In the context of the broader world, there are a LOT of overwhelming things being constantly absorbed - enormous things polarising our thoughts, our relationships and challenging our conditioning: referendums, capitalism, racism, climate, interest rates, cost of living, homelessness, violence - how did you feel in your chest just reading that list?

ACCEPTANCE asks you to drop the shoulders, take a little smile at the corners of your mouth and nod to what is, whilst digging in to the effort of being the best you can be across all aspects of your life and simply seeing what happens. Unattached to outcome, completely diligent to the effort.

It’s difficult on hearing the word addiction to not paint a picture of the person it’s being related to. But you know who it relates to? You. And me too. If you are in a human body, you will almost certainly have this tendency. There is no us and them, it is simply a sliding scale.

Find the things that help you become unstuck, rebirthed, the best version of you, rather than a puppet to patterns that helped you through tough times but now poison everything you touch.

It's sitting, quiet, still for a moment, allowing the day or the event as it was to land on you. Its being open to receiving the answers, the images, the atmosphere, letting things be but being open to see - what is truly there. No judgement, ideally not even any words, not good, nor bad, just beautiful, playful curiosity.

Can you sit still for long enough to let the light of the world impress upon you?

Ten letters with so much breadth of circumstantial usage but in every scenario the same inherent meaning: the coming together of two or more things.

Connection. I would say that I live in a state of deep steady connection with nature but in an eclectic state of connection with humans. I’ve learned to love other humans, learned to converse with them, I’ve even got quite a palette of learned social human nuances that help land me in a little less hot water with humans but by and large, humans have never been an easy place of connection for me. Fascination, yes, connection, challenging but disconnection? No.

Wading our way through our very own unique and messy combination of patterns, is HUMAN. Being human is the twinkle of remembering that there is something more to this weird worldly existence. It is the confusion of not being quite sure how to name it nor often how to live it in a way that correlates with all that's presented in the societal systems and constructs as 'The Way'.

It is the seeking of some clarity in the confusion of cruel and clouded paradigms that ridicule kindness and compassion, and celebrate consumer gluttony to mask the reality of economic enslavement and environmental devastation ie the bizarre distinctly human practice of shitting in our own lunchbox.

Love in itself is utterly pure. Nothing but treasure. But like all of our human experiences it is wrapped up in our…well…human experiences. It becomes entangled, like a frog in a hair ball, with all of our hang ups, all of our hurts, all of our desires and all of our fears. Although not a single one of those things is love. So what are we to do?

If you threw all of the components of your life into a gigantic cauldron and were asked to distill it down to the essence of it’s meaning, what would that look like for you? Would it look like relationships? Career? Being in service? Adventure? Or would it all mix into a lovely shade of brown?

Yoga therapists are Yoga Teachers with substantial additional training (a minimum of 2 years study and practical mentoring with ongoing requirements for professional development) to be able to work at this deeper level with vulnerable or fragile students in a therapeutic setting. A Yoga Therapist draws from the principles of Yoga and the full range of Yoga practices, bio-medical knowledge and assessment skills to establish a professional relationship with the student.

In the middle of great upheaval we can see the qualities of avidya playing out accentuated. When we become groundless in what was once familiar, when our footing is lost in what we believed held us steady, then we have better eyes to see what is really within us. At this particular moment in time, the attributes of avidya are playing out on grand scale - if we are willing to have our eyes open, we may have the opportunity to witness this within ourselves.

If all aspects of yoga are present in every other aspect of yoga, at all times in order for that moment to in fact be yoga, where does the dharana (meditation) come into play during this time of asana (physical movement) and pranayama (conscious breath)?

When we begin to experience this natural relationship between the breath and the spinal movement our practice can deepen far beyond our imaginings. Think of it a bit like pushing a heavy box from a stand still compared with the effortlessness of pushing a heavy box that is already in motion.

When we eat in the way that is right for us as an individual, we should not feel heavy, nor manic, the mind will feel settled and clear. There should be a feeling of ease within the body and contentment in the mind.

Often ‘yoga’ which is generally only referencing the tool of asana, is described as being too difficult for the inflexible, too strong for the weak, too dangerous for the fragile, too soft for the muscle-bound or too slow for the busy-minded. Yet by the very definition of yoga, the physical practice of asana should meet every individual where they are at.

There is so much to write about sleep that it is difficult to know where to begin. Science is fascinated by it, yoga reveres it and as individuals, we are enlivened by its presence and tormented by its absence.

Life is always in action. There is no moment in life that is not. With this understanding we can see that our life is merely the sum total of all our doings! So where does our control, our grounding, reside in our life?

The most definitive text of yoga, the Yoga Sutra, begins with a word that is pregnant with all of the possibility of the great adventure ahead - ATHA (pron: ar-ta). The meaning of this word embodies a complete readiness to begin, it is saying ‘I have suffered enough, now I am ready to be soothed and have all of my true needs met’. In short ‘I’m sick of this shit, it is time to do something about it.’

When suffering is high, there is a type of combustion process happening within each individual as we are squeezed to see ‘what is it that I truly believe in’. Particularly when it relates to things being taken away from us that we have gotten used to having, be it a job, possessions, a loved one or even a certain routine.

For the most part, life is a series of odd and unexpected events, happening one after another until we die. Then, according to yoga, we do it all over again until we eventually stop doing that and we pop out of this extraordinary cycle forevermore.