Let’s face it, perhaps we are getting more used to change as everything does seem to constantly be changing. A great learning that we can’t be attached to anything being a certain way.

The question we would like to pose here is have we and how have we evolved in our relationship with change? Are we still playing out the same patterns of feeling nervous, anxious, stressed when we are asked to adapt or have we ‘deepened’ in our relationship with change.

And you know what?  It is okay if you are feeling those things as for many of us these are ingrained patterns or behaviours that have been with us, in our body, for a very long time.

What we would like to share with you today are ways to support you further during change. Once we have implemented these tools, they are with us for life. We can then keep applying these, consolidate them, confirm them to help out in all of the different situations in life that call us to respond to change.

It is in times of change or the unknown that we are offered the opportunity to either react to what is going on or respond in a way that allows us to grow, expand and evolve .

Reactions are fairly obvious as we can feel the tension that arises in our body when we do react (101 guide to dealing with reactions). We may walk around feeling unhappy with what we are being asked to do such as stay at home and be in lockdown. The other option we have is to respond to the change in a way where we remain open and perhaps not just remain open, but ‘deepen’.

So, what do we mean by the word ‘deepen’? It may sound a bit out there for some of you, but practically it is a simple concept.

What to ‘deepen’ means is rather than engaging in thoughts of what is going to happen next, allowing stress to creep in, getting caught up in emotions and perhaps even aligning to what can feel like mass hysteria, ‘deepenening’ means to consciously not choose those ways of being, but to make another choice.

That choice is to stay with a quality of connection that comes from your inner-most, no matter what. This becomes the focus, your primary focus, and we let go of any attachments as to how things unfold. This becomes an observing, allowing and learning.

To deepen means rather than let your attention be on and allowing yourself to be distracted, stimulated, unsettled with all that is going on outside of you, you develop a very solid connection that is inward and towards your inner-being.

And we all have an inner-being. It isn’t anything out there or special, it is innate within us all. Our inner-being is that place that we connect with and to when we allow ourselves to be still. It is our inner-heart, that divine spark that is within us all – always untainted. We often forget that it is there because we can get caught up in the roller coaster of life.

It is through our connection with our inner-being that we can, through surrender, feel ourselves and stay settled. And this settlement allows us to be in life, yet not be affected by what is going on around us.

To surrender requires us not to control life, or try and work everything out, but it calls for us to have a more tender and loving relationship with our body and allow it to guide us through life. To stay with the body and to hold a consistent awareness of operating/living life from your inner-being and make all of your movements from this place. And because it is an inner movement, it has no limits, the depth is as deep as the universe itself.

Although we may not enjoy being in lock down, we can choose to use this time wisely … and deepen.

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In truth we all are deeply sensitive, yet so often in life, our sensitivity has not been understood by others, respected and/or honoured.

How often do we hear the phrase “you are oversensitive” or “you are just too sensitive” as a negative connotation? Perhaps you were one of those children constantly being told this and therefore grew up believing that there was something wrong with you because of your sensitivity.

Too often we have not had role models that have shown us how to embrace our sensitivity, we have not been shown or taught how to express in and from the innate sensitivity that we all have. It is from there that we often react to what we feel, become disturbed, unsettled, feel un-equipped or anxious and then absorb disharmonious or poisonous energies around us that we are feeling, such as other people’s anger, frustration, stress or sadness.

Yet our sensitivity is our super power and a key aspect of our make up as human beings. Our sensitivity allows us to feel, stay tuned to what is going on around us all of the time. In a world where everything is energy, our sensitivity allows us to stay connected or reconcile with that truth. It allows us to stay connected to, or reconnect to our multi-dimentionality and the fact that there is more to us than just the physical body and what meet the eyes.

It is through our sensitivity that we can feel the depths of our essence and learn to express from the inner-most part of us.

So you can see, we should be celebrating our sensitivity, deeply honour it and nurture a way of living that allows its transparency with all others.

When we open ourselves up and live, move, walk, work and relate from our sensitivity we are honouring the depths of our inner-being and in this honouring, we remain our true selves and come to observe life and not absorb it.

What is key here is to learn to hold your connection with your body and your being whilst giving yourself permission to feel and learn not to react. You may like to read more about reactions in our past article 101 Guide to Dealing with Reactions.

When we reclaim our sensitivity as our natural way of being and our super power, our key strength and no longer see it as a fault, liability or weakness, we can start to see all of the ways, ideals and beliefs that we have used to protect it or shut it down, and that in truth, this never worked nor supported us.

