Inhale. Expand. Exhale. Grow.

I write this post whilst on a train from Malmo to Stockholm after spending the last 5 weeks guest teaching at a wonderful studio there; Hot Yoga Malmo.. It is only now as I sit still with myself that I am able to reflect on my time spent there. It really is funny how things work out.. I am reminded once again how I must always, always, always trust in the universe as it always takes care of me when I allow and don't force it. Just two months ago I was feeling pretty unaligned and out of sorts as so many things in my personal life were changing and I found myself literally living in the yoga studio with no windows after moving out of our flat, all my belongings locked up in a storage unit after having just waved my girlfriend off to the other side of the world… It always happens like this; all together at the same time. And so I found myself alone in the yoga studio, searching for spare rooms to rent and trying to plan how I was going to go to visit Beth in Australia for the...

I have recently returned home having spent the summer in Berlin deepening my teaching knowledge. What an incredible time it has been… When my best friend Sam from my home studio in Leeds decided he was going to take the leap and sign up for the Hot Yoga Teacher Training with Evolation (the same as I previously did) I was flirting with the idea of going out to join him and the Evolation Yoga family for a week or so, I chatted with the company founder Mark about it, and knowing I wanted to do the flow training, he suggested I join them for the full course and complete my second 250hour Teacher Training with them..  it was a little tricky to find the time and resources to make possible but somehow the universe conspired to help me and I found myself here, completing the vinyasa flow training (a different style for those non-yoga people!) just one year after my first TT!  Something I always repeat and hold close to myself is ‘ The student is always the teacher, and the teac...

I had a realisation today. Maybe I learnt to let go of the bitterness, maybe I finally learnt to let go of the attachment to the pain I have experienced.. But today I thought about what I have been through and I felt gratitude. I realised this pain was my becoming... The pain was my purification, my awakening to myself and to my karmic duty here on Earth. I went through years and years of self-abuse, destruction and pain. I used to feel a victim of my illness, I used to feel angry about it.. "why me?' But I am no longer bitter about what happened to me, I realise now all of this was a blessing . This experience was such an essential part of my journey. If I had not experienced this, If I had not broken myself completely; I would never have learnt how to rebuild myself into the person I am today. This person is now here to serve and heal others, to teach others from what I have learnt. I now know happiness and peace; but I am only able to realise and appreciate that be...

I recently had my sister stay over for the weekend with the twins, my niece and nephew, Lilia and Jude, they are three years old and absolutely wonderful little humans. So kind-hearted and innocent and loving. Lilia is the most beautiful little girl I've ever known, in every aspect of the word.  Whilst my sister was getting jude ready in the bathroom, I was upstairs with Lilia helping dry and plait her hair. We sat together infront of my mirror as I plaited her hair and she sat cross-legged looking at herself in the mirror. The whole time she simply sat and looked inquisitively at herself as she pulled silly faces and grinned at her reflection in the mirror and pulled back her dressing gown and giggled at her nakedness beneath. I smiled with her and giggled along, pulling silly faces at each other and messing about.. but out of nowhere came a sudden rush of emotions and I just had wrap her up in my arms and kiss her half-plaited head and tell her how much I loved her ...

We are almost halfway through our Indian adventure, having spent the last two weeks exploring Goa and it's beautiful beautiful beaches, it is just three more days until we buckle up our backpacks and head north to delve deeper into 'real India'. Goa has been beautiful, relaxing for the most part, and the perfect way to ease ourselves into our travels here in this multi-sensory country.  We arrived here at the start of Febuary where we checked into our first hostel bleary eyed at 2am and crashed into our (rock solid!) bunks, we awoke to the warmest of welcomes from some of my other half, Bethany's best friends who are also travelling Goa right now, meeting here wasn't necessarily planned but what a wonderful coincidence it has been... we have spent most of the last two weeks exploring, relaxing and partying with them.. A few days later we moved into a guest house and some more of her friends arrived after weeks trecking the Himalayas.. how special it is to all be tog...

