How much do you fiddle with your clothing during practise? Since my closer look at all things Yoga clothing, I have noticed just how much I adjust what I am wearing while teaching particularly. 

As I float to standing through down dog and Uttanasana, for example, I will more often than not pull my t-shirt or cami top down and hitch up my pants perhaps to cover my thong and as a teacher you can feel like everyone is watching while you rush to cover up bare flesh. Whilst bare flesh is part of me and that’s ok, I like to present an easeful experience for my students without too much distraction, so fiddling can become annoying and distracting to my teaching and my own practise.

Which leads me to the question: Is yoga clothing really designed for Yoga practise?

The Yoga body learns to loosen off, ease up and become more flexible over time and yet clothing and its material properties can place a needless further restriction to your inner peace. The ‘monkey’ mind loves distraction so why give it more to think about with clothing that is too tight, too loose and doesn’t hug you like the sweetest of kisses.

Straps on tops have long been my niggle. Thin or spaghetti shoulder straps ride up during inversions and more than one, means more adjusting! Some tops are tied at the back so when you lie down your mind is drawn to the lump digging into your spine and if it comes undone, oooh missus..everyone gets to see what falls out! And what of halter neck tops during back bends? I have a top with only a thin strap across my neck and yet I get neck ache wearing it every time.

It’s obvious that a separate top and bottoms will create movement around the midriff which is an area that fiddling is often at its peak. Longer T’s are good I guess, but maybe if they were velcroed to your pants? 

Next time you practise watch out for the fiddle tendency.

What do you find most annoying about your clothing? Please comment below and also

 PLEASE TAKE THE YOGA CLOTHING SURVEY. Its very short

 

It’s been 10 months since I last blogged! Seems like eons ago. I’ve had NO desire to share words at all and although I’d like to paint the blissful picture that I’ve been just ‘being’, floating about with a silly smile on my face, in fact stopping enough to just ‘be’ has been a buggar of a thing to do.

My life-long conditioning says ‘well you should be doing something towards a greater pension and getting a bigger house…blah’ It was shouting loud in my ear for some months and all sorts of fear stories kept jumping around in my head. I felt lost quite literally for some of last year, even though on the surface it looked like I had the cushiest life going. But losing my darling furry companion Becky of 16 years, 2 weeks back, my fears have melted away for now. A blessing.

Suddenly this morning words started to flow again but this time instead of conscious relationship creation (of which there are about 55 blogs on here still to chose from) Yoga is the flavour and more to the point what we wear to Yoga. Thank Grace for Yoga in my life!

This blog will be short and to the point to keep up with current trends but it’s intention is wrapped up in a bigger desire that I will share with you as the weeks unfold.

In the mean time I would love it to be a discussion portal. What do you like, love or positively detest about your yoga clothing? I want to hear from you, the practitioner/teacher, whatever age, size and nationality!

My aim is not to diss, upset or dis-empower any yoga clothing businesses, rather to see what works and what doesn’t. I will be discussing colour as a hot topic, design, fabric, wearability during practise and if it’s not out there, what would you want in Yoga clothing Nirvana? Let’s get into detail here!

My personal journey with Yoga of nearly 20 years now, has no goals. Rather it’s an exploration of the body I am growing older in and gaining more understanding of this incessant thinking mind and sharing what I know through my Yoga teaching.

But whilst I am preoccupied with asana (posture work), and very importantly pranayama (breathing practises) and meditation, my Yoga clothing has always been an area where I feel uninspired to a great extent. For example, I am forever adjusting straps and waists bands etc. during practise and am more self conscious when I teach, which highlights the issue of wearability ‘v’ movement. Of course my mind, the unstable little monkey it is, LOVES to focus on it pulling me away from inner contemplation.

Part of me is wondering why I am starting this blog and the other part is urging ‘Just do it G!!’ So here it is, the Yoga G blog. Stay tuned and stay connected. I would LOVE to hear from you once we get going.

Namaste

Love, the greatest elixir, sent as the ultimate gift to every person on this planet. Everything stems from Love when you think about it. Lack of it however often breeds many a complicated emotion filled situation, but when we genuinely feel it, we are the best person to be around.

But one thing that appears common among us is that with loving someone, comes attachment and attachment causes pain more than pleasure.

This article is simply inviting you to inspire exploration of your own attachment to the people in your life, particularly your partner.

Before I explore this phenomena with you, my overriding message is this.

