Learning to breathe Again

After passing the half way mark of my trip, I realised this trip was quite different then I had expected. Often we expect something to be the same or similar as the previous time we did it, each trip there is more learning’s, each trip easier but also more challenging as I challenge myself more. This time I was learning to slow down, As Alessia gets more independant, I can relax more . she is a pleasure to travel with. We have so much fun; her caring funny nature leads to time of bliss spent with her. 

As for my Yoga, my teacher is incredible. His knowledge and  adjustments are a different level; I’ve learned vocal Adjustments can be more powerful then physical adjustments, which I often give to my students. Letting the student become aware of the exact position rather then putting them
into it.  Every trip I learn more and more. My love for yoga becomes much deeper. As I finish three weeks of classes and have anther two and a bit, I think already of next years trip.  After the first week I made a difficult decision. I changed my morning class, from a Hatha class to an Ashtanga class. It felt the right decision yet felt so hard as the class I was leaving was incredible. 

As my knowledge of yoga increases my reasons for practicing continues to change. My desire to teach and how I want to teach slightly alters. As my teacher said today “the criteria to be a good teacher one of which is giving no power to what others think not acting in a way to be liked but just allowing yourself be and act in a way that is true to you” This I feel is so important, to actually be a good teacher.

When I am in India it gives me a different perspective of life, making life simple again, slowing down, stopping the silly stressing over things that don’t matter. This trip has allowed me to practice pranayama, in a relaxed calm way, as I have much more flexibility with Alessia. Pranayama, is such a fantastic tool, allowing you to learn to live in the moment, often the only other way is constant entertainment. This trip is teaching me to learn to just be learning to relax and teaching me further about my breathe.  Each trip  different also the same but the knowledge I am learning is valueless.  Loving India and all it has to offer. 

loving the little things

Over the years coming to India I’ve heard other parents who bring their children with them saying things like their children are bored here?????  I Find it very hard to understand, bored of seeing some where new, of spending time with their parents, embracing a different culture, seeing a different way of life. The problem is our children’s lives are as busy as ours. Rushing and racing, bombarded with toys and gifts, activities, Electronics watching our phones, ipads, computer, TV so their concentration is terrible they don’t want to sit still, they need instant gratification. What I see here is children playing on the streets, spending time with their parents, helping their parents, living with very little but they do not appear bored they are not looking to be constantly entertained.

 Whey do we feel like we need to ensure every second of our child’s day is full to the brim. What I love about coming to India is time slow downs it is acceptable to sit in a café for the whole day with one cup of coffee and watch the world go by. I love that alessia just takes it all in and plays with her surroundings. We have little toys, a tea set, some dolls, books and jigsaws and there is endless amount of fun. I love how she spends her day doing pretend play, how she is soaking up a different culture, she said to me one of the days we arrived although we all look a little different inside we are all the same. Watching her interact with the children we meet, some of them she plays with, it is so real they play they don’t ask to many questions they have fun and then they go their separate ways. They are living  in the moment. 

 

Each trip for me gets better and better, Alessia is getting older and with that more independent I can go to my classes and relax, there is no stress I can breathe, this year feels like my first time to practice in a relaxed calm mind set, I am not trying to rush home I am present and I can see the effects. I am really embracing the pranayama, as I can sit relax and actually breathe. While I am at class I think how I’ve created a Journey for myself that couldn’t be closer to the true me. 

As I sit and watch people fighting for business, people struggling to fed their children, people living with nothing and still a smile to their faces, still just living still so many people honest and kind. As my first week commences I feel empowered, I feel my knowledge I’ve learned is priceless. My teacher is incredible, he speaks few words but what ever he says is of value. 

I look forward to seeing my students again and teaching them all I’ve learned. And if all I got from these trips is teaching Alessia to be happy in her own skin, to learn to live with little and find true happiness inside then I think will be doing well. 

Loving India 

The art of balance

No one told me it was so hard, although I never envied working mothers. I luckily had the first 18 months of alessia’s life with Little work. I did stints sins free lance but over all I could focus on being a mum, I was a hundred percent happy with how I was doing my job. I don’t like to do things in halves so all my energy was into Motherhood. But that was never going to be long term, for many reasons.

 But why couldn’t I still be the stress free relaxed mother and work what would be so different. 

