Category: Yoga

“at any moment, I can choose to start again”

I’ve been getting uncomfortably honest with myself this last month…I believe this is the key to implementing long lasting change – we first have to confront what’s really happening inside of ourselves, connect with ALLL of our parts (not just the ones we like – but also the ones we can’t bear to accept) and integrate them – this is the most liberating pathway to self empowerment. 

We are entirely our own responsibility and everything is a choice

Self leadership and empowerment have been on my mind a lot lately. During my University semester holidays I’ve been unwinding from the adrenaline induced PUSH of the first Semester which I managed to get through relatively unscathed and I’ve had some time to reflect on how I could CHOOSE to lead myself better. This brought up the confronting reminder that actually, we are entirely our own responsibility and everything is a choice.

Coming back to baseline and realising that nobody else can actually make the changes you desire in your life, it has to come from you – and for me, that feels incredibly motivating. Nobody is coming to save you, no amount of reassurance or love or support from others can elicit a true internal shit – that’s something you have to embody, and it’s bloody uncomfortable.

Creating space to witness where you are holding yourself back

It’s so easy to blame external factors and other people and the world, sometimes without even realising it, but if you flip the script and change the frame and use everything as a mirror, it becomes much easier to find different paths, different decisions, different perceptions and perspectives which then transfer into different behaviours. Behaviour is all lead by emotion and emotion is all guided by thoughts. This is why meditation and self reflection is so important, to be able to create the space to sit with your mental stories and witness where you are holding yourself back and getting in your own way, where you could actually take more accountability for where you are dissatisfied in your life.

Meditation is about having the courage to sit with our thoughts and witness them

Meditation is not about getting rid of your thoughts, it’s about having the courage to sit with them and witness them, this is how we can start to break automatic thinking patterns and habits that make us feel shitty. My mantra is “at any moment, I can choose to start again” this saves me so much “sunken cost”, it saves me so much time and energy worrying about what I did or said yesterday or last week that I could’ve done better and allows me to let go, clean the slate and choose differently today. On this note, the latest upload into our online class library is the Self Empowerment Meditation audio and it’s launching this Friday!

Em x

Self Empowerment Meditation

This uplifting, mindset reframing meditation guides you into a place of personal power. Perfect for times where you are feeling a bit lost, stuck or at the mercy of experiencing tricky things that are “happening’ to you in your life. Link to meditation https://hostwellness.co.nz/studio/em-k-yoga-online-self-empowerment-meditation-class/

What is meant by grounding and how can we do it?

In the whirlwind of our modern lives, it’s all too easy to lose ourselves in the chaos and distractions that surround us. However, there exists a practice that can anchor us amidst the storm, helping us rediscover our inner peace and authenticity. It’s called grounding. In this blog, we’ll delve into the meaning of grounding, its profound benefits and explore practical ways to incorporate it into your daily routines.

Understanding Grounding

Grounding is a powerful practice that allows you to reconnect with your unwavering essence in the present moment. It’s about firmly planting your two feet on your internal and external ground. It’s about finding stability amidst turbulence, like a steady rock amidst crashing waves. By grounding ourselves, we cultivate a sense of rootedness, clarity, and calm, enabling us to set and protect our boundaries, make aligned decisions and navigate life’s challenges with grace and authenticity.

The Profound Benefits of Grounding:

1. Restoring Inner Peace:

Grounding serves as a soothing balm for our minds and hearts. It brings us back to the present, away from the regrets of the past and anxieties about the future. By immersing ourselves in the present moment, we experience a profound sense of peace and tranquillity, freeing ourselves from the constant mental chatter that often plagues us.

2. Reconnecting with Authenticity:

In our fast-paced world, it’s so easy to lose touch with our true selves. Then when something difficult arises, we are taken off-guard and unable to steady ourselves when we need to. Grounding invites us to rediscover our core essence, values, and desires. By connecting with our authentic selves, we align our actions, decisions, and relationships with our deepest values, fostering a genuine sense of fulfilment and purpose.

3. Enhancing Emotional Well-being:

Grounding practices help us regulate our emotions and reduce stress. By grounding ourselves in the present, we cultivate mindfulness, allowing us to observe our emotions without being overwhelmed by them. This self-awareness empowers us to respond to emotional triggers with compassion and clarity, leading to greater emotional resilience and well-being.