The way to work with our sensitivity is to claim all that we feel and are aware of and not to shy away from this. To ‘read’ energies (feel, pick up on, recognise vibrations) that are at play, to hold steady through our connection with our body and observe what is taking place – all of the time. This is our natural way to be. Reactions are the antipode to observation, they take us away from being able to see what is playing out in front of and within us.

Learn to love and cherish your sensitivity. Living from and with our sensitivity is the key to developing deeper and more intimate relationships with ourselves and with everyone as we are not hiding from the world who we really are.

Have you noticed how powerful it is to express from your sensitivity or to interact with a person living from their sensitivity? It is a reminder to us of our essence, our natural state of being.

At Yoga & Healing we offer the services of Remedial Massage, Esoteric Healing, Esoteric Massage, Esoteric connective Tissue Therapy, Yoga, Exercise and Meditation. We offer live classes and online yoga and exercise classes. We are in the business of offering support for true health and wellbeing. Contact Us.

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A joy full new year to you all! As we can all sense, the new year marks the beginning of a new cycle and as a result can often be a time of reflection for many.

We have recently completed our 6th Annual Summer Yoga Intensive that consisted of daily morning yoga classes over 5 mornings. This year, the intensive ran via Zoom rather than live due to the current Covid-19 restrictions held on the Northern Beaches.

At the completion of the intensive, one of the participants asked for ‘resetting tips’ to support her connection to her body throughout the day. We therefore felt to take the opportunity to share in this newsletter these with you all.

Top tips for a ‘stop moment’ or ‘re-setting’ that you can incorporate into your day

1. Check in with the quality of your breath

Throughout the day take pauses to check in with your breathing. What is your breathing like? Has your breathing changed due to taking on emotions or getting caught up in the busyness of your mind? Take a moment to bring your attention to your breath and reconnect. Enjoy this moment. Breathe your own breath.

2. Re-connect with your body / Check in with how your body feels
Incorporate plenty of moments during your day to stop and feel how your body feels. Whilst you sit at your desk notice if you are holding tension in certain areas of your body. As you work, interact with others or simply when you have time alone, check in as to what your body is revealing to you. Are you listening to it and what it is showing you? Deeply value the communications from your body and the growing awareness.

3. Practice and deepen observation.
Build your muscle of observation and renounce reactions. Too often we can easily slip into reactions without realising that we have (it is quite incredible how “fit” most of us have become in our ability to react). As we connect deeper with our body it becomes easier to notice when we start to react through the physical tension that we feel. Set an intent to observe the world and the actions of others. Through strengthening our muscle of observation, we develop and access understanding which allows us to respond to situations and not get caught into reactions.

4. Feel your fingertips
To maintain connection with your body and not get lost in thoughts whilst you are talking to someone, bring your attention to your fingertips and gently touch, press them to your outer thighs or rest them on a surface. We find this super useful as a tool to bring you back to your connection with your body and the natural delicateness of your essence.

5. Walk with presence
Each and every step we take has an energy that comes with it. Own the quality in which you walk in. Choose to take each step feeling your feet, your hips, your shoulders, the length in your spine and openness in your chest. Walk in and with conscious presence. Be with your body as you walk rather than in your head, giving focus to your thoughts.

And of course our favourite tools …

6. Body Awareness Meditation

Take time out daily to practice one of our free Body Awareness meditations or Gentle Breath Meditation. The daily practice supports you to develop and deepen a foundation of connection with yourself that you can then enjoy into your day.

We wish you a steady and purposeful start to 2021 and very much look forward to sharing it with you.

With love
Donna & Alexandra

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With the recent outbreak of COVID-19, a cluster of cases being found in the more northern region of the Northern Beaches, the Government has put into place restrictions about what residents can and can’t do. Much to many people’s disappointment, this hasn’t come at the best of times, over the Christmas, New Year and the summer holiday period. However we have an understanding as to the reasoning for why these restrictions have been put in place – in order to contain the number of cases and to keep people safe.

Most people readily accept this, however what I would like to discuss in this article is what can happen when we are put into lockdown and our movements are being restricted and some simple tools to support you to not feel oppressed or restricted.

From discussions with people on the Northern Beaches and getting a feel as to where people are at, it is understandable that many are feeling frustrated and hoping that this pandemic will just go away or that a vaccine will be available soon.