It’s almost coming to a year that the lotus room has been open, and what a year it has been.  Meeting some of the most amazing people. Getting to watch people grow and develop at the yoga, see people move from one class to the next and meet young teens, explore and learn something so knew and love it. It organically blossomed from

Home grown to the beach and then my studio. 

But I wanted to do both. I was working full time and I was a full time mum. My job was not cut in half now I was working there was not less to do, no there was more. More organising more, Juggling, more preparing. I love going with the flow just seeing what happens but things changed. Cooking dinner turned into a huge chore, going to the shops was the same. I didn’t have the same energy to do all these things as well as I wanted. 

I only had so much to go around. But when it comes to your business you have to give it all, you don’t get a second Chance, so this is where everything went and then what was left was trying to be the best mum I could be. There was Days where I didn’t pick up a hover, or weeks where we ate out for lunch. And weekends where I just wanted to lie in bed after working six or seven days that week. But I loved both  jobs, each one different each one offering something unique.but the balance was the struggle. As my first years draws to a close. And my first real

Break is upon me, as I sit in India and once more all I have to do is be a mum, my job seems so easy, so enjoyable so rewarding.  What I hope to learn is the  art of balance.  

And just like that she was gone.

Then it happened, one minute I was worrying about taking maternity leave, and then worrying about taking extended maternity leave and the next minute I was dropping her off to Pre School. I spend nine months of pregnancy worrying that my career in television was going to come to an end once I had Alessia, that I could never travel again and so on and so on. But as soon as Alessia was born these were the last of my worries, My priorities changed, time stood still and every moment was precious. Work didn’t seem as important as cuddling kissing and loving my little girl. Tending to her every need. It thought me to sit still, all the energy I had put into becoming the best I could be in the tv world was now being used to be the best mother I could be. I was practicing attachment parenting without knowing it. I was just listening to my human instincts going with what the baby wanted. 
So often I heard the questions when will you go back to work? Or you’re too young not to be working, how will you survive? What will you do? But I didn’t worry or care I was going with the flow. I was taking the time to just be. I was going to travel, to allow myself think spend time writing and getting to know my little girl. These moments were precious. So life as I knew it was a distant memory and this for me was bliss.

 I knew I was not going to get child care, I was luckily enough to be able to not have to, I knew I would never be going off to work 5-6 days a week for 8-10 hours s day it wasn’t going to happen.  I was going to figure something else out. I was going to be a full time mother and even more I loved it. All the while, putting different things in place. Finding ways to work around Alessia. We travelled to India to learn to teach yoga. We returned to India to do more yoga, we spend time in New York and Italy.

I then started to teach Yoga while I figured out something long term, and then that became my long term no stress no thought it just happened. It slipped into place last a piece in a jigsaw. I was there in the morning and there in the night and for me that was what mattered. 

Then three years and three months later, my work had paid off; well I like to hope it was what I had done, but most likely personality as Alessia ran in the gates of school without looking back. I wasn’t coming in, she had this and this was her thing. I left as I too had my thing. I had build a career around Alessia and it worked. Life as I knew it, would never be the same again. Alessia had taken that leap into the outside world and it was only the start. I smiled to think how ready and excited she was. That worry and stress of an extended maternity leave became a forgotten memory. But that time I spent with her was priceless. 

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What we tell ourselves sticks

I never felt more beautiful or more amazing after having a child. Not that I looked any different maybe just a little more tired. But from the moment alessia was born I made a decision with myself I would never put myself down, I would never say I felt stupid, I felt fat, I felt ugly, ETC Instead I would look in the mirror and say you look amazing today or god don’t I feel great or I love my hair, or remark how intelligent I felt. And funny enough if you tell yourself these things enough you believe it. So every morning I would get up feeling a million dollars and go to bed feeling the same. Why I hadn’t thought of this during my teen years. 

What I have really started to noticed since Alessia was born and especially since she started becoming aware of what people were saying, was women or men putting themselves down in front of their children. It causes me so much upset to hear. Of course it’s not intentional but these tiny people are like sponges they soak it all in and what they hear becomes their values and believe system. If their mum or dad is putting themselves down, then the child begins to also focus on these things if its looks or body shape they develop a believe system that these things matter the most and they too start putting themselves down or develop an unhealthy obsession with trying to perfect these things. it’s a vicious circle. Causing so much problems in the future and impacting on self confidence, self believe and self esteem.  What I learned at a young age was there was no such thing as perfect and striving for it only lead to unhappiness.

