June is the month of chill - yes it’s official!

Bliss Blog, June 2021

Have you ever experienced that sensation of living life like you’re constantly fighting it, or resisting something, or things consistently seem extra difficult or extra complex and you’re continuously drained of the energy it takes to keep this up? I admit that sometimes I wonder if the real yoga is constantly reminding ourselves to let go and flow. It sounds easy when I write that in words but I know very well that when we’re in the midst of struggle (especially those periods of struggle that seem to last FOREVER…..), it’s hard to back off and make space for everything to move around us. And yet when we do finally manage to see the woods for the trees, relax and let go, we are filled with such a sense of wonder and can’t imagine how we were living any other way.

A few weeks ago I listened to one of my fave podcasts the Tim Ferriss Show and an interview with Greg McKeown, the author of a book called Effortless and all of a sudden my world shifted completely. Here was a guy who manage to find a way to describe real life stuff we can all do to make sure our lives have more ease, more flow and therefore more happiness and bliss. In the interview Greg tells the story of how turning life on it’s head and continuously asking how could we make this easy instead of what else do I have to tackle or beat or overcome, he and his beautiful family not only survived, but thrived throughout the long illness of one of his young daughters. And joy and gratitude and giving ourselves free passes and easy rides are all part of his advice. Sort of sounds a lot like yoga right? So these last weeks whenever something seems blocked, or I feel myself resisting I’ve been asking myself how could I make this easy? Sometimes the answer is, ‘just don’t do it’, but more often than not there are a thousand other alternatives such as, ask for help, let go of perfection, ask more questions, go the other way, tell a friend, change the outcome you seek and more. It’s such a reminder that there are always possibilities to ease resistance and make space for flow, a bit like yoga poses really, there’s no one right way to do them. And in fact I think arm balances are one of the best examples of where we resist and fight the postures so much that we end up never experiencing their full expression. Think of crow pose. It is our fear of falling or landing on our face that makes us resist tipping the balance of our weight forward. We think if we tip forward we will fall and so we hold back, we fight the balance and we never fly. But as soon as you put a cushion under your face and release the fear, your balance tips, your knees naturally hug in and your buttocks rise landing you in exactly the right place to fly your bakasana / crow pose. And the first time you you it? You literally feel invincible and in total flow.

All of this got me thinking about what I am resisting and flighting and blocking in my own life and wondering if I could sweep this away then surely I could feel more chillax right? And the answer is OOOOHHHHHH YYYYEEESSSSS. Here’s three of my biggest revelations:

I think we are trained to deflect generosity under the guise of we must be independent and self sufficient. Whether that’s someone paying you a generous complement, someone offering to cook you dinner, someone offering to loan you money or even a friend or relative offering to help you make an investment with their knowledge or expertise. I have been resisting receiving people’s generosity for years, because I was taught that it’s better to never be beholden or have debts. You know what? Not only does this rob us of receiving beautiful gifts but it robs others of the joy of giving. I’m so OVER resisting generosity - bring it on!

As women I think that many of us are trained to fight men under the banner of equal rights and feminism and I’m here to tell you that I am no longer wasting energy on this. This one is BIG for me having grown up in an era where I was led to believe that if I didn’t fight for my space, for a job, for an equal salary, to be heard and listened to, to be adored and worshipped that none of these things would be mine. And in this last year I feel like my eyes have been opened to the total bullshit we are fed about this, in mainstream media, in relationship advice, in podcasts and magazines. Most of the advice is not about fighting for the things that as fully fledged members of the human race we have as much a right to as any other human. The rhetoric is about fighting men as the enemy and as soon as you make someone the enemy, whether it be via gender, race, politics or ideology you have winners and losers, haves and have nots and ultimately you have division. Inclusion and acceptance are what drive flow and an effortless life. So men, you do you and I’ll do me (including me being me as a feminist) and I think we’ll enjoy each other a whole lot more.

I’ve discovered that people like talking about how hard their lives are and that this makes them feel worthy and like they are living lives of great meaning. If I’m honest this is not a new discovery for me and it is some years ago that I gave up the idea of working myself to into the ground but I’ve been presented with too many examples of people ‘wearing their busy-ness like a badge of honour’ lately and it reminds me that we don’t have to consistently work ourselves into state of exhaustion to be successful. My most recent example was at a yoga class where people were talking about work (something I try to avoid doing at yoga!!!), and how many emails they had and how many zoom meetings they went to every day almost as if it was a competition. I innocently asked why they didn’t just block time in their calendars to take lunch and go for a walk which is something I set up at the start of this year and which has been a total health and happiness game changer for me. Let’s just say I might as well have been an alien from Mars asking for directions to Jupiter. So that’s me totally over listening to how busy other people’s lives are and how hard working and overwhelmed everyone is. I’m letting go of the ‘busy-ness badge of honour’ for good and awarding myself the badge of effortless ease instead.

The word asana in Sanskrit actually translates as steady and comfortable which I think is a beautiful way of describing effortless too. Comfortable is so often seen as something for the privileged or a word for boring people not willing to take any risks. I’m debunking those ideas right here and now. Whenever I practice asana, i.e., whenever I practice being steady and comfortable, over and over again, I am guaranteed to experience less resistance, reduced fighting, more ease and greater flow. Hell, sometimes I even experience a moment of enlightenment! So here’s to spending June (and beyond) in a state of effortless, ease and flow and to feeling the chillax vibes wrap themselves around you all month long. Namaste, Donna x

I’ve got buns in the oven!

Bliss Blog, May 2021

And all of a sudden it’s May! I woke up this morning feeling like something had finished and much had been purged and quite frankly that’s actually a rather nice feeling, leaving me with a sense of lightness and possibility. I hope so very much that the first day of May had you feeling the same. If for some reason not then I hope this month’s Bliss Blog will at least gift you some ideas on how to get there and how to continue moving forward in the fifth month of this incredible (for oh so many reasons) year.

May, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, is often all about rebirth and fertility and new beginnings. It sounds too cliché for my liking and somehow also gives the idea that making babies is the only worthwhile birthing we can do. But a very good friend of mine told me that now is a great time to plan and prepare for whatever you are going to do, however you want your life to be, when we are no longer living in such a restricted pandemic world. And I think this is an absolutely fabulous theme for May. Let us all have our very own buns in the oven this month and see what we birth for our own wild and precious lives.

And with that, I want to remind you that we are all innately creative beings. Creativity is not something gifted to the privileged and held in check for others. We are all born with the capacity to birth new things whether they be ideas, music, stories, words, food, experiences, puppies or children and more. Think about this just for a moment. If you were not creative then your life would hardly ever change. You would always live in the same place, stay in the same job and have the same experiences which you would react to in the same way. And I’m pretty sure that if you’re reading this right now, that this is not your life. So please embrace the truth - you dear one are a deeply creative soul.

And on that note it means May is a fantastic month to be digging into your creative DNA so that you can begin to put your buns in the oven in preparation for a new version of the world where COVID-19 is under control and we have more freedom, safety and security and connection to live our lives.

Ask yourself what you are preparing to birth these days? How do you want to emerge into the latest version of the world? What beautiful creation of yours do you want to bring with you? What unique magic do you possess that absolutely must be shared more widely? And if you feel at a loss to the answers to these questions then maybe ask yourself how you’re different today when compared to the very first day of the very first lock down? Because I promise you (and I paraphrase Deepak Chopra here), that the person you are today is never the same as the person you were yesterday. Stop and consider that every day we wake up is not only a new day to be a new and different version of ourselves but a new day to create and birth whatever it is that you in all your incredible uniqueness need to bring into the world.

And if you’re not feeling the creative bug bite you these days, or you’re feeling stagnate or stuck or withdrawn or contracting (and even if you’re not), then here’s a list of ideas to bring you into a more expansive state so that you can tap back into the creativity that lives naturally with you.

Get on your yoga mat and move any way you feel like moving. Don’t follow a class, don’t feel you have to do certain poses (although you can if they inspire you). Play some music if it helps get the body moving and groove away. You might start on your mat but maybe you move so freely that you end up off your mat and grooving around your house or down the street - just sayin’…..anything is possible right?!

Choose one asana that you feel you haven’t ‘mastered’ (whatever mastered means???) or that you don’t like or that feels like a struggle whenever you take a class that includes this. Take tutorials online (Glo is always my fave) or ask your favourite yoga teacher (i.e., Me!) for some private classes to help you become awesome at this asana and feel a sense of creating confidence and strength and fabulosity in your body.

Take an online GaGa People class and have your mind blown. GaGa is what the incredible Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin calls his style of dance because he teaches people that to the move the body is the most natural thing in the world - just as a baby (i.e., GaGa) knows how to move so should we as adults. Not only will you experience movement and your body in ways you may have long forgotten, you’ll be creating new movement pathways in your body, mind and spirit and be practicing and connecting with hundreds of people all over the world.

Meet or talk to someone new. It could be intentional and deliberate, using your contacts, Linkedin, social media etc to meet someone who has skills or expertise in an area you want to create, develop or birth into your life. Or it could be as simple as striking up a conversation with the owner of the cute puppy in the park, or someone at the supermarket or sitting on a bench on the street. Living outside our usual realm of connections and meeting new people sparks openness, opportunities and a creative mind.

Deliberately find moments of stillness, quiet and nothingness so your mind can wander and expand and create. This could be walking in nature, meditating or just sitting staring into space. In summer I call this ‘lake staring’ where I literally just give myself permission to sit and stare at the lake. Because this nothingness has a name to it, I don’t feel guilty that I’m wasting time or feel I should be doing other things or ticking of my ‘ta da’ list. And let me assure that lake staring has birthed many of my best ideas and most creative endeavours. Find your own version of lake staring and make sure it happens at least once a week if not more.

Travel to a place you have never been before and gift yourself a different view. Because when we see things through a new lens we feel freer and big ideas and new concepts seem to automatically land in our lap. If you can muster the courage and the funds to get on a plane or a train and go somewhere new then do it! But traveling can happen in your own town or city by walking a new route, strolling different streets or just taking an hour to get lost in the place you live. Take a hike and instead of planning the route in detail beforehand, let yourself wander instead and see where you end up. Think of the goal of this wandering as creating a new experience and letting your mind roam free rather than getting to the other end of your travel. I’ve lived in Geneva on and off for years and still there are so many streets I am yet to walk and each time I find a new one I feel like I’ve just been on a mini-adventure - and this feeling is one that lights up my day.

I’d so love to hear what you’re birthing into your life right now. Reach out on Facebook or Instagram or by email and let me know what awesomeness you’re creating in the world right now.

As for me? I’m deep into creating these days and getting in more yoga time has definitely helped with this. We’re half way through my new Art of Yoga and Ayurveda course with the most brilliant group of yogis, working to create abundant health in their own lives. And my Ayurvedic Yoga private consultations will soon be expanding to their very own space here in Geneva. In the mean time you can still book these sessions online. I’ve just come out of a divine retreat in the Swiss Alps, curated by So Ham studio here and with the amazing Simon Park. Doing someone else’s yoga is such a gift and in these few days I feel I’ve created more strength, flexibility and peace - so so grateful. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an October long weekend retreat in beautiful Tuscany - who’s in for fabulous food, yoga and chillax in gorgeous Italy? And what was initially a one off Gratitude Gathering at the end of last year will become monthly……sign up deets on my website. Extra exciting is that I’m taking the first round of questions for a new Yoga Cafe podcast. This is your opportunity to send me all and any questions you’ve always wanted to ask about yoga (in its broadest sense) and I’ll see if I and other yogis can shed some light and wisdom with you. All you have to do is email your question to emergencyoga@hotmail.com with the words Yoga Cafe in the message heading. Phew that seems like a lot when I write these new babies out in words but in reality it all just feels really fun and joyful and expansive and I’m even looking forward to giving birth over and over again :-)

So feed your creative spirit and soul this month of May, reach out and connect and tell me your birthing stories and always believe that you and your babies (whatever form they take) are so very needed in our next and upcoming version of the world as we know it. NAMASTE, Donna x

I want the truest version of you in my life

Bliss Blog, April 2021

April is the month I always want to cancel. It has too many harrowing life experiences, too much grief and too many memories attached to it. Last year I swore with friends that we would cancel April. But it seems time doesn’t work like this and so instead I’m experiencing my third day of quarantine here on the beautiful island of Bermuda. And it makes me realise that spontaneity and change are an incredible antidote to the hardness that life sometimes throws us.

If you’d asked me two weeks ago where I’d be for this long Easter weekend I would have assumed in my usual Swiss mountain escape. And when dear friends said why not come back to Bermuda with us and enjoy a new home office view I thought bbbaaahhhhh crazy talk! And yet here I am just over a year since the first pandemic lock down started and I feel like I am a new person just because I got on a plane.

It’s been over a year since I took a flight and the last one I took was from a deserted Tel Aviv airport back to Geneva. For the past year I have told myself don’t sweat it, do the right thing, stay safe, keep others safe, save the planet, there’ll be other times to travel. And whilst I have no regrets about this approach, I also realise that I have rarely been out of my comfort zone for more than a year. And that me being in places that scare me and doing new things is an essential part of my DNA. And that me taking this small, relatively low risk trip with fabulous friends feels like me being me more than anything I’ve done this last year.

In Ayurveda, the entire system, every single practice, is designed to help us be the truest version of ourselves. To make this work we also have to know who we really are and what it is that feeds our souls at the deepest level. If we are always busy or always worried or always working or always caring for others or always putting ourselves last then it is impossible to know who we really are and what we need to be ourselves.

The quietness of a few minutes of meditation, the slowing down of our breath as we move through asana on our mats, the gift of five long deep breaths are all ways in which we can know ourselves better. These are the places we slow down enough not only to listen to what we need but to hear the beat of our own hearts and the call of our deepest, innermost longings.

I’ve been studying Ayurveda for many years but these last months studying the Madhuri Method have revealed more to me about who I really am and what I really need to be the truest version of myself than I could ever imagine. A cornerstone of Ayurveda is something called dinacharya or daily routine with the notion that your morning starts the night before with relaxing practices and good sleep. It can include anything from daily affirmations to meditation to oiling your body, to drinking a special tea to yoga and more. And personally I think we all do better with some kind of routine. But we can also easily become obsessed with routine or get way too deep in our comfort zone and forget about the other things we need. And that’s also part of honouring who we are. To give ourselves the safety and good health that a daily routine offers whilst finding ways to let our curiosity run free, expand our minds and take risks that build our confidence and make us feel free. This routine and freedom from routine looks different for everyone and one of my favourite things about Ayurveda is that there is always something for each of us that enables us to live in alignment, to live in our truth.

So it makes complete sense that in the month I wanted to cancel, I’m actually offering up this Ayurvedic wisdom, this possibility to live in the most profound truth to all of you. Because being ourselves completely is what enables us to feel abundant health and to be the most well version of ourselves. And that dear ones is something I want to share with the world!

If you are not feeling like yourself in any way at all, big or small, then this is my personal invitation to you to join me on the 12 April for six weeks to realign, to find your truth and to gift yourself the tools to live a life of incredible health and wellbeing. YOU amazing soul, need to be 1000% well because I need YOU on this planet, doing your thing, making the world an awesome place and lighting up all those who cross your path. Seriously!

I’ve personally designed six, 90 minute classes combining the ancient sciences of Ayurveda and Yoga into one beautiful work of art. All the classes will be available to join live every Monday evening and you’ll also receive them in recorded format with a specially designed workbook so if need be you can go at your own pace. We’ll be covering everything from the fundamentals of Ayurveda, to knowing your unique constitution to creating a soul care routine to finding balance with food, to using yoga as medicine and of course looking at how to integrate Ayurveda and Yoga practices into your day to day life without needing an extra five hours in your day or a science degree. We’re going deep on this one gorgeous souls and at the end of our time together I know you’ll feel more fabulous and most importantly more YOU!

And because I always love to practice with you all, here’s a special balancing meditation combining the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether (space) that are so central to the practice of Ayurveda.

Be wild, be free, be YOU this April awesome yogis and I promise you that through this you’ll find out who you are and only want to be more of that. NAMASTE, Donna x

This is the moment of your life!

Bliss Blog, March 2021

Hello beautiful yogis and awesome souls and welcome to March! There’s a lot in my head that I want to share with you so I’m going to start off by telling you about all the offers I’ve got going on, that I hope you’ll be able to join me.

Tomorrow, Saturday 6 March I’m thrilled to be hosting the launch of the bran new Asha Healing Hub. Asha is an incredible company that I’ve been working with this last year or so to bring Ayurvedic wellness to a wider and more inclusive community. And because their specially curated Ayurvedic retreats are on pandemic hold, Asha has gone ahead and created an online platform where you can access all things Ayurveda - anything from a consultation with an Ayurvedic doctor, to specialised yoga classes to sessions with an Ayurvedic nutritionist or chef. And if you join for the launch this Saturday (you can register for free here), then you’ll receive an consultation from one of the Hub’s therapists free.

Keeping on this Ayurvedic theme, (cause you know I’m in love with this ancient wisdom), I’m launching my first The Art of Yoga and Ayurveda online course on 12 April. This is six very special 90 minute sessions designed to support you to be the truest version of yourself and learn how to use the life science of Ayurveda to gift yourself abundant health, healing and happiness. Together, we’ll be weaving ancient Ayurvedic wisdom into our yoga practice both on and off the mat and our classes will be a combination of knowledge sharing, discussion and plenty of yoga practices. Spaces are limited so click the link to book your spot now.

As part of my Ayurvedic practices I recently took part in a five day juice detox which I loved way more than I hated. I wasn’t hungry, my skin became clear very quickly and I felt light and full of energy (except for the middle day where I had a fuzzy head in the morning). This was my attempt at this type of detox and so I went the easy route and literally ordered the juices to my doorstep. I know this sounds so BoBo and I admit I loved living the simple life for these five days not having to think about food, cooking or washing up. The juices were absolutely delicious ( 6 each day) and came from Private Detox Box (Swiss based and made in Geneva). As a little favour for posting some pics on Instagram they’ve generously offered me a discount code to share with you so if you fancy a detox or eating healthier for a few days then definitely give them a go. Not only do they do juice detoxes (and they do shorter versions by the way), but they offer soups, salads and all kinds of great food. When you order just use the code ‘YogaMeetsDetox10’ to get 10% off your order.

Alright so now we’ve gotten all the exciting stuff out of the way I want to declare March a month of surrender and transition. It may not seem obvious that these two words go hand in hand but if we take a moment to think about all our very best and most awesome risings, we realise that are all preceded by hitting rock bottom. I always remember the scene in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray Love, where she lies sobbing on the bathroom floor with the realisation that she is not going to be married to her husband any longer, (sorry I don’t describe this moment in the book with any justice!), but that this deep dark moment is also the beginning of the rest of her life and comes with an incredible sense of freedom. 

And quite honestly as I arrive in the third month of 2021, still wearing a mask, still working from home and still waiting to see what new adventures pandemic life brings (oh wait - none!!!!!), I surrender to the will of COVID-19 and give up trying to fake smile, toxic positivity and pretend it’s all going back to ‘normal’ one day. It’s not the first time I’ve had to shift into a state of surrender in this damn pandemic life. In fact I’ve been re-surrendering over and over again. But this time my ever clever best man friend Jérome reminded me that now is the time for planning, for preparing and for getting ready. Give up on having big adventures and travels and surrender to life right now BUT live in a state of preparation so that when the world is finally healed and we are all finally free to physically move and connect we make sure that we are damn ready for that. The work now is to place ourselves in a state of readiness for rebirthing and transformation. And quite frankly I love this idea. It’s exciting!!!!! It makes me feel like I’m tenterhooks to watch the next episode of the latest telenovela of my life and that’s much healthier for my spirit than thinking of what might have been or wishing things back to what they were but will never be again.

So this month dear ones use your mat as a place of surrender, your practice as the chance to transform over and over again. Try physically linking different asanas together, experiment with combos different to your most practiced poses and move your body and breath in ways that feel like a preparation for a life bigger than the one you’re living right now. And then when you’ve had enough of that surrender again, to child’s pose, to savasana, to your breath to Mother Earth. And I’ll see you there, rising and falling together over and over again, readying ourselves for a healed world and fantastic freedom. NAMASTE, Donna x

Join the Joy Train Today 

Bliss Blog: February 2021

It’s February dear ones and I think we can safely say we’ve made it through the time of new year resolutions fall out which means whatever you’ve started and stopped, tried and failed, had a go at and let go is all in the past. February is here. I can no longer legitimately wish anyone happy new year - although admittedly I did extend my usual end of January deadline until today as I just don’t see anyone very often to actually wish them happy new year - thank you Covid!

Here in Geneva the weather is grey, everything is closed, the snow has melted and given way to yellow skies filled with Saharan sand (yes really!) and everything feels a bit blah. I’d love to blame the pandemic but European cities in a February winter always feel a bit like this in my recollection. It’s definitely the moment to be in the Southern Hemisphere enjoying sunny beach life and humid bush walks. Those of you down under please send news and good weather to us all up over.

Wherever you are in the world I’m here to tell you that I’ve declared February my month of joy! So come and take a ride on my Joy Train yogis and join my Joy Tribe. Why give in to the ‘blah’ when we have the power to upgrade our joy levels and start feeling really alive? Why head down the pandemic rabbit hole when you can join the upward spiral of positivity and joy?

I started out by trying to find the small things in each day that bring me joy. This began as a past tense practice, asking myself at the end of the day what brought me joy. But I’ve shifted it to an all day practice, asking myself what joyful things I have to look forward to throughout the day. I pause when the home office life gets the better of me and I feel a moment of blah and ask myself what joy I’m looking forward to in that moment. These feel like little joy anchors throughout my day. So far this has included a lot of looking forward to practicing yoga on zoom with you all, a lot of looking forward to cooking good food and trying out new recipes (current fave is the gorgeous Syria: Recipes from Home book), a lot of looking forward to lunch time lake walks, a lot of looking forward to seeing my favourite human at the end of the day and a lot of looking forward to reading Jane Harper novels (start with The Dry!). When you think about it, these add up to a lot of joyful moments throughout the day.

Let these little joys fill up your life and then when you feel ready, take a joy inventory of the bigger things. Remember the one or two really consistent practices or people or places that bring you immense and immeasurable joy. Can you bring them into your life again in some way? Maybe you can’t transport yourself back to that incredible Thai holiday you had but you could cook fabulous Thai food or call your mate that was on holiday with you and reminisce or look at photos of beautiful memories of that time and those places.

If your big joy is skiing or sailing or traipsing the planet and that’s just not possible today then how about daily lunch time walks or weekly mini-adventures into nature. My nature happiness hack for 2021 is to book 90 minute lunch breaks in your work / life diary every single day for the rest of the year. This means no one can book you for any ridiculous lunch time meetings. Use that time to leave your house and breathe in fresh air, see the sky, walk the earth. You don’t have to use the full 90 minutes or go very far but it does mean you have a date with yourself and the planet every single damn day, This has been such a mental and physical health game changer for me since I started doing it and it also means I don’t end up working through my lunch break.

