, detox and mindfulness have been hijacked by an industry worth billions, and that industry depends on you staying unwell, unsatisfied, unbalanced and unhappy.

This is all true.

And yet, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to listen too hard to those who complain loudly. I ask them (silently, for these people don’t want conversation): What are you doing about changing yourself?

It’s easy to be negative about the world and we must fight its norms and values.

But it’s much harder to make positive change in your own life and that’s often the place where real change can have its most profound effects.

Isn’t it?

And do you know what? Those hijacked words the wellness industry is busy throwing at you have deep meanings that are worth paying attention to.

What would real wellness mean to you?

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It can mean different things to different people, and will change throughout your life. Part of deep wellness is to understand the qualities of change.

“The contact of bodily senses with objects and attractions in the world creates feelings like sorrow or happiness, and sensations like heat or cold. But these are impermanent, transitory, coming and going like passing clouds. Just endure them patiently and bravely; learn to be unaffected by them.”

The Bhagavad Gita teaches us we must fight—not in war or violent combat—but as a call to action to carry out our duties. And truth be told, in this modern world, we’re either fighting the system or we’re fighting our deep, inherent nature. The two are not compatible!

Every day is a little fight. But every day is also filled with magical moments, if only you stop to notice them. I try and recall three magical moments from my day each time my head hits the pillow at night. Yesterday’s were:

• A cup of tea taken in the autumn sun with my friend and neighbour;

• Sitting down in the evening in my newly cleaned kitchen, having spent time sweeping, mopping and generally tidying;

• Watching the new ducks waddling around in the garden and splashing themselves with water with joy.

These all took work to achieve because phrases like I’m too busy and it will be too much effort are all too common in my life and possibly yours as well. But if they make it into the highlights of your day, then what could be better?

Embodying the threshold

Right now, we’re standing at many thresholds, transitioning between summer and winter, between moving out and moving in. We’re also constantly finding ourselves at the threshold of past and future, and the choices we make right now will affect our future moments.

And some call these times we live in a threshold moment. With all of the turbulence and technological breakthroughs, it certainly seems so. Cultivating an embodied practice has never been so necessary.

To explore thresholds in the body, you can start in the hips. Your hips allow you to step forwards or change direction. They link upper and lower parts of the body and so can be called threshold points.

If you’ve been practicing yoga for a while, you might well think of ‘hip openers’ when you think of yoga. Pigeon pose and low lunge are said to ‘open’ or stretch your hips, bringing more spaciousness and relieving tightness.

But in my experience, hip strengtheners are much more useful. In my experience, most people (including me, from time to time), have weakness in the hips, and can benefit from strengthening the area.

Signs of hip weakness:

• An uneven gait;

• Pain on walking/climbing stairs;

• Pain in the hip, groin or lower back;

• Fatigue in the hips when standing for long periods;

• Grating or clicking sensations in the hip joint.

You know that sitting for long periods of time (hands up if you sit too much) causes hip tightness.

But it also causes hip weakness. Even though, when healthy, the hips support your entire posture and spinal alignment, allowing you to move freely and easily through life, the hips tend to be overlooked parts of the body.

At the gym, it’s common to do upper-body workouts or lower-body workouts. But what about the bit in the middle that holds it all together?

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The test and what to do about it

Want to know if your hips are weak? Try standing on one leg, with the opposite knee raised to hip height. If your standing leg hip starts to feel uncomfortable after just a few seconds, it’s a clear sign of weakness.

The good news is that it doesn’t take much to strengthen your hips. You don’t need to go to the gym or start pumping iron (unless you want to).

1. Hip circles. This is an easy thing you can do before getting out of bed in the morning. Lie on your back, hug one knee to your chest and circle from the hip in either direction.

2. Take regular walks. Walking, especially on rough, uneven ground and on inclines, will take your hips through their healthy range of motion. Your daily walk should be non-negotiable, especially if you sit for extended periods.

3. Forget about stretching. While stretching the hips improves blood flow and feels good in the moment, it’s easy to overdo it, especially if you have chronic weakness. Your daily walk will give you all the stretching you need for now. Instead, focus on strengthening.

4. March. Sitting on a chair (without leaning against the backrest), rest both feet on the floor. Then lift one knee (without using your hands), hold for a few seconds, and release. Repeat on the other side and do 10-15 times on each side. Once you know you have the strength, you can do the same thing standing with your back against a wall.

5. Hip hikes. This is my favourite, go-to exercise for hip weakness. It helps strengthen your glutes and improves hip stability. Stand one foot on a step or a yoga block (ensure the whole foot fits comfortably). Start with the hips level, the other foot floating, then hike the standing leg hip down and up. Keep both legs straight and repeat 10-15 times before switching sides.

You might well notice that one of your hips is weaker than the other, and if you do, congratulations! This is self-study!

A quick note on svadhyaya

Svadhyaya means self-study, and is one of the Niyamas (observances) in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It’s often described as the examination of your inner world, but guess what?

We are physical beings!

On the path to greater spirituality, you might forget that, but acknowledging your physical body and learning how to care for it can definitely be a part of your svadhyaya practice.

A share

While I was writing this essay, a stunning song by Portishead was running through my mind. I was 14 when this album came out and, more than 30 years later, this song still sends a shiver down my spine. I leave you Roads, a song which speaks to me of a moment of transition:

That’s it for this week’s essay, but keep reading for exciting news. As we stand at the threshold of the year, I hope you find the strength to walk forwards with confidence. If it feels wrong, try something else.

Starting this month

I’m offering all paying subscribers the opportunity to join me once a month for a 45-minute Sunday wind-down session.

This month’s session will happen at 8.15pm on Sunday 9th November.

I’ll be sending the Zoom link to paid subscribers soon. If you’re not a paid subscriber but would like to know more, read on …

What you’ll get for the price of a posh coffee

🪷 All free subscriber benefits.

🪷 A monthly recording of one of my online yoga classes and access to the full archive.

🪷 NEW: Join me for a 45-minute Sunday wind-down session every month.