I taught an online yoga class this morning and I shared with the participants of that class how I have been working with the current restrictions to not allow them to affect me. Having open discussions with people, it seems as though many are affected, with some more open to talking about it, and others not, going about their day-to-day life coping as best they can.

So this is what I shared with the class this morning. Restrictions can be put in place and we can be told where we can go and where we can’t. We don’t have much control over this, but what we do have control over is how we move within the restrictions.

As an example, if you walk around feeling frustrated, upset or annoyed that these restrictions are in place and you can’t do what you want, you may spend the whole time in lockdown feeling this way. This isn’t going to be or feel good in your body. – we  can all relate to the damaging and unsettling effect of emotions, attachments or desires in our body.

Perhaps you then go to behaviours to try and dull down these feelings and you end up spending more time eating, watching TV/Netflix and not truly dealing with what actually is there in your body and the tension continues to build.

What I worked with in the first round of lockdown earlier this year and doing again this time around, is using the space to focus on owning my movements. What I mean by this is rather than let my movements be governed by a feeling that may arise due to a reaction brought about by the restrictions, I am focussing on making all of my movements of my body be gentle, nurturing, flowing and in a quality of connection.

When I move in this way, I own my movements and the more I move with and in these qualities, it feels lovely inside. Therefore, it doesn’t matter so much what I am told I can and can’t do as how I move and feel isn’t based on external factors but rather is based upon the feelings that I nurture from the inside. Afterall it is what is on the inside that counts.

The more I focus on this way of being and living within the lockdown, the simpler and expansive become all the things that I go about in my daily life – going for a walk, cooking, shopping, working, calling a friend can all be done in a quality that nourishes and contributes to how I feel moment to moment.

If we don’t consciously and deliberately own our movements, then our movements can easily be owned by our reactions.

Use this time during lockdown to deepen your connection to and with your body. It is worth the effort and the benefits are tangible and invaluable.

Donna Nolan is a Yoga Teacher, Remedial Massage and Bodywork Therapist who lives on the Northern Beaches and works at her clinic in Balgowlah.  She has a deep love of supporting people to reconnect with their body and being. 

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On a global scale, we have seen the effects of the pandemic which has had not only economic impacts on a micro and macro level but also mental and emotional impacts as people have had to learn to adapt to changes within their lives such as loss of income, jobs and business closure due to lockdown, for some not being able to see family and friends, home schooling, learning how to deal and operate in a world where we have had social distancing, fear of catching the virus (particularly for those who already have compromised health) to name a few.

The world is no longer the same place as what it was a year ago and as a society we had to make many adjustments that we may not have imagined that we would have. Reflecting upon the changes that have taken place in 2020, has led us to ponder on a concept that is presented in the yoga teachings (from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras) and that is that change is part of life, that it is inevitable, and learning to accept and handle change is part of the practice of yoga and integral to our health and wellbeing.

During this year, we have focussed on developing deeper stillness. This has hugely supported us to adapt and navigate change with steadiness and an embracing.

Stillness is not about doing nothing, being physically still, or being inactive or idle. Stillness is a quality that we innately have, that resides deeply within us all, that is at our core, is at our essence.

When there is the connection of the body and being together, stillness is the quality that is felt and then we move in this quality. The more we connect and hold this quality, then we feel a deep settlement within the body that is free of needing to be stimulated of anxiousness or of stress. There comes a feeling of deep connection, clarity, of oneness, of harmony.

Holding the quality of stillness is very supportive when it comes to things in life that challenge us.

If we already hold a marker in our body where we know what stillness feels like, then when times get tough, when there is change that we are challenged by, we are much better equipped to handle those times. Developing stillness, putting it into your foundation (i.e make it your ‘normal’) supports you when the ‘going gets tough’. And when times are so-called ‘good’, then you have the opportunity to enjoy, deepen into this quality and enjoy all of the benefits that come from it.

Particularly at this time of year, as our borders open as do our homes with the ease of restrictions, life can get busier with social engagements, school finishing, holidays etc. Remember to give yourself the gift of stillness by making how you live your life about the quality, the connection and the spunk that you live it by.

Embracing stillness will not only benefit you, but your loved ones will feel more settled around you and thereby it is a gift that is offered to them too.

To support in developing stillness, try practising The Gentle Breath Meditationor one of our Body Awareness Meditations.

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In part 1 which we recently published “Our thoughts – how to change them”  we discussed how behind every thought there is an energy first and as such every thought we have comes with a specific quality and affect on our body, health and wellbeing. From there we also revisited how to change the quality of our thoughts or thinking – ultimately we need to change the quality of our movements.