And full permission this month (not that you need it from me!), to continuously practice all of your favourite poses on your mat as often as you like. Let go of what you feel you should do in yoga and start doing more of what you love. Feeling joy in your practice is literally like giving your body, mind and spirit a personal love letter. And who doesn’t want one of those? :-)

I’d love to know what brings you joy these days beautiful souls so I can feel the sparkle in your life as well. Reach out and let me know via email or Facebook or even better join me some especially joyful yoga live on Wednesday evenings at 18.00 Swiss time. You can book your spot right here and I’d so love to see you on the mat real time. Have an amazing month yogis. NAMASTE, Donna x

Be the cliché: Keep Calm and Carry On

Bliss Blog: January 2021

Welcome to episode one of the hottest new telenovela on the block awesome souls.  It’s called 2021 and what a first episode it’s been!  Streets in darkness and no fireworks on new year, the storming of the US Capitol building, new strains of the Corona virus all over the place and more lockdowns.  Like most opening episodes, the following ones are rarely quite as spectacular and quite frankly I’m banking on that!

When things hit rock bottom the only way is up and that’s how I’m seeing the spectacular kick off to 2021.  If this is week one then it can only get better from here.

But before we get into this year I really want to check in with you and see how you managed to slide out of 2020.  I hope you found yourself in good shape at the end of last year after our beautiful and life affirming Year of Bliss together.  This past year with you all will always be remembered and it is because of this journey that we all traveled together in 2020 and because of the incredible connection we shared together in so many different ways over the course of last year, that it will go down as a fantastic year.  It’s in my top 5 best years - truly!  

I confess to feeling shell shocked on arrival in 2021.  In part because I was absolutely convinced that bars and restaurants in Geneva were open until 1am, (so said the Swiss government website!!!), and as I ran down to the lake just before midnight and found everything closed and dark, well, let’s just say my sense of disappointment was palpable - I could taste the bitterness of new year defeat in my mouth.

I’m still recovering I have to admit.  There’s a part of my soul that screams ‘what’s the f&%*ing point???!!!’  My Year of Bliss is over, my daily yoga posts and weekly blogs and classes are done, what could possibly beat that in 2021.

And so I write to you.  More to cheer myself with the knowledge that you are still out there in the world, moving and breathing on your mat like me.  But also to give my 2021 purpose and meaning and to imagine that maybe I am still giving a little bit of light to the world in this new year.  It makes me realise how important it is to know that we are making a difference, to someone, somewhere.

The words I’m using in my sankalpa these days are courage, flow and happiness.  It’s what I wish for this year.  Probably these words will change as the year goes on and I will find a new sankalpa.  The word abundance keeps coming out of my mouth as well.  It makes me feel hopeful, like there is more goodness waiting on the horizon for us all. 

But I also feel deeply committed to calm at the start of this year.  Ok so there were no fireworks or parties or revelry as the clock ticked into 2021.  It seems appropriate then that January should be a beautiful, calm, serene month.  A month that soothes our souls and nurtures us into this new year.  

To support your calm in January make sure you practice regular pranayama (yogic breathing) with something super simple so you find your way to it over and over again. Breathing in for a count of four and out for a count of five is my go to.  Let go of the idea of making your yoga practice long and strong and focus on getting to your mat every single day this month - even if that daily effort is as calming as just five minutes of child’s pose (balasana).  Ditch or at least reduce the stimulants and ‘fire’ enhancing foods in your diet, (i.e., coffee, alcohol, chilli, garlic, onions, processed sugar etc).  And whenever you can get outside so you can see the sky and stars above your head and feel Mother Earth under your feet, holding and supporting you for eternity, forever unwavering.

I’m still working on what Emergencyoga looks like in 2021 but what I know so far is that I want to:

• Reach more people and expand our tribe

• Deepen my sense of community, connection and support with you all

• Bring yoga and Ayurveda together in my teaching and coaching

• Grow my one on one healing work with people experiencing injuries and trauma

For now the Emergencyoga buffet includes my regular Wednesday Bliss Bomb class.  I’d so love for you to join, and to bring or tell a friend to expand our tribe.  On 25 January I’m also launching the Yoga Virgins series, eight classes over 4 weeks to delve deep into the fundamentals of yoga.  This is a fantastic way to get to know the ancient practice of yoga in depth, live and online with me.  More classes and workshops will be coming online soon including my Emergencyoga Home Office series.  I can’t wait to share this with you!

Enjoy January dears ones, as a new beginning and as the starting place of calm and serenity for this coming year.  Much love, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 53: Was 2020 really My Year of Bliss?

Well loves, it’s finally here - the very last Bliss Blog of 2020.  It feels less momentus than I’d imagined.  I’m not breathing a sigh of relief or feeling like I’ve nailed some grand achievement.  Perhaps what I’m feeling is content.  Content and happy in the knowledge that I did what I set out to do on the 1st January, 2020.  I fully confess it wasn’t my idea.  In fact it was the bf who said why don’t you post a yoga pose every day.  And because I’m hardly one to do things by halves I said great idea and then immediately added a weekly yoga class and the Bliss Blog.  And of course when all those ideas were brewing away and I kicked off the year with My 2020 Year of Bliss, COVID and pandemics were nowhere to be seen.

And yet here we are at the end of it all, still standing, still yoga-ing, meditating and breathing together.  And I am so deeply grateful to the very marrow of my bones that the fun that has been this Year of Bliss has been also been the thing that saved my sanity in 2020.

Most of the time we never know what we look like or how we appear to others and so throughout this year and just so you know, I have regularly felt very unyogic, I’ve felt more angry and annoyed at many things that would normally not even make me blink, I’ve felt like an imposter dishing out advice on how to deal with a pandemic and I’ve been unable to let go of control of many things.  I suspect that I’m not the only one wrapping up 2020 with all of this so welcome to my club of humanness. :-)

And yet still, every week I sat down to write, for me, for you and for anyone else who might need to know that there are others like them out there struggling to get life right and get on the mat.  Many many weeks just writing about the Big Bliss Commitments or offering up ideas to you all to try and stay healthy and sane, kicked my own butt into action and forced me into practicing what I was preaching.  So thank you, thank you, thank you for keeping me accountable to my own health and for forcing my authenticity.  Some weeks were easier to write and to yoga than others but I always felt so much better after putting fingers to keyboard and getting on my mat.

I had some favourite and memorable weeks and months and I’m wondering if you did too.  Early on I wrote about transition and used the metaphor of the Phoenix rising from the ashes.  We even had a fantastic workshop on this theme over Zoom, back in the days when we thought the pandemic would be over in a matter of weeks and using Zoom was ‘novel’.  This felt like a powerful time and one of hope and I was so thrilled that so many of you joined this practice from all over the world.  Looking back we could never have known then that today we would be literally living lour lives over Zoom and standing in a state of permanent change and transition and that our own personal Phoenixes would continue to rise from the ashes over and over again!  Just a sign of our resilience I say! :-) 

Our month of Bhakti yoga kept me humble and connected into my heart wisdom.  Practicing in this way reminded me of my divinity and my connection to source and I felt so much more in love with life throughout the entire month.  

I loved the week when we set up a WhatsApp meditation group with some of you, (it’s still going if you want to join!), and this mutual support really deepened my meditation practice and turned me onto months of Japa meditation around self compassion - a practice e that has been truly transformational.  

We spent an entire week focused just on mudras and I adored expanding my mind as I researched the healing power of our hands and the symbolism of mudras within our yoga practice.  Kali Mudra remains one of my favourites with her ability to drive out darkness so light can shine in.

I remember feeling baffled and helpless and wondering what I could possibly write that would be helpful as Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were murdered by those that are paid to uphold the trust of all, and the Black Lives Matter movement expanded into space it should have occupied decades ago.  I wondered what yoga could give us in this moment without seeming fake and unreal.  And so I let my spiritual mentor Martin Luther King Junior guide my voice in those dark times.

And then finally to this last month of gratitude.  The end of a calendar year is always a time for reflection and so to spend it in constant gratitude feels like a way to fill myself up before tipping over into the new year.  And as I look back at this Year of Bliss I realise that despite much evil and opposing forces, this year has been exactly that - bliss!  It has been a series of blissful moments strung together to keep me, (and I hope you too!), alive, hopeful and still in love with life.

I’m so grateful for all the beautiful messages you sent me throughout the year so here’s a little reminder of what resonated with you.  I share some of these snippets of thanks and words of wisdom to remind us all of how powerful it is to give thanks and how much this simple act can touch people’s lives and change the world around us. 

“I’ve just finished a marathon couple of weeks of work, and just spent a weekend - as lovely as it was, dealing with  the kids various demands and whims  - and feeling grateful and completely f**cking wiped out, as I slump down on a Sunday night on the couch. But then I’ve  just read your blog (which I aways so enjoy) and got my butt into gear and booked your workshop next weekend!”

“You are AWESOME for keeping us focused on what really matters in life through your witty emails,and for reminding us that each of us matters.”

“Reading your messages every week helps start every week in the best possible way. Your energy in doing this, in communicating positive messages, is so admirable and I can see how much it must mean to readers in a more challenging place than myself.”

“What I wanted to say was that your last sentence of the blog actually brought tears to my eyes - thank you that we are walking this time and life together - I am  deeply grateful for that!”

“A note of thanks for this as I read it over my Sunday morning coffee and eggs. I saw your email come through this morning and deliberately saved it for when I could “savour” it :)”

"Thank you for this Donna. I will definitely do the simple thank you morning and evening.”

“I remember saying to you over coffee…. that I really love me and you encouraged me to think that's the way to go.” 

“Thank you for sharing this with all of us. Far from being 'imperfect and imposterish', you are so genuine and sincere, and this also inspires the rest of us (well for sure it inspires me!). Thanks also for sharing your resilience map.”

"Donna! These emails are so life-affirming and immensely helpful, I love them - thank you dear friend!”

“Dear Donna, You are wonderful. Thank you for what you've sent. I see new horizons opening and more love coming!”

“I write to express my gratitude to you! I love this post and have been practicing gratitude ever morning for awhile now. I have added my gratitude anchor for the week and will do my best here in South Sudan to do one fave pose per day.” 

“Thank you for the goodness, the kindness and the caring you bring to this world. I am so honoured, lucky, privileged to be connected with you.”

“Thank you for your gift and sharing. Thank you for your strength and for being a living example that we can leave a position or a place of we feel that it is not good for us.” 

So as we bow our heads and hearts in gratitude to 2020, let us also look forward to the incredible wealth of possibility that this new year and new decade can bring us.  Here’s what’s in the Emergencyoga box of tricks for 2021!

Yoga Virgins: A month long 8 class series for those who are new to yoga or want to deepen their knowledge of this ancient practice.  Yoga Virgins starts on 25 January and is limited to 15 students (online) so grab your spot now and start off 2021 with this yoga fabulosity.

The Bountiful Life Program: One on one yogic coaching designed to support YOU to live your most fabulous life.  Choose whether you focus on creating abundant health, healing and vitality or deep connection or all three!  Think of this Bountiful Life as your gift to yourself for 2021 and beyond and be ready to fire up your creative juices, get out of your mind and into your body, move in ways that light you up and step into the most incredible and truest version of you. I’ve got just three open slots on this program now so get in quick.

Wednesday Bliss Bomb: My weekly 75 minute class, bringing together yogis from all over the world to practice together online. This class is an all levels flow, aligned with the seasons and designed to make you feel awesome.

And as soon as life feels well enough to come together and practice in person I’ll be adding retreats in Zermatt, Italy and Greece so stay connected for more news on these by following me on Instagram and Facebook.

Sending you all so much love and gratitude and may you slide gracefully out of this year and into the next and may 2021 bring you all that your beautiful hearts desire.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 52: Seven questions to end the year well

Dearest most wonderfulest yogis, we still have time!!!!  This buster of a year is not over yet and there’s still time to fill yourself up on gratitude and finish the year feeling full, blissful and damn proud of the fact that you’re still standing, still yoga-ing and still bringing your light to the world and all those who need it. 

One of the things I love about ending a year is the chance to reflect, and this year I’m trying to do that over a number of weeks rather than slide into December 31st, quickly scribbling on a piece of paper what I loved about 2020.  And as rubbish as COVID-19 may have made this year, it also brought us so many good things.  A few that come immediately to my mind include:

Continuation of my live Wednesday yoga class online and the chance to keep practicing with all my beloved yogis all over the world.  Without COVID I would have gone back to teaching at a studio and missed this chance to keep practicing with you all.  Zoom yoga is here to stay!

Nightly community clapping for all the healthcare workers during lockdown.  The streets of Geneva may have been empty and we may have stayed home but every evening we came out on our balconies and clapped our hands and hearts out in solidarity, community and connection for all those working their butts off to save lives.  I felt so grateful for this nightly ritual and the heart warming, connected feeling it gave me.

Zero international travel and a big save on those green house gas emissions and more exploration of beautiful Switzerland including mucho mountain adventures with incredible friends.  Looking through photos of this summer it seems like 2020 gifted me more mountain time than ever before and I’m so grateful for that.

Flexibility to work from home, to run or do yoga at lunch time, to not have to squeeze all the lifemin chores like laundry and grocery shopping into my weekend and to have space and quiet at home for a truly functional home office situation.  I love going to the office (and I have some times these last months) but I am also so so grateful for flexible working.

Start making your list of what 2020 gave you this week so on 31 December you can look at it with a deep sigh of appreciation and know that even in the most hellish years you can find goodness and light and allow yourself a moment of thanks.  If you want to expand your thinking and deep dive a little more here’s a list of fabulous questions (from the awesome Beunsettled crew) that I’m working on right now that not only help me appreciate 2020 but that also help me set myself up for 2021.  

1. What or who are you most grateful for right now?

2. Which experiences inspired you in 2020?

3. What were your three main challenges this past year?

4. What do you want to let go and leave behind in 2020?

5. What’s your intention for 2021?

6. What do you want to discover in 2021?

7. What’s your ‘destination’ for the coming year?

I’d love to hear your answers to these!  Send me an email or even better join me live on 28 December for the incredible Gratitude Gathering and tell me in person!  You can grab your free ticket here using the code THANKYOU.

So dear ones, let this next week be one of slowing down, both on and off the mat, one of nurturing your body, mind and spirit and one of reflection to prepare you to not only end this year well but glide blissfully into 2021.

I’ll see you next week for the final Bliss Blog!  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 51: Your Gratitude Resource Pack (and a free invitation!)

Gorgeous souls there are just three Bliss Blogs left until the end of 2020 so I thought I’d better start filling you up with some of the go to resources I’ve been using to feed my body, mind and soul this year.  And because this final month of the year is one dedicated to gratitude I want to share with you my top three life hacks for deeper, more life changing gratitude AND my top ten list of things to listen or meditate to and read that inspire me to be more grateful. 

Keep reading to the very bottom of the Bliss Blog this week to as there you’ll find a very special invitation to join me live before the end of the year at my one and only Gratitude Gathering.

MY TOP 3 GRATITUDE LIFE HACKS

Keep a Book of Awesomeness

Buy yourself a small notebook and at the end of each day write: ‘Today I am awesome because….1)……2)……..3)………’.   Because gratitude starts with being happy to be the whole complete person that you already are in this very moment.  You are awesome right now and reminding yourself why on a daily basis is a little gift you give to yourself at the end of each day.  Need inspiration?  Here’s some from my own Book of Awesomeness - Today I am awesome because…. walked in the sun, I admitted when I was wrong, I said no to something I didn’t want, I took a nap, I contributed to the team at work, I fed myself good food.  You get the idea.  Give it a go and let me know why you’re awesome.

A shared gratitude ritual

Gratitude spoken out loud or shared in some way with someone else is so much more powerful than when we just tell it to ourselves.  Start a shared gratitude practice with someone you care about and see how it profoundly changes your lives.  It’s a humbling experience as we not only bow down to what we feel thankful for but also have the privilege to learn what makes someone else grateful.  It doesn’t have to be a daily thing, even taking a moment with your favourite human once a week as a loose ritual can be a beautiful moment of vulnerability and sharing that sparks deeper connection and gratitude.  

Pivot to gratitude 

When life feels hard and down and small and difficult it’s a challenge to find gratitude and flip the switch from one of victimhood to expansive appreciation and thankfulness.  But it’s so worth the effort.  If you can bring yourself to phone a friend or loved one and ask them to do this with you then please please do - so much better to have gratitude company.  However even doing this alone can really change your state of mind for the better.  Make a list of three things that feel dark and hopeless about your day / week / month - and really it’s better if you can actually write this down old school with a pen and paper.  You can write these in the first column on your page.  Then in the column next to each of your points write what goodness or opportunity has or could come from this experience.  It’s ok if you don’t see any light now, you can also project into the future and begin to imagine the possibilities. I get that some of your experiences might be so dark that nothing good comes to mind.  That’s ok (and totally human and normal too by the way!), just keep coming back and revisiting the point and see if anything changes.  

TOP 10 GRATITUDE RESOURCES

1. Where gratitude gets you - Hidden Brain (podcast)

2. Brené with Dolly Parton on Songtelling, Empathy and Shining Our Lights - Unlocking Us (podcast)

3. A Fireside Chat with Tony and Sage Robbins, Parts 1 & 2 (podcast)

4. Headspace interview on How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast)

5. Anything and everything by The Gratitude Podcast with Georgian Benta (podcast)

6. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown (book)

7. Self Compassion, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr Kristin Neff (book)

8. Self Power by Deepak Chopra (book)

9. 5 minute Guided Gratitude meditation with Giselle Mari on Glo

10. 10 minute Breath Meditation by Sharon Salzberg on Insight Timer

INVITATION 

Join me on Monday 28 December for a final 2020 Gratitude Gathering to celebrate my 2020 Year of Bliss.  Thanks to yogi Sonia for this great idea to bring everyone who has been part of inspiring, reading and participating in my Bliss Blog, classes and daily yoga poses this year.  It’s my chance to say thank you to you all, to connect you all together into this incredible tribe of awesomeness that we are part of.  There’ll be gratitude games and a nurturing gratitude meditation to fill you up.  Book online and grab your spot free using the code THANKYOU. 

Bliss Blog Week 50: Slow down, get enlightened - yes really!

Dear ones have you ever had one of those moments where you seem to stand outside yourself and watch the moment almost as an observer of your life?  For me these moments are often accompanied by knee trembling gratitude and mostly experienced somewhere deeply surrounded by Mother Nature.  They are rare but profound and oh so treasured.  Personally I consider them a form of enlightenment. 

And tonight I had one in the middle of singing happy birthday badly and out of tune in three different languages at a three year old’s birthday party.  This little poppet arrived in our lives less than a year ago, into the arms of her yogi mama, one of our blessed tribe and tonight was her first birthday celebration with her new family including us ‘fairies’ as her mama calls the incredible group of women she has gathered around her to raise this child.

And as we all stood around the mini singing over her and the work of art that was the Shaun Sheep birthday cake (made by one of the other yogi fairies of course!), I felt my spirit leave my body and watch it all happening and I could not help but think life is better than anything Hollywood can come up with.  I felt all the incredible feminine energy surrounding this little one, all the deep bonds of sisterhood with the fairies, these gorgeous, strong women that our little poppet will have protecting her throughout her life and I felt almost floored by gratitude to be in this moment with these people, these women, this life.

And it reminded me of a moment more than 40 years ago standing in our rose garden and my mother asking me to make a wish for whatever I wanted most in the world but not to tell anyone my wish as then it wouldn’t come true.  I wished with all my might that I would meet a real live fairy.  And here I was tonight not only surrounded by very special fairies but having become one myself without even realising it.

How, you may ask, does this relate to anything yoga-like?  Because it is only when we slow down, breathe, feel and meditate that we have the possibility to notice these moments of deep connection, of reference, of gratitude.  When life is so fast and so busy, when we are not present in the moment, there is zero chance of enlightenment. And whilst it might be mostly unattainable, enlightenment is definitely worth continuing to seek.  In fact it is these brief moments of experienced enlightenment that keep me coming back to my mat, that keep me sitting in regular meditation, that keep reminding me to slow down and just be.

So as we continue this month of December, focusing our hearts on gratitude, please take time to slow down.  And yes I realise that December is so often the month of speed up for so many as we aim to get all and everything done before the end of the year, to check off those lists, to do more, be more, give more.  But if this pandemic has taught us anything it is to slow down and appreciate what we already have.  It’s not a lesson I want to forget or lose and this week is a great time to practice it even more.  Think of your presence as a present, a true gift to those you love and adore.

One of my favourite calming and slowing practices these days is to simply sit and take 10 of the longest, deepest breaths you can in the most relaxed way possible, no strain, just breathing in, breathing out.  It is virtually impossible not to be present and chill after doing this.  Try it out - I think you’re going to love it!

And whilst you might feel like you have to rush to fit your yoga practice in between all the things to do on your long list it doesn’t mean your practice has to be fast or rushed.  Can you slow that down too?  It will have profoundly positive effect on your nervous system to slow down your movements, the asana, the stillness and just be in the poses.  Today I did a 20 minute class with just three poses and I’ve never felt more restored!

Want help slowing down this week and finding presence and gratitude at the end of this mad year?  Join me on 12 December for a very special workshop to help us all end the year well and in a state of bliss.  You can book your tickets with the awesome Yoga Revolution.  Buy a membership and get your first month and my special workshop for just £15 as well as all the other great live and on demand classes The Yoga Revolution offers.  Keep your membership and enjoy all the amazing teachers on offer (including founder and Blissologist Chloe Markham) or cancel any time with one months notice.  Nothing like practicing with like minded souls to boost our sense of enlightenment!

Carry on beautiful souls and let this state of grace and gratitude feed your soul and lift you up through these last blessed and blissed weeks of 2020.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 49: A final month of gratitude

Dear ones we have just one month off 2020 left and we are faced with the ultimate choice.  Do we leave this mad pandemic year with a sense of waste, throwing the hellish time it was away like old garbage with a sense of relief?  Or can we fill ourselves up with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude for all this year has given us and end it dancing on the tables?

I know which version of the 31 December I prefer and here’s my life hack to make it happen.  GRATITUDE.  One word.  Yep that’s it.  And I don’t mean the every day kind of thankfulness that we say when we wake up in the morning or before we eat our dinner.  I’m talking about the deep, cellular level, flooring gratitude that makes you want to weep with thankfulness because you are humbled before it.  This can be our December beautiful souls and this is how I want to feel by the time Old Year’s Night reaches me on 31 December.  So how do we make this happen?  In this case I’ll borrow the phrase from Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, ‘practice and all is coming’.  Not true for everything about yoga but definitely true for gratitude!

So join me amazing people for this very last month of my one year of blogging, my 2020 Year of Bliss.  Join me this December for the greatest gratitude practice of your life and give yourself the gift of feeling fabulously thankful and appreciative at the end of 2020.

For this first week there’s two parts to our work together.  The first one is to take time to write down or record in some way ALL the let downs, disappointments, struggles, horrors and hardships that this year has brought you.  There can be no gratitude without acknowledging what is hard.  That thing where we stuff down the hard and put on a fake smile and say how lucky we are?  That’s called ‘toxic positivity’.  That’s not gratitude.  Give yourself time this week to feel your pain.  Cry and wail if you need to, stroke your own hand or face with care and comfort, hug or call those around you who share your pain and have a damn good moan about how crap 2020 is.  And then, when you feel spent, take a long, slow, deep breath and lift your gaze to the light.