And don’t forget,

If you upgrade to a founding member, you can also join me for a gentle yoga session EVERY Monday morning, 9-9.45 am (UK/Lisbon time).

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Have a beautiful week, dear one.

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But have you ever been on a building site with a cement mixer going all day? It’s been going so long that you’ve forgotten it’s there, but you feel tense and you’re not sure why. Then, at the end of the day, someone turns off the machine and a beautiful peace creeps over you as you realise that everything is ok again.

Or you might have been cooking under a loud extractor fan and forgotten to turn it off. Someone walks into the room and asks why it’s still on. You hit the switch and are surprised to feel instantly calmer.

When the noise is continuous, you’re not necessarily aware of its presence. And on a conscious level, you might not even be aware of its impact on your body, mind or emotions. Your nervous system and even your breath can be affected, and you might not even notice.

Your system notices.

What if there were some loud, omnipresent noise making you tense that you just can’t hear?

There is!

It’s called modern life.

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All that traffic noise, the sound of industry and power tools … it’s damaging to your health! Once your brain detects such noises, it triggers your nervous system and the release of stress hormones. This increases your heart rate, inflammation and blood pressure, leading to increased risk of heart attack, stroke and general ill health..

Just this week, Lisbon residents staged a symbolic protest against intolerable nighttime noise, lying on blankets on the street to demand the right to rest.

Has it really come to this?

And this isn’t even the noise I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the kind of drone that’s been going on for so long you’ve entirely forgotten it’s there. Even though your body takes on the stress of this sound, you’re hard-pressed to describe it because it’s been relentless in your life since before you were born.

It’s the news and all of the noise of society, from information and disinformation to information overload. Designed not to inform you but to make you think a certain way; designed to be addictive; to drip-feed you little dopamine-filled shocks that keep you wanting more. More drama, more fear, more hatred of ‘the other’, whomever the other may be at this particular time.

I’m not suggesting you don’t stay informed about the world. But how much news is enough news? And do you really trust the person bringing it to you?

An autumn digital detox

I invite you to give yourself a digital detox this autumn, and here are some ways to do it:

• Practice good sleep hygiene, switching off your device two hours before sleeping and only turning it on again two hours after waking.

• Consider your social media use. Can you reduce it?

• Go through your email inbox. If it’s crammed (like mine) with emails you never read, can you unsubscribe from one or two of them?

• Consider the activity you do while listening to a podcast or audiobook. Can you do it, instead, in silence or listening to the sounds of nature?

• Notice how frequently your phone is in your hand. Can you leave it at home sometimes? Can you go for several hours at a time without looking at it? If that seems hard, ask yourself what the definition of addiction is.

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Your body holds the score

Take your awareness to hip and groin, where leg meets pelvis. This area spends most of its life folded. Whether you’re sitting, walking or lying on your side with legs bent, you’re folding almost in half.

This inguinal crease—the crease at the top of your thighs—is home to your body’s largest number of lymph nodes. They filter lymph and help your immune system stay strong, fighting disease in the legs and pelvic region, but prolonged sitting (we all sit too much) hinders lymph flow in this area, because it’s movement that drains the waste and abnormal cells.

This region is also deeply connected to your emotions and mental state. Just as you lift your shoulders and tighten your belly when you feel stressed, you also hold tension in the pelvic floor and iliopsoas, the deep muscle group connecting lower spine and pelvis to your thighs.

Usually referred to as the psoas, this group of muscles connects to your diaphragm via fascia, and when you breathe, the psoas massages surrounding blood vessels and organs. You already know that how you breathe will impact your nervous system and vice versa.

Imagine then, how hyperarousal—prolonged activation of the fight-or-flight response—might lead to tightness in these deep pelvic muscles, impeding diaphragmatic breathing and circulation in the pelvic region, putting pressure on the abdominal organs and vascular structures and leading to feelings of exhaustion and adrenal fatigue.

What does yoga have to say about this?

Yogically speaking, the psoas is deeply linked to three main energy centres or chakras:

Muladhara (root chakra): Located at the base of your spine, Muladhara governs feelings of stability, groundedness and belonging. A tight psoas can manifest here as feelings of fear and insecurity, while a balanced psoas promotes trust and vibrant health.

Svadisthana (sacral chakra): Located just under your navel, Swadisthana represents emotions, creativity and sexuality, When balanced, you feel joy, vibrancy and emotional resilience. When out of balance, you might experience creative blocks and find it hard to regulate your emotions.

Manipura (solar plexus chakra): Located just above the navel, Manipura is the seat of digestion and self-confidence. Imbalances can lead to low self-esteem and digestive issues.

I like the Qi Gong concept of Kwa (or Kua), an area that spans the whole of the pelvic region, spreading upwards to the thoracic diaphragm and downwards to the knees, and encompassing these three base chakras.

Taking your awareness to the Kwa, you feel everything below sinking down, connecting you to Earth, and everything above reaching up with lightness. This is where your centre of gravity lies, and healthy movement comes from here.

This month in our classes, in-person and online, we’re focusing on this expansive region, softening in, opening up, feeling the weight of the centre of gravity and finding the body’s song.

Tips on working with your kwa

1. Notice what brings you stress. Remember, prolonged fight or flight will lead to tightness in the psoas and myriad other issues. Consider what brings you stress and ask yourself: can I do less of it?

2. Use constructive rest pose. Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Ensure the balance in your legs feels good and allow the knees to fall into one another if you like. Keep a little curve in your lower back and allow gravity to release tension deep in your pelvis.

3. Breathe. In this position, place your hands on your belly and feel the rhythmic movement of your belly as you breathe. If the movement is hard to detect, start by increasing the exhalation, but don’t allow the breathing to become stressful. In time, you should notice how your inhalation deepens too.

4. Move. There are plenty of movements you can do for tightness in this region, but I won’t describe them here. You can try rolling around on the floor, being curious about what feels good and what brings more tightness. Be inquisitive and have fun!

