Thank you from my heart to yours!

For a while now I have been keen to expand my yoga offerings but as with everything in life there is a timing. I have had the amazing opportunity of studying directly with my asana teacher, Louise Simmons, in Findhorn twice already this year, with a further trip booked for September and this has made a huge difference to my practice and indeed my healing and confidence.

During the pandemic I took it very personally that people stopped practising yoga. It didn’t help that it coincided with my style of teaching changing to the softer, more introspective and somatic approach, namely Scaravelli inspired yoga, which has for me been absolutely life changing. Until that point of being re-directed I was always drawn to the more active and indeed masculine approaches of vinyasa and dynamic yoga, which sadly fed my pitta and masculine tendencies towards achievement and striving, which ultimately kept me trapped in this rather hardened pattern within my body and therefore in my mind.

In short, I was merely feeding my existing imbalances and so Louise entering my life was not only synchronistic but a true gift and the universe once again bringing me what I needed. I did fight it initially though. The Scaravelli approach is challenging for someone like me who has always lived life rather quickly. This approach slows me down and brings me deeper into my feminine energy.

Life has changed enormously since I began practising this way, helped by my meanderings into Tantra through Shakti Tantra, albeit the Scaravelli inspired approach is Tantric by its very nature, and the embodiment of some of these teachings, which also connected me to my feminine energy and helped me heal some core woundings around my sexuality from previous trauma.

The Scaravelli approach is extremely intimate and is magic in many respects - being completely honest and personal here - but shared because its might help some of you - for many years, because of trauma I was unable to feel pleasure in my body, and the Scaravelli yoga has gifted me this pleasure again, helped by all the other work I do to heal - it really positively changes things on all levels of being.

However, like I was saying, it did take a good while to get to a point where I was comfortable with the Scaravelli approach. When I first started practising with Louise, I fairly much continued with my old ways, to the extent that even after an online session with her, I would then feel to do my more demanding and aggressive practice because I didn’t feel I had practised yoga unless I had pushed myself into tension - ironically - in my quest to release tension. Now I realise that all I was doing was creating more tension in the body and indeed mind and while I did become more flexible over time, I was essentially training my body to be a certain way, which wasn’t allowing any body it’s own intelligence and kept my mind stuck in unhelpful behaviours and ways of being.

I now realise that the body is incredibly intelligent, we just have to get the mind out of the way. This is the reason that the Scaravelli approach is not systemised and even calling it Scarevlli inspired is a difficulty in itself, because as soon as we try to define or describe something, or make it a certain way, then we limit it, which does against the very grain of yoga in its quest to take us towards freedom. It is probably this which has taken me a good while to get my head around, because I have been very mind based in my need to understand everything, I can blame our education system perhaps and our societal need - especially from a scientific perspective - to break everything down into parts, it creates a certain mind set and way of relating, which is actually unhelpful in terms of our spiritual development and leaning increasingly into freedom.

But as I said, everything has a timing. We cannot leap from one way of being to another and the more we open to freedom and become more intimate in our body and understand more of the workings of our mind, the more were feel we are unable to live as we did previously, which usually means we increasingly move away from the mainstream, which is not without its challenges, as people are triggered by this, especially those closest to us, and wonder if we are losing our mind, and in many respects we are, slowly, at least the controlling ego-driven part of our mind. It doesn’t give up without a fight though and I am sure some of you have experienced a healing crisis when it fights back, fearing annihilation, but essentially that is what has to happen if we have any hope of living more in touch with our soul and that eternal part therefore that never changes - not the false self, but the true Self, purusha then.

Thus it did take quite a few years to let go of the vinyasa approach as this was such an ingrained habit to feel that unless I was pushing the body and ‘exercising’ then I was not practising yoga. Now I realise that the opposite is true, that yoga is not about pushing or exercising, but about containing the mind and being super kind. This too - as always -is a work in progress.

Anyway, I lost a lot of my confidence because of the manner in which people turned away from yoga post-pandemic and suddenly my once busy classes were now strangely quiet. It didn’t help that my finance job had also dropped away and while this was my choice, sadly the nature of my mindset at that time was to feel that this was because I wasn’t good enough. This was a very old pattern of mine, and was triggered again. What’s even more sad in many respects is that it took me an awfully long time to realise that this way of personalising everything was an unhelpful pattern in itself and that actually people moving away from yoga was nothing to do with me, that life had changed for so many, that the yoga boom had essentially ended and what an honour it was to have been teaching during that time.

What I also hadn’t appreciated was that my loss of confidence in teaching yoga also caused a loss of passion for yoga and it took me a good while to realise this too. I kept practising of course, I have always been very disciplined about that, getting on my mat every single day for almost 21 years now, bar the day after my boys were each born, but even then I took my yoga mat into hospital and post C-section found myself lying on my mat in Loveridge ward (maternity) breathing, at least I could do that, and very gentle (mad when I think back!) movements!