Give yourself a break in thinking you can love and NOT be attached in some form. The human race (well 99%!) is not evolved enough yet to love and not be attached. That is, in my humble opinion, unconditional love.

Loving in a non-attached way may just be a future Nirvana but we can however apply a few principles to help us suffer less when we part from partners or indeed anyone else we love.

Why do we feel attached to our partner?

A fascinating theory I picked up a few years ago : “When we become physically detached at birth from our mother, we experience separateness for the first time in our existence and from then on we find ourselves pursuing a lifetime of trying to sense and feel that completeness through the RE-attachment to another.”

This struck me as some kind of tangible explanation (because the mind loves explanations!), as to why we feel the need to attach, but it doesn’t fix anything.

Attachment is heavily linked to safety and security for our happiness and survival with another person. It stems from way back when we first arrived in this world.

Imago Relationship theory, often written about in precious articles, describes the attachment stage from 0 to 18 months as one of the most important stages in our development, if not the most important.

Babies require a healthy attachment with their caretakers, mainly mum, at this stage because emotional and physical safety is of primary important. Feeling safe is of life giving importance for babies. Lack of physical and emotional safety sends signals to babies brains that signify death could be imminent. Without mum, dad or guardian they would die. The reliance on them is of 100% importance for their survival.

That would be cool if we all had a healthy attachment stage with mum and dad, but most of us experience some form of attachment rupture and we don’t know about it until we start forming our own relationships.

Intimate relationships highlight attachment problems more than any other kind of relationship you will have. The “in love” bit opens Pandora’s box on those inner tender places.

Why does attachment cause pain?

Primarily because we fear losing love so try to secure to our beloved, who we think love is coming from and attach ourselves to them to guarantee love and safety’s never ending supply. That would be fine if we were happy bunnies all of the time, but we somehow designate our honey responsible for making sure we feel safe and secure and loved and approved of and and and. But our partners are not our parents and we are not babies any more and that pressure to supply us is going to cause problems.

Heavy duty attachment can lead some people to live their lives “through” others in order to experience being loved, inspired, motivated and self worthy. No wonder then if that person leaves or dies we feel raw, like a piece of us has been ripped away.

Often without consciously knowing it we watch for demonstrations that love is still there from our honey. This can be daily or even hourly depending on our fear of loss. Attachment and it’s fearful driving force, sucks the freedom from the relationship. Lack from freedom slowly suffocates both people and what we fear we actually create as the relationship breaks down over time. Love is the oxygen, attachment the depleter.

Our suffering is because we think love only comes from another person. This is fraught with limitation. The associated pain is your opportunity for inner freedom.

How can I tell if I am too attached?

Simply by ascertaining to what degree you suffer regularly in your relationship. Are you happy or constantly on edge? If your relationship occupies your thoughts all day long all the time and you feel anxious about whether your partner loves you or not and they keep having to demonstrate that they love you, then it’s time to act. Do you:

1. Act needily and find your partner backing off and spending less time around you?
2. Behave jealously if other people find your partner attractive?
3. Control your partner with expectations of how they should behave and give them rules to live by?
4. Find yourself constantly picking holes in your partner and being moody and miserable when they won’t do as you say?

What can I do?

Many spiritual texts and books say that we are love, it is the very fabric of who we are and if we know this deep down then we would not suffer from attachmentitis. But how do you love and not attach?

Easy answer is, you can’t completely. It’s not your relationship to love that causes you pain but your relationship with attachment to others. A good point to start exploring. Two things are highly recommended.

1. Be willing to look at yourself inside and out and commit to change. Self growth is a massive industry now, because people are seeking freedom through exploration and release of past inner hurts and baggage. Byron Katie, one of the self growth biggies today, teaches The Work and is a global pioneer. Your mind stories keep you chained to your pain. Go explore, read, forgive, release and find more inner love. It can only come from you. Never expect your partner to change. It’s a fruitless path 100% of the time.
2. Read up about attachment and stages of childhood development and you may find some AHA! moments in your own history.
3. Mostly importantly of all, if you are in a relationship, ask your partner to help you. Explain how you feel and what you need to help you feel safe but also ask them how it feels to be with you and how you can help yourself and them, to create more freedom. Your TRUE healing comes in working together in a relationship, to create first a safe relational environment and then in becoming separately connected rather than needily attached. Call me if you want guidance and support.