5. Sit mindfully. You probably have to sit down today, and you may have to sit for long periods. Make it mindful. If you’re sitting at a desk or table, have your feet flat on the floor, keep your hips level with your knees or slightly lower, and support your lower back. Keep your shoulders and eyes relaxed and ensure your monitor sits at eye level.

6. Root. Use visualisation to help you root down, through your feet or sitting bones. Imagine roots coming out and drilling deeply into the earth.

7. Consider water. Water is deeply connected with the second chakra. As you move, imagine you are water, strong but flowing and moving from within.

8. Strengthen. Throw a few planks and abdominal strengtheners into your practice, but don’t overdo it. You want to be strong in this region, but not tight and shaking!

Most importantly, dear friend, have fun with your movement.

Some exciting news

I had the privilege of joining my friend and fellow teacher, Karan Walsh, last week, for her monthly Rest & Renew session online, and I felt so warm and nourished afterwards that I thought I’d share something similar with you!

So, starting next month, I’ll be offering all paying subscribers the opportunity to join me once a month for a 45-minute Sunday wind-down session.

Ever since I led myself into mini-burnout by making tri-weekly Madrugada videos for paying subscribers, I’ve been wondering what to offer in their place. So thank you, Karan for the inspiration.

I’ll share the date soon. And if you can’t make the live session and you’re a paying subscriber, you’ll get access to the replay.

Subscribe now

What you’ll get for the price of a posh coffee

🪷 All free subscriber benefits.

🪷 A monthly recording of one of my online yoga classes and access to the full archive.

🪷 NEW: Join me for a 45-minute Sunday wind-down session every month.

And don’t forget,

If you upgrade to a founding member, you can also join me for a gentle yoga session EVERY Monday morning, 9-9.45 am (UK/Lisbon time).

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Have a beautiful week, dear one.

Want to support me without becoming a paid subscriber? I really love lapsang souchong tea and would gratefully accept a cup, though I’d much rather we were drinking it together.

Buy me a tea

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If you find yourself holding onto your inhalation, it speaks of your habit of wanting to retain, to hold on to that which needs to pass.

Your lungs don't look like trees for no reason. The fractal shapes of your breathing apparatus, with its branch-like bronchi and alveoli, are shaped that way for maximum surface area, for gas exchange to occur.

And your lungs don't breathe for their own sake. The oxygen you breathe in diffuses into your blood and is carried to each and every cell. So while focusing on your breath during a movement practice, you don't have to focus on your lungs. Through cellular respiration, you are literally breathing into your big toe, your left elbow, or any other part of your body all the time.

Just as deciduous trees start to lose their leaves at this time of year, so you might be called upon to let go of the things you've been holding onto. It's time, if you've lived through a hot summer, to exhale, breathe a sigh of relief, and perhaps to start sleeping more deeply.

The seasonal shift may manifest in your body in other ways.

If you wake up tense and stiff, fall into bed with an aching body, perhaps it's caused by tension. The stress of changing seasons is real. Stretching and moving can help, but have you considered breathing it out?

Your breath, when you think about it, is your link to the rest of ... well ... everything.

Your breath is a running stitch that fastens you to life. You inhale the world and are energised. You exhale yourself into the world, letting go. Linger there awhile, at the end of your exhalation, and you might just learn to suspend time, or at least to slow it down.

Here's an invitation. Close your eyes and imagine a field. Perhaps it's a field through which you sometimes walk, or maybe you once drove past it. What is in your field? Cows? Sheep?

Just as the ruminants of your choice may be completely at home in the pastoral scenes your mind conjures up, so would you appear a fitting part of the picture for any extraterrestrial that happened upon a scene with you in it.

There is nothing separate about you.

And while we're on the point of as within, so without, just as your lungs don't breathe for their own sake, neither do the trees of the earth breathe for themselves. Next time you're in the company of trees, you might remember to thank them.

Doesn't the breath teach us this?

Working with your breath

Very soon, I'm going to be launching my first-ever on-demand programme, Breathe Deep: A 4-Week Journey to Lung Health.

I'm still working out how to create this (wish me luck), but I'm super excited and I'd love for you to join me. I'll share more information soon.

For now, let's look at why you might like to delve into your breath:

1) Slow, deep breathing improves lung capacity, expanding your lungs and increasing respiratory strength.

2) Learning some simple techniques will reduce breathlessness. If you get out of breath walking quickly or on an incline, simple techniques will help you breathe more calmly.

3) Better breathing enhances oxygenation, positively impacting your blood chemistry, bringing more energy and focus to your day.

4) Efficient breathing lowers anxiety and stress. Learning to control your breath activates the parasympathetic system, reducing anxiety and promoting calm.

5) Mindful breath enhances body awareness, helping you feel more in control, not only of your breathing, but also of your health and life in general.

If all that has gotten you thinking about your breath, that's great!

Can you be aware of your breath as you move through your day? There's no need to do anything about it at this stage, but I invite you to start paying attention. Make a conscious decision to start noticing your patterns.

Do you tend to hold your breath when moving heavy objects?

Do you hold your breath while working online?

What happens to your breath in stressful situations?

You might choose simply to become more aware, but you may also prefer to make notes in a journal. Many people find this a helpful way to remember and see patterns.

And then, by all means, take a lovely drink of air. Remember, your breath is what nourishes every cell in your body!

September's classes

This month, we're focusing on the lungs in our weekly online sessions. We meet each Monday, 9-9.45am London/Lisbon time. I'd love for you to join me!

Sessions are usually €8 each, or €20 for the month, but this month I'm offering you the chance to join for free for the whole month! Get in touch by either replying to this message or sending a pm, and I'll send you the link for the class.

One last thing

If you're a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

If you're not a paying subscriber but would like to receive a 45-minute recording of my online class once a month, consider upgrading. And founding members can join my weekly classes without ever paying a penny more.

As always, have a beautiful week.

Don’t forget to hit the like button or free subscribe!

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I hope you're taking time this summer to connect with loved ones. If winter is a time for curling up by the fire with a good book, of going inwards, then summer is the time to throw it all out, to open your heart and get together ... just for the love of it.