Take your list of 2020 crapness and write one good thing that came out of each of the terrible things.  I know that this can be really really hard and I know that if your challenges include illness or loss of loved ones it might not be the time to look for the big light right now.  So start really really small on the good stuff.  And remember that hardship and gratitude can sit side by side very comfortably.  They are at ease with each other.  We don’t always feel this ease, because we feel guilty to feel good things during bad times.  And we feel guilty to find goodness when others around us suffer more.  Please dear ones allow yourself to make this list of small and big things that have been good in your life this year.  Because darkness and light exist together.  This is the yin and yang that we speak of in yoga.  The blissful feeling of savasana after the 90 minute challenge of twisting your body into all sorts of shapes on your mat.  That’s the ease that lightness and dark feel in each other’s company.

I was so very sad not to travel this year as I had planned and to take all the months off for yoga training and development and creating and expanding my yoga business.  I wanted to go to Bali and Italy and see friends and work with great teachers.  None of that happened.  But instead I saved a bazillion CO2 emissions by not flying anywhere, I still have a weekly yoga class I teach but it’s on zoom where I get to meet all the fabulous yogis from all over the world every Wednesday evening - something I never would have done had it not been for the pandemic.  And I’m studying THE most incredible Ayurveda and Yoga course with the amazing Madhuri Philips which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but didn’t find the time for.

On a smaller scale, I’ve saved money, and cooked more and better food with people I love and adore on a more regular basis.  I’ve been able to continue my regular yoga practice without getting up at the ungodly hour of 5.30am because I now have a home office.  I’ve done a lot more walking and thinking and listening to incredible podcasts, feeding my brain with new things waaaaayyyyy more than I would ever have done without a pandemic.

So you get the idea.  Your gratitude doesn’t have to be big or profound in this first week of December.  It just has to be real and meaningful to you.  Sometimes the most pragmatic things are the things that make us really really grateful.  

Give it a go and let me know how you get on.  I’d so love to hear from you and know how the challenges and the darkness of COVID times has also gifted you light.  You can send an email here anytime and share your gratitude with me.  Or post to the Emergencyoga facebook page and share your gratitude and contribute to the global upward spiral of positivity.  And most importantly stay tuned for the next few weeks on the Bliss Blog to go deeper into the blissful world of gratitude and prepare for 31 December. Namaste.  Love, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 48: Adventure your way to happiness today

Dear ones you may not know this or you may have forgotten this but you were born an adventurer.  It’s ok.  It’s a pandemic world and in this world we often forget important things about ourselves and need someone else to remind us.  Today I’m your girl - I’m your reminder that you were born and still are an incredible adventurer.  And the reason I want to remind you of this is that I know to the very core of my being that when we adventure we feel alive and full of vitality.  And I also know that you (we!) deserve to feel fully alive, thriving and vital even when we are living in Covid times.  When we see less people, go less places, spend more time on the computer and our devices trying to feel connected it can make us feel small and hopeless.  We don’t know when this way of life will end.  It’s like a constant waiting game, inside your house, life somehow feeling like it’s on pause to start again.

And today I refuse to wait any longer and invite you to step into a world of adventure this week and see where it takes you.  Let’s be honest did you ever see Lara Croft, Indiana Jones or Storm waiting around for their next adventure?  Nooooooooo we did not!  Nor have we seen Amilia Earhart, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, Kate Ediger (fellow yogi and Blissologist) or Kilian Jornet hang back and lurk around, wondering when adventure will turn up.  These characters and people live BIG yogis and there is absolutely no reason why you can’t live a glorious and adventurous life right now.  Remember, you are a born adventurer.  

You just need to know what adventure feels like to you these days.  Yes our pre-pandemic adventures like flying around the world, bringing family and friends together to celebrate important occasions, spontaneously meeting new people or trotting off to a yoga retreat in an exotic place are all on hold right now.  So please go and meditate for a bit and have think and ask yourself what adventure looks like to you in this very moment.  Given that adventure is defined as an unusual and exciting or daring experience, we might even consider a trip to the supermarket during lockdown as adventure these days!

BUT……I am pretty sure you can come up with more.  Here’s some ideas for mini-adventures to expand your mind, your life and your overall sense of wellbeing. 

• Walk or hike somewhere new - at minimum take a new route to the supermarket :-) 

• Learn a language online with a real live teacher (this is considered meeting someone new!)

• Try yoga classes with new teachers you’ve never practiced before (Glo rocks for this)

• Start a new habit - think daily gratitude, morning journaling, coconut oil swishing, meditation, a new online exercise class, a regular afternoon tea break, watch sunsets, start daily walks - the possibilities are endless - just do it for 21 days straight and it’s officially a habit

• Try a new yoga pose you think is out of your reach - and if you can’t find any tutorials on the pose send me an email and I’ll make you a personal video on that asana

• Take your coffee at a new time in a new spot in your home

• Change your work schedule if you can and give yourself a longer lunch break so you can get some yoga in during the day

• Stop waiting for the ‘right time’ to tell people you love that you love them, to tell great friends that they’re great friends or fabulous people that you love their style

Whatever adventure means to you, make sure it feels unusual and exciting or daring and have one every day.  We were born to adventure beautiful souls, we were born to explore and we were born to live life in unusual ways with regular exciting moments and in daring ways.

So make yourself the star adventurer in your very own adventure this week and live it large.  Oh and send me a pic ‘cause I so wanna see you in action!

Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 47: Think BIG, feel ALIVE!

Despite all our efforts these days dear ones, it is too easy for our world to feel small.  And when our world feels small, we are much more at risk of feeling small ourselves.  This revelation came to me just today as I was looking through old photos, (we can thank social media for keeping our memories alive!), and I realised how many of the awesome people in my life I have just not seen in months, many in almost a year.  Gorgeous souls who I had every intention seeing and reconnecting with in 2020 on trips and adventures that just never happened.  And the photos that I was looking through were taken all over the globe, across the span of more than a decade with people that are still so important in my life.  Side note: looking at photographs of happy memories and good times makes your brain release Serotonin your natural happy drug .

This damn pandemic has forced us into a smaller world from a physical perspective and we need to remain mindful, even vigilant to prevent this reduced physical space from forcing us into small mindedness, constriction and a sense of can’t do.

This week I’m here to remind you all that you are grand, gorgeous beautiful souls, absolutely capable of and destined for greatness (whatever greatness means for you!) and that whilst our physical worlds may be small now that does mean you are small too.

Step 1

Grab a hold of all your photos of fabulous people and memories and spend some time looking through the good times, laughing, smiling and feeling all warm and fuzzy.  Let the corners of your mouth turn up, let the belly laughs roll in, remember the good old days.  Just because they’re in the past doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the benefits of all those great memories now.

Step 2

Call and connect with those loved ones and awesome souls you miss most and who are part of those fabulous memories. Tell them about the photos you’ve been looking at, talk about the fun you’ve had together, make plans to see each other (even if they are make believe plans with no dates attached for now), let them know all the fun times ahead you plan to have with them.  I promise it will feel really good, and most importantly it will feel hopeful.  And hopeful is expansive and full of vitality and not at all small.

Step 3

Plan something BIG and I don’t necessarily mean in size - I mean plan something epic!  Something to look forward to, something that will push you way past your comfort zone, something you had hoped and dreamed for but tucked away these last months without noticing it was no longer in the forefront of your mind.  Even if your plan needs to be a year from now, get it together and start making baby steps.  And keep adding details to your plan so you feel like you’re moving forward towards fun and good times. Moving forward never feels small. I’ve planned to do a cross country ski marathon in March - it might get cancelled, hell I don’t even know how to skate ski, but I’ve already started training for it and it keeps me going and makes me feel like a super hero.

Step 4

Do anything and everything that makes you feel luminous, expansive and light as much as you can.  And I bet it’s not Netflix that’s giving you that kind of vibe.  Take your list from last week (see my previous Bliss Blog if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about), and keep doing as many things as you can that make you feel awesome.  And when I say ‘doing’ that might actually mean sleeping or resting or lying in savasana rather than literally doing.  Because goodness knows that months into this pandemic we are all probably suffering from a deregulated nervous system and adrenal fatigue in some way, shape or form so consider this your friendly reminder that being still or reading or sleeping in or having a day with no appointments might be the thing that makes you feel your very best right now.  But whatever it is, just do a whole lot more of it.

Step 5

Set yourself a new sankulpa which is a word or a short phrase that encompasses the feeling or state of being you have when you feel like you’re someone worthy, awesome and capable of anything.  Keep it simple, use a word or words that really resonate with you.  Your sankulpa should be something that when you whisper it to yourself you can’t help but smile and feel lighter and more luminous.  And say your sankulpa to yourself every morning as soon as you wake up to remind yourself that whilst your world might be smaller these days, you my love, remain a person of infinite light, love and wisdom.

Namaste beautiful souls and go out there and be BIG!

Bliss Blog Week 46: Vitality life hack - just say yes!

VITALITY. It’s almost an onomatopoeia.  It’s one of those words that when you say it you can almost feel life and energy oozing from your very being.  So why is vitality such an elusive quality in most of our lives?  It doesn’t have to be this way.  And this week I’ve got a life hack to bring more vitality into your life without you having to give up anything else.

Because it really annoys me when the health and wellness world tells us all the things we shouldn’t do to make us the very best version of ourselves.  It’s pandemic times for goodness sake!  There’s a bazillion things we’re already not supposed to be doing, too many restrictions and no’s placed upon our lives.  No going out between 9pm and 6am, no meeting more than one person on the street, no meeting more than three people in your house, no going to the office,  no going into a store without a mask, no, no, no, no nooooooo!  So telling you what else not to do to be fabulously healthy seems like a total pain in the butt.  Let’s be honest we’re all just coping as best we can and another no could be the no that tips us over the edge!

So think of this week as the week of yes!  Get a pen and a piece of paper and write down a list of all the things that make you feel full of vitality and lust for life.  Your list can include whatever you want on it, things that are attainable and unattainable right now.  The work is to think of everything, everyone, every place that fills you up and makes you feel alive and grateful and joyous and tingling with energy.  There are no no’s on this list!

And then do one thing from your list every day this week, maybe even every day until the end of this year.  Because the energy of saying yes to life in a world full of no’s is a game changer.  When people and the media surround us with all the bad news and the no’s this zaps our vitality and our energy.  When we say yes to the things that make us feel fabulous (even the very small things) we are sending out an energy of openness, spaciousness and vitality to the world.

Here’s what’s on my ‘Vitality List’ this week, I think I’ll keep adding to it….

• Running fast to my favourite songs

• Cooking Ottolenghi meals

• Walking and swishing my feet in all the fallen autumn leaves

• Hugging people I love and adore

• Doing stuff that makes me feel like a kid again (think card games, fake floor wrestling and putting up the tent in my living room)

• Doing yoga to great music and not worrying about perfecting the poses

• Watching Queer Eye for a Straight Guy

• Gaga online dance classes

• Laughing with good friends

• Making travel and life plans

• Sweating by moving

• Planning yoga retreats in gorgeous and exotic locations

• Learning more about saving the planet

• Finding new recipes to make with the ingredients of my ‘Too Good To Go’ magic box

• Dreaming of getting a dog

I’d love to know what’s on your Vitality List this week so send me a message and share your own personal vitality life hacks with us all.  And did you notice, you don’t have to say no to a single damn thing to make this happen.  Just embrace the yes and watch the magic unfold.

Want to learn more about living a life full of vitality?  Check out my Bountiful Life program and get in touch.

Namaste beautiful souls and live wild and free!  Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 45: Find your vitality through healing

It’s the start of a new month beautiful souls and yet I confess to not feeling quite as new and sparkly and hopeful as I do normally with newness and beginnings.  It’s a reminder of the constant care and attention needed to feel filled up and full of vitality.  Quite honestly it’s the absolute reason I’ve recently started working one on one with people in my new Bountiful Life Program.  Because we need help to fan the flames of our awesomeness, especially in pandemic times.  October’s Bliss Blog was focused on all the things we can do attract and be abundantly healthy in body, mind and spirit.  Mainly because I believe there are some basics attached to being well and I really see this as the foundation of living a Bountiful Life.  And because I want to share this program with you I’m going to spend November focusing on the second module of this beautiful program - Healing for Vitality.  Because when we are healed we are whole and we don’t have to waste time and energy on servicing the wounds and scars of our lives.

I don’t need to be healed I hear you say! Dear ones I’m here to tell you that we all need to be healed and that needing that doesn’t make you flawed or weak or a loser - it makes you human.  Because every single person in the world has suffered some kind of trauma.  It’s such a shitty word though is trauma because it makes us think of things like child abuse and rape and car accidents and life threatening injuries.  But all the little things that we all experience like childhood dentists visits, divorce and bad break ups, loved ones passing, bad bosses, bodily injuries and such all leave the scars of trauma in our tissues.  It’s just that because these experiences happen to so many people so regularly we tend to think of them not as traumas but as ‘life’.  By not healing the big and small scars that these experiences leave upon us, we rob ourselves of our full vitality, our full openness and lust for life, our complete joi de vivre which we are all absolutely entitled too.

These scars show up in small ways in our day to day life and whilst each individual instance of this might be minor, over time they can ware us down.  Living with your heart shut down, unexplained anxiety, feeling less than enough at work, having body parts that resist certain movements (often based on old injuries both mental and physical), fear of hospitals etc etc.  None of these individual experiences is life debilitating.  But oh what time and energy and zest for life we would have if these weren’t part of our daily living.

The amazing news is that we don’t have to spend 1,000 years in expensive therapy (although that can be useful and highly enlightening), to heal these old wounds.  We can continue to turn up on our mats and embrace a mindful life and allow these practices to heal us and make us whole.

If this resonates with you, or you have a little shimmer of wondering what it might be like to describe yourself as having vitality or feelingshealed and whole and you don’t know where to start then this blog is for you.  To kick of November as the month of healing and vitality here’s my first three top tips to get started.

Daily body scan

This literally takes just a few minutes and it doesn’t matter what time of day you do.  All you need to do is find a quiet place to sit for a few moments and take some smooth easy breaths.  As your breathing becomes more relaxed start to mentally scan your body from the head to the shoulders to the arms and hands to the ribs to the belly to the buttocks to your legs and feet and all the places in between.  Go slow enough so you notice how difference parts of your body feel, and be especially aware of those body parts that feel tight or sore or constricted versus those that feel more relaxed, spacious or alive.  It’s those tight and constricted areas of your body that are ripe for healing and which can become gateways for increased vitality.  So just knowing that they are there is already an incredible step forward on the path the healing.  Done repeatedly a body scan will enable you to surface patterns and habits in the body and you may even notice a link between what you’re feeling emotionally and how your physical body feels.

What causes you pain

Years ago I asked a therapist how do I know what areas of my life I should work on.  She told me to look at the things that caused me emotional pain and start from there.  So I started looking at what movie moments I cried in, when I felt emotions like panic, anger or anxiety, what were the things I wanted to run away from in my life and were there repeating habits or patterns that always left me feeling bad in the same way.  To find out where we need to heal you can also start a process of exploration.  If it feels too scary to do this from an intellectual or emotional perspective then start on your mat with the asana.  What parts of your yoga practice do you try and avoid, when do you find it hard to stay and breath, is there anything about your practice that causes you emotional or physical discomfort.  This is a great way to become more aware of where you live a life of ease and where it feels more like dis-ease.  And when we become aware we can eventually start to change, heal and become whole.

Dance your way into the day

Moving our body in rhythm with sound is one of the most ancient forms of self expression.  It is innate to being alive.  We are born with rhythm, that’s why we see tiny babies bopping along to music and toddlers ripping it up on the dance floor whilst all the adults stand around with wine in hand.  Yet we lose that rhythm, our natural ability to shift and sway and swirl with the beat of the planet as we lose connection with our bodies and how our bodies feel. As we get older, other things than moving take priority and we feel less free, in life and in our movements.  But dancing in a completely uninhibited way gives us the opportunity to reconnect with our bodies in a primal and completely natural way.  It also shows us pretty quickly where we do and don’t have strength and flexibility - even more than our yoga does!  This week find at least one (if not many!) moments to put on a favourite song and move da body.  Close the blinds, the door and your eyes so you let go of sense of being watched and just let your body flow to the rhythm.  You’ll soon find what movements feel free and easy and what feels like it’s stuck.  And maybe as you dance more you’ll also start to feel your body free itself and long lost levels of vitality slowly begin to return.  In need of inspiration?  Here’s my top five wake up songs to dance to:

Walking on Sunshine Katrina and the Waves

I Gotta Feeling Black Eyed Peas

Hello, Good Morning - Diddy

Namah Shivaya (Krishna Das version)

Jolene (Miley Cyrus cover)

Have an amazing week yogis! Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 44: Let it all go

Gorgeous souls, these are the weeks in which we need to dig deep.  As we count down towards the end of 2020 we must release the false hope that everything will be ‘back to normal’ and that we can wipe the pandemic slate clean and start 2021 Covid free.  And yes it’s s*%&t I know.  Actually it’s bollocks quite frankly.

But this does not mean we cannot prepare ourselves to start 2021 afresh and anew.  And there is no time like the present to make ready for a new year.  I realise that late October might sound rather early for this but considering all the crap we need to let go of to call in a fresh new year it’s good to get ahead of the game.  And getting ahead of the game also means making space for our own personal health and wellbeing so that we can spring into the coming year rather than ‘…skid in broadside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out…’ as the Hunter S. Thompson quote goes.  By the way, he was writing about the end of our lives, not the end of this year!

So if there was ever a time to Marie Kondo the hell out of your life now is it.  (N.B. You know you’ve made it when your name becomes a verb).  Full confession, I bought Marie Kondo’s book in Bali airport, it didn’t spark joy so I threw it in the bin before I even boarded the plane.  BUT that doesn’t mean I didn’t still learn a thing or two and I remain firm in my belief that now is the time to clear out all that no longer serves us.  Stuff, people, emotions, habits, food….anything that is not helping you feel awesome right now has got to go - maybe temporarily to start with, perhaps permanently.

Pick the easy stuff first and give a cupboard or two a good clear out.  It doesn’t have to be a big deal.  I cleaned my food cupboard this morning.  Yes I feel amazing to not have dead food in my house (there was plenty of it let me tell you!). If you’re feeling frisky and time is on your side, start getting ruthless with clothes and bag them up for the charity shop.  Letting go of physical things is a relatively pain free way of practicing letting go.  Don’t worry we’ll get onto the harder stuff in a mo.

What about your yoga practice?  ‘Huh’ I hear you say!  Now I really really want you to keep your yoga practice as I’m 100% positive it’s bringing good stuff and abundant health into your life.  BUT is there anything in your practice that feels like a chore, that brings you down that you could just stop doing?  Maybe you do certain poses because they’re easy, or because they form part of a routine or you practice at a certain time and then you have anxiety if you miss your practice time.  I recently had a student tell me that she was ‘…so annoyed that one of my favourite things (morning kriya) is turning against me.’   Habits are amazing until they become obsessive and anxiety driving so it is officially ok to let this kind of stuff go if it’s had its time and you need to move on.  I obsessively practiced yoga early morning for years and was in bed by 10pm every night so I could do that.  Now I have more fun after work, sleep more and practice yoga at all kinds of times in the day and whenever my body wants to move.  I also make a point not to do sun salutations or the same sun salutations in every practice so that my body gets to use different muscles and movements and my mind doesn’t go crazy with boredom.  It’s ok to change it up, to let some practices go and to bring in the new.  Consider changes on your mat as a practice for seeing in the upcoming change of the new year.

Now that you’re getting the hang of this letting things go gig you might think about moving onto people.  Shocking I know!  But I’ve read enough and experimented enough to know that life is better when we surround ourselves with people who are loving and positive towards themselves and us, who’s words and deeds are full of joy and kindness and who feel an authentic appreciation for just being alive.  Pause, look around you and see if most of the people you spend time with fit this bill.  If not, well……a break, a pause, a see ya’ later alligator….it’s up to you.  The first thing to do is notice what people and energy you surround yourself with and then you can decide if there’s something to let go of.  For some inspiration listen to the Abundance CEO’s podcast on ‘Taking Time Out’.  It’s a strange thing to change the people we hang out with, and maybe you don’t need to do that, but it’s always worth a moment of reflection to make sure those you spend time with are the ones who think you’re awesome.

And finally and if you’ve still got the energy I highly recommend doing a clear out of all and any negative self talk.  This is the time to be ruthless because this inner critic can ruin lives, ours and those around us.  A global pandemic is not the moment to be s&%*t talking ourselves.  Our external world is more full of horror and poverty and death and struggle than ever before.  We receive, even when we don’t seek it out, plenty of negative talk without making any special effort.  That is the nature of a global crisis.  And it’s great if you are managing to walk around in your protective blue bubble and keep most of that out.  But that bubble doesn’t quell the voice within.  And so it is our big work right now to be kind and compassionate to ourselves as a priority.  Spend just one day writing down any word or phrase that comes to mind that doesn’t big you up - those words and sentences that question your worth or your capability or your beauty or your body or what you wear or who you are or what you do.  They usually aren’t spoken out loud (because we wouldn’t dare), but they are no doubt in your mind and every time one passes through write it down.  At the end of the day take that piece of paper, burn it, or rip it up and put it in the bin, or flush it down the toilet and begone with it.  This is not who you are.  You in fact, are an awesome, incredible human, a yogi, a warrior of light and the world needs you right now.  This year, 2020, needs you to finish it feeling like a warrior.  This year needs you to finish it loving yourself and everyone and everything around you.  Remember every single day of the 68 days left of 2020 that you are loved, that you are amazing and that I’m totally stoked and grateful to walk the planet with you at the same moment in time.  NAMASTE.  Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 43: F%*&K you COVID - the health revolution

Ten weeks people, 10 weeks of this 53 week year left until we can say goodbye to 2020 and leap into a new year.  It feels scary, relieving, shocking really that we can be anywhere close to the end of any entire year and yet not close to the end of this damn pandemic.

But 10 weeks is also a chance.  It’s symbolic.  With 10 weeks to go until we transition from one year to another we can use this time to bring all the very best of all and everything yoga has to offer us into play.  We can take this 10 weeks and live the hell out of them, defying this gruesome pandemic year that tried to rob our health and so much more from us and say feck you.  Feck you pandemic, I will live in abundant health every single day of 2020.

Are you with me?

What insanely healthy, vibrant, joyful, fun and fill you up stuff are you going to pack into the last 10 weeks of 2020?  I want to know we’re in this together.  I want to know what it is you need to do to say ‘feck you Covid’.  Living in abundant health is like a middle finger to Covid-19, maybe even a revolution.

Here’s what’s on my list.

• Meditation every damn day - because this just makes me less crazy

• Laughing, giggles, more laughter and silliness - anyway I can get it

• Walk (or run or ride or yoga) under a wide open sky every day no matter what the weather so I can hear what Mother Nature is saying to me

• Less wine and more sleep (not always easy I know!)

