Each To Their Own: On Choosing Not To Have Kids
I love tigers – but I have no desire to have one in my life. I’m fascinated by documentaries about extreme mountain climbing – but have zero urge to strap on some crampons. And although I have five godchildren and a stepdaugher, all of whom I adore, I have never ever wanted kids of my
Get wise, get free – are you reacting or responding?
‘However disturbing or powerful something may appear to be, it is our reaction to it that determines its effects.’ TKV Desikachar What we learn from yoga boils down to one thing: waking up. Waking up from the illusion that all life exists between our ears and that the version we see through our lens is
Rock ‘n’ Roll Identity Crisis
Who are you, when you can’t do the thing that you’ve defined yourself by? This is a very real situation for many of us who have spent our entire adult lives working in industries where our job is so much more than what we do for 40 hours a week to make money – it’s
Audio basics for better online yoga teaching
If you follow this blog you’ll know that I’m both a professional sound engineer, and a yoga teacher. Several times recently I’ve assisted fellow teachers who were having sound problems with this new world of Zoom classes, and it occurred to me that a blog with some pointers might be helpful. It’s not something we
Just like us – why are some animals more equal than others?
If we could understand what each others’ hearts are saying, would we still be able to harden our own, or would we lose the capacity to hate? It’s much harder to hate someone up close and personal. We can demonise entire races, or exploit entire species for our own gain, if we don’t connect with
Awakenings – are we sleepwalking our way through life?
It’s been said that we never really experience the world, just our own nervous systems. Everything we come into contact with, we see through the distorted lens of our own life experiences, beliefs, impressions, prejudices, likes and dislikes, ego-identifications, hopes and fears. The Eastern philosophies of Yoga and Buddhism are systems to help us to
Why I’m tearing up the plan and finding my balance
According to the yoga tradition, we have four types of desire called the purusharthas. They are dharma, artha, kama, and moksha. Dharma is our soul’s purpose, our reason for being in the world, to bring forth the unique nugget hidden within us, the unique expression of the Universe that we are. Artha is the desire
Un-becoming… what’s behind your facade?
I feel incredibly fortunate to have three teachers with whom I study every week. A former Buddhist monk and psychotherapist who I’ve known for almost a decade; a renowned Tantrik scholar and author; and a yoga teacher with forty-five years of teaching experience, whose own teacher was Desikachar (son of Krishnamacharya, the ‘godfather’ of modern
Introverts and Extroverts are Handling This Differently….
The first time anything about our current situation really felt different for me was the day when they closed the gyms and yoga studios. Up until that point nothing much had changed in my day to day life – I was at home in between tours, and although I love going out in nature for