At the core of being able to have a quality of harmony with our thoughts is a deep level of care for our body and an ongoing developing or deepening of love for ourselves. This includes an attentiveness, an honouring and a forever growing sense of responsibility brought to the following key pillars of health: our quality of sleep, food, exercise, relating with others, commitment to life and the management of our emotions and reactions.

In this article, we are sharing our other top tips to support true mental health.

Observe your thoughts 

As you develop conscious presence in your body, you will become increasingly aware of your every thought and their specific affect on your body. This new awareness can feel a bit intense and overwhelming at the beginning, but as you learn to simply observe your thoughts and not get identified with them, a clarity and freedom is experienced.

Change your movements – Gentleness, Delicacy, Presence

If a thought erodes, disturbs or distracts you in any way, don’t try to talk or rational yourself out of it, it does not work. Change your movements – reconnect to your body, move gently, delicately, bring your full presence to what is in front of you, check your posture, feel the tone of your voice, reconnect to purpose …

“Not true, I am not listening” 

A simple practice we use and share with our clients is to “call out” any thought that does not hold harmony, love, stillness or truth in it. Telling yourself from a place of connection with your body “not true – I am not listening” can be an effective way to develop an absoluteness with not entertaining any dis-harmonious thought.

Re-connect to Stillness

Our nature is love and stillness. Any thought holding a stimulating, distracting, disturbing or checking out quality is ultimately taking us away from our presence, our essence – or in other words sabotaging our connection with Stillness. Esoteric Yoga, also called The Yoga of Stillness, is one of our favourite ways to reconnect to the stillness within and learn how to live in day-to day life with and from stillness.

There comes a point in life where everything in you does not want to settle for less anymore in terms of quality of thought, thinking and mental space. When you reach that point of healing, a new level of awareness and responsibility is felt in regards to the type of thoughts one allows and entertains in their head.

Ultimately, again, as our energetic awareness develops, we come to realise that it is the quality of our movements that determines the quality of our thoughts.

At Yoga & Healing we offer the services of Remedial Massage, Esoteric Healing, Esoteric Massage, Connective Tissue Therapy, Yoga, Exercise and Meditation. We offer live classes and online yoga and exercise classes. We are in the business of offering support for true health and wellbeing. Contact Us.

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We have heard many times over in sessions people sharing how there is a busyness in their mind and that they are not enjoying the types of thoughts that they are having.These thoughts are often repeated ones around the past, the future and in the form of concerns around work, family, relationships or health issues.

Typically those thoughts develop into anxiousness, emotional upset, lack of confidence, uncertainty, doubt and/or worry. Ultimately the feeling is that these types of thoughts erode us, affect how we feel and have a direct impact on our body, health and wellbeing.

We have also heard people share how they “need” or try to “think positive”, change their thought patterns to be ones that are uplifting rather than the negative ones that can so often haunt us in the form of judgment, criticism or comments such as “I’m not good enough”, “I feel ashamed”, “I feel guilty”, “I feel not worthy” etc.

With much discipline, we may try to change our thoughts from negative to positive ones, but does this really work? We may be able to squash and silence the negativity, the erosion for a while, but those thoughts usually creep back in and it can become a battle within to try and push them away yet again.

What if there is another way to work with negative thoughts rather than battling them with another set of thought constructs supposedly more positive?

There is another way. 

We have discussed over the years how everything is energy and as a result how everything is because of energy. Well, a thought is an energetic expression. As such if we don’t like, feel affected by our thoughts and want to change their quality or not be impacted by them, we need to look at, consider and discern the energy behind them – first of all.

We have also shared over the years how everything comes back to or down to our movements, the quality of our movements and the way we actually live. As such the quality of our movements, the way we live in all aspects of our life generate the quality of our mental activity. Therefore to change our thoughts, ultimately requires us to change our movements.

As an example, try sitting in a chair and slump down into it, – taking a “depressive posture”-  rolling your hips backward, rounding your back and slouching. Notice how this makes you feel. It won’t take long for you to actually feel a bit low in mood. Then try sitting up straight with an elongated, open and lengthened posture and now notice how you feel. Alive again, right?

The first posture described above doesn’t feel so good whereas the second more upright posture allows for more of an openness to be felt in the body. In other words, both postures (movements) affect the body very differently and generate a different quality of thoughts or mental wellbeing.

