Yoga: My companion in coming Home.

It dawned on me in my practice this morning.. 

They say how you show up on your mat offers insight into your life. I have always been aware of these teachings with observing my physical actions, the choices I make and how I am relating to the perceptive experience whilst on the mat.. But I hadn’t zoomed out far enough to witness my interaction with yoga actually perfectly resembles the shifts throughout my whole Self-evolution.  How I’ve related to yoga throughout the process has vastly changed. The hard critic in me used to be confined by daily practice with the ‘more is better’ societal conditioning and the disciplined approach of Buddhist teachings played on my strict character traits. Many of those early years I definitely was not in it for deep learning yet where I have ended up is a perfect contrast, upon reflection…

Walking out in Savasana

I shake my head compassionately for my first interactions with yoga.  As for many, it was introduced through the gym's vinyasa class.  In my first few classes I didn’t stay for savasana, that was a waste of time, no calories were being burned just lying there. This was my 19 year old self that had body dismorphia, disordered eating with a whole instagram feed of fitness girls and dieting tips. I would push myself to extremes with cardio and Body-Attack, burnt out every day but running on a dysregulated nervous system and cortisol.

My body did not enjoy lifting weights yet I had a rigid weekly routine.  Even after partying on the weekend I would somehow get to the gym, feeling disorientated but driven by how many calories I drank the night before.  As I write this I am fully acknowledging the sickness that it was, and that it is probably much more common than we know for teenagers and young women in these times.

Thankfully, tiny seeds were planted through those vinyasa sessions..

I began to join more classes and actually stayed for savasana (although, it made me notice the exhaustion and how much I needed rest, which is not what I was yet willing to see).  Yoga was simply exercise at this point but at least it was getting me a little more in touch with my body, moving slower and becoming aware of that thing that keeps us alive (our breath).

As I continued yoga, it too became an attempt for my own self-recognition as I had strength and stamina from burning 600 calories an hour in cardio classes, plus my hyper flexibility made me feel super ‘good’ at yoga.  Over time, the concepts and teachings expressed in the sessions were seeping in a little, but I still wasn’t honouring my body when my joints were sore, I wouldn’t allow enough time for injury flares to heal, and I was governed by the calories on my Apple Watch.

Well, hello there awakening…

The catalyst and turning point began with the deep despair of losing my father at 22.  This is where I found meditation (or meditation found me) as something was guiding me, whispering helpful suggestions.. Some I took, some I wasn’t ready to take.  But the softening, spending more time in nature meditating, beginning with 15 minute intervals provided another aspect of myself to focus on which I knew was actually going to be supportive rather than destructive. There were some deeper experiences that I now know were shifting something within my consciousness and on an energetic level, this unfamiliar state created an intrigue. I had experienced many altered states through drugs prior, but this was self-induced.. How?  My whole body buzzing and tingling as I was struck still, neutrally ‘observing’.

This stage of the ‘healing journey’ brought big questions…

“Why are we even here” “We can all just die, at any point, what the fuck” all which threw me into confusion and panic that I am not doing and living the way I want to at all, I could see how unaligned I was and how much struggle I was experiencing.  It was very dark and the grieving process was not honoured due to court issues.  Still completely run by disordered eating and moving through unhealthy relationship dynamics, my poor nervous system was far beyond the red zone.  My wellness practices shifted their role to being my biggest support, gifting a sense of relief.. the world of healing modalities were finding their way to me, directing more attention to what is going on inside.  A very beautiful turning point was emerging…

Exploring information on the nervous system and spiritual teachings were filling up my ‘Watch later’ Youtube folder, I had quit my Sales job with some gracious support from the family business which felt like my life line, an opportunity that supported the path I was now heading… The calling to understand, to make sense of life, my experience, my body and my soul was all coming online. And too, yoga went inwards with me.

It evolved to being mainly self led, self explorational. I was growing an intimacy with the practice as I was growing an intimacy with myself, my inner-Self.  Breathwork became a go to for regulation and energy clearing, but yoga stayed loyally beside me as I opened myself up more to what it could show me.  My habits, actions, choices were subtly shifting.  Meeting others in the community allowed me to be around people also in their Self-discovery.  Touching beautiful moments of stillness and peace was becoming familiar now.  My social media feed reflected this new era with the category shifts to consciousness exploration, psychology, spiritual memes, inspirational quotes and wisdom sharers.

Life path re-route

My career aligned into a creative role as an Interior Designer, I had married my husband that I had been deeply entrenched with from 18 years old.  But now my journey was very tunneled into trying to grow consciously and understand myself and to heal, as I was still carrying around a lot of un-supportive behaviours and beliefs. There were different versions of life simultaneously running alongside one another, one felt truly at peace after a yoga session and the other was really in the thick of the ego’s challenges, self-sabotaging and not yet honouring my truths and needs. These different parts of me were in tuggerware, and I was very conscious of it. I could see this play out in my ‘wellness routine’. 

The wellness I needed was restoration, slowness and solitude but I was still being directed by past habits and societal conditioning of ‘doing’ and not yet accepting the pace that was waiting to serve me, where the real healing was going to occur.  

