My little understanding of Yoga (thus far); what it is and what it isn’t.

I’d been flirting around for over a year with a few different Yoga classes here and there before I decided to search for one near my student house in Southampton. The first result on my little Google venture presented me with the beautifully named “Yoga Sanctuary”, which I was surprised to find was, unbeknown to me, only two roads down from the flat I’d been living in for 6 months. I emailed to enquire for prices and was asked by the owner, Steve to come down for a chat.

Walking down the samey-same roads in Southampton, I worried whether I’d be able to find where it was, but you’d be utterly blind to miss it. The delicate house stood out like a lovely rose in an otherwise normal, grey road. A delight for the senses; I could hear the soft wind chimes and smell the rich incense before I strolled down the gorgeous paved walkway, generously adorned with pink and yellow flowers.

There is an indescribable stillness about The Yoga Sanctuary that I’ve now realised is mine and anybody else’s to keep, always. You feel a little lighter, you can breathe a little deeper, you smile for no good reason and you suddenly feel so very much at home. When you walk through the door it’s like you can strip out of your heavy coat sodden with worries, doubts, insecurities and anxieties and leave it hanging up to dry. Committing to a 10 week block of Yoga classes was honestly a little daunting at the start, but something felt right about it. Meeting Steve, there was a warmth and an understanding that told me so. I’ll always remember him telling me then that being so close to the Sanctuary was not an accident, which now, I am convinced he was completely right about (like pretty much everything else too!).

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One 10 week block turned into two, two to three, three to four and even more, as I began to deepen my knowledge of Yoga, which I actually knew very little about. Every week we would learn more and more about the practice of bringing to everyday life what we bring to the mat, and committing to this was no problem. Once you get a tiny taste of the decadent layers of Yoga, I don’t think you can help but be hungry for more.

And wow, there is so, so much more.

From what I understand, the most beautiful thing is that Yoga is an ongoing practice. I love that word, ‘practice’; with it comes gifted so much freedom, doesn’t it? What’s the point of freedom without the freedom to make mistakes? You simply cannot mess it up; you cannot be ‘too inflexible’ or unfit or any of that nonsense. I’d lose count of the amount times that I’ve been too afraid to do something just because I’d mess it up (and I am a top messer-upper, promise). A lot of attachment to the idea of Yoga comes with thoughts of people getting into seemingly impossible pretzel shapes, but the postures – the ones we see plastered all over magazines and everywhere else, are only one teeny tiny part of Yoga. There are seven other magnificent parts to Yoga, derived from the Sansrit word “yuj”, meaning ‘to unite’.

In our crazy busy world, what I’ve learned so far is that Yoga is a return to what is real. A switch from where we are always so outwardly focused on things: other people, pasts and futures, to what is underneath if it were all to disappear. You get to learn that absolutely none of your problems are real, and even if you don’t fully believe that, you can at least pretend a little sometimes until it becomes truth. Yoga is personal, and a continuous process of growth. You plant the seeds and you get to water them (with lots of love) every day, in every situation that you come to. You slowly realise that you have a choice in anything life throws at you – and if you choose to bring love and authenticity to whatever it may be, that suddenly that saves you a ton of worry. That is the absolute best and all that you can do. You’ve got it covered.

There is always tension; in our bodies and in our life, and that is an awesome thing. We get to work with it by seeing it as opportunities for growth rather than hindrances. Overtime, you get an occasional feeling of unshakable invincibility – you get to learn how to find your ease no matter what situation (or posture) you are in; you know how to meet the tension. You don’t take anything for granted, you find the edge and use your breath to deepen into it. Then you completely drop it – offer it up and move on. You get into downward dog for the thousandth time, but you choose to approach it with a curiosity, a freshness each time around. You learn that you can bring this exact same curiosity and freshness to every single day. So you get into tree pose, wobble and fall out – GOOD. LAUGH. As you can also laugh when you get into a tense situation in life and screw it all up.

I saw a documentary recently called “Who Owns Yoga?”, which explored the modern obsession with Yoga and some of its more trendy, hybrid forms; such as Yoga as a competitive sport, “Voga” (vouging and yoga), hot Yoga and even rave Yoga (hello, UV lights). I guess a principle of Yoga is making it completely your own, but I can’t help but feel some of the more mainstream, cool and ‘fashionable’ ways Yoga has formed into feels very far from what Yoga is. Yoga should belong to everyone, and making yoga into a competition or a materialistic money-making scheme strips it of what I feel is its true purpose; a means of grounding, centring and focusing yourself.

There was a TED talk on the psychology of change by Dan Gilbert, where he put it well:

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished”.

I think it’s such an exciting thing to be a work in progress. Through Yoga, you get to learn how to work with the continuous changes in your life so you can endlessly transform and grow.

We are constantly learning, and I am so excited to learn so much more. I am majorly grateful for Yoga, for the unfathomable pool of knowledge and teachers, and feel that I can’t help but share it – share the availability and overflowing supply of it, from an authentic place of pure gratitude for it all.

All Love,

Adele x