• Yoga, yoga, yoga - because when I do you more I feel better about life overall

So it’s not a perfect list and I’m pretty sure my goals aren’t SMART but they are smart if you get my drift.  And I’m also pretty confident that if I can stick with the high vibes I know all the things on this list give me, I’ve got a fighting chance of not only staying fabulously well in these last 10 weeks of the year but also truly thriving.  Remember gorgeous souls, 2020 can only beat you if you let it.  Do you want to end this year feeling worn out and heavy or vibrant and glowing and uplifted? And I don’t say this lightly because I know some of you reading this have had Covid-19 or have loved ones and friends who have been or still are struggling with this insane disease.  We cannot minimise the havoc the pandemic has wreaked these last months.  The toll is too great for too many.

But it’s a reminder that the world needs more of us to stay strong, to BE stronger than ever so we can hold up the others  There’s a reason yoga named three poses ‘warrior’ people!  Warriors of light and goodness, and wellbeing is what we are.  And so make your list gorgeous souls and tell me what it is you’ll be doing to step into the light, to expand your health and well being so that you can end 2020 with a smile on your face and your middle finger raised proudly towards COVID-19.  And may we all be well.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 42: Remembering how to live a happy healthy life

ABUNDANT HEALTH  I’m wondering if these words sound like a dream to you.  Or if they sound like a slogan and not real life.  What does it mean to be in or feel abundant health?  Have we ever been there?  Can we arrive there again?  I know deep deep in my core that we have all experienced abundant health at some point in our lives and I believe with all my heart and soul that we can arrive back there and live our lives full of joy, vitality and happiness.  But so often we have forgotten.  Life, children, work, pandemic, stress take over and we forget our true nature and what it is like to be the most real and fully accepted version of ourselves.  This week I want to take you back to that place gorgeous souls.  Back to the place and time and moment when you felt you were at your very best so that you remember.  Because when we remember what we are missing out on, we feel inspired to go there again.

If you followed last week’s blog then maybe you took some time to do a little health and wellness inventory of your life right now.  How did you get on?  Are you thriving and jumping out of bed every morning, ready to tackle the day and enjoy all the beautiful people and life around you?  Or something less than that?  Wherever you are right now is absolutely ok.  Whatever you’ve got right now can be expanded and made whole and brought back into alignment with the most real and wonderful version of you.

A fun exercise I love to do is to think about a moment in time (and that time might be right now for some of you) when we felt our very best.  When we felt full and joyful and well and happy and vibrant and connected to life, the planet and everyone around us.  It could be just a day that felt like that but it might also be a certain period of your life, a week, a few months or even a couple of years.

Take time to sit quietly for a moment, put your phone in another room, make yourself comfortable and let the silence wash over you.  Begin to notice how your breath feels in your body and notice it moving gently in and out of your nose.  You don’t have to make a special effort with your breath, just let it fill you up on the inhale, and let everything relax on the exhale.  Allow your mind to wander over the years you have lived, like you’re mentally exploring your life and when you discover a moment or a period of time when you felt exceptionally fabulous let your mental attention rest there.

And here’s the fun part……give permission to your mind to be curious and ask questions.  What did I love about this time? What made me feel fabulous?  What made me feel so healthy and well?  What was I doing during this time that made me feel filled up?  Where was I and who was I spending time with?  Where was I living? How did I spend my days? What was I eating? What kind of work was I engaged in?  And just let all of that wash over you as you keep breathing gently.  And when you feel you’ve explored enough open your eyes and take a big breath in and a big stretch up and out.

If you’ve got time, maybe you feel moved to write down some of what you discovered but perhaps you just want to marinate in all you’ve learned about the time you felt your very best.  At some point there’s some work to do in looking at how that most healthy and well time of your life stacks up to life right now.  What are the differences, what’s missing and what from that previous moment could you bring back into your life?

I did this exercise as part of a wonderful training with the Garrison Institute International and was so privileged to partner on it with the incredible dharma teacher Kaira Jewel. She held space for me as I realised I was living in a place, in a job, in an environment that robbed me of the things that consistently gave me abundant health - nature, friends and loved ones, security, calm and an awesome yoga community.  It was a BIG ‘aha moment’ and one that kicked me up the butt to re-arrange my life to bring back all the things that create abundant health and wellbeing in my life.

And here’s the thing about all of this.  WE KNOW.  We know innately what makes us well, what fills us up, what keeps us healthy and full of energy and joy and connection.  It’s just that life gets busy sometimes and we can’t hear (or were don’t listen) to what our body, mind and soul are telling us they need to be whole.  So this week awesome yogis, clear some space for quiet and stillness and listen in to YOU.  Because you know what you need.  Trust in your own wisdom and let it speak to you.  And then take action, even if it’s in the smallest of ways.  Do something this week, bring something back into your life that gifts you abundant health.  Honour your own need for wellness.  And allow yourself to feel fabulous.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 41: An adventure in abundant health

Gorgeous yogis we’re coming off the back of a month focused on being and becoming warriors of transition and landing right into October which is without doubt a month of change seasonally, wherever you are in the world.  It’s the perfect opportunity to start a new adventure in creating abundant health, healing old wounds to increase your vitality and stepping into a connected and vibrant life.  Be gone with the external world stressors and let us all manifest whatever we want and need for ourselves.  Because when we feel healthy, well, loved, connected and full of energy we have so much more to offer those we love and adore and everyone around us.

I admit that I’m so convinced about all of this that I’ve put together a new body of work called The Bountiful Life Program which is a way for us to work one on one together on all things yoga and more to create your very own abundantly healthy, healed, vibrant and connected life.  This program comes in the format of three wonderful adventures for you to journey through and explore.  Dive into all or any of them and literally watch yourself become of the most amazing version of you.

In the mean time my October Bliss Blogs will be like dipping your toe into the water of these gorgeous adventures as I share some of the very best tips from The Bountiful Life Program.

Let the start of this beautiful month of change come with laser sharp focus on our current state of health and well being, almost like taking an inventory of what fills us up and makes us feel fabulous versus what depletes and drains us.  You can use the five big bliss commitments as an easy way to check in with yourself this week.  Think about what type of yoga has made you feel great and why, which yoga annoyed you and did this last or did you feel better in the end?  What food left you feeling nourished (mentally and physically) and what left you feeling bloated, guilty or just plain blah?  When does your meditation practice serve you best, morning or evening and do you notice any differences when you skip it? Is there a special feeling that arises when you focus on gratitude, how does this practice serve you?  Do you ever experience the opposite of gratitude and what is that like? How much have you been out on the planet this week and is it more or less than the previous week?  What felt better and what felt less than good?

These are all just ways to find out information about your current ‘health life’ right now.  And notice there are no medical questions in that list!  Because our health and wellbeing are absolutely reliant on the beautiful interconnection between body, mind and spirit (remember yoga means to ‘yoke together’), and so it’s only when we look at the many aspects that together bring us abundant health that we begin to learn what works best for us, knowing of course that this could change throughout our lives, depending on what’s going on in our internal and external worlds.

So this week get curious about you, enjoy the exploration, let go of the judgement about ‘good’ practices or ‘bad’ practices.  In Ayurveda there is a saying that something is right for everyone and given that you know yourself better than anyone else, it’s highly likely your innate body wisdom will reveal exactly what is needed to step into abundant health.

And rather than make this feel like work, all you need to do at the end of the week is take a few moments to write down some of the answers to the questions above, (you could also do it on a daily basis if you feel you have time).  Pick your favourite colour pen or highlighter and circle all the things that felt like they lifted you up, nourished you and made you feel awesome.  Then take great satisfaction in crossing out the things that made you feel depleted, low or drained.  And there yogis you have the basis of your very own, unique Abundant Health Plan.  It’s totally up to you what you do with this but as we know, knowledge is power and so rest in the assurance that you now have the power to bring abundant health into your life at any given moment and in all moments.  

And if you want to go deep and need some support then I’m right here with you, ready to leap into the incredible adventure of you welcoming in abundant health and wellbeing not just now, but for the rest of your life.  I’d love to hear how you get on this week so get in touch and share what made you feel awesome.  Have a fabulous week yogis.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 40 - Planet Earth is here to guide the way

Gorgeous souls, this week I can’t help but write about one of my all time favourite topics - Mother Nature!  Because this last week she has shown me - reminded me - that we are in constant flux and change and transition and that we really don’t have any control over what happens in our external world.  So why waste energy on controlling what we can’t and instead just focus on what we can control - how we respond to the world around us. 

This message was brought home to me big time as I turned up in the Swiss Alps this weekend for the last trail race of the season.  This is a race that I’ve always done wearing summer gear, sunglasses and sunscreen.  But not this year my friends!  Full blown meters of the white fluffy stuff called snow which is unheard of at the end of September.  And not a damn thing I could do about it.  Other than surrender to what is of course.  In extreme whether events such as this, it’s like Mother Nature is shouting at us to let go of control, to stop pretending and to please go with the flow.  I admit it was a work on my side Friday night not to spiral down the anxiety hole of what this race might look like on Saturday morning.  Not to worry about slipping and sliding down mountains and rocks and risking injury, not to worry about being cold and freezing and not to worry about wet shoes and frozen gloves and what to wear to stay warm.  I literally forced my mind into the present moment and promised myself I would just turn up at the start line and see what the day and the race and the weather brings.

And oh how we were blessed on Saturday morning!  The big globs of Friday night wet snow had turned overnight into meters of the soft fresh white powdery stuff.  The incredible race organisers made last minute changes to the course to keep us all safe and had us running through snow silenced pine forests with incredible views.  The skies cleared for a moment or two and we saw the high peaks around Crans Montana and the rain and slush stopped and we ran in soft floating snow flakes that sometimes stuck to our eyelashes.  And I felt oh so very blessed and protected and watched over.

And then I realised that this entire experience was like a Matrix plug-in to connect me back to source, to Mother Nature and planet earth and suddenly I started noticing all the other things in the natural world that are changing right now.  The temperature and quality of the air around me.  The crows coming out to play. As an animal totem these deep black shiny birds symbolise change and transformation and especially spiritual and emotional change.  The light in the mornings has changed as has the view of the lake from my apartment, the water looks smoother and calmer and shimmers more when I rise each day.  My balcony garden sees the tomatoes on their last legs, the basel waiting to be harvested but the pumpkin vine and chilli plants blooming.

And so this week dear ones get outside and look around you and use Mother Nature to feed your soul and guide you through these times of transition.  Know that you are not alone in experiencing constant change.  This ancient planet we walk upon is changing with us, for us and sending us important signals to help us stay calm in this flux state.  If the planet can change over and over again with each rising and setting of the sun, with each change of season, with each birth and death of a tree then surely we can accompany her in this constant flow state.

Before getting on your mat this week, take time to sit and breathe and to consciously ask yourself what you need from your practice this week.  Rather than mindlessly putting on a video to make you sweat, tune in first to what your body and mind need from this ancient practice called yoga and then gift this to yourself.

Take time outside whether in nature or a city and if you’re still in boring Covid lockdown use your allotted outdoor time slot to tune into what’s going on, on the planet by taking a walk and getting really present with the elements.  And go no matter what the weather.  Feel the tropical rain on your face or the humidity build on your skin, or breathe in the crisp cold air or stand on your balcony and watch the crows welcome in change and transition.  Most important is to FEEL!  Feel the sensations of Mother Nature in your body, feet firm on the earth, air clear in through your nose, sun warming your skin, wind whipping your hair.

And then take a big breath filled with gratitude into the body and breathe out a deep sensation of thanks for being alive in this very moment.  Make time to sit and breathe for 1 more minute (more if you can) and allow yourself to bask in this changing natural world, welcoming in transition as your friend, feeling a wonderful sense of surrender to what is and letting go of all the pushing and fighting energy required to resist change. With this letting go you might even feel a sense of space and light enter into your body, mind and soul.  And maybe, just maybe this space will allow you to let in the organic, natural signs that the planet offers us on a daily basis, as a gift to support us through times of change and transition, signs that essentially accompany us in this state of flux to remind us that we are not alone.  That we are one, with each other and with Mother Earth.  Namaste, Donna x 

Bliss Blog: Week 39 - Be present, give presence

Dear ones, it’s been a week of constant reminders that we are in an incredible state of flux globally.  Like any of us needed to be reminded when we are living this flux every moment of our lives right now.  But having my lovely friend and neighbour rushing back from her weekend at home in Paris just to not get caught in the changing quarantine quagmire, watching loved ones’ businesses come and go and come again with the changing rules of the pandemic game, wondering what day to go into the office to be able to follow the social distancing rules and changing my mind constantly about going to my local yoga studio to take a class or not depending on my levels of #covidanxiety each day, are all constant reminders of our new pandemic world order.

I find my mind can so easily spiral to the future these days and away from the present.  For those of us who love to plan and organise and make sure things are all set this is even more exacerbated in today’s world. 

The absolute best thing we can do for ourselves right now is to be in this present moment and take each and every moment as it comes without any expectations or predictions of what’s up next.  And so my practice this last week and for all the weeks to come is really working hard to stay present and to give presence to those around me.  This is harder than ever awesome yogis because all anyone wants to talk about is what changes are happening right now and what might / maybe / possibly happen in the future with the pandemic.  It’s a warrior’s work not to get sucked into constant contemplation and downward spiral of what might be.  Such talk and thinking is one of the quickest ways to up your anxiety levels which in turn start to mess with the chemical make up of our bodies and minds.  So to stay chill in the here and now, I’m sharing my top 5 tips for being present and giving presence to your loved ones in these constantly changing times.

1. Japa meditation for the present moment

Use your Mala or prayer beads for a daily Japa meditation with the mantra, ‘I am present in this very moment’, (or any other phrase of presence that speaks to you).  Most importantly do NOT rush this meditation.  Be sure to finish your mantra on each bead before moving on.  And take time to feel the texture of the beads as they move between your fingers each time to you say the mantra in your mind.  You’ll feel a healthy sense of pressure as you sit in this mediation to actually be present in the moment.  There’s nothing like telling yourself over and over again that you are present to kick your own but into staying in the now.  One round of the Mala or prayer beads is already a win, multiple rounds will seal presence into your DNA.

2. Use drishti with asana

In your yoga practice use the drishti or focal point for your gaze during your asana practice.  Different drishtis can be used for different asanas, sometimes the navel, the fingers, the third eye or even up to infinity.  You can read more about the different drishtis here, but even if you don’t know or remember the drishtis you can easily pick a point of focus to place your eyes upon in any posture you are practicing and work to leave your gaze there, steady and unwavering.  Count 5 - 10 breaths in the pose, with your eyes focused on the drishti of your choice and feel your mind come back to the present moment, just you and your body and your breath.

3. Enjoy your food more

In Ayurveda the way we eat is just as important as what we eat in terms of ensuring a balanced constitution (dosha) and a balanced life.  You might have prepared the perfect meal, full of Prana, freshness and vitamins but if this is eaten standing up whilst rushing out the door, it loses so much of its goodness and actually creates more imbalance.  Eating mindfully and with presence is key to our health because it also allows us to receive the necessary signals of whether we are eating what we need in this moment and whether we are eating too much or too little.  I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has downed a tub of ice-cream without drawing breath only to discover that what I really needed was sleep or yoga or a hug and not the ice cream at all!  This week try slowing down your eating moments including chewing to better taste the food and its textures, to notice how your body feels when you eat different foods and to enjoy the pleasure of nourishing yourself and giving yourself life force.

4. Feel the earth under your feet

Literally!  Take off your shoes, rub your feet on the grass or in the dirt or through the sand or splash them in the water and notice every single sensation you feel on your skin.  There is nothing like physical feelings on your body to take you immediately into the present moment.  Can’t get outside?  No problem to do this inside rubbing your feet on your soft carpet, or sniffing freshly dried sheets or stamping up and down on your parquet flooring.  The most important thing to do is to let your mind land on what you feel in your body.  And if that feels hard then try speaking out loud what you feel to remind yourself that you are alive! This is you in the here and now, right in this very moment!  Enjoy it all beauties!

5. Say thank you

Remember to say thank you whenever you receive a gift this week.  And I don’t mean a present, I mean presence.  Thank those around you for the love and care they bring into your life.  It could be friends, family or colleagues or even the unknown cashier at your local supermarket.  By remembering to say thank you in the moment you receive something good, be it your change when shopping, dinner company, a finished report, or a moment for yourself, say thank you there and then to acknowledge the regular gifts of life in all the moments that we live.

Good luck gorgeous souls and may the force of presence be with you always.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 38 - Be a warrior of transition and change

Welcome gorgeous souls to this week’s Bliss Blog and another week of exploring how we can ensure our abundant health in times of continuing transition and change.  This week more than ever I’m reminded of how deliberately doing hard things some times helps us build the mental muscles required to not only withstand change but to also thrive in it.

This Saturday I had the privilege to run the epic La Course de Cinq 4000 mountain race (Sierre-Zinal) for the fourth time with five fabulous friends.  The race entries opened in April in the middle of the COVID lock down and so we entered what is usually an August race thinking loads of time to prepare.  By June most trail races had been cancelled due to the pandemic but the incredible Sierre-Zinal organisers came up with the ultimate plan - run your race any day over an entire month and that way avoid the crowds and stay COVID free.

So September 12th was our day to turn up and run 32km, climb 2,200 meters and drop down into Zinal with a 1,100 meter descent.  I’ve done loads of trail races over the years but Sierre-Zinal was my first and it will always be my favourite for the incredible family like atmosphere it creates and the stunning views of five, 4,000 meter Swiss alp peaks.  But let’s be honest, that many kilometres and that much up and downing does not make for an easy Saturday!  And this is what I mean by intentionally trying out the hard stuff some times as a way to practice being in the midst of transition and change.  Because there is nothing like being properly physically challenged to find out if you can sit with discomfort and a constantly changing situation.

In a mountain race it’s the changing terrain to start with.  One minute it’s so steep uphill that you can barely breathe or put one foot in front of another.  At another moment, the course becomes flat and you have to push yourself to start running again after the slow walk uphill.  Before you know it you’re tripping down a steep rocky path or stuck behind a group slower than you.  It’s all about adaptation in the moment.  Then there’s what happens to our bodies when we walk, hike or run so far.  If you get lucky your breakfast stays in you, but sometimes it doesn’t and this year I spent hours feeling nauseous and forcing myself to eat so I could keep going.  Many races I’ve been the slow one in the group and have been so grateful for the friends that waited for me during a race and at the finish line as well as all the other trailers I’ve met along the way and hiked and run with just to pass the kilometres. This year my love’s knees gave out before I ran out of steam and it was all about letting go of a time goal and more about getting ourselves to the finish line.  And this dear ones is the game changer in living in transition.  Being able to surrender to what is right in the very moment and be present and aware of what it brings you.

So I did my slowest Sierre-Zinal time ever this year AND it was my absolute best race ever.  I got to hike with great company the whole way.  We told crazy stories and laughed until our sides hurt.  We took photographs and chatted to people we met along the way.  And because the rest of the crew finished before us we had a welcoming cheer squad when we arrived at the finish line.  And a slower time this year means my body is not in nearly as much hell as it would be if I had pushed it harder.  

There is something deeply soothing and helpful to our mental health in just giving in.  It’s not to say we should never fight. There are definitely moments in life when we should do all we can to change our circumstances and get what we need.  But when we can’t change what is going on around us we can conserve our energy fighting against an unchangeable ‘enemy’ and use to to sustain and strengthen our own health and well-being.

And if we only ever experience discomfort or difficult moments because we wait and see what the world brings us then we never get any ‘safe practice’ of what surrendering during hard times looks like until it’s the real deal.

So this week be intentional and choose something hard to do so that you can deliberately practice giving into the present moment and circumstances. On your yoga mat it might be staying in pigeon pose for a full 8 minutes if this is not something you’d usually find easy, (I actually did this as a mental prep for the trail!).  Or trying whatever other pose usually scares you a little bit.  If you’re constantly worried about falling on your face in crow pose stick a cushion under your face, practice the pose and let yourself fall over.  Notice that you survive this difficult moment and then explore how you feel.

If you’re a solid 10 minute a day meditator try significantly extending the time of your meditation just once this week (think 30 - 60 minutes) to see what happens to your mind.  It might not be comfortable.  Chances are your mind will wander, you’ll feel frustrated, get sidetracked etc.  But stick with it, reminding yourself that this is not just the practice on the mat but that you’re practicing staying in meditation even when the mind tells you get the hell out of here because that’s warrior style practice for life off the mat!

If you like being outdoors and walking, hiking, running or cycling, go further than you ever have been, or take a path that’s deliberately more challenging that your usual route and even if you have to slow down or stop along the way, keep going and notice how you, your body and feelings change and transition throughout the route.  Yes this is warrior training to thrive in transition!

And with just over three months left until the end of this year, it’s worth having a think if there’s anything big or epic that you want to practice and test to really uplevel your ability to become a warrior in times of change and transition.  It certainly doesn’t have to be a crazy trail race.  And it could be something you put in place for next year and work towards.  Deliberately setting ourselves what seem like undoable challenges at certain moments of our lives, gives us the gift of self taught life lessons.  Even if we fail at them, (and there are plenty of trail races I never finished just for the record), we learn to accept in the safe space of intentional discomfort that whether we win or lose, it is our ability to surrender to the outcome that leaves us in a state of grace.

I’d love to hear what adventures you’re planning so get in touch and send me a text or email to tell me what your epic plans are to practice being a warrior in transition.  Maybe I’ll even join you for the ride!  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 37 - Exploring the spaces in between

Yogis!  Welcome to our second week of managing transition and change and being able to withstand the challenges these times bring us.  Throughout September I will do my very best to offer you ideas and resources that support us all in strengthening our own personal resilience and ability to adapt to the world around us. Perhaps just a little note up front to say that some days will feel easier and better and more positive and some will no doubt feel harder and less survivable.  That’s the nature of change and I don’t profess to be an expert in any of this.  Each day that I wake up to the world is a new one with new feelings and blessings and stresses just like everyone else.

But let’s just keep trying together to do better and be better and overall I’m convinced that we will then feel better.

Sometimes I like to think of transitions as the in between state of one moment or time in my life and the next.  Transition is never static or forever (in fact nothing is really) but more a time of evolution and often growth. If we think of transition and change in this way then we can liken it to so many yoga practices and maybe then allow the ancient wisdom of yoga to guide us during these times.

What if transition was like the pause at the bottom of the exhale, the moment of release and letting go, before you enter the beginning of a new inhale, the breathing in of new life, Prana and life force?  To me this sounds more hopeful and interesting than the turmoil I often associate with periods of change.

What if transition was like the moment of shift between one asana and the next? Without this we would be stuck in just one asana for the whole entire yoga class!  Could we think of transitions as the actions that bring us to another juicy ‘pose’ (or moment) in our lives?

In Ayurveda one of the five elements is ether or space, akasha in Sanskrit.  Space is considered to be an essential quality in our wellbeing and is deliberately the absence of everything else. Without this space or absence there is nothing to be filled with change and growth.  We would remain exactly as we are all the time.  Could we therefore think of times of transition as the transformation of the spaces within us into something new and magical?

