“The body is a sacrament. It is your only home in the universe,
your house of belonging here in the world, a very sacred temple.”
John O’Donohue
Yoga is not about perfect bodies performing impressive contortions. The outer form, practised with care, nourishes the physical body but the work that really matters is the inner work; the life skills of interoception and mindfulness, tuning into our somatic experience from the inside out and allowing the body and mind to rest in the present moment with compassionate acceptance.
The Daoist principle of yin and yang illustrates the invaluable concept of balance, the ‘middle way’ that optimally sustains us and enables us to bring forth our potential into the world. From this perspective, everything in the universe constitutes a dynamic dance between the yang energy of heaven and the yin energy of earth. Yang is more about light, warmth, mobility and the masculine, whereas yin is more about depth, darkness, stillness and the feminine. A palpable sense of regulation and wellbeing arises when the two are in balance. Different yoga practices support us in cultivating this sense of ease and balance between activity and rest, doing and being.
Both yin and yang practices are underpinned by breath awareness. Deep, relaxed breathing shifts our nervous system into parasympathetic immanence, the state in which the mind is clear, the heart open and all the body’s core systems function most effectively. I teach both breath-led movement and specific pranayama (focussed breathing) exercises to cultivate prana and promote balance and calm.