January 10th The date, cemented in my memory.  January 10th. Exactly four years ago, to the day, that I was admitted to Inpatient Hospital for treatment for my eating disorder. Four years on, and although the date looms upon me with the same waves of nausea and anxiety I had prior to my admission, and the memories of hospital still appear in my nightmares.. They are bearable in comparison to the nightmare of a life consumed by anorexia I suffered prior to this date 4 years ago. As the anniversary of my admission comes around, each year I have reflected with different emotions. At first, the illness was still present in my mind and would make me feel guilty, for starting to get better and ignore her more and more. But this year as January 10th comes around, I am reminding myself to be proud, to be grateful to myself for saving myself, for learning to be kind to myself and stop the daily torture. I am writing a letter to my younger self... If I knew then what I have learnt t...

Today more than ever I just want to remind you your happiness is built within. Today more than ever I want us to remember that nobody else is responsible for our inner peace but ourselves. No other person, no body of power, no authority, no government.. not the most powerful corporation in the world has the ability to take away our inner light. Every one of us has the power to create our own world. Inside of each of us is a divine place which no other person has the ability to affect. Once we learn to connect deeply to our centre, our internal and eternal  happiness; everything that happens outside of us is just that. . . External. Momentary. Our happiness depends upon our love for ourself.. we have to prioritise ourselves and to learn to connect to our truest self. Once we do that we can easily establish that which brings us happiness and that which does not. The rest is simple... create space for more of the good and eliminate that which does not serve us. Just as I teach ...

'Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will break you with its yearning.  You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed or left, or hurt, or death brushes you near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.' - Louise Erdrich  - The Painted Drum  (Women Who Run With The Moon)

Since arriving back from training I have thrown myself into teaching head first, teaching and practicing daily.. I guess in a way it has softened the difficulty of 'leaving the yoga-bubble' we experienced at teacher training. Now I sit on one of my first real days off from teaching and am able to sit back and try to get perspective on where I'm at with everything. A  lot  of things are changing and evolving in my life right now.. Being at teacher training was life changing, in so many ways. I have come out the other side not a different person; but simply a clearer version of myself. In the hours of meditation and personal practice during training I have been able to find such clarity on myself. To learn to let go of the things which no longer serve me, the attachments I had made to things which really served no good purpose in my life; fears, self-judgement, perfection. To let go of the ideas I had about my life and direction and where I thought  I needed to be. To ex...

Hello, So thats it, my first ever Hot 90 Bikram class completed! I returned back from Paris a couple of days ago, had a day to prepare and went straight in with my first full public class yesterday evening. I can't begin to explain how I feel following it... its quite an overwhelming experience. Finally beginning my teaching journey after all these months of preparation and hard work; the intense weeks I spent training in paris all leading me to this point, and now I'm there, I feel so so much energy surrounding this part of my life. My first class went better than I could ever have hoped... I felt confident, of course nervous (and pretty sick!) and concerned about my dialogue.. but actually, I knew that whatever happened, I KNOW that series, I have worked hard to study and understand the fundamental basics underpinning every posture.. and if I fumble over my words or mix up lefts and rights, I'm not going to beat myself up over that because I am  a new teacher and I ha...

How to even know where to begin trying to put into words how it feels to have come to the end of my training here in Paris with Evolation Yoga is so difficult.. this experience has been so completely life changing, it seems impossible to sum it up in words. Its a feeling.. a deep feeling of honour, gratitude, overwhelming and all-encompassing love. 😌 I came here already very aware and open to this being a challenging experience, both emotionally and physically.. but I never dreamed such transformation was to happen. From day one, when we began with the "Who am I?' exercise; each of us surrendered to the process and bravely revealed our deepest vulnerabilities, our hopes and fears.. and then together, over the weeks we have learnt to face our demons, look fear in the eye, overcome exhaustion in the name of dedication to our dreams.. we have learnt how to transform our weaknesses into our strengths. How to turn our darkness into our light. Learning how to quieten the chat...

Good morning! So today marks our final day of Teacher Training here in Paris with Evolation Yoga... Its early morning and I'm just preparing to go take our very last hot class altogether here this morning.. I can't even begin to explain how this feels... after all these intense weeks of training, the double classes per day, the exhaustion and the times I would have to dig deep down inside myself to find the energy to get myself into the second class of the day.. I find myself here, preparing for the last one and only wishing for more. The feeling I have this morning is so deeply heartfelt, over these weeks we have overcome and gone through so much together.. so much more than I think any of us prepared for..  and now, as it comes to an end it feels so incredibly momentous its difficult to put into words.  I knew teacher training would be a time of learning, of growth and expansion... but I never dreamt it would open me up in the way that it has. In order to teach ...