Nature also comes with its very own in between moments for us to learn from.  If you live in a place where you experience the change of seasons think about the moment where the leaves on the trees are changing colour but have not yet fallen to the earth.  This is the in between moment of autumn between summer and winter.  Or in spring we see the crocuses and daffodils emerging from the ground with green shoots and the promise of fragrant blossoms.  What if transition was just the spring or autumn between our own personal winters and summers?

In meditation we also have regular moments of quiet, peace and space between the crazy fluctuations of our monkey minds. Instead of thinking of the mental overload moments during our meditation practice as places to escape from, could we reframe these as the transition periods between moments of peace and enlightenment that we sometimes experience in this practice?  

If we no longer think of change and transformation as a place to escape from or pass through as quickly as possible, perhaps we can embrace it as a critical component of personal growth and transformation and welcome it in.  And as the wise Pema Chödrön teaches us, when we make friends with the things that disturb us most or cause us pain they are far less likely to stick around and tend to leave us in peace rather quickly.  That age old saying, what we resist persists.

So this week beautiful yogis try exploring the ‘in between’ life, the quiet or small moments or spaces in between the big stuff.  Whether that be a mindful walk out on the planet to explore the in between of the seasons, the pauses in your breath, the quiet moments in your meditation or the shift between each yoga pose.  Our work this week is to notice, accept and welcome in the ‘in between’ as a mini practice for welcoming in all the changing world around us has to offer.  And just maybe we will all find a little more peace.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 36 - Weathering the storm of transition

Dear ones, it’s almost a new month and whilst I utterly refuse to entertain the idea that summer is over on this side of the world (realising of course that many of you might be thrilled to emerge into September and out of the depths of winter!) I can’t help but notice that we begin to enter a time of transition.  This feels so real and metaphorical all at once as I write this.  It started with noticing the change in the light from my balcony, clearer skies in the evening, sunset arriving a little earlier and not quite so many lunch time lake swims.

But I also feel the transition with this whole damn pandemic which has just not gone away and will not leave the world well and in peace.  In this realm it feels like a transition from expecting an end to COVID-19 to the beginning of acceptance that the future as I know it might mean staycations and mask wearing for a very long time.  Maybe I’m late the party and you all already gave up and fully adapted.  I admit I resisted with what has probably been unfounded hope.  This week I booked an online yoga teacher training (months of delving deep into Ayurveda and yoga which I am VERY excited about!), which is definitely a sign of transition when I begin to accept that I will not be going anywhere exotic anytime soon to learn more yoga.

Funny how despite my logical mind knowing that nothing will ever stay the same, my heart so often wants to milk the best out of the good parts of life.  Please please remind me that so much amazing goodness has come into my life because things didn’t stay the same.  I would never enjoy Summer so much if I didn’t arrive to it through the beauty of all the flowers blooming in Spring.  My all time favourite season on this side of the world is Autumn, exactly because it is a time where you see eyes wide open all the transitions that the planet is going through, crisp air, incredible skies, golden crunchy leaves, snuggly sweaters and incredible hiking days.

If I hadn’t left my job in Jerusalem a few months back I would still be there, and not have had the privilege to survive lock down and COVID in one of the most beautiful places in the world (yes hello Switzerland!).

Change and transition are mostly hard, sometimes exciting and most often lead us to a better place if we can accompany them with a little wisdom, observation and detachment.  So without further ado, I declare September the month to focus on being a fabulous ‘transitioner’ and a time to make sure I (and you too!) fill myself up on the vast range of yoga practices that ease and smooth the way for transition and keep me grounded and (mostly) sane along the way.

Meditate, meditate, meditate should be the theme of all and any transitions.  This practice is the thing that allows our mind to step out of reactive mode and into observer mode and when that happens we slightly reduce our chances of acting like a psychopath under stress and increase our chances of being able to laugh at ourselves during tough times.  This month I’m committing to meditate every day.  I’d love to start a WhatsApp group for this month of meditation just to help me stay accountable so if you want in then send me a message and let’s connect.  I solemnly promise there will be no competitive vibe, comparison or judgements in any group of mine - meditate as much as you can, WhatsApp me when you’ve had success, commiserate with me when you couldn’t get your 5 minutes in that day.  Trying to meditate more and giving it our best shot is what I’m about.

On the yoga front we’ll be working on really grounding, connected and centred practices this month to help us feel stable and in touch with ourselves no matter what is going on around us - whether that be changes in the weather or in life overall.  If you’re practicing at home choose poses with your feet on the ground (think warrior poses) or asanas that have you lying on the earth in some way.  The more your body touches the floor the more grounding a pose is.  But you might also practice in ways that connect into your core or midline or enjoy pranayama that makes you feel more centred (alternate nostril breathing is a great one for this).

Where you are in the world and what season it is will no doubt guide your eating habits this month but eating food that is very much grown in the earth is also an excellent way to feel more grounded and connected to what’s on your breakfast, lunch or dinner plate.  Root vegetables if it’s winter but maybe freshly picked salad with the roots still on the lettuce if it’s summer.  It could be as simple as ordering a veggie box from a local farm instead of buying your fruit and vege in plastic from the supermarket.

And whilst any kind of gratitude practice has the ability to make us feel more connected and centred, this week try to say a special thank you to the goodness that the transitions and changes of your past have brought you.  Take this time to acknowledge that what seemed like downers in the moment, brought you and your life to a better place.  If change and transition feel especially hard this month and you can’t quite see the light at the end of the tunnel maybe you can say thank you to yourself for being open to experiencing the present moment as it is even when it is deeply uncomfortable (any yes I shall be taking my own advice on this one especially!)

For other grounding practices that help us weather the storms of change consider anything that keeps you with your feet on the ground.  Walk when you can instead of cycling, driving or taking public transport,  Take your shoes off and put your toes in the grass.  Have a dance party in your living room (even if it’s just you!) and stomp your feet to your favourite beats - if nothing else you’ll feel more alive and light hearted after busting out your fave dance moves for a few moments.  

And just know that I am human with you, like you.  I resist change and transition some days, and I accept it and surrender to it others.  I try to be present in this very moment when change is all around me and sometimes I manage and sometimes I can only think about the past and the future.  I know deep down that transition is part of life, but sometimes I only remember this when I’m out in nature and not when I’m inside.  And all those feelings that we have that come and go are also part of us being expert ‘transitioners’, because as we survive those changing feelings and emotions we also become better at coming back to ourselves when all the world moves around us.

Good luck gorgeous souls and may the force be with you this month!  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 35 - Finding the Divine within you

Hello gorgeous souls! It’s great to be back with you all for another week delving deep into the practice of Bhakti Yoga together. Thank you thank you for all your beautiful messages on last week’s blog. These are always a reminder of how deeply the human spirit and experience connects us no matter where we are in the world. The other thing that connects us in our innate divinity and when we practice Bhakti Yoga we have the opportunity to tune into this divinity more freely. Bhakti Yoga is the cultivation of unconditional spiritual love and whilst traditionally this devotion was directed toward a guru or deity, today we have the freedom to worship the Divine in whatever form suits us, or even think of the Divine in an utterly formless state. By consistently creating a sense of love, gratitude and devotion in the way we practice yoga and go about our lives, we fill ourselves up with love. Think of it like developing your muscles. The more we train in sports or yoga for our bodies, or meditation for our minds the stronger these habits and practices become in supporting us. It’s the same with the devotion of Bhakti. The more we practice love and gratitude towards something or someone, the more we feel a sense of the Divine within our lives. And whilst a Bhakti practice starts with worshipping that outside ourselves which we feel is divine - the earth, the sky, a guru or teacher - eventually this subject / object devotion blurs and disappears and you become the Divine yourself.

Sound complicated? Well the easiest way is to try it out this week and see what happens. Here’s my top tips for feeling the Divine within you.

Tip #1 - practice on

Devote yourself to your yoga practice every single day this week. This devotion is not about finding 90 minutes every day for a full power vinyasa session. This is about regularity and consistency and just turning up. Remember that yoga includes asana, pranayama (yogic breathing), meditation, mantra, chanting and so much more. Choose one or all practices every day and spend 5 - 10 minutes as a minimum. Think of the practices that fill you with joy and do these - because it’s easy to find the Divine in things we love. If you love meditation do that every day this week. If you love triangle pose then do this every day this week. If you love chanting, chant an Om every day this week. But devote yourself to whatever you choose and remind yourself that by turning up for your practice your are honouring your very own divine soul.

Tip #2 - devote yourself to eating

Share your devotion when eating this week. All it takes is a 30 second pause and a moment of gratitude for the food on your plate to massively increase the feeling of deep nourishment, care and the divine in feeding ourselves. If you want to go deeper, take time to thank all those involved in bringing food to your table and see how the love expands within your heart and your belly.

Tip #3 - slow down your body

Slow down when you are outside and look around you. Look up at the sky during the day to notice the weather, or at night to see if there are stars above you. Look closely at the buildings you pass by, their architecture, maybe wondering who designed and built them and when that happened. Touch the trees or feel the leaves or even put your feet in the grass for a moment if you can. When we slow down our bodies, we also slow down our minds and this gives our brain space to be curious and questioning. And when that happens we begin to wonder more about the world around us, become engaged in the world around us and feel a sense of awe for just being here alive in this moment. Devote yourself to slowing down in one way or another every day this week and I’m sure you’ll find a feeling of divinity in just being alive.

Tip #4 - thank you thank you thank you

Gratitude is THE most underrated tool for creating an abundance of joy, happiness and wellness in our lives. You literally just have to say thank you and you begin to notice that positive feelings soon overtake the negative ones. Devote yourself to saying thank you this week, in all the small ways. Grand gestures are wonderful but can feel overwhelming. Instead focus on saying thank you whenever you receive something - your morning coffee, some papers from a colleague, a sunny day (yes you can thank the planet too!), time to practice yoga, your kids for going to bed on time. Thank all and everything and see how this easy devotion makes you feel more divine and loved up inside.

Tip #5 - love as much as you can

Love starts with ourselves so see if you can drop the self criticism or harsh internal words for more soothing words of love and affection for your very own soul. When we do this it becomes easier and more natural to share the same feelings, words and actions with others from a deep place of divine love. Even if you don’t always feel loving towards yourself, fake it until you make it this week by devoting yourself to kind, loving actions, thoughts and words. Watch how even when we do things that don’t necessarily start from the heart, they can still create a beautiful new reality for us, just by continuously devoting ourselves to them.

Let the Divine you rise up from within and enjoy sharing it with everyone and everything around you beautiful souls. NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 34 - Let Love Rule!

I've always thought that Lenny Kravitz was a smart guy.  I mean anyone who's willing to sing the words Let Love Rule out loud and over and over again is firmly in my tribe.  And that my loves is what Bhakti is, the willingness to choose love, be love, create love and receive love, even in the darkest of moments, over and over again.  When I chose Bhakti as this month's theme I had no idea of the profound effect it would have in my own life.  I've been practicing along with you the various bliss tips and tricks, partly so I feel authentic in what I'm sharing with you but also because I really want to feel more devotion, love, joy and divinity in my life.

This past week I'm feeling my Japa meditation (repeated mantra with a mala or prayer beads) literally changing my brain chemistry with the mantra 'I love and accept myself exactly as I am'.  It's such a profound reminder that we are so so hard and unkind to ourselves so very often.  And whilst my logical mind knows that how I treat myself and others are intrinsically interlinked I don't always manage to take action.  And that in itself is a place where we can start with self compassion, Bhakti for ourselves. In the words of one of my divine teachers, Fiona, 'do what you can and feel great about it', instead of beating ourselves up every time we trip or fall.

I started this practice because I wanted to accompany you but also because I noticed that I have been so very hard on myself these last weeks in particular.  Who knows why - and honestly it doesn't really matter.  Key is the noticing and then when possible the switch from heading down the dark rabbit hole of self doubt and criticism to the light, glowing path of self compassion and Bhakti.  Just the very act of putting my hand on my heart some days and breathing has turned me away from darkness and towards light.

It's normal we all have these deeply human struggles.  More normal sadly than ever before with the collective fear, doubt and negativity created by the ongoing global pandemic. It's a work to stay light and high vibing but Bhakti and yoga and love and bliss are the things that help us soar above the clouds and not settle down in the deep dark dungeons.  For an incredible reference check out all and anything on Kristin Neff and self compassion.  She's been changing my life for the better and I'm sure you will find oodles of wisdom in her writing.

One things that Kristin talks about in her book Self Compassion is using our own hands on our own body for self soothing.  Creating love for ourselves with a physical act rather than always relying on external forces.  Imagine getting so familiar with loving yourself simply by stoking your own arm or wrapping yourself in a giant hug that it becomes your go to natural reflex to share that love with others.  I've been testing out some of these practices, my hand on the back of my neck, or touching the side of ma face in moments of stress or mini-crisis.  It actually release serotonin in our bodies (natural happy drug) and physically changes our chemistry to soothe us, make us feel better and more loved.

So my tip this week loves?  Do all and anything you can to be kind and compassionate with yourself.  Do a little research and find easy practices that suit you and that you can weave into your every day life.  And just notice.  Notice how being kind and loving with yourself, practicing Bhakti with you, creates more space and love for you to share with others.

And finally - I love you!  All of you for taking the time to read this blog, to give some crazy hippie ideas a go and for being willing to act in all the big and small ways that make the world a better place.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 33 - Bring love into your life and your practice

Amazing yogis, I hope you have been having wonderful times experimenting with this month’s theme of Bhakti and exploring what it means to practice the yoga of love.  If you missed last week’s free Bhakti class you can catch it on my Emergencyoga Vimeo channel right here.

So let’s take some time this week to go deeper and explore further the notion of Bhakti in our practice and in our lives. Bhakti is sometimes described as a way to channel and transform our powerful emotions, (you know, the ones we don’t always like to have because they make us uncomfortable), into positive, creative expressions of love and devotion.

Prayer is often used in Bhakti practices and yoga as a route into this transformation.  Many of us associate prayer with religion which has its own set of feelings, memories and experiences around it.  However prayer in its most basic sense is something we use often in our yoga practice when we ask for what we need, dedicate our practice to something or someone, or express gratitude for our time on the mat.  The simplest form of prayer is to just say thank you.  So this week see if every single day you can commit to waking up and saying thank you and then saying it again just before you fall asleep.  Easy enough - but I suspect highly transformational to make it a regular practice.  Try it out and let me know how you feel.

I shared my own experience with chanting last week when I included the link to the fabulous Nikki Slade call and response chant to Om Namah Shivaya.  But there are many ways to chant and studies show that a regular chanting practice reduces negative thoughts, anger, fear and anxiety and increases our energy levels.  It also increases our sense of calm and well being which helps us connect with feelings of love, Bhakti and devotion more easily.  Here’s a short instructional video on how to develop a mantra chanting practice using the simple and powerful chant of Om, sound of the universe.  

Contemplation is also considered to be a critical element of a Bhakti practice, especially when starting out.  The idea here is to use a philosophical or guiding text that resonates with you and to spend time both reading and reflecting on it.  Personally I find the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most accessible and inspiring yogic texts, full of practical and spiritual ancient life lessons still relevant within our modern world.  The Gita inspired the Bhakti Yoga movement so it’s a beautiful and connected journey into understanding the concept of Bhakti more deeply.  Grab the text of your choice, it might be a poem, or a religious text or a book that holds special meaning to you, and read from it at some point throughout each day this week, taking a little time afterwards to let the words permeate your soul and infuse your spirit.  Linking the time you read with a regular habit such as your morning coffee or lunch break will help you maintain consistency in your reflection.

Developing a Japa meditation practice is also a beautiful way to bring more Bhakti and love into your life.  Japa is a Sanskrit word that translates as ‘muttering’ and in practice is the repetition of a mantra whilst in seated meditation.  If you’re new to a Japa practice you can whisper your mantra out loud to help give focus to your meditation, otherwise it can be repeated silently within, using a mala if you have one available.  Using a mantric recitation in your meditation is said to have incredible transformative powers because mantras are believed to contain the power of the Goddess Shakti.  You can choose a traditional mantra or make up a mantra of your own that resonates with you and helps you feel well and full of love and live.  During tough times a few years ago I used to recite to myself the words, ‘I am safe, I am secure and I am loved’ in a Japa meditation before going to bed and it really increased my sense of well being and my quality of sleep.

All of these bhakti practices can be used within our physical yoga practice on the mat and I’m sure you’ve all experienced these without even realising it.  Think about that chant to open or close the practice, three Oms being the most often used, or the expression of gratitude and thanks as we end a class together, or when the teacher reads a text that inspires them out to the class and uses that as inspiration for the asanas.  Try weaving the Bhakti practices that resonate with you most into your own physical practice on the mat this week and see what lights you up and fills you with love and joy.

Experiment this week gorgeous souls with filling your practice, hearts and lives with Bhakti and see where it takes you and where this beautiful journey of life travels.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 32: Avoid burnout by filling up on Bhakti

Gorgeous souls, August is my birthday month and as I prepare to celebrate another trip around the sun it seems only fitting to spend this month in devotion.  This year my August is inspired by the concept of Bhakti, originally a Hindu practice of devotional worship directed towards one supreme being or god.  But the notion of Bhakti is also recorded in the ancient Upanishads as participation, devotion and love for an endeavour and outlined in the Bhagavad Gita as one of the possible spiritual paths towards moksha or enlightenment.

I confess that sometimes the idea of devotion or service or more giving seems like just another thing in the long list of things to be done.  For those of us who spend both personal and professional lives giving and caring for others the ask to devote more might just seem like too much.  So how can the concept of devotion fill us up rather than deplete us and send us down the road to burn out? 

And here it’s important to make the distinction between devotion to replenish versus giving until we are empty.  Because Bhakti and the Bhakti Yoga that has developed over the years as a way to bring greater devotion into our practice is definitely something that fills up the body, heart and soul in the most positive of ways.  If you’re struggling to wonder how much you should give or whether you should give at all then I highly recommend reading Adam Grant’s book, ‘Give and Take’ which deep dives into why some people burn out from giving and others thrive and grow from it, (spoiler alert: it’s all about boundaries!)

So this month is not about giving, giving, giving, it is about finding Bhakti and devotion in our practice, in every day life and expanding the divinity that lives within all of us. Over the coming weeks I’ll be exploring ways in which we can partake in a more devotional practice both on and off our mats and sharing resources and tips that have helped me feel more goddess like.

One of the most sure fire ways to bring more Bhakti into our yoga practice is to devote our practice to someone or something that you care deeply about.  Whether you start seated or standing take your hands in namaste mudra, palms together and rest the thumbs at your third eye point, the space between your eyebrows.  Focus on your breath for a few moments, letting it slow down and smooth out.  Then ask yourself who or what needs care and support right now and who could benefit from receiving the healing vibes of your practice.  Trust what comes up rather than feeling like you have to direct your devotion to a certain place.  Let your innate inner wisdom guide you. Every time you pause in your practice or find stillness, remind yourself why you are here on your mat and who or what you are here for.

One of my very favourite mantras is Om Namah Shivaya which loosely translates as I bow to the divine within me.  You can use it whilst you are meditating this week and see how the experience makes you feel.  If your mind it busy, let the mantra act as a wonderful anchor to return to, helping you focus your meditation and potentially clearing the mind of unhelpful thoughts.  Mantra itself is often described as a divine sound so use it not only in meditation but throughout your day to remember to honour and bow to yourself as a divine being.  If you need a little help then check out this beautiful call and response chanting from Om Namah Shivaya from the incredible Nikki Slade who I was once lucky enough to be on retreat with.  Play it loud and let your voice sing out in divine grace, vibrating with the sound of the universe. And if you like what you hear with Nikki then download her album Monsoon and keep on chanting!

Creating an eating practice not only full of Prana but also Bhakti can be done with a grand dose of gratitude.  This week combine Prana filled foods, those that make you feel nourished and honoured with a moment of pause each time before you eat.  Taking a minute before feeding yourself to give thanks and to honour the planet and everyone who has been involved in bringing food to your table, almost infuses the food with Bhakti and at the very least makes for a more humble, grateful and joyous eating experience.  Plus a moment of pause and gratitude anywhere, anytime in your day is definitely good for the soul.

And finally see if you can find the divine in nature.  Even if you live in a giant city, start to pay attention to where the natural world meets your every day life.  It might be as simple as noticing the weeds or flowers miraculously pushing up through the cracks in the pavement.  Pause to look up at the sky every single day this week.  We rarely lift our gaze and this simple act very physically opens our heart, symbolically allowing the divine in.  As I look to Father Sky I always imagine being watched over like a small child.  This idea of being looked after by something much bigger and grander than myself creates a deep reverence for the planet and makes me feel small and humble in the face of divine Mother Nature.

Remind yourself that you are a divine being gorgeous souls and the very fact that we walk the planet together in this moment in time is a small miracle.  Enjoy filling yourself up with devotion and all that is to come on this month long journey of Bhakti.  Om Namah Shivaya.  Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 31: Let yourself heal by reconnecting your body and mind

Awesome yogis I’m thrilled to have had this chance to delve deep into one of my favourite topics, body wisdom, throughout the entire month of July.  This is our final week exploring this realm although certainly only the beginning of our journeys in being more at one with body, mind and spirit through the practice of yoga and our five big bliss commitments.

This week we go a little more into some of the science behind disconnection to body and explore ways in which we can feel more whole in our body connection and more like the truest version of ourselves.

Trauma is one of the greatest influencers in creating disconnection with our bodies but I want to immediately dispel this label or even ‘myth’ that the trauma has to be huge and life threatening for this to happen. There are so many experiences within our every day lives that we experience as traumas, anything from going to the doctor or having an operation, to experiencing a minor car accident, to watching someone fall down in the street, to the loss of a loved one or of course the much bigger traumas of life that so many of us have experienced just by the very nature of living longer.  I say this because trauma feels like I very loaded word, and I think it’s really important to recognise that trauma in many different forms is a part of all our lives and can impact in so many different ways for all of us - depending on the moment in time, our health and resilience levels and the robustness of our social networks when we experience it.

More important is how we look to the tools and goodness in our lives to heal from the various small and big traumas that cross our paths as life goes on.

So think of this week as dedicated to your healing and one critical pathway to this for all of is to get connected in to the wisdom that our brains have to offer in connecting back into our bodies and living a full human experience.  

In short there are many different parts of our brain that each react differently when under stress.  Our old, most ancient brain (the amygdala) is the part that keeps a look out for danger, almost like an internal smoke detector, and engages the fight or flight response when we need to escape from a bad situation and protect ourselves.  This part of our brain makes no judgement or analysis as to the severity of the danger, it’s job is truly to protect us.

In the front of our brain is a newer area above the eyes called the medial pre-frontal cortex and this area of our brain is almost like a watch tower (we sometimes call it ‘the observer’ in meditation).  This part of our brain analyses, sorts, judges, predicts and helps us in making conscious decisions and choices.  This is the tool in our head that helps us realise that our friend standing in front of us is not angry at us but is upset over an incident at work and is just letting out their frustration in front of us.  