We can start to change our thoughts by learning to be present with our body in all of our movements, being gentle, nurturing and caring and by committing to life (ie, not checking out) and bringing purpose to all that we do.

Next month, we will delve further into the topic of our thoughts, looking at how to develop and maintain our mental health and harmony with our thoughts.

At Yoga & Healing, we love to work with people and support them to develop a nurturing relationship with their body and their being, all in turn empowering them to have a more nourishing quality of thoughts.

To this effect, we regularly offer 4 week online Exercise Program (focussing on developing our physical fitness) and a 6 week online Esoteric Yoga course (focussing more on developing our physiological fitness, our relationship and connection with our being).

At Yoga & Healing we offer the services of Remedial Massage, Esoteric Healing, Esoteric Massage, Connective Tissue Therapy, Yoga, Exercise and Meditation. We offer live classes and online yoga and exercise classes. We are in the business of offering support for true health and wellbeing. Contact Us.

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The practice of Esoteric Yoga, The Yoga of Stillness was unlike any other yoga class that I had attended and I must say it was a game changer for me in that I experienced everything that I had always been looking for in yoga, but had not yet found up until that point.

The practice was far simpler than anything else I had ever done in any other yoga class before. The practitioner instructed me to be with my body and to connect with my being. What was offered was an enormous amount of space for me to do this with gentle reminders to come back to my body. The focus in Esoteric Yoga is for the mind to settle into being with the body (conscious presence) and it is through this settlement that we become aware of the being that resides within the body.

A large component of the practice is about being still, that is no movement and deepening into the body through the feeling sense. It involves only a few simple movements, such as sitting up from a lying position, lying back down, a bending of the knee and opening and closing the eyes. These movements are divinely designed and follow a particular order to support the body to the return to its innate state of being, that is stillness – the union of our body and our being.

What is emphasised in these classes is that stillness isn’t about ceasing movement and just being physically still. We learn that we can walk this feeling of stillness and take it into our daily movements. The simplicity of not much movement in the class allows one to reconnect to this quality and then it is about expanding that quality and bringing it into our daily life in all that we do. Esoteric Yoga provides the pathway to reconnecting to this feeling of stillness, it certainly isn’t about leaving it on the mat.

The word esoteric means connecting with our inner-most and the practice of Esoteric Yoga, The Yoga of Stillness is about returning to this place, that part of us which is innate and deep within us all. This part of us is within the inner-heart and is never tarnished or scarred, no matter what we do and we always have a choice to return to it if we so choose.

At the end of that first class I had experienced something different within my body and my being that was somewhat familiar to me, yet it felt like it had been a very long time since I had experienced this, perhaps lifetimes. I had read and heard it described many times in a yoga class or a course, yet had never actually felt it before. It was a deep settlement, a feeling of returning home.

The practice itself was challenging, not due to anything being hard on a physical level, but because of the level of connection to my body that I was being called to as guided by the instructor. There were no postures or breathing practices that I could escape into. The cues were always asking me to be with my body, for the body and being to be at one.

What I experienced was that the more I chose for my mind to rest with my body, to accept what it was that I was feeling and to not try and escape what was there, the more there came an unwinding of the momentum that I had been living in until I felt a settlement and the being and the body uniting as one.

This was what I had always thought and read yoga to be about and I was surprised that I finally experienced this with such a simple practice. I had always thought that the pathway to feeling this union needed to be much more complex.

This class gave me a marker in my body as to what it feels like when I choose to reconnect to me. As I got up and went back out into my day to day living, I wasn’t able to hold that connection like I had felt it in the class, but I had a reference point as to what I now knew was possible to live.

Union, described as the practice of yoga, was no longer something that seemed unachievable or foreign, it was something that was very tangible.

In this class I had felt it in my body and I knew it was only a matter of time before I could live more of this in my day to day life. This ultimately is the goal of yoga, to not just leave the practice on the mat but to bring it into our daily lives, otherwise the practice is something that we use for relief, to make us feel better, rather than a practice that supports us to reconnect with our soul.

Donna Nolan teaches Yoga, Exercise & Massage and is a Bodywork Therapist. She has a love of supporting people to connect to their body and being, in stillness and in movement. Contact Us

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This is a newly recorded 20 minute Body Awareness Meditation that can be done either in sitting or a lying position. A great meditation to do when you are feeling a bit out of sorts, or can be used as an opportunity to deepen your connection with your body.

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