Things continued to shift once I started working with mushrooms. Coming into contact with the world of energetics was a new spectrum that was new, yet familiar in a deeper sense. This chapter was a major support towards the reconnection with my body. A very pivotal moment held by gentle yoga / somatics where all of a sudden I burst out in tears as unity presented itself, a re-meeting of the body and the soul after a long time.  Countless experiences continued to unveil, usually in moments of solitude, yoga or sitting in nature.  At times the guidance yelled what needed to be heard… Once it yells, you really should listen!

Spiritual Ego Identity

It felt much nicer than who I was prior, but nonetheless, it was just another identity that shape-shifted into what I wanted to be perceived as.  I was learning, exploring, finding more and more modalities that added to my curiosities with sound therapy and the courses in Reiki, mediumship and energy work again blasted open a different version of reality.. Yet, still frustratingly anchored by the past in many ways, much had changed yet I was still far from real stability within myself.. In fact, the heightened moments actually made it more difficult as the contrast was so vast from where I would find myself in everyday life, such as reactive responses and negative self-talk. 

I tried on the ‘yoga teacher’ role, but I felt way too exposed and a little too vulnerable. The intentions of self-growth and sharing the practice were pure, but it was pre mature.. I had tried spiritual roles in different shapes and forms.. None of them fit in a way that felt right because the foundations within myself were still shaky. I would constantly hear the voice in my head saying ‘who do you think you are’ (which isn’t rare, I know).   As we go on our spiritual evolutionary journey it is easy to slide into the spiritual identity.  It feels much nicer, an upgrade from who you thought you were prior, but this can be dangerous as we then tend to spiritually bypass and can still be ignoring or completely unaware of what is in our shadow, contorting the filter of perception.. Whilst guiding others in the most precious pockets of their life, being the healing process!  

As I currently spend time in Sacred Valley Peru, it is somewhat like a spiritual vortex, I have witnessed this phenomena everywhere, which has been the most reflective catalyst in these past months to really get to the bottom of my own subtle nuances, what's really behind the choices, behaviours, thoughts, where I am not being transparent with myself, with my wants and desires, whats aligned and what isn’t.. It’s helped me see through my own conundrums and to open my heart even more to others, exactly as they are, wherever they are with themselves.

Those years back when I completed the teacher training, the truths available through yoga really unmasked themselves.  Although, it was difficult to fully digest as I had over-extended myself taking on the course whilst already over my head with life (IE attempting to wear too many hats, multi-tasking careers and going through continuous dark nights of the soul.. And to anyone currently in that, give yourself all the Grace, the journey isn’t always pretty but it’s necessary for our souls' evolution and it’s absolutely worth going down the rabbit hole to come out the other side.. A topic for another time).

So hey, let’s build a luxury wellness retreat!

We had taken on some big visions and decided to build a luxury wellness retreat and covid in full force; another rupturing sense of reality.  Yoga at this point my crutch, I needed it. I needed all the tools I had through these next stages and I am so grateful I had them because it was difficult to cope.  Being a highly sensitive person, going through the intensity of building this dream together and being deeply entrenched into the world of energetics by this stage I was wanting to grow within my ‘healing role’ yet the wounds and subconscious beliefs were still annoyingly tugging at me.. All supportive as it was showing me what wasn’t feeling right anymore and guidance became impossible to ignore as intuition and insight was strong. All I can say is the hardest chapters really are the golden nuggets.. And the good news is that they are never permanent.  We survived the building process, but my nervous system was done. Burn out was achieved.

If there are big chapters / situations going on in your life all at the same time, simplifying how you interact with life is vital… Rather than the schedule of pilates at 6am, work commitments, meeting friends for dinner at 7pm, as well as getting your 10k steps in, tending to all the tabs open on your phone, journal daily, do something creative, have intimacy with your partner or yourself, reading that book, scrub the shower, replying to all the whatsapp groups, unintentionally scroll and then feel guilty because you didn’t get to reading your book, all the expectations and commitments we say yes to, it’s all just a bit much… And then you want to add on learning another new course?  All of this is in good-will, and the classic case of over-achieving, pressure to ‘evolve’ is a hungry ghost.

Considering the emotional expenditure it takes to also work through the big things, negative belief patterns, attempts to heal the relationship with my mother, questions that cause inner conflict.. Yoga can show us all the over doings and expectations, the ungrounded approaches, but it’s in the slowing down and refining of life we then have the ability see where we aren’t truly living the wisdom of the practise; the wisdom we already acquire. 

Coming home.

The years up until now have been a magnificent coming home. In all senses. It’s been gradual in hindsight, softening into itself, the subtleties now clear as day. And so too the reflection in yoga.. The deep listening, gentleness, adaptability rather than rigidness. The purpose of connecting with yoga and the array of wisdom-filled practices, rituals and teachings were finding new layers to continuously refind more and more of myself within and attunement to something so much Greater than myself, the collective struggle, the collective Oneness and unconditional love for the full spectrum. 

I was uncovering the answers to all those questions that first started the spiritual journey in the first place...   