Since the pandemic I have continued studying online with Louise, as well as with my Vedic chant and philosophy teacher, Helen Macpherson, who is based in Sussex. Studying Vedic chanting has helped me enormously in finding my voice and I am sure this contributed to me finally writing some books, a dream I held since age 10. However, studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with both Helen and her partner, Andy, has been hugely helpful. Even though this text is 5,000 years old it is still relevant now and actually much needed now. It is a guide for living life and I take much comfort in it and enjoy reading it over and over again.

However, it wasn’t until i visited my teacher, Louise, in January that I regained my confidence and - more importantly - my passion for yoga and felt that maybe I should be sharing these practises with others, so that they could also benefit.

At that same time, I re-connected with my pranayama teacher, Emil Wendel, through his partner, Anouk. I met Emil in Byron Bay many years ago now and travelled to study with him in India and Bali as well as meeting him on trips to Nepal, this all pre-children. Being honest again, one of the greatest challenges for me in having children has not only been the demands of motherhood and my ability to parent, but has been coming to terms with the perceived loss of freedom and ability to travel to study with my teachers directly. I also very much miss Nepal as I used to spend months at a time living out there and immersing myself in yoga and all things spiritual. But alas, this is how life is and I am of course eternally grateful for being gifted such beautiful boys with such wonderful souls.

Emil and Anouk stepped away from the yoga scene during the pandemic because of the manner in which yoga has become industrialised and in many respects sold out on itself - it has certainly become something it is not, in so much as an exercise regime rather than a spiritual practice. But at the beginning of this year Anouk felt to start offering their teachings again and I joined her online pranayama and meditation sessions along with a group of dedicated practitioners from around the world and this re-inspired my love of these practices to the extent that I felt confident in sharing these with others too.

So all of this - thank you universe - has helped me to re-discover my passion and love of yoga, and with that my confidence, and I am keen to share what I can with you so that you may all benefit and hopefully experience greater love , intimacy and freedom in your own lives too - peace and stability as well.

Yoga and Reiki truly saved my life. I arrived at them when I didn’t really know that I wanted to be alive, my inner light was very dim, and they brought me back into my body, back to my heart and gave me the strength and courage to make changes in my life so that I could live more authentically and with much greater connection to my heart and soul. It has not always been an easy journey, but at least I feel alive and increasingly connected to my heart and soul and aware that this is a wonderful world filled with magic, if only we allow it.

As I navigate the demands of motherhood with two neurodiverse children who choose to be home schooled, co-habiting and co-parenting with their lovely dad, who is one of my best friends, but no longer (as you many of you already know) my romantic partner, I am given much strength from these various practices. Life is not easy. I too am sensitive and yoga and Reiki make us increasingly sensitive so my way of living is often different to the norm, not for the sake of it, but because there is no other way for me to exist on this planet, but to live increasingly quietly, gently and indeed lightly, retreating when I can.

My work is my passion and I love nothing more than the intimate group sessions I have been running more recently in the beautiful conservatory at the healing space, studying the Sutras, Vedic chanting and pranayama and meditation with some of you really lovely people. I am grateful for the peace this gifts, not least the environment, but the practices and of course your wonderful energy, especially when we come together like this.

I love my Monday evening and Friday morning classes too. The Friday morning ladies (and sometimes Andy!) have been committed for a good while now - you are all amazing human beings, thank you for sharing your Friday mornings with me, I always look forward to seeing you - and I have so loved witnessing the changes in their bodies as I share my practise with them, increasingly freeing the spine and indeed the mind in the process. We have a good laugh together sometimes too, I love that humanness in our interaction and the groaning that sometimes fills the room! The Monday evening class is also finding it’s way into it’s own thing, and we are beginning to have more interaction and community feel - thank you to those of you who stuck with me after Jo left, I really admire your courage too.

I have also thoroughly enjoyed helping some of you find your way with the spiritual life coaching and of course my other passion is Reiki and I am always so honoured when people choose to become attuned with me or come to me for treatments, again in the lovely healing space which fairly much heals you without me actually having to do anything! Ayurveda I love too of course, because it has helped me in infinite ways and I am always keen to share this with others, while appreciating it does take a certain level of consciousness to be open to this ancient approach to diet and lifestyle and the use of medicinal herbs which is very different to our western mindset around nutrition and healing and the quick fix approach.

My intention has always been to share these passions with others so that we can all positively benefit, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of the wider community and indeed the planet. The more we can positively shift our vibration, then much like the butterfly effect, the more we positively affect all those around us and the world at large. We need to be the change we wish to see in the world. We also have to remember that if we keep doing what we have always done then we will always get what we always got…

So thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting Beinspired, for helping me to establish a Beinspired community where we can be ourselves without judgement, another one of my intentions when I established Beinspired back in 2006, and for having the courage to open your mind and heart and explore new ways of being, both in your body and mind and in your life generally. If it wasn’t for each of you I wouldn’t be able to share my passions and my life would not be quiet so joyful and I would not feel quite so free. So thank you, truly.

I will be sharing in my next blog more information on yoga and my latest offerings. Do get in touch if you are keen to explore these offerings and I will add you to my list.

With love and gratitude

Emma