Ways to Practice Grounding:

1. Mindfulness and Meditation:

Set aside dedicated time for mindfulness and meditation practices. Find a quiet space, and spend time visualising and sensing the connection and contact points of your body with the floor, chair, bed or earth underneath you. Feel its support, and notice how gravity gently tugs you down, keeping you earthbound. Focus on your breath, and gently bring your attention to the present moment. Allow your thoughts to come and go without judgment, and embrace the stillness and clarity that arises from this practice.

To experience mindfulness in meditation try this Grounding Meditation Practice

2. Breath:

Apana is the downward, outward movement and motion of energy or prana. Focussing on a long, smooth, slow inhale, moving in from the earth to your feet and legs into your body and back out into the earth. If you are sitting, do the same thing but through the tailbone in and out of your spine, or if you are lying down, in and out through your belly button. 

To experience the benefits of ground through breath try this Guided Breathing Class

3. Nature Immersion:

Spend time in nature to reconnect with the grounding energy of the Earth. I highly recommend barefoot walks or even just sitting by a peaceful lake. Observe the beauty, innocence, resilience, steadiness and flow of the natural world, recognising how this external world also represents our internal one, allowing this to ground your energy. 

4. Journaling and Reflection:

Engage in introspective practices like journaling or self-reflection. Set aside time daily to write down your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Make sure it’s raw and real, don’t curate it, and don’t omit parts or dilute things. This process helps you gain clarity and provides an opportunity for self-expression and self-discovery.

5. Sensory Awareness:

Engage your senses to anchor yourself in the present moment. Slow down and pay attention to the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures around you. Fully immerse yourself in the sensory experience, whether it’s savouring a meal, feeling the sun’s warmth on your skin, or listening to the rustle of leaves in the wind.

6. Engaging in Mindful Activities:

Infuse mindfulness into everyday activities such as cooking, cleaning, or gardening, dancing, playing an instrument or practising yoga. Approach these tasks with intention, fully engaging your senses and immersing yourself in the process. By doing so, you transform mundane activities into moments of grounding and presence.

 Find balance and calmness in the present moment with this Slow Grounding Yoga Flow

Learning to love me

“You just need to love yourself” how many times have you heard or seen this…I mean, with all good intentions, it’s not as simple as that.

What does it actually mean to “love yourself” what does it look like, sound like and feel like?

I can tell you as someone who spent many years in a state of self hatred due to childhood conditioning, it’s not as simple as positive thoughts and affirmations in the mirror. I lived inside a completely dysfunctional internal and external world. Why? Because love didn’t exist the way I needed it to. So, where the fuck do you even begin? Well, at the beginning, that scary place none of us really want to be with anything. That awful place where things feel awkward, hard, unnatural, unclear. It takes time, patience, lots of set backs and discomfort to have genuine love for yourself.

Self love – or lack there-of – shows up in many ways

It’s how you feel when you first wake up, your first thoughts and actions at the beginning of each day. It’s how you repair and reconcile internally when you experience conflict, pain, shame and doubt. It’s how you give yourself time and space. It’s how you recognise your needs, honour them, set boundaries and protect them with loving discipline. 

It’s how you forgive yourself, it’s how you utilise tender and fierce self compassion to hold the hands of the parts of you that are wounded. Truly loving yourself means to know yourself, the good, the bad and the ugly and walk with those parts until they feel nourished and nurtured enough to become part of your integrated self.

It’s seeing and accepting the parts you’d rather lock away or run from

Even yoga, meditation and healthy habits can be used as ways to bypass ourselves…

So it’s not so much what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it. It’s the mindfulness and intention behind it.

Can you be slow, gentle and honest with yourself, can you hold integrity, mistakes, reactions, choices and behaviours with the utmost reverence.

Can you put your hand up when you’re wrong, apologise, let go, not take things personally, call yourself out when you’re not in alignment with your values. These are all small acts of self love.

True self love isn’t a very natural phenomenon anymore

It gets twisted and distorted and we are taught not to be selfish, indulgent, up ourselves, to abandon our feelings and needs in order to fit in and be “good”. So many of us are completely disempowered and disconnected. Running around people pleasing and neglecting who we are – love. Innately, without trying – you are love.

So many of us have swung the other way into self obsession, arrogance, deep insecurity masked by a lovely looking and sounding exterior.

Love is humble, love is kind, love forgives

Love connects and lets go where it needs to. Life is gentle, love is passionate, love is powerful, liberating and – it’s free.