Hello! Well today I have taken a beautiful big step into my journey as a teacher... I was first up from our group here at teacher training to teach the full series as a mock class. We treat this just as a real class, our 'students' are our fellow trainees and we go from start to finish just as we would when we get home and start teaching, then afterwards we receive feedback to discuss what served our students and what could serve better next time. (There is definitely a big difference here between this and 'you didn't do this, this could have been better' etc) I feel so grateful that here at this training we get so many opportunities to really put into practice everything we are studying by really teaching.. This hands on approach just makes stepping up to the podium so much easier and more comfortable when we get home. Pretty much from day one and through all these weeks here we have been up on that podium teaching each other most days and it has become to feel lik...

Hello! Wowee, what to say... today has been another incredible day. I feel like every day is one where major transformations appear; but today really was amazing.. We started our day with group study and then went in for a morning in the hot room.. another 90 minute hot 90 class followed by an hours group meditation... Ive quickly grown to love the days where we have this schedule because the flow from the intense physical asana practice to the meditation is sooo powerful.  Today was one of the deepest meditations I've had here... Something took all my awareness to my third eye... I didn't go in intending to practice 3rd eye meditation, because usually when i do it takes a lot of focus; its not something I normally would tap into during guided meditation.. But as I say, somehow my focus was pulled centrally and I found myself in a really deep and beautiful place. Whenever I practice third eye meditation it always starts with the same visuals and colours; vivid purp...

'Sometimes we have to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough.' ...these words of my teacher here at teacher training, Christian really hit home yesterday.. After the first two weeks of training having gone by pretty successfully, I really wasn't expecting to have the day I had yesterday... We had a really intense morning, 3 hours in the hot room including a 90 minute class and a long mediation.. I went really deep within myself during the meditation, Ive had some personal things going on from home that I've been trying to keep out of my time here... Ive been trying so hard to focus only on this experience, the present moment,  now.  But it all reared itself up, Ive exhausted myself by resisting letting it in, so this time I simply surrendered and let myself feel it all.. It was a very emotional, yet freeing meditation... It allowed a little clarity and for that I am grateful. But at the same time, it sucked so much from me that combined with trying to absorb all t...

So this weekend marks the halfway stage of my teacher training here with Evolation Yoga. This week I feel like I've really found my footing.... My body is more used to the physical demands, my muscles are getting stronger and my mind is becoming better and better at shutting out the excuses as to why I'm tired/exhausted etc.  Mind over matter. It really is. My mind is focused, and no matter how tired my physical body is, how sleep deprived... I have learnt that I can overcome that when there is no choice not to.  When we  want  to, We can achieve anything.  Yes my eyes have been closing during lectures, and I've been having to physically shake my head to keep myself awake... Yes my body is sore Andy  drained. No I don't always feel like I want to practice for 3 hours every day in the hot-room... But I have learnt I can. This entire process is showing me how limitless we really are..  When we push beyond barriers (both physical and mental) we transcend....

So yesterday was a very intense day for us here at teacher training, it's reached a point where the pressure really is on to get the dialogue memorised quickly as we've moved on to teaching two postures per day in teaching clinic; yet we only have a few hours per day to study, that mainly being at night when sleep would be much preferred.. So by this point, we're all pretty physically exhausted, sleep deprived and generally brain-fried from all the other information we're receiving all day in lectures and posture mechanics. I also got my period which for most of the day I listened to my lower S self tell me I could use as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, 'oh woe is me, is that cramps I feel? Oh probably, oh poor me...' So on and so forth. It wasn't until nearly 9pm when I was faced with my second class of the day, and I was near breaking point... I'd been struggling to keep my eyes open in study period and the LAST thing my 'self' wanted to do...

Wow wow wow.  What in incredible experience I have received today...  Today is Saturday and the last day of our first week here at teacher training, it was also our first 'expand' class here with Zefea. Expand class is a different type of class to the usual hot 90.. its 2 hours  long and incorporates lots of different elements, it has a lot of similarities to the intermediate and advanced bikram classes, but also has some flows and moon salutations which were really wonderful to do after a very intense and focused week. It felt a lot like playtime and it really allowed me to free myself up throughout the practice. Zefea is an incredible woman... her energy is earthly and supportive, I felt very safe and centred. So when it came to the end part of our practice we did a deep backbending series...  heart openers can often be very emotional for a lot of people and today it really came out.  Zefea led us int...