Life was assimilating and the embodiment was really beginning to take place as I surrendered to the process of life and higher-guidance rather than the pushing, clinging and controlling to fit what I wanted it to be. The golden nuggets kept showing themselves (not without some painful extractions might I add).

In real-time

This morning I was graced by the sunshine, the natural streams pouring into my backyard waterfall, with the sturdy mountains surrounding the Peruvian home I’ve been tucked away in for some months.  I spent 10 minutes with gentle hip circles, allowing my mind to get lost in the somatics, followed by a short 20 minute slow intuitive movement flow. This is where the truth showed itself to me, this is exactly where I am at in my life right now. I don’t have the energy for a ‘regular’ practise and I simply don’t want to, my body tells me when I’m done, and I listen. To stop and witness how far I have come, to now be fully engaged, fully listening, fully honouring.. What a blessing it is to live and interact with myself with so much compassion and Grace. And now, the inspiration to support others in their coming home is flowing through my veins, I now occupy an embodied knowing, this is why I wasn’t able to teach prior to now.  It is all very beautiful to reflect on but also quite sad to acknowledge how far from home I was in comparison to where I am now.

Yoga reshapes itself to represent our human ebs and flows.. There’s stages of creative expression, bursts of ideas and themes and modality interweaving, then there’s times of feeling ungrounded and unsettled energetically that I find myself staying more around the ground rather than up in the air, embracing life.

What is your yoga practice reflecting back to you currently?

Surface level

It’s a slight disservice to new comers to yoga and to yoga itself, but I also see this as a part of yoga's own evolution with the West putting its twist on it that has made the practice exercise dominant, diluting the intelligence of the energetic and spiritual process.  The messaging and purpose can sometimes feel lost in translation and simply not understood by many (including me to my own extent for many of these years).  I know the practice is going to de-layer itself as we do so as a Collective.. Sometimes we need to veer away enough to realise we are off-course.  But the true timeless beauty, the principles and purpose of yoga, will be there waiting to guide us home to Ourselves.  With the evolution of AI and tech advances and fast paced living, there will be a very big distinction between the teachers and sharers of yoga that live and breathe the practice, because yoga is soul. I express that without any judgement whatsoever.. I’m going to be honest,  I don’t know all the sanskrit terminology, I don’t preach a daily practise of yoga if that’s not what serves you and I’m not saying you need to be a certain ‘standard’ either, what I am saying is that we are moving into a time of Truth seeking, discerning what is authentic rather than a disguise, and sometimes we don’t even realise we are in a disguise until we notice something isn’t fitting right..

Current teachings

My biggest teaching right now is to allow it all.. The practice is serving me perfectly however it moves or not moves.  I’m in the unravelling of doing, of expectations, of telling myself I need to or should, this is a massive rewiring to instead choose what feels good and base more choices on ‘what do I actually want?’  Subconscious beliefs coming to the surface, old fears around addressing change, taking actions and also non-action in the form of resting more, listening closer, honouring in a way that may affect others.  All lessons come to you in Divine time, as long as we are regularly becoming quiet, still, being with nature and being courageous enough to be honest with ourselves.. This is our biggest service to Self and the Greater.

My energy is going into the reformation of my own foundations, being totally accepting of not keeping up with all the others things, the tasks, the work, all the ‘goals’ or having my clothes folded nicely all the time, because I know that giving myself fully is the best way to optimise this grace period and the growth is in the restoration. Just as the trees hibernate in winter or as fires burn through the bushland to lead to the next stage of rebirth.  You can’t bloom and nourish the bee’s whilst also extracting the branches and fixing an infection in the roots all at the same time.. But this is what we expect ourselves to do as humans. It’s nonsensical. 

Coming back to yoga, again and again.

Like a long life friend, I know it will be here for me, always, no matter how I show up, whether that’s in my tracksuit for 20 minutes, or in my favourite activewear inspired to work my physical body, testing my balance, searching for deeper presence through the texture of my breath whilst some unplanned Qi-Gong comes into the mix. 

My relating to how I express and share yoga will evolve in new ways, as it follows my lead. The medicine I wish to share may or may not come through physically teaching yoga, maybe my true medicine is through sharing the lessons and wisdom that have come through the intimacy of my practice and the intimacy of my life…

As the archetypal ‘wounded healer’ is integrating, the woman I know that I am here to be will continue to step closer into her dharma, sharing what is true, raw, real and to own the learnings she has embodied and continue to receive and transmute through different portals of expression, whether creative, physical service or simply through these writings.

Reflecting back on the 8 limbs of yoga as I’m sitting here writing this, some tears welling, I have so much respect for the journey that's been and how yoga interweaved through all the different versions of me… And the more I show up as I am, the more love, truth and wisdom I can receive and share in return. 

These words have been to honour all the versions that’s been, to honour the relationship with my practises, and to honour the soul inside you that is on its own unique quest through the journey of being cosmic stardust in this human vessel. My door is always open, please do come in any time, come as you are, it is all welcome here.

Thank you for making it all this way.. I hope this has touched you or supported you in some way, perhaps with a reflection on your own personal practices and how they have come with you and shifted along the way.

Namaste,

Ruby