August in Continental Europe is when city dwellers down their city tools and head for the homeland. As Europe's cities fill with tourists, they drain of residents who return to the villages of their childhood. Here, in the campo, usually quiet villages are filled with the sound of music and laughter. It's festa time in Portugal, and time for the sardinhada: communal sardine eating out in the streets.

Summer is all about 'we.'

At 5 o'clock most afternoons, these scorching hot days, I carry myself off to a mountain river and glide into the water. It's the only thing that brings relief. As I sail, frog-like, through the water, random thoughts come floating in, oft-related to things I've been reading. Like this:

Have you ever wondered why we capitalise the 'I' when talking about ourselves, but we don't capitalise the 'we'?

In Old and Middle English, 'I' was a much smaller word and was written as 'ich' or 'ic' and finally just 'i'. The story goes that when the vowel sound lengthened, 'i' became 'I' to make it stand out more clearly on the page. But it has also served to reinforce the importance of the Self, a change that apparently crept up on the human psyche.

There's nothing like mingling your body with silken water for feeling less independent and more like an inherent part of everything else.

In Dancing in the Streets, Barbara Ehrenreich describes how at some point around the late sixteenth century, something shifted in "the universal human capacity to face the world as an autonomous 'I,' separate from and largely distrustful of 'them.'"

However, this tendency doesn't (yet) exist in all cultures. I as a concept isn't universal, and when Ehrenreich wrote these words, she was only considering the West. I might not have realised this had I not, a week or so after reading her words, also finished Once Upon a Time in the East. In this memoir, Chinese author Xiaolu Guo speaks of her discomfort at having to start using the first-person singular in London, having grown up in a collective society:

"The habitual use of 'I,'" she says:

"requires thinking of yourself as a separate entity in a society of separate entities ... here, in this foreign country, I had to build a world as a first-person singular."

I'm aware of the irony here. I continue to talk about my experience of reading in the first person, reinforcing my individuality with every sentence. Have you ever tried not speaking in the first person? For the next section, we will be considering ourselves in the plural.

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Who is the other in this we of which you speak?

Let us reclaim the majestic plural (the royal 'we'), used by monarchs expressing themselves as representatives of nation or—worse—divine authority. Let us reclaim the idea of—not groupthink—but solidarity, community.

It's hard in these polarised times to remember that we are all human (those of us who are), and that we all require the same basic things in life. But it's true. We all need air and water and crave to live with purpose.

But while for Chinese people new to the West it's easy to overuse the 'we,' saying, for example, that 'we eat a lot of rice' (and meaning 'we Chinese'), Westerners know that we will be asked for clarification: who is the other in this we of which you speak?

When we get together, we will speak in the plural.

Coming together

Summer festivities—whether it be communal eating or raving in a field— harken back to something primal in all of us; some need to connect and be with others. Much as bathing (in cool water or more metaphorically in a forest) dissolves boundaries between Self and the natural world, Ehrenreich reminds us that:

"The ecstatic experience dissolves the boundaries between self and others... the ‘I’ is no longer separate, but becomes part of a ‘we.’"

She's talking about ecstatic experience, yes, but she's also talking, more simply, of collective joy.

Collective joy doesn't erase the self. It transforms it, expanding our solidarity and connection with others. And that's why traditions like music festivals are not only surviving but thriving in this modern era. As a Hopi proverb states:

"To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak".

What language is your heart speaking?

The 'we' of non-attachment

Reading through my well-thumbed copy of the Yoga Sutras, I'm struck on page 18 by a note I wrote more than a decade ago.

The sloka is this:

abhyāsa-vairāgya-ābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥ

(Mental modifications are restrained by practice and non-attachment).

And my note says:

"Attention to what's arising in the mind; NOT ASANA. This is often misunderstood."

And I'm amazed that anyone really thought that by bending and moving one's body in just the right manner, they could achieve some kind of enlightenment. I think about the naivety of that way of thinking, and then I remember—that was me! I caught the tail end of that wave of yoga practitioners who thought that if we just pushed our bodies hard enough, we'd get there (wherever 'there' is).

It's the individualism of it that strikes me, because surely, if we are to get anywhere, it's as a collective. It's about we, not me.

I hope, but I'm not sure, that the yoga world has changed. I hope I'm not only in an echo chamber, that because I've changed, so has what I hear and see.

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It's about heart

Because really, it's all about heart. Did you know that your heart’s magnetic field reflects your emotional state? It's possible to measure this field up to three feet away from your body, meaning that whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re always impacting your environment.

Just as I seem to become river and my thoughts get more fluid as I swim, so your emotions flow out of you like ribbons, affecting those around you and being affected right back.

What are you putting out into the world, I ask myself? Do you wish to bring people down or lift them up?

Ways of being 'we'

Summertime is for being 'out there,' and it's also a wonderful time for taking yoga off the mat and living your practice. Here are some ideas on how to do that, but I'm sure you can think of many more:

1) Be a good neighbour. Got an elderly neighbour? Offer them help with transport or carrying shopping. Share your harvest, or even just a bit of conversation.

2) Buy local. Supporting a local business or two and you'll help them survive in the face of multinationals.

3) Engage with community. In the end, it's those who live in your locality that you see every day. You don't have to be friends, but getting on makes life better for everyone.

4) Open your heart. One of the amazing things about yoga asanas (or any movement really) is that you can't move your body without affecting your mind. Let your shoulders fall back and lift your sternum, just a little. This is probably enough of a backbend to give you that lifted feeling, in your energy and emotions as well as your body. Contrast this to how you feel when you're slouched over a desk or table, and I reckon you'll notice the difference!

One more thing

If you're a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Feel free to hit the like button ... it really does help!

Have a beautiful week.

Want to support me without becoming a paid subscriber? I really love lapsang souchong tea and would gratefully accept a cup, though I’d much rather we were drinking it together.

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Because it's not always been so of late.

All of this computer work.

Sometimes,

I zone out of the world and fall into synch with the machine before me

(but if you were to ask me, I'd swear blind I'm happy in the moment).