I will leave you with this. We are all “hard wired” for connection and cannot NOT be connected to love. Everything is just perception of what we think we have and don’t have. The past is alive in all of us but in every moment we always have the opportunity to change our perception and attachment is just that, a perception.

Love and blessings

I was in a health food shop today chatting with the owner and as many conversations go we ended up talking about relationships! He had recently, but reluctantly, split up from a 12 year relationship. His description of his ex and the power behind his words spelt out a very raw man still in pain.

Many of us try to rationalise and logically put the past in a neat little box labelled “oh well they weren’t right for me anyway” but in reality that person, even though others tell you are better off without them, made you feel alive and despite the troubles, was the one who held the promise of your healing and wholeness.

He then said something that struck me. He described how he had become someone he didn’t really feel good about when in the relationship and a friend had told him to remember the “him” before he met his ex.

So I got to thinking just how many of us morph and mould ourselves ever so subtly to be with an intimate other and how we gradually become someone we are not happy with, which irks and erodes our relationship eventually, while the underlying “us”ness insists on pushing through.

Do you resonate with this? I certainly do and oh boy I did it many times!

One of the common ailments among us girls is the sacrificing of friendships to be ever increasingly at our man’s beck and call, only to find when he dumps us (which often happens because we are not being true to ourselves!), that we have lost alot of our support network, once so precious.

But this is not exclusive to women. A mate of mine became alienated, begrudgingly from his college mates when he married his first wife, because she found subtle but powerful fault in nearly everyone of his friends over the years which made it difficult to see them. Today he really notices the lack of “man time” he has in his life. Thankfully his current girlfriend is all for him meeting new friends and so he’s back out there being the real him again.

Many people give up families, friends, hobbies and literally themselves to be with their partner, thinking it’s really ok when really it’s SO not!

We also take on their stuff and in a way become them as the relationship space blends. But the one with more emotional toxicity can control the direction and quality of the relationship. Control can be exerted in the form of explosive and tricky emotions or no words and lots of closing down. Both create the impetus in the other towards happiness even if vast compromise on authenticity occurs. But at some point balance WILL be addressed naturally. Your authenticity is essential and will push you to make changes to re-address any unhealthy balance. This may come in the form of more conflict, which is ever increasing sign to DO SOMETHING.

When does it start?

The timing of when we start to lose our sense of self in an unhealthy relationship, I feel, depends on the length of time it takes to fall in love.

I notice a distinct change in many once confident, outgoing people who literally become a gooey mess with their partner as they wake up one morning and realise they are in love. As well as the great things, we feel a sense of rising anxiety because our stuff wants to come up and we feel almost at the mercy of love. Are you saying yes to this?

I had a 3 month “pre collapse” timeline. I was this amazing, sassy thing with a great career, lots of good friends and just a vibrant sense of “me”ness, until I fell in love. Then pow! Overnight, I was insecure, reactionary and worried about whether this or that signal from my man meant that he still loved me. I dated some shallow guys. Ones who thought waxing this or shaving that, was best. I dyed my hair to match my man’s one time and yes I even considered plastic surgery to look younger for the young thing I was dating, after only 6 months!

Why do we lose sight of who we are?

1)  Loss of Love – In my own experience and in observation, when we fall head over heels, we feel the vulnerability of being in love and we kind of lose ourselves in the Universal fear of loss of love and will do almost anything to keep from feeling it. In fact I think this is the primary driver on the whole, but what we fear we ultimately create!

2)  Believing the other person to be perfect – Being in love can bring about the madness of thinking the other person is better than us and what they say goes. People are clever. When we want something we can use very clever relating tactics to rationalise why things “should” be a certain way. Mark Twain made the point that we are all selfish creatures with “me” being number one always and all actions are for personal good feeling, no matter how much we might shout “No, not me guv!”

What Can You Do?

1)  Listen to people around you – the truth of where you are is most often reflected in those that care about you. My dear mum has always been such a truth sayer in my relationship life. She would, annoyingly, always tell me, what I knew to be deep down not right with “current man.” Acknowledge others views (with gentle caution) and see if there is a distinct opinion. You know if they are right because they merely reflect what we already know. Your choice in how long you leave taking action on getting back to you.

2)  Sit with yourself – if something just doesn’t feel right deep down. Don’t ignore it. Find the time to fully explore what feelings are coming up. The urge inside to say “no that’s not me and that doesn’t feel good” NEVER goes away. Head ruling will muller you eventually.

