Author: yogaconjuliet

Yoga  for Buoyancy in uncertain times 

On a branch,
floating downriver,
a cricket, singing.

by Kobayashi Issa,
transl. Jane Hirshfield

 

Practising the ancient arts of yoga and meditation we promote self regulation of body, mind, spirit.  A proactive response in alleviating  the impact of social isolation and events out of our control on our well being and immune system. 

By creating the space to connect with body wisdom we create the space for a deep listening to ourselves.  Would you like to gain inner ease and clarity?  Are you often guilty of avoiding whats happening on the inside and suffering as a result ?  

Can we open to whatever of uncomfortable that is happening it and be with it ?  What we might call a yoga stretch.
 

The even better news is that by starting now and building a  regular practice also promotes the discovery of well springs of wellness in body and mind in our daily life. 

These days are more than likely  having an impact on the physical and emotional health of our body/mind.  Inner alarm and stress are  triggered – a natural response to sudden changes to our lives.   What can be triggered  in response to these present time events  might then also be coupled with our ‘programming’ or old stories.

Therefore there is great wisdom in being proactive in our own self care, making better choices in our daily lives by developing deeper self understanding and practising to promote a deep pool of inner health and wellness.

Yoga reorients  our focus away from the stories that bind us to the cultivation and growth of a wealth of  inner health through nurturing a relationship to inner and outer worlds that is buoyant and resourced as we live from  the aliveness of Life that is inherently ours.

I would love to see you in my online classes – all bodies are welcome – for those with or without previous experience of yoga .

Here is the link for class on Monday 13th April 18.30 – 19.45 CET / 17.30 – 18.45 UK

https://zoom.us/j/95821379521?pwd=emFHSmZNMDhhVm9pUXBvSTIxUHNVdz09

All classes payment by donation by Paypal using  friends and family to yogajulietucker@gmail.com

Please email me at yogajulietucker@gmail.com for more information

Meditating together online

What needs more room to grow?

Loving life a short meditation to try for free  

The tendency in our cultural thinking when we think of  growth , is we are talking about more of something.  Whilst in nature growth is cyclical and arises from deep systems of interconnection and mutual flourishing that support all life.   Reciprocity.

I am wondering in these days around the opportunity we’ve been given to cease this incessant planning for more,  for a result .   Where we are at odds with Life balance.   In the resultant destruction of the planet.  The consequent  stress that creates illness and seems to be an accepted normality.

Instead there is room to remember what is  Life.   Your natural gift that can come through when we give it that much space .  Can we let go and yield to the tide of what is happening.

Giving room to rest , giving room to breathe, giving room for the wisdom in our bodies to be with what is .

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Join me in meditation month online –  a place to practice, enquire and share with others in the comfort of your own home.  Listen live and/or receive recordings.

Here is the link to short 15 – 25 minute tasters of Deep Rest Meditation for you to try.

Meditations to download

If you would like to know more then contact me :

yogajulietucker@gmail.com

or visit my website

http://www.yogajulietucker.com

with thanks to my teacher Jaya Ashmore – http://www.jayaashmore.org or http://www.opendharma.org

“When an asana comes about spontaneously as a natural expression of one’s interior state , it will be perfect.  That is to say , the position of the legs, hands, arms , head , the gaze… everything will be as it should be …  Performance of an asana by an effort of will can never have the same perfection . Asanas are connected with the rhythm of one’s breath, and the breath with one’s state of mind at any particular time” Sri Anandamay

The beauty and what also brings me closer and back again to what is happening in my practice . Is a reeducation of how I understand and come to my body . In each asana there is an opportunity to ‘unthink’  what I may know about a posture as I ‘unthink’  how my body might behave.  And so it goes an opportunity to let go of unnecessary burdens of habit – on the mental and physical level.  All thoughts begin with sensation and there is an intelligence below habit activity that is the wellspring for the ‘perfect’ posture to unfold.  I can’t ‘do’ it. Each time staying so close is about being wide, as to also create space – the closeness of my listening  is imbued with a gentleness of enquiry , an allowing , a readiness to let go of all that might have happened before and let the body show me.   In the space of not knowing,  something else might happen. Gently, over time I have become witness to whisperings of my body arriving , an alive presence in my spine,  that seems to infuse my whole being when I rest in its presence.   And a wisdom in ways that my limbs orchestrate themselves that are not about fixing or forcing myself into shape but a dialogue that allows them to find their ‘place’,  a song of deeper harmony emerges between them and my spine.   And I am reminded of these words from Diane Longs book : ” Through enquiry and practice , we begin to glimpse another way of being in our body, which we recognise as being true to the way it is made.  However effortful it seems, the body is grateful and feels refreshed as though it has come home to itself . If our practice can be imbued with rhythm and a quiet, receptive attitude ,  dialogue is established in which waiting for the body’s response is just as important as performing an action”  Diane Long , from her book Notes on Yoga , The Legacy of Vanda Scaravelli by Diane Long and Sophy Hoare

 

 

Slow Sunday is a class I offer to explore what one often might  feel as a ‘disconnect’ from ourselves, perhaps consumed by our busy lives or difficulty.   This disconnect  might be the ache of feeling separate or isolated in some way.  Sunday Slow offers a space to come back home again.  