Neither blinking,

nor looking away from my screen.

My eyes, dry.

My shoulders rolled. Breathing,

neither fully nor deeply.

My heart, tough like old leather,

not fully human,

but a tightly curled fist;

a thing of jagged edges, shoved into something soft and yielding.

An obstruction,

a ruction,

form-following-function,

and I yearn for the chance to breathe,

not just fresh air, but fresh water.

I yearn for water.

To breathe underwater

would be

to allow my heart to birth itself anew.

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Thankfully ...

A medium-sized collie-like mongrel makes her needs known with her eyes, forcing me to unhook myself from this world, and plug into another much more beautiful one: a world without edge, made of plant matter and foliage, Earth and Sky.

Sometimes there's a need in my heart for something else, something more earthly. And when we talk about heart, let's not keep the conversation turned solely on the human. It's very easy to forget that there are others here if you don't tread amongst them daily.

There are birds and insects and things that scuttle in the undergrowth. Some sing in faraway ponds, and others come out in the dark. There are plodders and crawlers and gliders and soarers, and some, you never see.

And I don't speak only of those with a heartbeat. There are also those whose hearts are scaffold, those who root deeply in Earth and soar overhead, cleaning the air and bringing shade. In the company of trees, your blood pressure lowers. Stress falls away. Humans can be a source of joy, but let's not forget the non-humans amongst us, those whose existence means we need never feel lonely again.

And joy is a radical act

Or rather, joy is a radical attitude. It's something that happens when you let magic in. It bubbles up from inside and can't be stopped. Joy isn't related to thoughts. You can't think, I got a promotion at work, I can afford a new car and to go on a cruise and feel genuine joy.

Joy is spontaneous. It's the delicious aroma of your dinner being cooked by someone else. It's the new tiny rosebuds blooming in your garden and the sight of the first blue hibiscus flowers. It's the sound of an old friend's voice; the feeling of fresh water, silky on hot skin as you float beneath dappled sunlight with pounding heart. It's the taste of sun-warmed strawberries, straight from the garden, bursting on your tongue.

Joy is a sensory thing, unrelated entirely to how successful you are in life. It's fleeting, so you need to be 'in the moment' to notice it. It's expressed through the senses, and as a multi-sensory being, you need to be embodied to recognise it.

What brought you joy today?

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Santosha

Santosha (contentment) is one of the five Niyamas (observances) in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which states:

“Saṃtoṣāt-anuttamaḥ sukha-lābhaḥ”.

By contentment, supreme joy is gained.

Sri Swami Satchidananda goes further:

"If something comes, we let it come. If not, it doesn't matter. Contentment means neither to like nor dislike."

These are perhaps difficult words to swallow when there's so much turmoil out there in the world. But it's been hot of late. It seems like the perfect time to sit back, if possible, and let in whatever comes. After all, some of what comes might be magic.

Working with joy

Joy is a slippery thing, whimsical in nature. It comes and goes. Here's this month's challenge: Notice joy when it comes.

1) Give yourself space

It could be argued that yoga is all about creating space. Hold space for yourself this month. Take a few moments to sit in silence and notice that silence doesn't really exist. Give yourself permission to lie down and focus on your breath, or to carry out your actions in slow motion with complete awareness.

2) Be aware

If you're moving more slowly, you're bound to be more aware. What do you notice? Does any of it uplift?

3) Use your senses

Get in the habit of looking at detail, of noticing the scent of food before you eat it and flowers as you pass them by. Start listening beyond what you usually hear. Reach out and touch objects with unusual textures. Eat slowly and mindfully.

We're sensory beings! I'd love to hear what slowing down and using your senses brings you this month. Here's a short list of things that have brought me (fleeting) joy so far this month:

• Dipping my head in cool river water;

• The taste of fresh pineapple juice;

• Noticing new leaves unfurling from my Swiss cheese plant;

• The sheer joy of my aged dog scampering, puppy-like, after a stick;

• Blinds pulled against the sun;

• The smell of earth as I water the garden.

Happy list-making, friend!

One more thing

If you're a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

And if my words bring a little joy, please hit the like button!

Have a beautiful week.

Want to support me without becoming a paid subscriber? I really love lapsang souchong tea and would gratefully accept a cup, though I’d much rather we were drinking it together.

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You might imagine that when you eat something, that's it. It's gone and become a part of you. But no, it hasn't, not yet, and perhaps it never will. Whether the food becomes you depends on your ability to digest and assimilate the nutrients in what you eat. If you don't digest it, the food simply moves through your system—using your energy and giving nothing back in return.

At the core of it, we're just creatures roaming around on Planet Earth, eating, defecating, sleeping, and waking, over and over again. As a student nurse, I found this endlessly fascinating.

As a student of Ayurveda, I realise it's truly endless. Simply feeling into my own body, I realise I could never possibly know all there is to know about little old me and how I work. But at the same time, the more I observe in myself, the more the universe seems to expand, decentralising my role in it and making me (and all of my problems) shrink to specks of dust.

At the heart of Ayurveda is digestion. Our word digest comes from the Latin: di (apart) + gerere (to carry). In Old French, geste meant any action, romance, history or exploit. Our digestion is the story of us: what we eat—or rather, what we digest—becomes us. The word geste remains in our language today in the word jest: a thing said or done for amusement. But digestion isn't funny, and if you've ever suffered indigestion, I'm sure you'll agree.

When asked recently why raw food isn't widely recommended in Ayurveda, one of my teachers said this (in so many words):

Yes, raw food is high in nutrients, but if you don't have the capacity to absorb those nutrients, they go to waste. Cooking food is akin to kickstarting off the digestive process. The food may lose some of its nutritional value, but your body can more readily absorb the nutrients, making that food more nutritious.

The invitation of Ayurveda, and yoga in general, is to pay attention, not to follow hard and fast rules. Don't eat raw food or discount it out of habit. Choose it because it works for you. Notice what happens when you eat it. Notice how it makes you feel. And do this with everything you consume.