3)  Remember who you were before – think of you when you were happy and content with your life. What was happening then and how did you feel? Freedom is the greatest elixir in being who we are. It is an essential ingredient in healthy conscious relationships.

4)  Have the “I feel….” “I need….” chat – call a conversation with your beau and explain how you feel and what you need to achieve to get back to being who you are. Get them to reminisce about the time you met and how good you felt. You may find your honey missing those bits of you too!

5)  Take some time out of the relationship – this is tricky but can work wonders. Needing space from your honey can really rock the boat, but being away from them for a couple of weeks will help you land into yourself. Don’t threaten the end. This is time out not game over! Do this only if you feel totally owned/controlled by your partner. Set the boundary with them. Be firm. Have that conversation and be kind with your words.

However you choose to approach your relationship to attempt to get back your true self, remember that the purpose of your life is to be who you are and share in the celebration of that every day with someone who really wants that for you too!

Love and blessings

Hedy Schleifer, a genius in the world of helping intimate relationships thrive, talks about each person being an “island.” This analogy works really well with clients, who say that thinking of themselves an island work really well when it comes to knowing how to understand themselves and their honey better.

Hedy says, for us to communicate effectively, we need to visit each other’s island, not shout from our island expecting the other person to have the same view. Or indeed make their island the same as ours, so we can be happy!

Our beliefs, perspectives and inner landscape is unique and as many have said before, another person is built on beliefs and perspectives of how we choose to view them. Any wonder then, that relating is so tricky when we view life through a huge amount of filters rather like different coloured lenses inside a kaleidoscope.

Your island, which is who you are right now, has boundaries (hopefully intact!), it’s own thoughts, feelings, happy places and more tricky ones. It is hopefully full of love and happiness most of the time but maybe has one or two less than palatable areas which could do with cleaning out every now and then! We are all and always will be, work in progress.

Being who you are will always be about the highs and lows and ebbs and flows because the nature of life is impermanent. Being part of the Universe and on a planet within a solar system, we can never be separate from, or on an island independent of others, but in our co-existence we have to do our part in communicating more healthily and not shoot from the hip with any old words to help us get by. That’s fast becoming out- dated. It’s head not heart lead and has caused world wars in the past.

Island to island communicating must be an unfolding art in your life and one you can choose to practise every day. It is absolutely possible to be who you are through expressing healthily in a way that is heard and felt by others.

Here’s 3 useful ways you can communicate with your beloved and others to achieve a good feeling outcome.

1) Give it space and time - Assuming you are discussing something important for a moment, to what extent do you fill the conversation with a whole heap of words? Many people’s relationships hit troubled waters despite them complaining that they “talk for hours.” This is often a symptom of talking “at” rather than talking “with” their partner and trying to get their needs met first. Transmitting into the relationship rather than a healthy dance of transmitting and receiving is eventually erosive, if left to carry on.

a. Stay completely silent and LISTEN if they are talking. Be the first to adopt this way and encourage your partner to offer you the same. You will be surprised how much more can be said and allowed with time

b. Give words the space to land into you so you can fully receive them and vice versa. More space and time, makes for a deeper and more satisfying connection because you are both honouring each other’s right to speak and be heard.

2) Come from the heart as much as you can – When you are giving your view on issues or a certain situation, as much as you can say “I feel….” rather than “ I think…” feeling is heart, thinking is head. What you feel is your business and it’s actually your feelings about an issue that help you to “feel felt” by another. There is a kind of detachment in making thoughts logical. True connection comes in the feeling place every time and is delicate.

3) What others do or say is not for you to change – This one is definitely “work in progress” for us all and one we can aim for in every conversation, but don’t beat yourself up if it goes Pete Tong from time to time!  

Others have perfect right to do or say whatever they like, but we can, using the comments above, learn to respond effectively. You are wasting your time if you retaliate with words that blame and judge.

Couples use alot of time and energy on their partners islands telling them that they “shouldn’t” or “should” have which is rife with expectation. Learn to say:

“Honey, when you said/did that I felt…….” Not “You always do that to annoy me” or “Why do you insist on doing/saying that?” The latter merely puts you, them and the relationship into resistance. Defences build and things get a whole lot harder.

Relating is much more simple that we give credit but we do complicate matters by either, as I have said, reacting or just not saying, because we fear the response or the outcome.

In the future when you communicate, honour yourself and stay on your island but be willing to visit other islands, for they are rich in diversity and contrast which makes life inspiring, healing and is ultimately necessary for your growth.

Namaste