Neuro-imaging studies reveal that when we suffer stress, or trauma or even just a highly emotional state, the activity in the frontal lobe - all the actions that help us regulate as ‘normal’ humans is reduced and the relationship between our ‘smoke detector’ and our ‘watch tower’ (terms coined by Besser Van Der Kolk) goes out of balance.

The great news is that yoga and meditation are incredible tools in regaining that balance.  All the meditation and mindfulness practices help us regain that balance in the brain from the mind perspective and all the physical embodiment work, breath, movement and touch help us rebalance our central nervous system.

So if you want to get your body and mind in balance and feel like the most true version of yourself this week, try out the five big bliss commitments designed for ultimate equilibrium and alignment.

In your meditation practice this week try using the body scan technique but instead of just scanning through, stop for an extra second or two on each part of your body to notice how it feels.  You might place a hand on parts that feel uncomfortable or bring up strong emotions and take a few extra breaths.  Stopping to name the feelings and speak them out loud, whether they be physical or emotional is also a great way to heal disconnection between different parts of our brain.

A slower yoga practice may also be an opportunity for more profound healing because slowing down allows us to feel more.  If I’m honest we don’t always like that, because most people (including myself) spend much of our lives running away from discomfort and plastering over it with busyness and action and movement.  The brilliant and blissful philosopher Joseph Campbell said, ‘We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purpose of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive is what it’s all about.’  Can you stay in each of the asanas long enough this week to allow yourself to get past the discomfort and experience that rapture that is life?  Try counting 15 breaths in each pose as a way to not only notice how you feel but as a practice in gently easing past pain and cultivating intense pleasure and joy in your practice.  

The way we nourish or deprive ourselves and our overall relationship with food is often a reflection of how well or not we have integrated the traumas of our lives into daily living.  For years and years I overate as a reaction to stress with packets of chocolate biscuits ‘magically’ disappearing in record time.  These days intense stress tends to leave me without any kind of appetite and whilst I find it hard to believe this after all the years of over eating I can even forget to eat sometimes if life gets the better of me.  Try paying attention to when your body wants to eat more or eat less as a signal to regulate and nourish yourself with prana filled food.  Eating is deeply linked to our first chakra and our sense of safety and survival so think of feeding yourself as a way of grounding and connecting back into who you truly are.  Just considering this new perspective on food and its links to the chakras, the energy centres of our body might give you new insights into positive self care habits that you can continue to cultivate with time.  The absolute best reference on the body mind link with the chakras is Judith Anodea’s book, Eastern Body Western Mind.

Because so much about being out and about on the planet activates our senses, sight, sound, touch, smell, it immediately brings us into our body and we almost can’t help but slow down and notice how we feel.  The entire field of EMDR therapy was developed after American psychologist Francine Shapiro experienced a deep sense of calm snd wellbeing after walking in the forest and noticing how her eyes moved with the light on the leaves and the trees.  If you can get outside (even if it’s not in a forest) try a walking meditation this week, where you slow down your stride, notice your feet on the ground and walk slowly enough that you can let your eyes rest every now and then on the light and objects around you.  This is almost guaranteed to bring you into your body and engage your parasympathetic nervous system and your rest and digest function more fully.  

And because our words have the ability to shape our world, spend this week speaking your gratitude and thanks out loud.  You can do this just with yourself when you wake up every morning or just before you go to sleep at night.  But if you want to spread that sense of gratitude wider why not share it with a friend in conversation or add it to the evening meal with your family or tell those you love why you love having them in your life.  But take time with this. When we use words without physical feeling we sometimes lose the healing qualities that they can bring us, so take a breath first, feel the gratitude in every cell of your body and then speak it out loud.  When I do this at the start of my day it transforms everything in the most blissful, brilliant way and amplifies my gratitude for being alive on the planet in this very moment.

Enjoy expanding and deepening your body mind connection this week awesome people and let yourself heal so you can share your innate goodness with the world.  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 30: Living an embodied life

Gorgeous souls it’s wonderful to be back with you for another week of tuning into our innate body wisdom and continuing to explore this topic more in depth together.  I hope you enjoyed finding ways to go deeper into your own practice with the self adjustments last week.  This week I want to delve into the notion of an embodied life experience.  I realise that this word ‘embodied’ can be used very flippantly as though we all know what that means so I think it’s worth just setting out the idea of being embodied or embodiment in a little more detail.

Using this concept in yoga or in relation to tuning into our body’s inner wisdom, is for me, all about giving expression to the feelings and experiences our bodies are having.  So instead of ignoring the signs, feelings and physical sensations of our bodies, we instead listen closely and find ways to express, personify or exemplify what our body is telling us.  An easy every day life example that I often experience is my body telling me it’s thirsty, but I don’t pay much attention. All I know is I have some kind of physical need in my body, maybe a little rumbling in my belly.  So I immediately fill it with food when in fact my body wants water and then I end up rather unsatisfied, still thirsty and maybe even a little dehydrated.  

How does this translate onto our yoga mats some days?  A lack of embodiment on the mat often expresses itself in those moments where we routinely go through a set of asanas in almost automatic mode. We don’t feel connected to our breath, we worry about how the asana looks rather than how it feels and maybe we even feel so out of tune with our body that we give it what it doesn’t need rather than what it’s crying out for.  In a world dominated by doing rather than being, this regularly presents as a strong physical practice creating lots of sweat and rajas (the passion, fire and drive of the three gunas) when what we need is to engage our parasympathetic nervous system in rest, relaxation and restoration.  

In your yoga practice this week, try working with more fluid movements that help us tune into our second chakra of flow and creativity and sexuality (which is part of who we all are too by the way!).  Put on some music, listen closely and then move your body in yoga shapes (versus strict asanas) in whatever way feels most natural to you.  Mentally let go of the need to be ‘right’ on the mat and give permission to your body to move freely and innately in time with the music or your breath.  You might slow your practice down more than usual to give yourself more time to listen in to your own personal needs on the mat.  This is an embodied yoga practice!

I highly recommend trying some silent meditations this week so you have more space and time to see what naturally arises in the mind.  The trick here will be to refrain from judging whatever comes up and instead approach your meditation time with a sense of curiosity and exploration.  By dropping the judgement and viewing whatever arises in the mind as ‘just information’, we embody much more the most real version of ourselves and even step a little further down the path to complete self awareness and acceptance.

An embodied eating experience is also critical in feeding ourselves what we need rather than only being aware of the very surface cues for what fuel we think our bodies want.  For example if you eat lots of sugar filled foods (especially those with refined sugars) then the surface cue is ‘feed me more sugar’ because that stuff is damn well addictive!  But stopping to take a breath whenever your body gives you some kind of nourishment signal helps us tune into the underlying message.  In the case of sugar that deeper message is much more likely to be related to an emotional need or even just a basic need to have hunger satiated. Try using your breath this week as the tool to become wiser about how you nourish and feed your body and I’m sure you’ll find it wants many more prana filled, less processed, more natural foods.

I have been blessed to have so many embodied experiences with nature.  In fact the only reason I hike up mountains is because running down them is utter embodiment with nature for me.  With time, running downhill shifts me into a state of flow where I feel completely at one with the earth and the mountain.  Being out on the water is also a great way to feel embodied with the planet.  Anything outside that can help your senses come alive is an incredible way to embody our planet and feel deep connection.  Smelling the roses (literally), wrapping your arms around an ancient tree, diving into a cold lake - this week choose things that heighten your senses, sight, touch, smell, sound and enjoy every moment of it.

I realise that some days even our gratitude practice can feel automatic rather than embodied and so how do we help ourselves feel gratitude in every cell of our body, in our DNA?  I find less is more on this front so instead of feeling like you have to make yourself a long list of things and people you are thankful for pick just one every time you take a moment of gratitude and begin to explore it in more depth.  You might choose a person in your life that’s important to you and really dig into why you are grateful for them, their actions, personality traits, mannerisms, ways of being.  You could do similar with an experience or situation or even with your job (especially useful for when work is driving you crazy).  Take time to explore the many reasons behind the things that you are thankful for and feel the sense of gratitude grow deep within your very being - to the point where you yourself begin to embody a life of gratitude and turn up as an example for others in this world who are struggling with that right now.

Enjoy this week embodying our five bliss commitments dear ones and lean into everything you’re feeling and experiencing, the good and the less than pleasant, safe in the knowledge that all of this makes you the incredible human you are.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 29: Touch yourself

Welcome gorgeous yogis to another week dedicated to listening and honouring our bodies and hearing and acting on the innate wisdom within us.  I hope that last week’s focus on the hands and mudras provided you with some insights and healing, maybe even in good and unexpected ways.  This week we’ll be focusing on the role that touch plays in keeping us abundantly well and healthy.

Touch is often a controversial topic in the yoga world (and the greater world too!) because it has sadly so often been abused by yoga teachers with students and is a way to engage in power over rather than power with others. Today there are still many lineages of yoga that continue to use touch without consent under the guise of ‘adjustments’. I’m not for them because I assume that you know your body and what you need a whole lot better than me.

Conversations about touch also often also assume that touch is between two or more people whereas there is an incredible role for physical connection and touch to play just with ourselves as individuals and the planet.  When we are willing to use touch with ourselves, it creates an energy of receiving goodness and connection into our lives (on our own terms of course) and this can be especially useful for those of us who are sometimes out of balance, giving more, receiving less.

In yoga there is incredible value in the process of self adjustment which is far more powerful than anything any teacher can do by laying hands on a student.  To get to the point where verbal cues and physical and emotional experiences allow you to adjust yourself is really the path of an advanced yoga practice.  If you think about it, you often adjust yourself in a yoga class.  You’re sitting on the floor and the teacher says roll your thighs out or find your sit bones and you immediately place your hands on your legs or start rocking from side to side to feel your sit bones.  What is incredible about this is that YOU are tuning into your own personal body experience to enhance your yoga experience.  So I really encourage you this week to tune into the experience of feeling your body in your practice so that you can then adjust yourself in ways that give you deeper and more meaningful time on your mat.  It could be as simple as massaging your feet in butterfly pose or running your fingers through your hair in savasana (one of my personal faves) but other great self adjustments include using your hand to open up your top hip in triangle pose or gently placing your palm on your heart and pressing your chest into it in any heart opening pose.  Practice what feels good for you and allow yourself to enjoy the wisdom that your own body already possesses. And stay tuned for this week’s class on my Vimeo channel for a tutorial in self adjustment.

Meditation is also an incredible practice to receive more touch into our lives.  Generally we think of meditation as a practice for our minds but some of the greatest meditations in my opinion are those that guide us to reconnect with our bodies.  This week try sitting in meditation and carrying out a body scan.  But instead of doing that just mentally, as you scan through your body, noticing how it feels, place a hand (or hands) on the part of your body you are focusing on.  Take a few extra breaths to slow down and truly experience body sensation.  If parts of your body feel tight or constricted, imagine your hands softening this area and sending healing light or energy to this part.  Using your own hands to touch your body and connect and heal it is far more powerful and gives us a much greater sense of resilience than always relying on someone or something external to ‘fix’ us.

Food is literally designed to engage so many of our senses from smell to taste to touch.  But so often we use food as fuel rather than food as pleasure and experience.  So this week spend a little time examining and touching the raw ingredients of your cooking before inhaling them.  Even if it's just a piece of fruit, hold it in your hand, close your eyes and see how it feels on your palm.  Breath deeply then ask yourself what is the texture of the skin, its weight, what sensation does it create in your hand?  Spending these few moments feeling with food brings us out of our head and back into our body.  When we do that we slow down and we might even notice if we are hungry or not, we might appreciate the food we eat so much more, and we will no doubt feel far more connected to our body than if we’d eaten without physically feeling first.

How can you use your body this week to heal our planet?  It’s no surprise that home gardens sprang up everywhere during Corona quarantine times.  People’s natural instinct is to heal ourselves during times of stress and so people literally began putting their hands in the soil and growing things.  Make a special effort this week to grow something with your hands.  It might be super simple like buying a pre-potted herb from the supermarket and watering it.  If you’re feeling more adventures plant seeds or seedlings or even offer to look after a neighbour’s plants or visit their garden.  I’m currently in the midst of watching radishes sprout on my balcony and the tomato plants grow taller and taller every day and it gives me an incredible sense of wellbeing having my hands in the soil and being part of this natural cycle of growth.

It might seem strange to offer up gratitude in the form of touch but the simple act of placing the palms together in namaste or anjeli mudra is a physical and touching offering of thanks.  Whilst the translation of such a physical gesture is often shared as ‘the light in me honours the light in you’, offering your palms together towards someone or something is almost a universal sign of thanks.  So instead of just writing or sitting silently in gratitude this week, take your hands together, feel your palms touch and the gratitude emanate from them and offer up your deepest and most sincere thanks for everything that is good in your life right now.  I love to do this touching my palms to my third eye, looking up at Father Sky and thanking him for watching over me, then bowing down to Mother Earth and thanking her for allowing me to walk upon her. 

When we are willing to offer ourselves the healing power of touch and reconnect with our bodies, it also means we are able to receive love, care and attention in physical, emotional and spiritual ways.  Stepping on our mats is just one of the gifts that we regularly give ourselves.  These small acts of giving and receiving in our own individual lives are more than just a metaphor for how we turn up for and engage with others and the world around us.  So if you want to receive more, start with yourself first and watch the magic expand around you.  Namaste dear ones, D x

Bliss Blog Week 28: A month of tuning into our body’s wisdom

Gorgeous souls, I’m declaring July the month of body wisdom and plan to spend the entire month exploring the intelligence of my body and all it has to tell me and teach me. AND I’ll be sharing all the tips and tricks of this experience with you along the way.  So saddle up awesome yogis and get ready to spend a month in full embodied experience with me.

One of the reasons I teach yoga rather than just practice it, is because every single day without fail I come across other humans who have no idea where their body is in space and are utterly disconnected from the physical experience of their lives.  This manifests in many different ways but I’m pretty sure you’ve all seen a version of it even if you don’t know it.  Think about it, the couple that stops at the top of the escalator whilst they’re deciding where to go next whilst the people coming up the stairs literally end up in a ten body pile up without them noticing.  The guy walking in front of you who comes to a dead stop in a nanosecond whilst checking his phone.  You know him because you’ve probably run into him!  Sometimes it's the person in the yoga class who always takes their hand or leg in the opposite direction to everyone else and doesn’t even notice.  And other days it’s the colleague or person in the supermarket line who seems to have forgotten the definition of personal space (and social distancing!!!).  

Usually when we see this going on we feel annoyed or even have a good laugh at people’s behaviour.  But all of these are examples of people being so deeply disconnected from their body that they really just don’t know where it is in space and how they and their body connect to the world around them.  My mantra every time I witness this disassociation is, ‘teach more yoga, teach more yoga’.  But it is still possible to turn up at a yoga class and not connect body, mind and breath and that’s the difference between a workout and yoga.

Why do I feel like this is the world’s work right now? Because I believe that we are at our happiest and most content when we are  living a connected life.  As humans we are wired for connection and starting with ourselves is the absolute best way to feel connected to the people and planet around us and subsequently live a connected and wholehearted (in the words of Brene Brown) life. 

One of the easiest and most profound ways of reconnecting into our bodies is to use our hands.  Our hands hold an innate healing power and have been used for thousands of years to heal various tensions and ailments.  Today many of these healing arts that use the hands are still practiced, such as through reiki, massage, reflexology and more.  Just think about your natural reaction when a dear friend shares their bad news or disappointment with you.  We instinctively reach out with our hands to provide touch and connection.  It might be as simple as resting a hand on someone’s shoulder or knee or gently holding a loved one’s hand as they experience emotional of physical pain.  We have all already used our very own hands for healing others in this lifetime without even realising it. This week and beyond will guide you to use your hands to connect with your body and heal and nourish yourself.

So much of yoga practice that you experience in the west is based on asana but there are so many more deeper and richer components to a full yogic experience.  Mudras or gestures, marks or seals made by the hand, (and sometimes other parts of the body), produce happiness and joy and are a beautiful and easy way to enjoy a more profound and embodied yoga experience.

Our yoga practice this week will be a daily experience of mudra, and I’ll be sharing a palette of different mudras, (a new one every day) to add to your practice.  Through this practice, we’ll all become more aware of the powerful healing properties of our hands and how the physical shapes we create with them can be used as body wisdom medicine.  The yogic practice of mudra believes that the positions we make with our hands greatly influences the energy of our physical, emotional and spiritual body.

You’ll be able to use the mudras we create and share in your own meditation practice as well.  So instead of just resting your hands in your lap you can literally choose a mudra, based on what you feel you need in the moment and then create this with your hands as you meditation.  This magnifies the power of your meditation practice greatly.  And as there are hundreds of mudras to choose from here’s a list of 30 mudras that you can delve into and experiment with over the coming weeks and beyond.

You can also use your hands and mudras to heal the planet and in my experience this tends to have a reciprocal effect.  The simple act of placing your palms on a tree not only offers energetic care to the tree but provides us with a greater level of physical sensation and touch, critical in experiencing our bodies and what they truly feel.  Do all you can this week to touch nature with your hands.  Make a special effort to slow down and breathe whilst you do this, even if it just the plants in your house.  Notice how what you are touching feels on your hands and name the textures and sensations you experience.  If you feel that the natural world needs a little extra care and attention (and doesn’t it always?), you could offer up a specific mudra to the planet.  There is even a special mudra for the earth called prithvi mudra which is said to strengthen the earth element in our body, help us feel more grounded and restore equilibrium and trust.

One of the things I learned living and traveling in South Asia for many years is how food literally tastes different (better!) when you eat with your hands.  There is a belief in many cultures in this part of the world and beyond, that when we eat with our hands it is a more conscious, embodied act because are taking time to feed ourselves directly.  There is a belief, and I feel this very strongly myself, that eating with our hands, connects us closely to the prana and life force within the food.  By eating with utensils we remove ourselves from the full array of nourishing and healing properties that food provides us.  Whilst not all food might feel practical to eat with our hands, especially for the inexperienced, rice and curry is definitely the best place to start!

And finally as you test out the power of your hands, take a moment to be grateful for all that your hands can do for you, for others and for all the times that the touch of someone else’s hand has brought a sense of care, of safety and of joy into your life.  So make sure you give a lot of high fives this week yogis and keep that upward spiral of positivity moving.  Namaste, D x

Bliss Blog Week 27: Illuminating your life

Dear ones, these last weeks we have been following the path of light, whether that be creating lightness of being or exploring what sparks our inner light.  In this last week of June - the longest, lightest month for those of us living in the Northern hemisphere, we explore the sources of inspiration and illumination within and around us so that we can be that beacon of light and serenity both for ourselves and others.

The Yoga Sutras talk about the practice to reduce or cease citta vritti nirodha or fluctuations of the mind and claim that by focusing on our own inner light we can calm our thoughts and the excessive noise that we so often experience in our brains both on and off the mat.  There are so many beautiful practices in yoga that bring us from a state of high agitation into blissful serenity and this week is a chance to explore these as a path to illuminating our lives.  Our five big Bliss Commitments show us the path to illuminating our lives so enjoy every moment of feeling lit up this week and beyond gorgeous souls.

Yoga: The yoga this week is all about reducing the fluctuations of our mind which means more breath work, more stillness and more focus, all recommendations within those ancient Yoga Sutras.  Pranayama or yogic breathing is one of the most efficient #lifehacks to getting that monkey mind to quiet down.  Nadi Shodhana or alternative nostril breathing is one of my ultimate favourites for an instant quieting of the mind.  But another wonderful type of breath work is Dirga breath which is one of the most calming and grounding breathing patterns out there and it’s extra relaxing because you do it lying down.  So find a comfortable supine position.  Breathe in deeply, focusing on your belly and letting the breath expand it fully, breathe all the way out, feeling your navel gently press in towards your spine.  Repeat this for 5 rounds then add on by breathing into your belly and then up to your rib cage, release the breath from the ribs then the belly and repeat for five rounds.  Next, breathe into your belly, up to your rib cage and then keep breathing all the way up into your chest, feeling your heart area expand and light up, exhale and release the breath from the chest, the ribs then the belly and repeat this sequence for 5 rounds. Allow yourself to stay in this relaxed state and just notice how quiet your mind is now.

Meditation:  For a mind quieting meditation that allows you to focus more on your own inner illuminations I recommend meditating with some kind of point of focus.  It could be as simple as counting your breaths in and out but you might also choose a mantra to follow as your breathe.  As you sit allow your mind to settle and focus your internal gaze on your third eye point, the space between your eyebrows.  Picture white light inside you and surrounding you, calm washing over you and silently ask yourself what you need right now.  Whatever word or words come up can then be used as a mantra throughout this meditation practice.  Use the word or words that arose as a mantra, silently speaking them as you inhale and exhale, using your meditation to bring the mantra into the cells of your body, feeling light, relaxed and completely calm.

Prana-filled food:  What we eat and put into our bodies is critical in enabling us to shine bright with inner vitality.  It makes total sense that if all we ever eat is refined sugar, flour and chemical laden food that we couldn’t possibly feel vibrant and illuminated.  In Ayurveda, Ojas is the subtle substance produced by the body that governs our vigor and immunity, sometimes referred to as the essence of all vital fluids. In Ayurvedic food-medicine terms Ojas are considered to be sweet, heavy, unctuous, smooth and cool so foods that also have these qualities promote Ojas and that internal glow.  This week include foods such as bananas, avocados, dates, tofu, sweet potatoes, leafy greens and whole grains in your diet and notice how you feel lighter and more illuminated.

Nature appreciation: In many parts of the world we are in this wonderfully strange and beautiful almost into the season moment.  It’s not entirely full summer or full winter, (although we are almost there), and this is the time of year when we experience the planet’s light in the most incredible way.  Personally I find when I pay more attention to the rhythms and cycles of the planet they become a metaphor for my own life.  This week do all you can to notice the natural light around you and consider how this reflects and / or mirrors the light in your own life. If nothing else, stopping to notice the light after a storm, or the light of a sunrise or sunset will help you slow down, breathe and feel more connected to your inner light.

Gratitude:  Last week we looked at what are the external things that light you up but this week is an opportunity to reflect on your own personal illuminations that already shine bright in this world and bring light to other people’s lives.  Knowing ourselves deeply and our own lights within, enables us to be more generous with others in sharing our gifts.  It often doesn’t feel natural to sit and think about how awesome we are and the positive difference we make in other people’s lives.  I know I have a hard time doing this, and sadly giving ourselves a hard time and being self critical usually come much more easily.  Our gratitude practice is a real opportunity to ‘flip the switch’ and be thankful for the lights within.  Make a list of at least three incredible things about yourself that you know bring light, inspiration and love to other people’s lives.  If this feels hard then a) know that’s normal and b) ask friends and family what they love about you and why.  Think of moments where you’ve supported a friend in crisis, or made someone laugh or received a great review at work and then reflect and explore what elements of these experiences reflect your true light within.  Write them down (and maybe keep that piece of paper or put them on your phone so you can remind yourself of your inner light during tough times), and send gratitude to your beautiful gifts for illuminating the world.

