There’s been a rumour going around since time began that, one day, you are going to get ‘there’. You know, that place. The one where you’ve made it. Where you know yourself as one single, unified, worked out, understood being who has all the stuff you have when you get ‘there’. I don’t know what your stuff looks like, and I don’t know what mine looks like either, but I’m sure we’ll know when we get there. Having said that, I do know that when I get there I can definitely do handstands and I live on a beach with Pete and some feral children. The other stuff is less formed.

As I sat in meditation this morning, I waited. Allowing my mind to romp around in its amusing fashion, before ‘I’ arrived. Consciousness reflecting back at itself, we sighed into blissful luminescence. I rested here for a while and then I dropped the question in, ‘what does transitioning mean to me’? Journeys in cars and planes came into view, the means to various ends. I tried not to let my mind take over the contemplation, and paused. I dropped the question in again and before me arose a procession of selves. Me, in evolution, en masse. Me and myself in patterns and shapes. The patternings of my process, expressed through different versions of becoming. An endless stream of consciousness, manifesting and shifting in response to cause and effect since my form was first conceived.

I’ll always remember a class theme that Bridget taught in the immersion: Trust the Process. It comes back to me all the time and is such a powerful and reassuring lesson to be patient and trust that all will be revealed. That, wherever you are, is where you should be. That we are in a continuous cycle of creation, maintenance, dissolution, concealment and revelation and that ‘it’ too shall pass. But perhaps what Bridget was really telling me was to trust in myself. Because I am the process. I am not an entity. I am a process and I will never get ‘there’ because I’m already here. In the present. And, as any self-respecting sage would affirm, the present is where it’s at.

Quite frankly, it’s a bit bonkers to think that we could ever be just one thing heading to just one place. A single entity who is going to get ‘there’. Where, on earth, is something not compounded, layered, or in flux? Everything is shifting so why would there be this one place we eventually reach and hang out in till we dissolve back into the earth and become part of another process? It’s the same in your asana practice. When you get to Pincha Mayurasana, you never really get ‘there’ because you’re always shifting and adjusting and working in the pose.

When I introduced the idea of transitioning, I described my meditation practice and the moment when ‘I’ arrived. When ‘I’ got present and noticed the patternings of my mind breaking down, from form to formless. When ‘I’ became the seer. “Patterns of consciousness are always known by pure awareness, their ultimate, unchanging witness,” says Patanjali. Our practices support us in our understanding of our patterns, and how we are always a becoming, always a process, always evolving. They give us access to pure awareness, which is always ‘there’ for us. A constant in this ever-changing identity and sense of self.

When our intentions are clear we have a map but where we end up will continue to shift so don’t worry if you never get there. You were never supposed to. Your process is your unfolding and it will take you wherever you need to go. Dark or light, open or closed, forest or field, uphill or down. And everything in-between. When we are transitioning we sometimes forget to breathe. We want to skip past the gritty bits. The not-so-pleasant in-betweens. The cramped-in, pins and needles, numb-bum cabin rides. The can’t quite step your foot between your hands moments. The shudder of your core and the stutter of your will. Breathe into it, move slowly through it, pause, sink in and, in time, it will become. Move inside the in-betweens and trust yourself. You are the process.

 

 

Desensitise. Desensitise. Desenstise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desenstise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desenstise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desenstise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desenstise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desensitise. Desenstise. Desensitise. Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…

I remember studying structuralist and post-structuralist theory at Uni. I was fascinated by binary opposites and deconstruction and it’s no great surprise that I’m into a non-dual spiritual tradition these days. My dear university buddy and I would laugh for hours as we repeated swearwords over and over in a bid to empty the word of its meaning – a highly intellectual practice, I’m sure you’ll agree.

When you repeat something mindlessly, you get further and further away from what it is, why the hell you do it and why it’s so hard to let go of. It somehow becomes a part of your identity and just one of the things you ‘do’. Like numbing out on Netflix, shopping, chocolate, tequila, fags, drugs, Yorkshire puddings. Pete and I used to have a weekend thing where we’d go crazy on pizza and ‘treats’ so we could bask in the slump of the low-sugar pressure drop. Some of us are big advocates of tightly locked boxes and carefully managed compartments. Or maybe weed is your medicine and you prefer to sidestep into an alternate reality for the evening.

I’ve been a big fan of desensitization, sanitation and survival – because that’s what it is, most of the time. We have to switch off from the tough stuff because we don’t have the tools and resources to tune in. No one ever tells us that the way to work through pain and fear and guilt and shame is to actually feel your way into it. I’m sure some folks do get told this but, for me, it was a revelation that keeps unraveling. And boy, is it hard to do.