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Rumbles on the mat

Have you ever felt a burp frothing up from your digestive tract during a yoga session? Heard those oesophageal sounds bubbling away as you move from one position to another? Would you believe it, some people refuse to go to a yoga class in case the practice elicits a fart!

The fact is, all of these sounds and rumblings are completely natural expressions of your digestive tract, and yoga is a wonderful way to improve digestion. If you experience gurgles on the mat, the yoga is changing something, and that's good news!

Your tongue is an astonishing organ. Do you ever consider it? I learn more and more about the tongue all the time, but, as with all learning, the best thing to do when it comes to learning about your tongue isn't to read about it. It's to take your awareness to your tongue.

I invite you, right now, to consider that mucus-laden muscle that sits between your teeth, dotted with taste buds—your tongue. Have you ever noticed how it's ever-changing?

Here's a snippet from my day:

I've eaten lunch and am fully satisfied ... except ... wouldn't it be nice to have a coffee? I've got that lovely milk in the fridge, and I haven't had a coffee for a few days. There's some coffee in the pot that's still warm, and I could pour it into my cup, that lovely small cup I have that feels delicate enough for a treat, then stir in the creamy milk and sit down at my desk. I do it.

And then:

I find myself gurning. My tongue feels a bit bigger than it did. I'm chewing on my tongue, just a little bit. My mouth is tense ... all this from one small coffee!

Next, I'm typing and my fingers start—not hurting exactly, but I become more aware of their joints, as though it might lead to pain later in life.

After 20 minutes or so, I'm less aware of my tongue. Things are returning to normal.

After 25 minutes, the sensations leave my finger joints. The coffee has raced through my system and, seemingly, my amazing body has processed it.

But I wonder, how much of this will my body take? I'm only wondering, not really doing anything about it. After all, I don't have a coffee habit as such. I do have a sugar habit (love the stuff) that I try and keep a lid on, and sometimes I feel as though all this being human is just about pushing boundaries and coming back (hoping to come back) to a midline.

The things no one likes to talk about

The problem with all this noticing is that it brings with it a certain sense of responsibility. If I don't notice the effect my lifestyle choices are having on me, I can't be held responsible for any ill health that occurs because of them. If I knowingly consume that which has a negative effect on my system ... well, it's an unpopular thing to talk about for good reason.

The other things no one likes to talk about (constipation, diarrhoea, irregular bowel movements) don't occur without reason. An irregular lifestyle will exacerbate digestive issues, and knowing that is great, because once you know what causes a problem, it's easy (easier) to make things better.

Let's get this straight, behaviour change is never easy per se, but you don't need to change things overnight. Set your sights on the things you want to change and dance, hop, or lurch in that direction, as the mood takes you.

Tips for improving your digestion this summer

1. Soften your jaw

As the first organ of digestion, your mouth is the best place to start. Move your jaw from side to side, make funny faces, open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue. Pull your lips over your teeth and notice space opening up in the base of your skull. Allow your jaw to slacken and your tongue to soften. Keep coming back to your jaw throughout your day and notice if you're holding tension there. Observe whether you tend to lift your chin and try to keep your neck aligned.

2. Only eat when you're hungry

This might sound obvious, but do you ever eat out of habit, because it's breakfast time, or because you know you'll be hungry in an hour but you're going out right now? I do! Try sticking to eating when you're truly hungry and see how more enjoyable food becomes.

3. Eat with attention

Look at your food. Let your eyes digest it. Smell it and notice saliva being created in your mouth. Chew slowly and mindfully and don't help yourself to seconds until your digestive tract has caught up with your brain. By slowing down, you might start to notice that you get full more quickly, or that you don't let yourself get uncomfortably full. And you might notice the food choices you make having strange effects on your body, like the coffee had on mine!

4. Listen to what your gut is telling you

I'm not talking about intuition here. I'm talking about the gargles coming from your gut! In your yoga practice, as you move through your postures and sequences, do certain movements elicit noises? Try to do the same thing again, and again, until the noises stop. Observe a bit more.

And then get up and get on with the rest of your day.

One last thing

Whoops, I got carried away last week and shared last month's yoga practice video a week early. If you missed it, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

As always, if you liked my words, please hit the like button, and if you don't like them, let me know your thoughts! Have a beautiful week.

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Welcome to the Monthly Gathering, where we get together, metaphorically, once a month to delve into one aspect of modern yoga practice. This is also the place where I normally share a recording of one of the previous month's online classes beneath the …

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What are doing when we do yoga?

In case you didn't know, the word yoga comes from the Sanskrit, yuj, meaning to yoke or to join. It's a name that perfectly describes yoga's action of moving us away from the reductionist ways of seeing mind as something separate from body, as separate from breath, as separate from energy and emotions, and towards something altogether more united.

In some circles, yoga seems to have this reputation as being something hippies do (who knew?), and there's a hardcore element of folk that say yoga isn't scientific. Thankfully, while yoga is rooted in an ancient tradition, it's been taken up as a research topic by scientists from the fields of anatomy, physiology, psychology and beyond, and many of those ancient claims are now backed up by solid science.

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But there are still a lot of things you might hear in a yoga class that don't sound scientific, such as:

take your attention to your kidneys

or

notice the prana (energy) in your body

or

feel into your heart space

or

imagine breathing into your toes.

Proceeding here with inquisitiveness is fundamental.

If you approach your yoga practice with beginner's mind (and with the understanding that every moment is different), then you're really practicing yoga, because you're pulling yourself into the moment, rather than going through habitual motions.

How do we do yoga?

According to Patanjali, a sage who lived around 200 BC, the way to bring union is to quieten the fluctuations of the mind. Remember this? I'm sure we've spoken of it before. Another translation of fluctuation is modifications. Patanjali tells us the world in which we live is created by our thoughts and beliefs and that by gaining control of our minds, we get back to our true nature.

How to do this?

One pointedness.

