On the Sunny Side Up

Everyone’s journey with yoga is unique. The state of your body changes from day to day, hour to hour. Some days you feel more flexible and other days savasana is the best you’ve got. To be honest, although yoga changed my life and continues to bring me joy and health, sometimes it can be a real challenge to get onto my mat. Even more so when you're just starting off your yoga habit and you have no idea what to expect! Here are some of the reasons for that challenge. 1. Sit all day? Hunch forward in your seat that’s become perfectly moulded to your bum and thighs? With working life restricting our movement to wheeling across the cubicle in our chairs, your body gets stuck in positions that it is used to. Muscles, tendons and fascia get tight and you end up feeling like a dried out clay sculpture - brittle and hard. When you start to stretch them, it may feel like you are super stiff, uncoordinated, off-balance, weak, painful. You’re effectively having to tease apart those muscle str...

You’ve reached out before for connection and someone has turned their back on you or outright rejected  your offer of love. You’ve needed them and they’ve stepped away, or you’ve offered them compassion and love and instead of connecting, they  villainise  you. No wonder you’re intimacy-shy! Every time you reach out you fear the pain of being rejected.       That can apply to your professional and creative life too. When you reach out to others with a project or idea or proposal, of course there is the risk that they don’t like it, or don’t want to take part or you’re left on your own to do it. And as an entrepreneur that is such a big fear to get over. ‘What if I offer a product and no-one wants it?’ ‘What if I reach out and make a reality out of my dream and no-one wants it? What if I’m left alone with my dream?’       We feel like we need to choose between connection/belonging and our values and dreams. We can be indepe...

It's normal for your heart to get broken over and over again as you grow up. Your innocent misunderstanding of the adult world means that adults will confuse you and your parents will let you down. Competition, fitting in and forming friendships are all natural processes in life that create community but also form cracks in your heart. School finishes, and you go on to college or the working world - suddenly you have to stand on your own two feet and fend for yourself. No-one is going to rescue you and life is hard. You either find yourself in a community that makes life a little easier or you find yourself competing against those who should be uniting with you. Disconnection sets in, and the loneliness of adult responsibility seeps through your mind, body and heart. It's a heavy feeling, walking around with this secret wish in your heart. The wish that someone would just give you a break. A break from having to drape this exacting cloak of resignation onto your shoulders every...

Day 1: Fly from London to Turkey. The flight over the pond is easy and painless - 4 hours from London to Istanbul, a short change over and then 1 hour to Izmir Adnan Menderes airpot. Honestly, the time spent waiting to board then waiting on the runway takes longer than the actual flight. 2:30 am and we get off at Izmir and start feeling the excitement - our feet are on Turkish soil, and they want to dance a dervish whirl. Pick up the car and drive to Bergama, our final destination. Bearing in mind that we have arrived at 2:30 in the morning, and pre-booked a car, the process should be over in 5 minutes. However. First we can't find the booking office. So we ask a helpful but slightly suspicious airport security officer. He looks at the address on the email and then regretfully but kndly informs us that to pick up our booked car we would have to travel 400km back in the direction we came...which to be honest is not ideal. Our options are either a bus service to central Izmir...

Tall, caramel skinned gentleman. Looks like you could feature in a Western or Desert Ranger adventure scene. You have that slightly swarthy, streetwise look to you. Where do you come from? Your map is sharing with you your next location. Could it be a secret underground MI5 meeting? Or are you after the treasure stollen by your tomb raiding nemesis? Nope. You've swapped it for the Metro News. Obviously preparing for covert missions requires up to date knowledge on low level scandal and the next piece of over inflated bad news.

My 50 minute commute to work requires at least 25 minutes tube journey. One day I stopped where I was sitting (luckily this didn't require a huge change in momentum...) and looked at the situation. What a strange and rather comical situation I find myself in. Same time and place every morning, sharing this cramped metal tube that is shooting through tunnels deep under ground like a futuristic mole colony with many of the same faces day after day. In this strange and slightly romantic way, our lives which up until now have been so separate, intersect quite physically, sharing the space and air we breathe. The intimacy of this shared personal routine is not dissimilar from sharing a bathroom sink with a partner or flatmate. Each doing their own teeth but sharing a most intimate ritual. My curiosity thus piqued about the not-so-strange strangers around me, I started to wonder about their life stories and about what more their was to them than just this face sitting across from me. I...