First you have to wake up the feeling body. The physical body. The most dense form of ourselves, and start to tune into what is really happening at any given time. I’ve learnt that when I’m in survival mode my quads turn to stone. I am literally in the freeze zone of ‘flight, fright or freeze’, as my sympathetic nervous system fires up. This tends to happen around people I’m afraid of. I notice it when I feel off centre and, for whatever reason, I’m not being myself. My stomach is another big communicator. My digestion completely shuts down in certain situations and even though I think I’m as happy as our good friend Larry, my body, on some level, is not.

In yogic traditions, we can start to decode these physical clues through the idea of saṃskāras. These are deep impressions that are made upon our psyches due to unresolved past experiences of pleasure or pain. To quote Christopher Wallis, “impressions unconsciously shape our preferences and the assumptions we project onto the people and situations we encounter. The stronger the emotional impact of an experience, the deeper the impression that is formed, until we end up with a whole network of impressions that function as a filter to reality. Some of these impressions are ‘toxic’ in the sense that they are so strong that they create exaggerated fear responses when no threat (or only a mild threat) is present, or create attachments to people or things that are not actually very healthy for us.”

So sure, I’d rather not have granite thighs and look like I’m in the third trimester of pregnancy but it’s all good information. There are some experiences that I am yet to digest and, until I am ready to do that, my body will hold on. And that’s ok. At least I’m aware of it. At least I can feel it. With awareness and feeling I can heal and protect myself. I can create boundaries and support systems. I can open up my medicine bag and prescribe the right kind of magic to calm my nervous system, bring me back to my centre, help me soften and call me home to what is really present.

Yoga is the art of resensitising and waking up the parts of yourself that have been asleep for way too long. Studying the structures within the structures, the koshas, the layers upon layers, we work in subtle ways to get intimate with the physical body before working on more and more refined levels of being. To tap into deeper and deeper realities through direct experience that opens up the rabbit hole and leads us closer to the truth of who we really are.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds way more exciting than a 16” cheese feast or a large bottle of booze. It also has the added advantage of allowing me to both remember what’s happened and stay in my centre. And I can attest that being in a room full of yogis who are getting deeply connected is a whole new level of psychedelia. I recently came back from assisting a four-day immersion in London and I was stoned out of my mind without doing a single pose. I was just high on the perfume of everyone else’s subtle bodies intermingling in the cauldron of empowerment. And that, my friends, is what I call a perfectly balanced cocktail.

 

 

Ah balance. The great mystery. I was always told I was ‘an all or nothing kind of gal’. It’s not actually true. I just used to drink a lot and laugh really loudly and that led people to think I was extreme. I also used to work crazy long hours as a brand consultant and then go work in a bar till 6am and I would never say no to an invite or a piece of business. In fact, saying no was something I was not great at. I think folk would say I’m ‘more balanced’ these days, which, for me, is the difference between being in your twenties and being in your thirties. And it’s down to being aware, getting connected to my body, wanting to nourish myself and knowing what’s good for me. Waking up from a three day party to find yourself in Amsterdam is just not as fun as it used to be.

So how do we stay connected, continue to nourish ourselves and get clear on what’s good for us? According to the Native American Shaman, Don Juan, “in order to become a man of knowledge, a warrior-traveller, you will first have to learn to stop the world”.

Hmm. Stop the world. Sounds like a pretty big ask but stay with me. The pressure to be ‘successful’ is huge so we hop on our whole hog, working all of the hours, filling our faces with all of the screens, packing our heads with noise, closing our ears to silence, consuming bonkers crazy amounts of information, processed food, social media, social dysmorphia. It’s too much. Sometimes you just gotta make it stop. How, in the name of Shiva, are we meant to wake up, to truly know ourselves, to truly evolve if we are in a state of high alert and constant distraction?

Contemplation is one of the great yogic practices and both meditation and asana help us to access this wisdom. They help us to slow down. Stop. And begin to ask the right questions. How did I come to be this way? Think these thoughts? Hold these beliefs? How can I change the patterns that appear to define and confine me? Who am ‘I’?

You may or may not have heard of Monsieur Patanjali but he wrote the classical text the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali some 2000 years ago. The first two Sutras go like this:

Now, the teachings of yoga.

Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness.