Patanjali doesn't try to get the whole world sitting cross-legged and meditating, because it's obvious that wouldn't work. If you think accessible yoga is a new thing, check out the Yoga Sutras because Patanjali gives multiple ideas for how to achieve one-pointedness, understanding that we all approach our lives in very different ways.

Very quickly, those ways are:

• Cultivating friendliness to self and others

• Breath retention (pranayama)

• Focusing on subtle sense perceptions

• Concentrating on the light within

• Concentrating on the mind of a noble person

• Focusing on dreams

• Meditating on anything you find uplifting

So you see, there are many ways to 'do yoga', but he hasn't mentioned physical postures!

Meditating on the light within

Vishokā vā jyotishmati

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 1:36

Vishokā: blissful/sorrowless

Jyotishmati: the internal Supreme Light

(Translations by Sr Swami Satchidananda)

A big theme in yoga is that you don't need to seek external happiness but can find a state of bliss within. In his commentary of the Yoga Sutras, Satchidananda says:

"In the beginning one has to imagine this Light, which later becomes a reality".

Have you ever tried imaging something in yoga, that later became a reality? It's amazing what our minds are capable of! But that doesn't mean that concepts such as prana are imaginary. Prana, the vital life force so often spoken about in yoga, is real! You experience it when you eat a vegetable freshly plucked from an organic garden, or a nice head of broccoli in your veg box.

You probably experience heightened prana after an asana, meditation or pranayama session. There are multiple opportunities in your day to increase your prana. Can you think of any?

Iyengar said:

"Yoga is a light which, once lit, will never dim".

But it really has to be lit!

I've seen people come to class for a few weeks and then leave it for pilates or zumba or something else. But if you truly light that fire, it will stay with you, and you can be 'practicing yoga' whilst doing pilates or zumba or anything else.

Way before Patanjali was born, the Upanishads were written. In around 800-500 BC, these illuminating texts came about, and they're well worth reading as a book of exquisite poetry.

The Self is described as the light of human beings, and thought of in this way, it's our selves we are igniting through the practice of yoga, nothing else.

Rather poetic, don't you think?

The Katha Upanishad tells us:

"The self is the light reflected by all.

He is shining, everything shines after him".

I love how yoga reminds me that I'm nothing more and nothing less than part of a great big whole.

How to work with light

1. Consider your surroundings. If you have a dedicated home practice, that's great! Make a cosy space for yourself, with soft lighting or candles.

2. Start at the heart. Take your awareness to your heart centre (that command again,) and visualise a light burning brightly there. Try to stay focused for a few minutes. If thoughts come, let them pass and then return to the light in your heart. The more frequently you do this, the easier it gets.

3. Light the way for others. Times are hard and people area struggling. If you're doing ok, reach out to a friend who isn't. Volunteer your time or participate in community building events. You might be surprised by how your light begins to burn even more brightly.

This month in my classes, both in-person and online, we'll be focusing on digestive health and harnessing the light within. Curious? Get in touch for a free session.

The monthly share

Check out this beautiful music from Turkish pianist, Büşra Kayıkçı:

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Wishing you some spring sunshine!

Cover photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Want to support me without becoming a paid subscriber? I really love lapsang souchong tea and would gratefully accept a cup, though I’d much rather we were drinking it together.

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Your liver is your largest internal organ, weighing around 1.5kg. It lives at the base of your rib cage on the right-hand side, on top of you your stomach, right kidney and intestines and below your diaphragm.

This most important of organs aids digestion, producing bile to help break down fats and carbohydrates. It filters your blood to remove any toxic substances and stores glycogen, iron and other vitamins and minerals. It regulates blood clotting and amino acid levels and carries out around 500 other important functions. At any one moment, your liver holds about 13% of your blood.

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Safe to say your liver is a pretty valuable asset, one you might like to take care of. There's an argument that says your body is perfectly designed to carry out all of its cleansing processes and doesn't need any support. But with all the pollution and stress your body has to deal with, it's not a bad idea to give it a bit of extra support.

I’ll certainly be giving my liver a bit of extra care and attention this spring.

Because our livers aren’t only dealing with alcohol and sugary foods. The air you breathe, the information you take in, toxins in your environment (cigarette smoke, air fresheners, pesticides), and the stress you deal with on a daily basis all impact your liver.

This organ can take a lot.

You can lose up to 90 percent of your liver and have it regenerate to the state it was in before! Your liver is resilient, but it's not bulletproof. In the UK, more than 11,000 people die from liver disease every year, which tells you something is wrong with the way we are living.

You can throw a lot at your liver, but, throw enough and it will scar. Then, when it regenerates, more scar tissue will form, resulting in a stiff liver. The other major problem these days is NAFLD or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a first step in many more serious liver diseases that affects a fifth of all people in the UK.

Have you got a stiff liver or a fatty liver? You’re not alone.

Feeling bilious?

In Ayurveda, the liver is known as the seat of pitta dosha, the characteristic of fire and transformation. In traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda alike, the liver is associated with feelings of repressed anger and frustration. This idea also comes up in European ancient theory, where an excess of yellow bile was associated with anger.

Getting in touch with such deep seated emotions can be challenging, and it can be far easier to notice your actions instead. Here are some actions to look out for in yourself that might give you some insight on deeply repressed feelings of anger (which, by the way, are extremely common):

• Fist clenching;

• Jaw clenching/teeth grinding;

• Muscle tension/tremors;

• Increased respiration;

• Sweating/excess heat.

All you have to do is decide that you're going to look out for these actions, and then remind yourself a few hundred times a week, and you will indeed get to know yourself a bit better.

No one said it was easy.

In reality, even noticing these actions can be challenging at first. We're talking about cultivating proprioception: the sense of where your body is in time and space (and what it's doing).

Yoga can definitely help, but then, so can running, skipping, weight lifting or dancing—when practiced mindfully.

Ways to work with your liver

1. Get outside for regular stomps. If you've been sitting around all winter, even if you haven't put on weight, you might have accumulated fat around your liver. Brisk exercise in nature will wipe away the cobwebs, help you lose the excess weight, and make you feel instantly better!