Loving yourself in the right way is a practice, and it’s different for everyone for everyone. But it starts with small genuine acts toward yourself. Delivered with the same intention, ease, words and soft hands of a Mother tending to her child, from the way you would look at them, protect them, speak to them, nourish them and give them what they need – whether that be space for emotional turbulence, a nap, a big healthy dinner, a long held hug or words of encouragement.

Self love is the relationship you have with yourself, which all other relationships will reflect and grow from.

Opening the doors of love towards yourself

All of my teachings are subtly woven with self-love. I have created a bespoke meditation for people to begin opening the doors of love toward themselves. What would it be like to allow a greater giving and receiving of love to be exchanged from you to you? I can tell you it only expands your capacity to be able to share more with others. To strengthen your intuition, self trust, ease and authenticity within your relationships, not to mention the physiological effects on blood pressure, heart rate variability and so much more. Give it a go and see what happens…

If you are interested in learning about and starting to build an authentic connection with yourself – start here! https://hostwellness.co.nz/studio/em-k-yoga-online-learning-to-love-me-meditation-class/

Why is rest so important?

Ongoing low-grade stress is not sustainable.

Why is rest so important? well, mainly because we don’t get enough of it. I don’t mean sitting down while you scroll on your phone, or laying on the couch watching Netflix. Sure, your body is technically still and it’s a nice break from reality that we all need from time to time. However, this is not actually true rest. Your brain and your nervous system need rest more than anything else. Some of us are so wired that even sleep doesn’t bring that deep rest we need to heal and restore. If you find your mind spinning at night time or spend lots of time overthinking before sleep, are a light sleeper, easily startled, waking up multiple times per night, feeling exhausted in the morning and having dreams that leave you feeling like you’ve run a marathon over-night, the chances are you’re not slowing down enough for your body and brain to drop into a real state of rest at night. 

Take babies for example, contrary to popular belief, skipping day naps doesn’t make for better sleep at night, it creates an overtired child who then struggles to sleep at night because their systems are in overdrive. We are much the same as adults – we are really just big toddlers that need our damn rest! 

Our bodies NEED space and time to down-regulate

The world we live in today is one of chronic overstimulation. Everything is fast, busy and technology-based which maintains a low-grade stress response that you might not even notice anymore because it’s just become normal. Chronic low-grade stress is our new baseline and it’s simply not sustainable.

Humans are designed to undergo short bursts of stress to keep us safe and motivated, however, if we do not allow ourselves space and time to down-regulate from this sympathetic nervous system state into a parasympathetic nervous system state, you are constantly producing cortisol which causes inflammation and is damaging on a cellular level over time. This can cause digestive issues, skin problems and joint pain – not to mention an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. 

Your body is smart and will send you signals when you need rest

Have you ever experienced something that has been stressful for an extended period, maybe a situation at work or conflict within a relationship, and you find you start to get sick more easily and often, the colds hit harder and your recovery is slower…you might notice random pains or you find yourself getting injured doing something simple like tying your shoe or checking your blind spot driving in the car – this is another signal that your neuroimmune system (the interplay between the immune system and nervous system which can create either inflammatory or anti inflammatory processes) is struggling and out of balance. 

People who are too busy to rest are often the ones who actually need it the most

Often we are so conditioned to be in this state, that true relaxation actually feels hard…it can feel uncomfortable, boring, overindulgent and downright difficult to access. By carving out pockets of time during the day to slow down and rest, you’re giving your mind and body a chance to catch up and recharge. You are also strengthening the pathways to a relaxed state. Many people say that yoga and meditation aren’t for them because they can’t relax, it’s too slow, it’s too hard, they can’t breathe properly, they’re too fidgety or their minds are just too busy to be able to ‘do it’ – well guess what – those people are the ones who actually need it the most. 

Proper rest will give you more energy and mental space to be able to get more done – and to do it well 

Yoga is called a practice because it is just that, we have to consciously make an effort to give ourselves what we actually need. It’s a discipline, just like choosing healthy food over junk and processed crap – and it’s not always fun, it’s not always pleasant or easy and there will ALWAYS be something “better” or “more important” that needs doing or ticking off the list. The plot twist is – proper rest and relaxation will actually give you more energy and mental space to be able to get more done – and to do it well. 

When we are in overdrive we make more mistakes, we are more clumsy, more emotionally reactive with others, we are operating with a much lower capacity – that buffer of space to be kind to ourselves and others, to not take things personally, to make good decisions for our wellbeing is decreased. What is known as our window of tolerance becomes very narrow and we become easily overwhelmed. I know this because this was me!