1.1-2

Yoga is not Eka Pada Galavasana. It’s not knowing where your chakras are or whether Lululemon is better than Lifeforme. Yoga is now. It’s paying close attention to what is really present and to do that we need to get still. In his fantabulous book, The Wisdom of Yoga, Steven Cope breaks it down, like so: “Yoga is to still the thought waves of the mind. Yoga is to bring a natural quiet to the mind and body – so that we can, for the first time, see clearly. And in this stillness – miraculously, outrageously – the knots undo themselves. Inner realities emerge.” A-Ho. What a succulent description of yoga magic.

Now, this is all very well but it’s not 2000 years ago and we don’t live in a cave so where do we find more time to contemplate? More time to yoga, meditate, get still, switch off, stop the world? Get thee to a retreat! Retreats are a great way to stop the world because you can leave the city, turn off your phone, leave your laptop, escape Facebook, block out your diary and make work wait. There is rarely wifi, it’s unlikely you will make it to the pub unnoticed, and there’s nothing to do other than rest, read, write, paint, dance, dream, eat, meditate, chat, laugh, be still, swim in a pool, walk in a forest and indulge in retreat-sized servings of yoga. (Sounds awful, I know). But mostly, retreats are the best place to stop the world because the world is stopped for you. You are held. Supported. Nourished. Space is held so your true self can emerge and be met. But crucially, you have the chance to learn how to hold space for yourself so you can find more time to get still, #everydamnday.

On Saturday, my Thai massage teacher pointed out that the difference between being in your head and being in your heart is about 10 inches, depending on the size of your body. I love Kira. She is such a wonderful teacher and model of loving-kindness. She’s down to earth and playful but wise and connected. During our opening mediation, she often reminds us that no one is better or worse, bigger or smaller, greater or lesser than the next person. That we should treat everyone as our equal and I really feel like that as her student. I often get awkward and a bit awe-struck by my teachers but not with Kira. It’s a very settling feeling and something I aspire to with my own students.

Comparing ourselves to others is a common trap and comparing our yoga practice, poses, styles, teachers, influences, experiences happens all too easily. I’ve recently come across a few articles that have not only compared yoga styles with reproach but have compared the whole of the modern yoga movement to a colossal failure. I feel like, thus far, I have been measured in my introduction of this subject but, quite frankly, these articles really pissed me off.

Holding the whole is something I strive for in all aspects of my life and holding yoga whole is surely something we should all try to do. Whether you think yoga should be deep and slow or strong and taking you to your edge, we all have different needs. I know that my own body likes to move. I’m drawn to spiritual teachers and meditative practices but I also like having my ass kicked by my buddy Helena who’s strapline is ‘all strong and no om’. Yoga is the ‘direct, systematic, and careful personal investigation of experience’, to quote the marvellous Mr Stephen Cope, so who are we to judge someone else’s investigation into their own body and experience? Granted, it might take a lot longer to even become aware of your awareness if you’re not being led by a teacher who holds that intention but, if you truly believe in the power of yoga, transformation will occur.

We are all finding our way and doing our work, whatever you perceive that to be. And sure, there are mind-blowing teachers who are firmly rooted in the yogic tradition but that doesn’t make those ‘other’ teachers, who haven’t had that background, worthy of derision. I sometimes wince at a badly put together sequence that doesn’t take care of the students but those students will go on to discover another teacher, another way, a new experience. It’s not for me to judge the teacher of that sequence. Maybe they are yet to find their own true teacher. Maybe they just qualified. Maybe it’s not that important.

And, as for the modern yoga movement being a colossal failure, is it not a huge achievement to bring yoga into the mainstream? To make it more accessible? Even if it’s just to work the body, the patternings of consciousness will become more still. Asana is a path to pure awareness. It’s a stepping-stone and those stones might come in different shapes and sizes but they form a path, nonetheless. As a teacher in Leeds, I have had to tune into what is needed at this point in time for these people in this part of the world. Yoga is starting to be a big deal round here but saying ‘namaste’ at the end of a class can still be borderline esoteric.

It takes time to access these mysterious practices and we mustn’t forget the origins of our own expansions. My best friend and I used to practice at home for years and neither of us could ‘om’ without doing a little laugh wee in our pants. These days I incorporate mantra, mudra, pranayama, asana and meditation into my daily saddhana. And now I get to be amused by other people who get the giggles when we chant. Step by step, teacher by teacher, experience by experience, breakthrough by breakthrough. It all counts, in my book. Let’s look for the best in people and move beyond our own obscurations and aversions and separations. Call me a lunatic, but is that not the point?