2. Get some sun on your skin. Vitamin D is essential for your liver health. Be brave, peel up your sleeves and let that late winter sun do its job.

3. Reduce your sugar intake. Better still, go on a sugar fast. Excess sugar can damage the cells of your liver, leading to scarring and contributing to fatty liver disease and cancer.

4. Get on your mat. Yoga backbends and twists stretch and move your rib cage, helping tone your core and reduce the buildup of fat surrounding your liver.

It's a practice.

Keep going.

If you'd like some hints and tips for how to live a more mindful life, do consider becoming a paid subscriber. It only costs a few coins per month and in return you'll get three short practices delivered to your inbox each week, a recording from my online class every month, and you'll be helping me keep writing.

Other ways to work with me include:

• Joining my weekly online classes on Mondays, 9-9.45am (get in touch to try for free);

• Becoming a founding member for all the benefits of a paid subscriber PLUS joining my weekly online class;

• Or, if you live in the area, consider joining my weekly in-person classes where we follow the monthly theme more deeply.

The year starts now

People love making new year resolutions, but I always think the year starts now. As we emerge into spring, now seems like the best time to start new projects. There are a few things you might like to ponder on at this time of year.

Ask yourself these questions and see what arises, or, if you like journalling, use them as prompts to start your morning pages.

• What have you enjoyed about winter this year?

• What will you struggle to let go of as we move into spring and beyond?

• What are you ready to let go of?

• What lessons will you carry into the new season?

• What practices will help you make this shift?

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Wishing you some spring sunshine!

Want to support me without becoming a paid subscriber? I really love lapsang souchong tea and would gratefully accept a cup, though I’d much rather we were drinking it together.

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Down by the river, the first of the year's mimosas are bubbling up with frothy yellow flowers, and the days are getting noticeably longer. There might be little reminders everywhere that the season is changing, but spring still seems a long way off.

It's the perfect time to explore the light within, but to do that, you need the help of the light without. Do you climb from your bed early, shivering in the morning darkness to sit in the stillness of that time just before dawn? Or do you choose instead to roll over, snuggle down beneath the blankets and catch a few more dreams?

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The science of sunrise

Your body is made of around thirty-five trillion cells and each of those has its own mini pacemaker. But your hypothalamus, situated at the base of your brain, is your main circadian pacesetter. It works to a 24-hour cycle, synchronising your internal rhythms via light that comes in through your eyes.

The problem is, all this artificial light we've become accustomed to affects your circadian rhythm, possibly making it hard for you to sleep at night and having other implications on your health.

Getting sunlight in the early morning helps reset your natural circadian rhythm, meaning if you get outside in the early hours, it can actually help you sleep at the right time, much later in the day. Sunlight prompts your brain to make serotonin, that feel-good hormone that helps regulate sleep, bowel movements and mood.

At sunrise and sunset, the sun's low angle means blue light is scattered, while red light remains unbroken. The low-frequency red light you see in the sky at this time is more heating and healing than higher-frequency blue light.

Although the red light you see as the sun goes down is healing, sunrise light has been shown in multiple studies to have greater effects. This could be because there is more dust in the air at the end of the day, meaning less light filters through to your retinae.

Other benefits of red light

When you experience the deep red light at the bottom of the visual light spectrum, you also protect yourself against premature aging. One study found that gazing at a red LED light for three minutes a week improved participants' vision. Red light has been shown to enhance mood and general wellbeing. And it's also been shown to promote thyroid function.

But let's get back to basics

Scientists are coming up with multiple new-fangled ways of providing light therapy to treat patients with complaints ranging from insomnia and eating disorders to ADHD and psychiatric conditions. But your ancestors—almost every single one of them, stretching back to the beginning of time—spent pretty much their whole lives outdoors without artificial lighting, relying instead on the sun's solar energy to set their circadian rhythm and keep them healthy.

Next time you're lying in bed, wondering whether or not to get up, spare a thought for those ancestors of yours. They would have quite naturally raised before the sun and been exposed to the sun's healing light, just as many people in multiple cultures still do.

Tips on working with the light within

1. Find stillness in the dark. Before sunrise, there is a shiver. If you're someone who struggles to get up early, how about making the vow to do so just once a week? The process of getting up early might start the night before, with switching off devices two hours before bedtime and following an early-to-bed routine.

2. Witness the light without. It's all very well getting up early, but getting outside and into natural light is the best medicine. If you really can't do this, don't worry. Try to be outside at dusk instead. And what if, like me, many of your mornings are thick with mist? Just do what you can do. Getting outside in all weather conditions might be an acquired taste, but personally, I find it quite addictive.

3. Seek magic in the mundane. Find those glimmers that represent magic to you. For me, it's the gentle promise of spring returning and the feeling of my breath in my ribcage. For you, it might be something else: the taste of a favourite treat, for example, or a hug from a loved one. Deciding to be present from moment to moment can be a helpful tool in finding little things to be grateful for.

4. Find your heart awareness. If you followed last week's Madrugada posts, you might have noticed a little warm light has lit up in your heart centre. And if you haven't, why not give them a go now?

Have you ever witnessed light shining from another person, illuminating a path forwards? This same light exists in you, and with a little bit of practice, you can find it for yourself.

I hope you enjoy this month's practices. We'll be extending the topic in my weekly online classes and you are most welcome to join. They take place from 9 until 9.45am UK/Portugal time every Monday. Find out more here.

One last thing

If you’re a paying subscriber, scroll to the bottom of this page for your free 45-minute class recording.

Wishing you much light and warmth.

Want to support me without becoming a paid subscriber? I really love lapsang souchong tea and would gratefully accept a cup, though I’d much rather we were drinking it together.

Buy me a tea

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In ancient times, these kidney bean-shaped, fist-sized organs were considered the seat of your emotions, hence this quote from Psalm 16:7:

"Yes, during the night my kidneys instruct me!"

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You're probably no stranger to your outward senses: to sight and hearing, smell, taste and touch. But what about those inward senses that allow you to feel your own heartbeat and sense the actions of your organs? How ofte…

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