Yoga

Walk your own pace

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

We all adopt these paces in life; finding our groove...are we happiest in the fast lane, are we more middling or are we slow and steady. Should I say, we should find our own groove...yet so many of us live to the pace that is expected of us (or one that was set for us by the metronome of our childhood or cultural entrainment) and this "wrong pace" for our constitution can make us so unwell in the long-term; burning us out or even slowing us down to the point of long-simmering frustration with a life that doesn't keep apace with our longings and aspirations. When we pitch it just right, we land in our sweet spot, and our natural melody of life simply comes forth, asserting over the noise of everything else that may be going on. Our tempo may change according to time of day or the season but the key thing is that we are hearing its direction from somewhere within and then attuning ourselves to it, listening for the clues of our inner conductor as we swell our sound or soften it in ways that feel the most natural to our innate constitution.

Wanting to land: working with a vata dosha

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

If you have a vata dominance, how do you ground that airy, high-spirited, out-there, mercurial constitution long enough to find your way about in a physical body...and then stay there in a way that feels comfortable and sustainable? Here's what I've learned so far:

Super-sensitive abroad

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

Travelling away from home can be an extra-challenge for those of us with health challenges and sensitivities of any kind because it takes us out of our routine. It's not so much the distance but the upheaval that can be difficult to cope with (on top of the extra tiredness that comes with travel) when you probably have well-established survival tactics in place at home that enable you to cope pretty well with your health most of the time. Booking a holiday can feel a bit like planning to blow all that carefully created homeostasis to pieces in the name of having fun and there have been times when I wonder why I do it; is it even worth it (the answer, by the way, is yes). Changes in sleep arrangements and diet can throw health into disarray when maintaining that balance has become a finely tuned thing.

More energy…not less

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

It's a truth I've come to own over years of learning to hold the equilibrium of my physical body that allows me to lead a normalish life - akin to countless others who think they have a shortfall of energy, I possess almost too much energy inside my cells rather than too little. Those waves of crashing exhaustion that periodically seem to want to floor me are because my tank is overspilling with energy, not running dry. And its a trait I notice about a lot of so-called energy-depleted people, especially women....

The joy of feeling everything

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

to fully claim my physicality....to not want to escape it, shrugging it off like an outfit I didn't choose but, rather, to feel the delight and exhilaration of it, daily, like a child that notices everything and never fails to marvel at how beautifully it all works...there are no adequate words. I would go through the whole of the journey again to have reached this point and know what I do about every square inch of this beautiful organic playground of me and how to operate it like never before, relishing its symphony of experiences and the delight of knowing how I chose to have them. It is in this overspilling love for the human bodily experience that the healing of just so many people (certainly mine) can be found and if, in any way, my experiences help to end the stalemate that has been perpetuated for just so long, between those who feel they have struggled with their own body and that they are at logger heads with it, then these words will have been worthwhile.

First things first

~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

Doing this simple thing - as a priority - centres me, it drops me back into myself, right into the lock-on position of my heart's core and my energetic root system, connecting my astral travels of the night hours into the handset of the earth energies that gravitate me and become the pathways of choice that make up my days. Like a handset being put back onto its cradle as a means of orienting and recharging itself, this simple routine ensures I have what is needed to sustain myself for the whole of the forthcoming day, however far I need to travel from that charger unit. Above all, this simple priority PUTS...ME...FIRST and makes a declaration to all, including myself, that this is where I reside as an absolute priority in my own life (read more...).

Yoga-ish

~ Helen White ~ 2 Comments

That thing that I do most(!) mornings on my yoga mat probably doesn't bear scrutiny from anyone who attends a yoga class or really knows their stuff...its not "proper", its not pretty, its not lengthy, its just what I do (a mixture of what I've learned, what feels good, movements I've half invented); but the key is in the words "I do it". I know of plenty of yoga aficionados who still only do yoga when they go to a class. Sometimes I roll movements together so much I feel like I'm a butterfly about to take off then, at other times, I use long pauses and gravity to do the work with me, holding positions until my body tells me to stop, a method that can deliver exquisite release to some of the deepest entanglements. The sense of fine tuning what my body is most asking for, to my own rhythm, has been palpable and the real gift of home practice; being unique to me and that most-intimate inner dialogue (the one that starts with the invitation "show me what you want and I will do that" without uttering a word) and not something that could follow the rhythm of a teacher or class. A conversation such as this, based utterly upon trust, is one that never (ever) stops again but, rather, carries on spreading its magic across all aspects of your daily life. Approaching yoga in this ad-hoc way, the mat remains somewhere that I'm accomplished, doing something that its impossible for me to do wrong or badly (which is a good starting point to get to know this truth about all of life). In listening to my body, what it wants, what it calls out for (today...which may not be the same as yesterday), I do something that is a central tenet of what yoga is all about and that takes me into that same hallowed space where the alchemy of yoga really happens. Like a meditation or a pause for breath, a moment of grace in a life that can be physically challenging, a demonstration of pure self-love and of listening to what my body is telling me, I get there...all on my own.

The difference that is yoga

~ Helen White ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday I woke in pain so intense I was completely locked-up all through the trapezius muscle and my limbs hurt all over. This was a fibromyalgia flare-up of old; I recognised all the signs of the pain that gets into everything. Yet by mid afternoon I was bobbing around the house on a mission to … Continue reading The difference that is yoga