Keep illuminating beautiful people, we and our world need to shine light on darkness and let our light shine bright.  Have an incredible week.  Namaste, D x

Bliss Blog Week 26: Sparking your inner light

Gorgeous souls, you’ve all worked so hard this last week to shed your burdens, to release the heavy loads you were carrying and to cultivate lightness of being - bravo!  Let’s build on that this week, reminding ourselves that each and every one of us has a glowing inner light and that all we have to do is keep feeding and sparking that light to allow it to shine not just in our own lives but in the lives of those around us.  I mean how incredible is that to know that you are bringing your own special, unique and gorgeous light to the planet.  I’m always so grateful and happy to see you all shining and glowing!  And so here’s five very special bliss tips below to support you in sparking your inner light this week.

Yoga:  Spend some time mentally reviewing your favourite yoga moments of classes.  What was it that you loved so much about a particular class or asana or flow?  What were the most joyful and fun times in yoga? Are there any themes that emerge?  Where you find consistency is very likely also where you spark your inner light with your practice.  Maybe you light up at the thought of a challenge pose, maybe it’s being upside down, maybe it’s that moment of savasana or surrender.  Whatever it is for you, remember what sparks your inner light on your mat and make sure you put it on repeat!

Meditation: Take 5 - 20 minutes (depending on how much time you have) meditating with your attention on your heart area.  Imagine your heart as a golden light radiating loving energy throughout your body and then out into the world.  Visualize your heart light creating a golden protective shield all the way around you.  This shield resists negative, dark forces but is permeable to light and love and positive energy.  Go on with your day knowing that your are both protected and radiating light out into the world.

Gratitude:  Send out gratitude to all the things that spark your inner light.  You might even write a list  of things that light you up and say a special thank you to each and every one of them for helping you to keep shining your inner light.

Prana filled food: Most of us know which foods make us feel great about ourselves and which don’t.  If this seems like a strange notion then pay more attention this week to what you eat and notice the different feelings after eating different foods.  In general the more natural and full of vitamins the food is the better you feel.  Take a day (or even the whole week if you feel up to it) to only eat foods that make you feel real authentic goodness.  When you do this, food acts as a catalyst to spark your inner light.

Nature appreciation:  Science tells us that being in nature sparks the inner light in all of us.  That’s why the term ‘forest bathing’ was coined in Asia.  Because people (and scientists) know that when you don’t get enough of a nature fix, our inner light becomes dulled and darkened.  Commit this week to getting a nature fix every single damn day as a way to let your inner light shine.  Keep it easy so it doesn’t seem daunting, get outside in any way you can and even if you live in a big city, use the sky above you and the earth underneath as reference points to appreciate nature and the planet and then notice how you feel shinier throughout the week.

Keep on shining dear ones!  Namaste, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 25: Laghima - the incredible lightness of being

Gorgeous souls, I want to know how you are doing this week?  I can only hope you are fabulously well but I know it is still strange times, a strange year and I hope that somehow, (and maybe with a little help from yoga and our Bliss Commitments), you are finding a way to stay in the zone of love and light.

I feel that the world is compelled to write and post and talk about all the very hard things going on across our planet right now.  This is important, we should keep reading and stay informed by qualified and experienced authors, speakers and experts on life as it is today.  We should keep acting where we can and where we can make a difference. But I’m also going to rebel this week and focus solely on the lightness of being and a little yogic experience called Laghima which translates as the ‘absence of weight’ or the ‘power of lightness’.  Because when we feel light and full of light we have more to give and contribute and serve within our worlds and we just generally feel a whole lot better about ourselves.

So this week, whatever is going on in your life, I hereby give you full permission (not that you need that from me by the way!), to let go of your burdens, to let go of the heavy load you are carrying and step into lightness.

Laghima is one of the Siddhis or magical (sometimes translated as spiritual) powers that can be attained through practicing the different Sadhanas of yoga such as meditation and pranayama.  When one achieves Laghima it is thought that the physical body becomes so light it is almost weightless and can float through the air or even levitate.  I find this beautifully symbolic, the idea that we are floating through life, flying across the planet without leaving a heavy footprint on our earth.  Almost levitating above as observers of our lives with a certain level of unattachment and lightness rather than gripping and clinging - all very yogic indeed!

So it makes a lot of sense as we focus on lightness and Laghima this week to practice flying on our mats, one of my very favourite practices of all!  This week I want to feature the crow pose, the handstand and the transition from down dog to low lunge as three ways to practice lightness of being.  I’ll be posting three tutorials throughout the week on my Instagram and Emergencyoga Facebook pages for these asanas and I’d love it if you could join me in practicing lightness with your yoga.  Critical to all these poses is engagement of the abdominal muscles to ensure that we use strength in lifting ourselves off the ground and don’t just flop the body around.  You could try practicing that in all your yoga this week - using your core strength to move and become lighter as you transition from one asana to the next.  One way to test how light you are on your mat is to notice how much noise you make when you place your hands, feet, knees or elbows on the earth - less noise = more lightness.

I also recommend meditating on lightness.  If you want to keep this easy you can literally visualise your body floating or flying during your meditation, or imagine beautiful golden light expanding inside your body or wrapping itself around you.  If you have the chance to try meditations with Kundalini expert Kia Miller I highly recommend these as a way to feel lighter - she is truly an expert in this.  And as pranayama is considered to be one of the ways to achieve Laghima you could add in some special yogic breathing to your meditation - a great way to keep you focused and your mind clear by the way!  My favourites include the very calming nadi shodana (alternate nostril breathing) and the fabulous stress releasing bhastrika (bellows breath) but have a look at this short description of these and other types of pranayama (comes with instructional videos!) To see which kinds of breathing you like.

Because Laghima is specifically about the lightness of our physical body this is a great week to try a fasting experience.  This doesn’t need to be extreme fasting (unless you want it to be) and I really recommend you choose something that works well for you and your constitution.  Intermittent fasting certainly helps us feel physically lighter and often very cleansed as well.  There is also a growing body of scientific research that equates fasting with the reduction of risk factors and reversal of symptoms of many serious health conditions including cancer.  And don’t we also feel lighter when we are physically at optimal health as well!  Here are some great tips on how to fast safely.  It could be as simple as taking a juice for breakfast or lunch instead of solid foods, or having a day or two this week where you eat lighter foods.  Fasting doesn’t always mean not eating, but lighter food intake will certainly help you feel lighter this week and perhaps you might even feel like you’re flying :-) 

Can you lighten your footprint on the planet this week as a form of nature appreciation?  When we use less stuff and go more ‘natural’ we also feel lighter in body, mind and spirit.  Walking or cycling to work instead of taking the car (even if it’s just one day a week) is already a great start.  A day or a week without eating meat is a massive reduction in your green house gas emissions on the planet.  Could you have a day or a week where you used not a single piece of plastic?  The World Wildlife Fund has some great ideas for how to lighten our own ecological footprint on the planet and give it a little bit of extra life from our individual actions.  Personally I appreciate every single effort you make, no matter how big or small to leave less behind on our beautiful world so I really want to thank you for all and any efforts you make this week.

And finally let your gratitude practice allow you to feel light and floaty by saying thank you in the present tense for your lightness of being (even if you don’t feel that way).  Sometimes using positive and affirmative mantras our words become our reality.  I often write in my journal, ‘I am illuminating, I shine light on darkness’ and you could also choose a phrase or write a thank you note for whatever lightness you feel or want to feel.  Something as simple as ‘thank you for allowing me to float through life’ could have the power to make you feel like you really are floating through life, especially if you repeat or write it consistently.  Words both spoken and written have the power to change our world so give it a go this week and see what wonderful transformations you experience.

One thing to remember is that each and everyone of us is born magical with all kinds of super powers that we sometimes don’t even realise we have. This week’s Bliss Commitments are designed to help you find your Laghima, knowing that it’s already living within you, you just need to peel back the layers and let your light shine. NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 24: Staying curious in the midst of evil

Dear ones there are so many days when I look at all those incredible yoga teachers who do this amazing work full time and want to be them, to give up the humanitarian day job and dive in with my everything to the yoga life.  And then I take a reality check of the world around me and give myself a big dose of honesty and acknowledge that I am a humanitarian, an activist and a yogi at heart, all three in one.  One of the things I love so much about the practice of yoga is to see how it stands up in the midst of real live, in the midst of evil and horrific times.  To take this ancient practice off the mat and out into the world and to challenge myself to live the yogic life when only chaos and horror surround.  And these are the times we live in right now.  Can we be surrounded by evil and violence and remain calm and peaceful in our hearts?

Can I be a white person of privilege and still say something meaningful and true and useful when Black people around the world are being killed and oppressed?  When I am not living the Black experience do I have a right to comment?  I don’t know if I have a right or the wisdom to say anything but I feel deeply that I have a responsibility.  

One of the greatest inspirations in my life is Martin Luther King Junior.  In 90’s South London I worked in a community based mental health program and MLK Jr’s ‘I have a dream speech’ hung on the wall at work. The majority of people I worked with and for were from the African, Caribbean and Black British communities.  Just six months before I started that job I had arrived in London from Australia and seen for the very first time in my life, someone of African descent close up.  That my friends is the nuttiness of growing up in white 1980’s Australia where the idea of racial equality was not even in its infancy, (read The Hate Race for a reality check).  And so I got curious. I had no words or language from my years in Australia to describe different races of people. In 1980’s Queensland you were White, Aboriginal or Asian and nothing else. And I had no idea how Black people referred to themselves.  I asked a colleague whose parents had immigrated from Barbados to the UK to help me with language around race and he told me he was Black and that it was ok if I referred to him as a Black man.  To this day I remain hugely grateful to Barry, my colleague for being willing to have this conversation with my ignorant white 23 year old self.  

I am intimidated and feel deeply unequipped to speak out about the horrific racial violence that is happening right now (and that has happened for centuries).  I know that I, (that we all), have unconscious bias that I am not even aware of, influenced by the land, culture and politics of where I grew up and where I live.  I feel lucky that my humanitarian life has given me opportunities to work with so many diverse people and communities and to learn so much more about differences, connection and the collective human experience than the average person walking the planet.  But I’m also aware that a large proportion of the humanitarian world is built on white neo-colonialism and that many aid agencies are rife with racism, unconscious bias and place different values on different people.  

I also know that inequality and injustice have caused me pain since I was a small child and that this is why I have the life I have today.  I believe deep in my DNA that all humans are equal and that no one, anywhere in the world deserves to be treated as less human than someone else. We have a choice right now in the midst of evil and violence to shut ourselves off from the pain this causes us, (and I admit I have been doing my share of that), or we have the opportunity to take inspiration from the brave change makers who walked before us, and those who lead us today, (Shaun King and Tarana Burke are doing amazing work), and stay curious and open to educate ourselves about the different experiences different people and communities are having right now, to stand whenever we can for justice, inclusion, connection and love.

As yogis we are so lucky to have our practice as an incredible tool to help us walk the talk both on and off the mat.  We can practice being curious within the asanas, with meditation, with the way our bodies move, with being brave in arm balances or headstands, and trying new yoga, with where and who we practice with, with what we read about yoga and we can then take all of that curiosity out into the world.  Through yoga we can practice love for ourselves and our community and for those we have never met but who are experiencing pain, giving this good energy to the world, rather than leaving hatred and ignorance in our hearts.  We are already so equipped for this moment in time, this moment in history with all that our yoga practice gives us.  Do what you can right now yogis, do whatever you can in whatever big or small way you can to drive out evil and help love grow.

And so what does this mean for our five Big Bliss Commitments this week?  In the words of the great MLK Jr, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’  So this week we practice for love and we can create an upward spiral of positivity that drives out hatred and evil and violence with our combined force of love and light and courage.

Every time you step on your mat this week, dedicate your practice to someone who needs more love, more care and protection in their lives.  Maybe it’s someone you know personally, maybe it’s a community of people who are suffering or maybe its the family of one of the Black lives that have been lost through unnecessary violence.  Say the name of whoever you are practicing for and then pour your heart into your practice and into the lives of those you practice for.  Expand the incredible energy of your yoga from your mat out into the world.  And take a look at which teachers you’re practicing with.  Challenge yourself to practice with a teacher that’s different to you, whether that be race, gender, age, experience or other.  Get curious about what practicing with different teachers brings you and notice what you feel and what you learn.

Meditate with loving kindness this week and send out loving kindness not only to yourself but to those close to you as well as people far away who you may not know but who may need your loving kindness.  This is so important in times of global crisis to connect into the collective humanness of our experience.  Think inclusiveness rather than divisiveness and use your meditation as a tool to feed your curiosity.  Invite others to meditate with you, either in person or online depending on your current Covid life.  I want to share with you a beautiful meditation by a wonderful teacher, Kaira Jewel who I met at the end of 2019.  This is a very special meditation that was part of Kaira’s webinar on ‘The challenge and gift of inclusiveness in times of fear and polarization’.  Kaira has an incredible energy and is highly skilled in creating and holding safe spaces for us all so I hope you enjoy it!  

In our gratitude practice this week let’s be especially grateful for the safety and security we experience in our lives.  And whilst we may not feel fully safe and fully secure 100% of the time, I hope that your yoga mat is a place where you can find that.  If you feel like you are a person of privilege express extra thanks for this and then find a way in which you could use that privilege for the benefit of others, ways in which you could show up and create safety and security for people who don’t always experience that.  If you find yourself struggling with gratitude, perhaps this week’s work is simply to acknowledge the struggle and welcome it into your life, allowing this to connect you to the broader human experience of other people’s lives and struggles.  If you’re curious about how other people practice gratitude or what others are grateful for then I highly recommend listening to a few episodes of The Gratitude Podcast with Georgian Benta.  This will not only change your brain chemistry but give you incredible insight into how different people experience gratitude. 

Get curious with prana filled food this week.  Try new foods, new recipes, a new restaurant or a new cafe, (if things are open in your neck of the woods), or even try eating with a new human in your life.  Stoking our curiosity in different ways including food experiences opens us up overall as individuals.  When we engage in new things, we learn, our minds expand, we start to ask questions.  And whilst eating is a fairly harmless way to cultivate curiosity, think of it as building your curiosity muscle which when more developed also makes you more open and inquisitive to the world and people around you.  Think of this week’s food experiment as a practice in engaging in the wider world.  And just to remind you that the only reason I know how to make scrumptious jerk chicken with rice and beans, akee and salt fish, rice and dhal and fresh paratha is because I asked people who were different than me to share their favourite recipes.  Can you imagine if I had never done that? I’d be stuck cooking an Aussie BBQ for the rest of my life!

Nature and the planet are together one of the most obvious things to be curious about.  But walking the planet and hiking are often overrun with white representation.  Have a look at Unlikely Hikers who are working hard to increase representation of the diverse range of people who love to enjoy the outdoors.  Check in with your own unconscious bias about who is a mountain man or a mountain woman?  How many people of colour did you see when you last went skiing (I’m often made aware of this as my friend Tarun has reminded me on several occasions about being the only ‘brown guy’ on the slopes).  What can we all do to make nature and the planet more accessible for everyone?  Consider educating yourself as a first step to making nature a safe space for every human who wants to be out there enjoying it.  If we want to collectively save the planet then we also need to collectively make sure we can all enjoy it.

Asking questions has a strange power to change the world, and even if we don’t see those more global changes in our own lifetime, (although I desperately hope we do), staying curious will change our individual worlds, expand our minds and increase our capacity for love and connection.  Think of your curiosity today as an investment for future good.  Stay curious dear ones and let love rule.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 23: The Planet Lovers Edition

Dear ones it’s been a tough week this end, moving house, ‘emotional stuff’ and the looming (or should I say exciting???) countdown to starting a new job in just over a week after quite some strange times off work these last months.  I fully fess up to wondering if I have it in me to write this week.  But my commitment to myself on January first this year was to write no matter what and so here I am and this week’s Bliss Blog is a special Planet Lovers Edition!  Because nothing makes me happier when times are tough and life is busy than to slow down and literally ‘smell the roses’ and get out there into Mother Nature to remind myself that there is something far greater and more powerful than our own relatively small lives.  It’s hard for most to make this happen on the best of days, let alone in Corona Times and so this week I want to share with you my very best and finest tips for feeling connected into the planet, the source, nature, Mother Earth and Father Sky.  Yoga does after all translate as to be yoked together or union.  For me yoga, people, planet are the trilogy of wellness and what motivates me to wake up every morning and start a new day.  I am deeply convinced that when we practice this ancient art of yoga (and when I say yoga I include meditation, asana, pranayama - the whole shebang) we feel more connected to ourselves, to others and to the planet we walk upon.  And when we feel connected, we feel seen, we feel more peace and we expand the sense of joy we have for living. Sounds like a good deal right?!

So in our yoga practice this week we’ll focus on asanas connected to nature, animals, the moon, mountains, you get the idea.  Here’s a link to a really thorough list of the yoga asanas.  Have a browse through and pick five poses named after something in nature that resonate with you and make them into your own little mini-sequence.  If you want to go really deep, have a think about why you chose each pose, what it means to you and have that in your mind as you flow through your practice.  I guarantee at the end of your own personal class you will feel more connected to the planet, even more so if you manage to take your mat outside this week!

There are a tonne of gorgeous nature meditations that you can also bring into your life easily enough.  Kripalu has some wonderful meditation practices that they recommend for Earth Day (or any other day for that matter.  One of the best ways to feel connected to the planet when meditating is to take a walking meditation.  You can find extra guidance on the Headspace app but you don’t need to listen to something to meditate whilst you walk.  All you have to do is take time to physically feel your feet on the earth and notice the connection and movement as you put one foot in front of the other.  I like to pause and look up at the sky and around me, and when I do this I always notice things I feel I’ve never seen before.  It makes everything about me slow down and feel more tuned into life.  And don’t feel you have so go out walking for kilometres - even a 5 - 10 minute walk outside can really help you appreciate Mother Nature no matter wherever you are.

It can be a challenge to eat as close to the source as possible.  Today so much of our food comes in mountains of packaging and plastic, very little of which can be recycled.  Shopping low or even zero waste as been made all the more challenging with many traditional markets being closed due to the pandemic.  But a little planet protection challenge this week could be to lower the amount of packaging you buy when you do your shopping.  The easiest way to do this is to take your own shopping bags, including bags to put your vegetables in so you don’t have to take the additional plastic bags that supermarkets usually offer for this.  If you’re really going for it then see if you can buy only local - lots of transportation miles equals much higher levels of green house gas emissions.  Or try choosing one day this coming week (or a meal if a day sounds too overwhelming) where you only eat fresh food - nothing processed, nothing with sugar in it, nothing with chemicals or additives that potentially harm you and the planet.  Be vigilant for that day or that meal and literally eat just what comes from the earth (N.B. animals don’t grow in the earth - just sayin……)

This week I’m going to combine our gratitude and nature appreciation practices - it seems obvious right?  In your regular gratitude practice, express appreciation and thanks to all that nature offers you (us!).  And try to make it specific, I mean its great to thank Mother Earth and Father Sky (I do this every day by the way) but you could also say thank you to the earth for providing you with scrumptious food, or thank you for the fresh lake you were able to swim in or the incredible sunrise or sunset you were able to watch.  One gorgeous planet love thing each day to be grateful for this week and feel your overall sense of connection, wellbeing and joy grow.

And remember gorgeous souls: YOGA + PEOPLE + PLANET - we’re all in this together!  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 22: Dig deep because I know you’ve got what it takes

Gorgeous people this week is about truly digging deep and connecting with our innate resilience so that we can not just keep going and survive these Panny D times but maybe even find a little space to thrive during global chaos.  I know that depending on where you live or are in lockdown right now, very much determines where you are on the pandemic curve of affectedness, of risk, of restrictions and freedoms, and on the path to the ‘new normal’.  But I think I can safely assume that wherever you are in the world life has not gone back to the way it was before and that for all the blessings we are counting and the gratitude we are practicing, some days this is just damn hard. And so I just want to say that I hear you, I feel you and I’m so with you feeling all the feels right now.

This is THE moment in this crisis when we need to dig deep and connect with our inner resilience whilst doing all we can to maintain any and all sense of well being we have in our lives  And by this I don’t mean that we become the cliches of ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ (god I’m so over that one!), or ‘it’s all character building’ (I’ve got enough character thanks very much!).  Instead let us all pause and take a moment and remind ourselves what it is that keeps us well, to be kind, understanding and forgiving to ourselves and those around us and to keep loving fiercely whenever we can.

We all have some level of innate resilience that we can call on in tough times and depending on life experiences both past and recent this might be stronger or more depleted in some of us.  We can all be conscious of what and who needs to be in our lives and what we need to be doing to make us feel the most well, strongest and healthiest version of ourselves.  These last weeks I have to confess to having let some of my ‘resilience practices’ become less than regular shall we say.  In these crazy times and whilst I have time off work, it seemed important to let routine go and give in to the flow.  This definitely allowed me more sleep and a greater sense of freedom but I also noticed that when I don’t meditate at a regular hour or write every day in my journal that I’m also more emotional and less of an observer of my emotions and how I respond to challenging situations.  Because my gratitude practice is connected to my meditation, I also found that not meditating in the morning meant that sometimes I went all the way until late evening without taking a moment to remind myself what I’m grateful for.  I feel deeply imperfect and imposterish telling you all this, but I also really believe that sharing our struggles now more than ever is  so important in connecting into our real human experience right now.  

This week whilst we stay with our five big Bliss Commitments I’m offering you a slightly different approach to them, using what I call a personal resilience map.  This is something I’ve been working on myself as part of some fantastic yoga teacher training I’m doing with the amazing Tina Nance (BTW you can catch Tina’s incredible yin yoga classes on the Yoga Barn).  The idea is to map all the external things you have or do in your life that fill you up and enable you to not only keep functioning but to also thrive.  By mapping these elements that bring health, vitality and resilience to our lives we potentially see where we might have gaps right now but can also keep this map in a really visual place to remind us to keep filling ourselves up.  These are the things that help us dig deep and turn up not only for ourselves but for those we love and others around us, even in the most challenging of times.

Try using the five big Bliss Commitments of yoga, meditation, gratitude, nature appreciation and prana filled food as a starting point for creating your own resilience map.  I’m utterly convinced you’re already practicing many resilience building habits that you can immediately include on your very own resilience map.  But spend some time noticing other things that you map out which you have maybe had less of lately and see if there are ways to bring more of that into your life.  Because we’re human, we’re all naturally wired for connection and physical connection is something that’s been so hard to maintain during this lockdown period.  Even though I’ve met people on Zoom regularly it’s so not the same and I know that at the end of my weekly yoga class over Zoom I have this weird feeling and greater connection but also deep loss and a sense of being totally bereft of physical contact which is usually so much a part of my face to face yoga classes.  Whilst it’s so important to always remember what we do have, it’s equally important to notice what we’re missing and to see if we can find ways to bring what’s missing back into our lives.  This week I’m making more of an effort to connect with friends and loved ones, (even if that’s in a responsible small group, socially distant way….) and to try to fill myself up on good conversation and real talk.

Whilst I’ve continued practicing yoga as ever, if I’m honest it’s felt like a pretty lonely practice these days for the most part.  I’m craving to see my own teachers face to face and this week I’m really committing to take some group classes for myself and my own practice just so I can feel that sense of solidarity and connection that comes with a live community class versus a recorded class on an app.