Coming back to an awakened and open heart and turning towards ourselves from this place,  rather than looking outside to be ‘heard’ from the ache of disconnect.   The body may respond and something else , some new sensation may open to us.

In our recent New Year flow Sunday Slow session  we explored starting from turning towards and listening to within the body to what our true hearts desires for this year may be.  At this winter time of year when the seeds of our inner knowing are germinating, we are called to be still and quiet to connect with this inner knowing.

What might we want to feel like this year rather than do or become?  Rather than  pushing and pulling at ourselves and burdening ourselves with the numerous shoulds and to do lists.   How about we listen to our nature to be still and grounded and quiet at this time of year?  How about we transfer our attention from this  external chatter and listen inside to get to know ourselves a bit better instead? 

As Vanda Scaravelli said:

“Understanding leads to independence and to freedom”

As we settled into a wakeful heart meditation the room seemed to swell in a deep dropping into coming back home – to the inside.  The mind lessening its grip, as we arrived in the aliveness of the body.  And receiving the body and the breath. 

How might it be if our attention can soften and widen?  How might our attention be open and curious and kind to ourselves and our experience?   Gentleness holding our ‘disconnect’ by the hand.  Guiding our attention to be open, to be kind to this meeting with ourselves? 

And the breath our forever friend. I felt drawn to read this from the Radiance Sutras number 4.

At the end of the exhale,  breathe,  surrender to quietitude ,  for a moment hang in a balance,        suspended in the fertile spaciousness,  that is the source of breath

At the end of the inhale,  filled with the song of the breath,  there is a moment,  when you are simply holding,  the tender mystery 

It is these interludes ,  that experience opens us up to ,  into a unique exquisite vastness ,  with no beginning and no end,  embrace this infinity without reservation ,  you are its vessel 

The body begins to breath us , the breath begins to breath body,  the mind gets out of the way and the fertile spaciousness of life can flow threw us….  might we find a voice behind the scenes in the  vast night starry sky of our heart, whispering to us a sweet, joyful ‘yes’. 

In each month over the following year I shall be exploring in my blog this theme of what it is to listen to the body and how we might feel we can be and move into life in ways that support us. 

We might look at our biology,  the nervous system, and how mindfulness practices , meditation and yoga help our cultivation of a deeper relationship to the body and can enable us to heal our bodies and minds and bring qualities of love, compassion and peacefulness  as our mainstay in our daily lives. 

Once more…    Vanda Scaravelli ,“ Understanding leads to independence and to freedom” 

So I invite you to better understand your self and find true freedom by joining me in the journey to tune into and deeply listen to the wisdom of your body.   

I invite you to continue to move into your year with your true flow with this gift to yourself.

With love

Julie

Scaravelli inspired yoga 18th copy 2

yoga blog 1

 

‘As long as I don’t aim

I won’t miss

with the catalpa bow

I shoot an arrow

towards the open sky’

It has touched me so deeply , the first two lines I love especially.

I have noticed so often with my yoga students the tension that most people live in with the speed and pressure of daily lives this not only creates tension and anxiety but it takes them away from how they trully feel… and how to better feel what they feel. ‘ Being with ‘ is a beautiful simple practice of self nourishment.

I then reflect on peoples lives that are in this adrenalin based, high pressure, anxiety world – they are in perpetual tension and our body is not meant to be in these tension states. We need room , each cell needs softness and space to allow the health of our body our aliveness and natural energy to be available.

So what drives us? What keeps us in tension? Well if we ask this question with annoyance , if we are in tension with the tension we might go off again somewhere else , trying to fix. Wouldn’t it be kinder to ask the gentler question of can I just be with this. Let me soften into you. And here we may find a huge amount of space , of the capacity to simply listen. Like a soothing balm that allows us to slow down… “there is nowhere to go” I often say to my yoga students rather listen to what is happening with a kindness and patience , how the body , how the movement feels. And here we might just be attentive enough to notice what is happening , and over time move more deeply to notice the pattern , the fear, the anxiety, the thing that drives us to think we are wrong in some way and we have to do something to fix it all, somehow what we are and what our world is is not enough.
How beautiful it is instead to come back to the glorious spaciousness and freedom place of ‘not knowing’

So if I be I can also do

‘I shoot the arrow
towards an open sky’

Sweet freedom