What actually happens in our bodies when we’re resting?

We NEED to spend time in our parasympathetic nervous system to “mend, tend and befriend’ or “rest and digest” – this is where our magical bodies do their thing and every little cell works to heal, repair, integrate memories, process emotions and so on. Without this, you will find yourself with brain fog, poor concentration and bad habits that usually include reaching for high dopamine activities and consumables such as alcohol, sugary food or impulsive spending for example. 

Can you see how this cycle can have such a negative impact on your health and your life? When are in are unknowingly in this fight or flight state, we become tired…performance and confidence start to wane, and we usually end up doing more things, or doing nothing in an attempt to feel better. This just continues to accumulate until you eventually burn out, so the cycle needs to be broken – and only you can do that. You have the power to choose differently at any moment, DARE to rest more and see what happens…

DARE to rest more and see what happens…

The best way to start incorporating rest into your life is little and often. Short meditations, yoga nidra and restorative yoga practices are ideal. Start small, with 5-15 minutes 3-4 times per week and see and feel the difference in your mood, energy, sleep and general outlook on life. And just do it – even if it feels hard, even if you don’t feel “better” immediately – you WILL if you can commit to just a teeny tiny scheduled pocket of rest as often as you can. All of a sudden your ability to manage the demands of children, housework, pain-in-the-ass relatives and tricky budgets will seem like a walk in the park. Difficult interactions with colleagues and spouses and not getting angry at the idiot who pulled out in front of you at the roundabout will feel like water off a duck’s back as you begin to flow more gracefully with the waves of life. It’s empowering when these things no longer trigger you, tip you over the edge or affect your peace because you are grounded inside, standing with your own two feet on steady earth beneath you – wherever you are, whatever is happening externally – if that’s not a superpower I don’t know what is. 

If you’re ready to take a well-earned rest then here’s a great place to start, enjoy 25 minutes of yummy supported stretching and breathing to down-regulate your nervous system, soothe pain and tackle insomnia with this online yoga class https://hostwellness.co.nz/studio/em-k-yoga-online-restorative-rest-and-relax-class/

How and why I became a Yoga Teacher

I began dabbling in this yoga thing approximately 16 years ago, I didn’t know it then, but this was my doorway back to health, a glimmer of hope. As a child and teenager I battled with tremendous mental health difficulties which resulted in many failed attempts to feel better by using extremely unhealthy coping strategies. Inevitably this lead to the near collapse of my physical, mental and emotional health. Oh shit right – I know. There were many times I believed I was broken. At first I was dubious and resistant towards the idea of yoga, but I went on to discover that in fact, it was the only tool that really soothed my dis-ease, helped me to manage my wellbeing and begin to heal. But that is a very long story for another day my friends. After 8 years of struggle and a few years of recovery on the other side of the world, I started studying. I added a diploma in nutrition and degree psychology to my box of tricks. I became obsessed with the brain and the body and the connection between the two – how did it all work? So in short, this bumpy pathway back home to myself inspired me to become a teacher so that I could guide others to find and feel their best selves too.
I have now been teaching for over 5 years and I am so grateful to be able to share this gift that keeps on giving. Teaching yoga lights my soul on fire, and it’s FUN! There is something magical seeing people arrive on their yoga mats, all for different reasons – not quite knowing what to expect – and leaving with so much more than they imagined. Because, sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know, ya know? We aren’t aware of the little things we need to address, the parts of us that are crying out for some love and attention, until they become big full blown problems that affect our daily functioning. So here I am, ready to guide you into the unlocking of your fullest physical, mental, emotional and spiritual potential. 
Yoga is cool because it provides you with exactly you need, whatever you are missing. I like to think of it as reorganising and reconstructing habitual patterns in the body and mind. These naughty habits quietly build up over time and sneak up on us in the form of pain, chronic conditions, injury, life setbacks and mental illness; they basically become giant obstacles blocking the way to your goals, your good nights sleep, your optimum performance, your happiest life. This could be something simple like the way you sit when you drive your car to work, the way you swing your golf club every Sunday, the way you carry your baby on your weaker hip or the way you breathe every day. Or it could be something a little deeper like a car accident, the effects of a 5 year abusive relationship, a traumatic upbringing or some other experience that has significantly impacted your life. It’s about restoring balance, reconnecting you to yourself and improving the way you experience your time here on this earth. Make sense? Good 🙂