Live Light Yoga & Wellness

If I had a dollar for every time I said the words “listen to your body” while teaching, well…I would have enough money to do another teacher training!

How often do we say this to OURSELVES though, and actually take OUR OWN ADVISE?

There seems to be a guilt around listening to our bodies and stopping, even when our bodies are screaming out to us! Is it for fear around letting others down? Letting ourselves down? Having TOO MUCH ON to stop? Not being able to AFFORD TO STOP?

When I was on the yoga mat last week, with a migraine that had been going on for four days on and off, and it was evidently creeping its horrible self back into my body with overwhelming feelings of nausea and a warning from my head “if you go back into one more damn downward dog, i’m gonna explode!”. I finished this class and apologised for my lack of energy in the class…not sure who I was trying to justify that one to, the students or myself?? But here we go, it was that FEAR OF JUDGEMENT and i’m feeling a theme here as I write this. This is what I love about writing, is it helps us to uncover unconscious thought patterns and behaviours just by tap tap tapping away on the keys and allowing our minds to unravel.

SO back to FEAR OF JUDGEMENT, I knew I wasn’t teaching the best class because my brain was a scramble from the migraine medication, my energy levels were below zero, and here I am FEARING BEING JUDGED for teaching one shitty class out of a hundreds of classes I’ve taught so far.  So I am standing in front of the second class  of three i’m meant to be teaching this day telling myself, your can do this, just cue the class, they will be so disappointed if you cancel, you will let the studio down, blah, blah, blah and any other excuse I could come up with. The FINAL REASONING for me was the fact that if I had of pushed through, I wouldn’t have been able to drive home and then would inconvenience someone else to pick me up.

Who invented this ‘harden the fu*k up mentality or ‘She’ll be right’? Will she/he?

Our bodies don’t cause us pain or give us feedback for no reason. We need to LISTEN BEFORE IT BECOMES A SCREAM.

I had just got back from a week in Bali, so I certainly didn’t feel like my body ‘deserved’ the right to stop. This ultimately lead me to the ER…so wo makes us feel this way? WE DO, but is it based on what and how society makes us feel, believe and do? The doctor and nurse asked me what I did for a job, I responded “oh i’m just a yoga teacher” they looked puzzled, because one of the biggest migraine triggers is stress right!? Later that day I was speaking to my beautiful partner and I told him this exact conversation with the doctors. He said “Em your not JUST A TEACHER, teaching is what you do as a passion. You teach six classes a week, but you also run two businesses and do digital marketing for another company”.

This led me to then think, I love each and every thing that I now do in running these businesses, and the digital marketing I am doing is for an absolute legendary soul sister in the yoga world, so where is this pressure coming from? The answer still lies with ME! I could sit here and play the blame game and say society, social media, the constant need to post content on Facebook, Instagram, write blogs, feel like i’m contributing, feel like i’m making a difference, feel like i’m educated enough to be posting what i’m passionate about, worrying if my post is going to be liked/disliked/judged, what I look like, portray myself as, if i’m teaching the same class as last week, if i’m teaching to suit the whole class, shit the music isn’t playing in the right order, fuck I said left instead of right and now the whole class is looking at me like WTF?…the list is fucking endless and this is all before I even step foot in the door at home and worry about my personal life, and I tell you what I’M OVER IT!

The only person who can make you feel inferior is YOU! Sure others can influence this, but it’s all in the way we react, and if we ALLOW these external influences to impede our lives that actually MATTERS.

This also links in with our friends/family/work colleagues having a shitty day/week/year, they might be having relationship issues, work stress, sick children, sleep deprived, suffering through grief, etc and they lash out for no particular reason. We have two options here, we can react from a need to be “right”, express that it was uncalled for, OR we can act from a place of love and just realise that they are dumping their shitty day/week/year on you today, and it’s NOTHING PERSONAL which quickly defuses the situation. I’m learning this lesson all over again, being in a new relationship…but fortunately this time my partner GET’S THIS and actually rains me in sometimes.

So in summery this blog is NOT to preach about what we all must do and say how perfect i’m doing all of these things, it’s to point out that I’M CLEARY NOT. But you know what, THAT’S OK! BECAUSE I’M AWARE, AND I’M BLOODY WELL TRYING. Trying to constantly find balance, trying to practice as well as teach, trying to be a good lover, friend, daughter and sister. And one of my favourite books which I always need to pick up again and again is The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

I will finish with a really interesting piece I read and have also studied in my yoga teacher trainings. It’s around the belief of us being spiritual beings getting around in meat suits. We only have one meat suit and we have to reside in this suit until the day we die, so be kind to it, listen to it, love it. This is not a knowing as such, but a belief of mine which you can ponder/agree/disagree, but I feel has relevance to this topic.

Nothing lasts forever except the soul. We are all “ghosts” or spirits driving “meat coated skeletons made from stardust,” and we don’t have anything to be afraid of. Our soul takes residence, for a brief and sacred time, in our fragile human body. It does this to learn, to grow, and will—like a hermit crab—discard old shells as they become too limiting and move on to new ones, to new lives that allow further growth ~ Dejah Beauchamp

Peace, love and bliss hugs,

Em xox