The other day while getting changed my heart skipped a beat when I heard Alessia ask why was ur belly so big??? I actually couldn’t understand it, where had she heard it from. But then a few days later she asked again, and also asked her farther. After just turning three and so aware of her body, never hearing me talk about mine my heart was breaking to think this is our society, so focused on looks and our bodies. What if we just allowed our self focus on the things we loved what would happen?? We might stop living in our heads but actually allowing ourselves feel through life rather then thinking how we should be or shouldn’t be and we might just allow ourselves be. 

Its the small things that matter

The last few months have been crazy getting back from India and trying to set
up a business and still give to Alessia both physically and emotionally and learning to get a work life balance while maintaining my yoga practice as well. 

I never really stood back and looked at what had happened or where I had come from, how it happened why it had happened, but the truth is this path found me. I didn’t find it; it fell in front of me.  

I firstly did my yoga teacher training for me, not to teach other people, i wanted to further my knowledge and practice. I didn’t see this as a career for me, I had further study to do, and Yoga would help me physically,emotionally and financially 

But slowly I realised maybe it was going to be a bigger part of my future then i thought and not just in my own personal life. 

But today I stood and thought my class and looked around and realised I didn’t no anyone it wasn’t friends coming to me anymore and I felt a sense of happiness and achievement. I was living a life true to me. 

This morning someone walked in to one of my classes that had been a role module to me ten years ago when I was going through a rough time in my life. Who had said the right words that had helped me conquer anxiety, helped me to want to really live life. Her words and kindness had meant so much, this morning when I set eyes on her, her kind eyes and beautiful smile, it took me back it made me so grateful of the direction my life had taken and how full and wonderful it was. 

I felt happy yet sad that life had ever felt like that. But I had let me life unfold naturally I had worked hard making choices but not pushing anything and here I was with the most wonderful daughter in the world and working in something that I could never call work, and i thought it really is the small things that matter. With that I smiled inside and continued to teach my class.

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The difference a tooth can make

How can their pain become yours. You never stop to think how much pain our parents felt for us. How many heart breaks they had watching us grow up. How every tear we shed they shed hundreds more. How even the slightest frown causes agony and worry.  How they continue to worry about us even as we grow into adulthood. 

The last couple of months for me have been so busy, coming home from India and opening up my studio. I’ve had little time to think or socialise little time to acknowledge what was happening. To worry or stress about it or feel it was a big deal. I started to write about it numerous times but had no words. I guess thinking of it as no big deal has lead me to feeling it was no big deal. 

I was thinking over the last week my writing ability was failing me. I couldn’t find the words my hand was frozen. But then on Friday evening, the one thing that really matters to me had an accident. Like all toddlers it’s normal, unstoppable no matter how much you try, you just can’t prevent everything. 

But I learned, how we blame ourselves beat ourselves up and it reminded me how much pain we feel for our children. My heart throbbed as though someone had ripped it out. Like It was life or death, it was only her tooth, it was as though that tooth was a core part of her. It made her who she was. As I saw her trip in slow motion only seconds before I got to her side my heart skipped a beat as I saw the blood come in the bucket load.  I should have been relieved it was only a tooth but to see her little tooth broken and he lip cut was more than I could handle. She was perfect just the way she was. Her tears unstoppable, inconsolable and I felt helpless in her pain. How you just want to take it for your pain. 

But what I hadn’t even thought about was the fact I still feed her and this was like a racer blade coming out of her Mouth. But what upset her most was firstly it was too sore to have baba. It hurt too much, as she sobbed in my arms and I rubbed her hair there was nothing making her pain ease. I though of how lucky I was it was only a tooth, nothing serious. But it really struck me how I now feel the pain for two. My studio is open, I am living the dream I had, it’s not what is important it’s what it allows me to do. That is spend as much time as possible with the person I love most.

As my days become more of hearing Alessia say 'MAMMA IS GOING TO YOGA",  my minutes and  hours became more and more precious. I hug her deeply and suffer through the pain of that sharp tooth. 

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