Through the work I do, yoga and coaching, I notice there is a great tendency to want to fix ourselves. Like there is something wrong with us or not good enough right now in the moment.

Of course sometimes we have injuries that we want to heal as quickly as possible, but often when we resist what is and try to fix it too fast we can end up making it worse.

What we resist persists. Resistance creates tension which can in fact delay the healing process.

I’ve experienced this first hand with knee, back and shoulder injuries in the past. In fact right now as I am writing this I am randomly experiencing numbness down the left side of my body! Rather than fighting it though I am nurturing it, doing what I feel it needs and allowing it to pass in it’s own time.

Injuries and situations in our lives can be great teachers. I believe everything happens for a reason and in anything that we perceive as “bad” there is actually light. We may not see it initially but in time it becomes clear.

Being with what is right now what ever you are going through is incredibly calming. Try it on now:

What if there was nothing to fix?

What if where you are at right now is perfect?

If you were to fully accept yourself just how you are right now, what would you do?

Just meditate on those questions for a while, notice the thoughts that arise. Perhaps your mind will try to get involved and tell you the opposite, “no something is wrong!”…..remember you are not your mind. Pay attention to how your body feels as you contemplate these questions.

If you have an injury, perhaps you might like to ask – “what does my body want me to know?”

Dis-ease is often created in the body when we are not taking care of ourselves emotionally. Have you ever been stressed, being running on empty, not allowing yourself enough rest, and then got ill? Sometimes the body get’s ill to force us to rest!

You often hear of people who have suffered serious illnesses having big epiphanies and making huge changes in their lives as a result.

Everything happens for a reason.

I believe the most important thing is to learn to love yourself just as you are. Right now in this moment.

The media and all the external messages we absorb can lead us to believing there is something to fix, but there really isn’t.

Just experiment taking this on today. Notice the impact it has on your yoga practice.

Namaste

 

Change in life can be disrupting, unsettling, scary and upsetting. Alternatively it can be energising, inspiring, a time for growth and maybe even exciting. It’s all down to you how you choose to perceive it and experience it.

One time I was in India I noticed a sign at the place I practised yoga each morning. “You are an organic being constantly evolving”.

This message stayed with me. The day after returning from that trip, after already deciding I would be returning the following year for much longer, I received a call telling me that my part time freelance work had been made redundant. In the midst of the recession they could no longer keep freelancers on board. This was a company I had worked in for about 10 years.

It was perfect timing. This set the wheels in motion for me to leave London, to spend 6 months in India and to become a yoga teacher. Of course in that moment when I received the call I was not aware that would happen. I had just got back from a 6 week holiday, with no money and kind of needed that work! Plus I enjoyed the work I had been doing, training and coaching within a company.

Still, those words sprung to mind and I even said to my manager “Life is constantly evolving, don’t worry I will be fine.” She had been so nervous to tell me I think she was relieved at how well I took it!

I have had other moments like this in my life, where unexpected things have happened that triggered a huge diversion. At the time I haven’t been so open minded and peaceful about it. One being discovering my partner of almost 8 years had been cheating on me for a year and a half. Yet when I look back it was still perfect, the chain of events that triggered after that completely changed my life, and have also led me to where and who I am today.

So what I am trying to say is that if you are going through a change now, unexpected or planned, know that it is perfect. Life really is full of changes, and it’s in the changes that we grow. We have an opportunity in change to choose who we are going to be, how we are going to deal with it, what we are going to learn from it and how we are going to use it for our highest good in the future.

A couple of week’s ago I wrote about the yama’s in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra’s. One of them is Aparigraha which means non possesiveness, avoiding jealousy and non grasping. This can be interpreted as not being so hooked on things being a certain way, avoiding being possessive over people or things. When we can remain detached life can feel so much lighter.

It’s in being attached to people behaving in a certain way our outcomes going in a certain direction that we can cause ourselves pain.

I love this quote from T.K.V. Desikachar:

“The way that we see things today does not have to be the way we saw them yesterday. That is because the situations, our relationships to them, and we ourselves have changed in the interim. This notion of constant change suggests that we do not have to be discouraged.”

If you are in the middle of a big change, allow yourself moments to just be still, sit quietly and breathe. Allow change to wash over you and trust that it’s all working out perfectly. There is a reason why this is happening to you right now, one day you will look back and realise it was all happening in perfect timing.

Namaste

Louise x