There are lots of wonderful meditation practices that I’ve been delving into that make us feel more connected to others.  Try choosing a meditation that shares loving kindness, positive energy or  good thoughts out into the world.  Tara Brach has lots of these but even using some of the great meditation apps out there like Headspace and Insight Timer allow you to see how many people are meditating at the same time as you.

If you’re living somewhere where lockdown restrictions have lessened slightly and restaurants have opened I encourage you to find a friend and go eat out or picnic in a park (all at socially responsible distances of course).  Here in Switzerland I ate my first meal with two lovely friends at an outdoor restaurant this past weekend and it was the most glorious, nurturing, wonderful feeling.  It was only after we’d been served that I realised it had been months and months since I had sat out eating with people and had someone else cook for us.  It felt like such a privileged special experience which is so crazy but I realise I had missed this kind of social moment so much.

So many different things fill us up and help make us feel strong and capable and wonderfully resilient.  So take some time this week to create your very own beautiful resilience map and keep it somewhere you can see it on a regular basis.  And remember just because somethings that fill you up might not be possible right now (travel for example), doesn’t mean you shouldn’t include them on your map.  It’s super important to recognise what makes you as an individual feel fabulously strong and capable so be sure to honour the things that are important to you.  If you’re tech minded you could create your map on your computer and then keep a photo of it on your phone.  You might prefer to go old school and draw or write your map, or even cut out pictures from magazines or use your own photographs as inspiration.  You could physically keep your map on the wall of your yoga space or by the bathroom mirror or fridge, anywhere at home where you can see it regularly and be reminded of the things that cultivate your innate resilience and keep you feeling awesome. 

In the past weeks I’ve been lucky enough to have so many yogis on the training I’m doing share their resilience maps so just to give you a little inspiration they’ve included things like sunshine, hugs, yoga nidra, water, dancing, taking a bath, coffee, my pets, self massage, putting my heart to the earth, chatting with friends, walking in nature, music, crying, tea, running, turning my phone off…..you get the idea!  And to convince you that it’s worth doing here’s a pic of my very own resilience map which is helping me right this very moment to get back on track with filling myself up so I can dig deep and call on that innate resilience I know I have and show up for myself and the people I love.  I’d so love to hear from you this week (remember I thrive on connection people so I mean it when I say this!), so send me an email, ask me a question, or even send me a pic and share your own resilience map with me.  I’d love to be inspired by your sense of what makes you resilient and maybe even bring some new practices into my own life.

Sending you all much love and courage dear ones and thank you for being so much a part of what fills me up and makes me feel strong and capable during these mad times.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 21: Wake up to the life you have

This week I had planned to to write about ‘awakening’ being that the flowers are blooming and Spring has definitely sprung here in Heidiland  But I have to admit it feels weird to talk about Spring and emerging from the depths of winter when so much of the world remains in lockdown and life has not, and likely is not returning to what we knew as the old normal.  Despite still being in the winter depths of the COVID pandemic to some degree I do feel that there is somehow an awakening in my soul and perhaps in yours as well.  And that awakening is to the very idea that there is no going back.  There is no return to normal, we are instead creating a new version of our lives and very slowly, very tentatively and I would almost say very vulnerably, awakening to the possibility that life as we know it is redefining itself in real time.  There is no going back.  And quite honestly this is damn scary sometimes!  There is a part of me that longs for a return to normal and what was, to travel freely, to hug loved ones, to drink wine long into the night around the dinner table with beloved friends, talking about the world and how to make it right.  I long for all the incredible, fill me up, experiences I had planned for these last months, (think yoga in Bali and Italy, mountain hiking etc etc), that never were.  And here is where I (where we) have a choice.  I can live in the land of longing and heartache for what never was and what will never be or I can awaken to what is going right now and be awake to the story of the life I have in front of me.  I admit I don’t find this easy.  Part of me wants to cling on to what might have been.  But I know deep down that when we are willing to let go of the past, it makes space for the present and the future.  And we all know there is nothing more boring than someone who is stuck in the past and who can’t enjoy what they have right now.

And so with loving kindness (most days) I force myself to let go, to be present and to awaken to the life I have right now.  Our five big bliss commitments are as always just the thing to help us in awakening to life this week.  Our yoga will focus on twisting and ringing out the old, and opening up to what is right here right now.  This week’s challenge is to try two poses a day and I leave it up to you if you repeat the same poses or try something new each day.  More important is consistency.  Think of the asanas as a metaphor for awakening this week.  So choose one twist and one heart opener each day and practice them faithfully.  For twists you have all kinds of options, ardha matsyandrasana, any seated twist, reverse prayer twist in utkatasana or a lunge, reverse trikonasana, the list goes on!  For heart openers think of something accessible to you, ustrasana / camel post, cobra or upward facing dog, salabasana, bow / dhanurasana or even wheel pose if that feels good for you.  Everyday this week two poses, twist first and let go of what might have been, open and awaken the heart to what is right now.

Our meditation practice is the ultimate life hack in staying present and awakening to what is so make sure you get plenty of meditation time in this week.  If you can add an extra minute to your regular practice that would be amazing, If you have more time you might even stop for a lunch time five minute meditation.  Here’s a beautiful meditation by Mooji called ‘Nothing Here But You’ which really brings you right into the moment.  If you’re more inclined to sit in silent meditation you might also use a mantra as an anchor to keep coming back to your breath and keep your mind focused.  Choose a mantra that feels awakening to you.  It could be as simple as ‘I am awake’, ‘I am awake to the present moment / to right now’, ‘I am here now’, or ‘I am awake to my life’.  As long as the short phrase resonates deeply with you, then let it filter into your meditation practice and your DNA as a way of staying awake to what is this week.

Gratitude is as ever a practice that awakens us to the abundance  of what we have right now and guides us to appreciate our life as it is rather than what it might have been.  It’s hard to maintain a sense of longing for what is lost when we are practicing gratitude.  Try making a list of all the things this pandemic experience has given you and that you appreciate.  You might also say thank you for being awake to……you can fill in the blank with your own version of what you feel thankful for.  And you could even add the things you are thankful to let go of. Because whatever you release is making space for other awesomeness to come into your life and who doesn’t want more of that?!

Awaken to seasonal prana-filled food this week and focus on what is right in front of you on the food front.  Rather than trying to source goods and ingredients from afar try buying the freshest, most local produce you can and awaken your body to all the vitamins and nutrients of this type of food.  It might mean you have a more limited choice if you stay fresh and local, but eating in this way will definitely awaken and enliven the cells of your body with prana and life force.  If you’re in the middle of winter that might mean more nourishing root vegetables and warm, spicy soups and for those of us heading into summer think crisp, green salads, tomatoes drizzled in local olive oil and berries fresh from the garden.  One of my favourite winter recipes is to thinly slice root vegetables, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, parsnips and a small onion and slowly roast them in a pan on the stove. They need virtually no accompaniment other than a little sea salt and pepper although you could add some rosemary and thyme if you have it in your garden.  And for a simple summer salad?  Take your lettuce of choice, add in handfuls of mint and parsley and coriander and drizzle with olive oil, lemon and a dash of honey.  Life couldn’t be more perfect and awake with these simple taste sensations.  

Eating fresh food like this is a way to become more awake to nature and what the planet has to offer.  It’s not at all useful these days sitting at home and thinking about all the times you missed being outside due to lockdown.  Just about everyone is allowed a little time outdoors even in these Panny D times so get outside and see the world with fresh eyes.  Even if you live in the city, taking a walk and looking up at the sky or scanning the horizon brings new perspectives that awaken us to things we’ve never noticed before even when we have lived somewhere for a long time.  The same can happen out in nature if we’re walking in the countryside.  All we need to do is slow down and look so we can really see.  It’s like our gaze awakens us to things right in front of us that we may have passed many times without noticing before.  Walk slowly enough to feel your feet touch the earth underneath you and shift your gaze regularly so you notice the strawberries on the side of the path or the eagle soaring up in the sky or the kangaroo or deer watching you from the shrubbery off in the distance.  Being present and aware is being awake to our lives and this dear ones is the ultimate bliss.

I’d so love to hear what you have become awake to this week so send me an email or text and get in touch and share your awakened life.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 20: Getting all loved up with you

How often do you stop and take a moment to tell yourself how awesome you are?  I mean to really take a breath and take stock and be totally up front about your fabulosity?  If you’re anything like a human then I suspect that like me, you’re pretty good at some regular self chastising or at least feeling like you should somehow be doing ‘more’, whatever more is…….This ‘I must be doing more’ vibe is almost omnipresent in today’s lockdown world, where it seems that the entire world of social media assumes that if we are not in the office or physically at our place of work, well we clearly have time to learn at least three new languages, finish a Masters and gain ourselves a six pack worth of abdominals.  So let me assure you that you are perfectly imperfect exactly as you are.  There is no ‘more’ out there waiting for you in some mysterious parallel universe.  What you’ve got right here, right now in this very moment is truly enough.

Which makes this week’s Bliss Commitments all about you!  And taking time to appreciate yourself so that you can then also turn that appreciation to others around you.  As so many wellness gurus (and airlines, well in those pre-COVID days when we all flew on planes), say, fasten your own seatbelt first before attending to those around you. 

Gratitude is at the heart of any self appreciation practice because it gives us an opportunity to turn inwards and remind ourselves of our existing awesomeness.  I know that’s not always easy to do and that there are many external factors that seem to influence how we feel about ourselves on a minute by minute basis.  But I promise you that there is a still, beautiful place inside you that is the absolute essence of you and which never ever changes no matter what goes on in the world.  Tap into that essence this week and show it some love.  It could be as simple as thanking your body, thanking you mind, thanking your breath.  Maybe you write a list of all the things you love about yourself or ask your favourite people to tell you three things they love about you.  (Please please send me an email with that question if you need help and I’ll happily tell you three things I love and adore about you!).  I once even wrote myself my own marriage vows can you believe it?! (Yes I am a total hippy I know!) I read a story in a Stephen Cope book, (he’s that incredible yogi author), about his friend who held her own wedding ceremony, asked all her pals to turn up dressed in white and witness her marrying herself as the ultimate symbol of self love.  Whilst I haven’t yet mustered up the courage to invite you all to my very own me, myself and I wedding, I did write my own vows - a long piece about all the reasons why I’d marry me!  I know it sounds crazy but it felt amazing to have on paper all the reasons why I think I am a worthwhile human being and deserve to be loved.  So if you’re feeling really game get on with and write your own wedding vows so that every time you’re having a wobble or wondering if you are enough, you can pull them out and know that you are.

Think of yoga as an act of self love and appreciation in your practice this week.  My very favourite thing to do in my own practice is to add in self massage.  And because now is the time when you’re least likely to go out for a massage then we’ve gotta step up and give it to ourselves people.  Although for parents or those living in bigger family units I highly recommend you add in a daily massage train where you sit in a circle facing all in one direction and give each other some massage love.  For those of us living alone remember to massage the arches of your feet and between your toes when you’re sitting in butterfly pose (badhakonasana) or run your fingers through your hair, massaging your temples, jaw and eye sockets when lying in savasana.  Even if you’re seated in staff pose (parchimottanasana) then take time to use the tips of your fingers like rain or little faux acupuncture points to massage your legs or any other part of your body that needs some love.  And if you’re really stuck then here’s my Emergency Face Yoga video to help you out - you’re welcome :-)

Prana filled food is always an act of appreciation in my book so this week should be full of it.  Ask yourself if you had only one meal left in your life, what would you eat?  And then make it for yourself at least once (if not over and over again), this week.  And when sitting down to eat your absolute favourite meal, be sure to light the candles, use your best crockery, cutlery and napkins, put on your favourite music and savour the bliss of nourishing yourself with such luxury and goodness.  If you hate cooking then order in your favourite food as an act of kindness to yourself.  I once ate temple food in South Korea and I have to say that would be pretty high on my list of last meals but in the absence of my skills in making my own temple food I think I could get by on a last meal of hot apple crumble and ice-cream……just sayin’………

In this week’s nature appreciation let’s also turn inwards to remind ourselves that we as incredible human beings are also a miracle of nature.  You could find old photographs of yourself when you were younger and look through these as a reminder of the incredible human you are, having grown in so many ways (hopefully in your fashion choices too!). If you can get outside please do and try and get your bare feet on the grass to feel the sheer pleasure of that green stuff tickling your feet.  I find this not only grounds us but it makes me feel the miracle of being alive and is a reminder of how damn lucky we are to be walking the planet together at this particular moment in time.  Anything that really activates your senses in nature this week is good fun for reminding yourself of the miracle of your humaness.

And finally meditation.  I’ve been doing the Headspace pack on relationships these last weeks and one of the things I love about this pack is that it starts with self appreciation - the idea that to have better relationships we first need to acknowledge the good in ourselves.  And you know what - it actually feels pretty powerful to sit for a moment and think of something good I did for someone else each day.  It’s a solid reminder of our innate goodness and that it’s ok to acknowledge the gifts we give to others as a positive means of being in relationship with ourselves.  So whether you use the Headspace app or not, use your meditation this week to think of something good about yourself and / or something that you have gifted someone else.  And it could be as simple as the gift or time, or a smile or sending someone a great song you heard - just be sure to remind yourself how awesome you are whilst you sit in meditation.  Use the stillness created by this beautiful practice to bask in your fabulosity and to send yourself some love.  

Have an incredible week of self love and appreciation gorgeous souls and remember that you are always enough and perfect exactly as you are.  Namaste. Donna x     

Bliss Blog Week 19: Harmonious living = enlightenment

Balance means so many different things to so many people and yet we all seem to be striving to find more of it, and when we do find it in whatever form we are seeking, it is often fleeting and rarely arrives with any longevity.  I believe balance in all its forms are utterly interconnected so that each time we notice something is in or out of balance, it acts as a little messenger for the other parts of our life where we seek more equilibrium.  Our practice on the mat is so often a metaphor for what’s going on in the rest of our lives.  When we struggle to take one foot off the floor in tree pose, it’s highly likely that there are other things out of balance in our lives such as breath, food, work and rest.

From a yoga perspective balance is sattva (although its translation is harmony), the middle ground of the three gunas and surrounded by rajas and tamas.  In yoga the gunas are considered to be the three basic constitutes of the cosmos and are constantly in flux affecting everything around us including energy, matter and consciousness.  Rajas is activity and movement, passion and energy whilst tamas is darkness and destruction, laziness and ignorance.  One of the easiest ways to associate with rajas and tamas is to think of those moments where you’ve felt really on the edge of burn out or collapse (even if just temporarily).  There are two ways this feeling tends to go.  You’re either full or an empty, wired energy, moving around, trying to get things done, talking quickly and wondering what the hell is taking everyone else so long, or you’re so exhausted that wine and Netflix feel like the only possibility at the end of the day.  Both are easily disguised as balance.  The extreme rajas I described above is often viewed or wrongly labeled as success or achievement or ‘fully of energy’ whilst the tamas I mention is sometimes called self care of down time.  They are neither and none and in the medium to long term both come with considerable health risks.

So how do we find the middle ground that is sattva?  The kind of grounded, smooth energy, the talkativeness that comes with being highly motivated and finding meaning in life or the self care that lifts you up and makes you feel nourished rather than leaving you firmly imbedded in the couch addicted to the latest series and the tub of icecream.  The good news is that so many of our bliss commitments already go a long way to reducing an excess of rajas and tamas and so this week we’ll be using them specifically to find balance and harmony and to become more sattvic.  Consider this week another step on the path to Samadhi or enlightenment!

We usually start with yoga, but this week I want to start with food as there are foods that are considered to be sattvic and just by eating them you begin to increase harmony in your life.  Here’s a fantastic Ayurvedic list of sattvic foods from Hale Pule but think nuts, all kinds of beans, many tropical fruits, lots of green vegetables and protein filled grains such as amaranth, quinoa and millet.  There’s enough on this list that even if your local supermarket or online grocer has limited stock in these Corona Times you’ll still be able to find plenty of sattvic foods to nourish yourself with this week.  See what you can cook up and then notice how you feel.  There is no doubt good food can feel enlightening so here’s a list of some of my favourite (and most importantly quick!) Sattvic recipes.

Easy chic pea and spinach curry

Fennel and watermelon salad

Ayurvedic bok choi

Green pomegranate salad

Buddha bowl with fake kimchi

In yoga so many of us are addicted to movement and therefore vinyasa and sweat and the physical sensations of action with our bodies.  But practicing this type of yoga exclusively can really over exaggerate the rafjastic qualities in our lives.  For every yin class I’ve ever taught the feedback always includes, ‘wow that was harder than I thought’ and ‘OMG I loved that!’ and it’s a solid reminder that even our yoga needs balance.  Savasana is THE most forgotten pose in so many classes I’ve been to over the years (these are also the ones I don’t go back to!).  So if you find yourself addicted or at least practicing just one type of yoga then this week’s challenge is to switch it up and try something new.  If you’re usually on your mat moving a lot then the ultimate challenge is to try Bryan Kest’s LSD (Long Slow and Deep) class and because it’s Panny-D times you can actually catch Bryan live over Crowd Cast.  This class is guaranteed to bring more sattva into your life!  If you find yourself feeling more tamasic and spending all of your time lolling about on your back on your yoga mat then you need to take it up a notch and get moving to bring things into harmony.  My all time fave class on Glo is Kathryn Budig’s Better Than Coffee class which is a 30 minute highly accessible class that will do as promised and make you feel like you just had a shot of caffeine but without the negative side effects.  If you’re on my EY Vimeo site then check out my Super Hero class for increased energy (more rajas) and my Sleep Tight class for more chill (tamas).  Think of your yoga practice as a prescription to bring more balance and sattva into your life.

A regular gratitude practice is something that ALWAYS increases harmony in our lives and when it comes from the heart then feeling grateful if also deeply humbling and shifts us into a state of openness, purity, light and connection, all qualities of sattva.  Sometimes our gratitude practice gets stale and we say or write the words of the things that we’re thankful for but there’s no heart behind them or we don’t feel grateful deep in our bones, hell sometimes we feel grateful in a guilty way because we have so much when others don’t.  This kind of gratitude doesn’t send us to that sattvic state and so this week I’d love you to try a couple of things.  First is to step up whatever gratitude practice you have going on to a daily practice and if possible do it at the same time each day to build positive habits.  Write what you’re grateful for on a piece of paper (no writing on your smart phone), and then write why this thing / person / situation makes you feel thankful AND what it brings into your life that wasn’t there before it.  One thing to be thankful for each day but make sure you write it down and explore it deeply.  When I do this I can literally feel the chemistry of my brain changing and life coming into balance.

Meditation has a similar capacity to change the brain chemistry and quite honestly I find that a meditation practice is THE life hack to a sattvic life.  But there is meditation and there is meditation.  This week I’m offering you a list of the meditations that I find shift me immediately out of victimhood, depression, exhaustion, over-doing and running on empty into connection, bliss, harmony, and love.  Try one or try them all and let me know what you think!

Headspace pack on relationships

Tara Brach and Awakening the Heart

Guided Gratitude with Giselle Mari

Bryan Kest Meditation of Gratitude

Blissology Fluid Honey meditation

Jack Kornfield Steady Heart meditation

Kundalini Ra Ma Da Sa meditation for ultimate healing

And finally nature appreciation.  Sattva is in itself sometimes described as a force of nature, a force to create balance and harmony for the planet.  This week try observing how natural events and forces bring more harmony to the planet and its people.  Think of it as nature creating light and dark, yin and yang, life and death or you might think of it as Mother Nature and her natural rhythms and cycles.  What is the sattva of nature and the planet that feels most present in your life today?  How does it make you feel more harmonious and in balance?  How can you bring more of that into your life?  Journal some of the thoughts that come up or offer up a prayer of gratitude for the sattva that nature delivers to you.  And most importantly get out into nature and onto the planet (with the usual respectful safe distancing as needed) as much as you can!

Stay chill gorgeous souls and let harmony rule your universe.  NAMASTE.  Donna x

Bliss Blog Week 18: Get over yourself and give in

Beautiful people thank you for being here with me and for reading this blog and for stepping into this blissful journey and state of being despite all that is going on in the world today.  In these days of physical disconnection it is a stabilising thought to know that we still walk the earth alongside each other and that we are all part of the same tribe.  I hope after last week’s focus on our hearts you feel a little lighter and freer in some ways.  

Personally I feel the challenge of the phoenix flames still rising and burning off old stories (remember the Bliss Blog from week 16!) and the difficulty of staying light hearted whilst being in the midst of all of fire.  And because I’m human my natural instinct is to resist anything and everything that’s hard, painful or arduous.  You know how that old saying goes, what we resist persists!  And so the only other choice we have to ease the path of transformation and step into the light is surrender. And so welcome to week 18 dear ones, a week of yielding or succumbing to whatever is.  In some ways it sounds easy but I know from practicing life and yin and restorative yoga, that sometimes the hardest thing in the world is just to be and to let go of control.  And I think that this is especially hard right now when we have less control than ever over our lives and when there is so much uncertainty in the world.  Because one of the ways we often cope with crisis is by taking back control. And yet here we are in a moment in time when we’d love to be in control and yet we are not.  But not to worry!  I’m here to be your guide and companion on a week long journey of letting go of control and surrendering to whatever is to be.

And yes this means we have a week of yin and restorative yoga ahead of us people!  I can almost hear many of you jumping with joy and others of you groaning with fear.  This is the effect such practices of surrender have on us - we often love them and hate them all at once.  One might imagine that staying still for a really long time in a yoga shape or two would be easy peasy but as so many of us have found out through our own experiences, it’s often way harder than busting out a bazillion sun salutations.  So let’s think of this week’s yoga as a life practice rather than a yoga practice.  It’s like we’ll be building our muscles of surrender.  And why is this important outside of the yoga mat you might wonder?  I like to think of surrender as an act of creating space.  When we keep resisting something (or someone) it often feels like we are pushing and pulling and trying to control energy and this in turn uses a lot of our own energy and takes up space that could better used for more blissful pursuits. When we practice letting go of resistance on our yoga mat it helps us tune into where we feel resistance in our lives and supports us to let go of that, making space for the new and the other to arrive.  Energetically when we succumb and stop resisting it’s like a little signal to the universe to let all the good stuff in.  I write this as if I’m a pro at letting go of resistance and control but honestly it’s a life’s work and one of the biggest reasons I continue to turn up to these practices of yoga and meditation is to remind myself to surrender, let go and trust.  So if this week is hard on that front, just know that you are a normal human being.  I’ll be sharing daily yin poses on Instagram and at the end of this week we’ll be able to practice a beautiful yin and restorative yoga class together so make sure you check in on FB or Vimeo to join me on the mat.

How can we use our meditation practice to let go of control?  In a way meditation sometimes feels like the moment when I have no control over my mind, almost like it’s a free for all for those wild crazy thoughts to just come on over and party.  And in fact that is a particular kind of meditation and one you could try out this week.  Meditation often cues us to acknowledge the thoughts, let them go and come back to our breath or the physical sensations in the body.  I think this sometimes gives the impression that when we meditate, we should have a blank, quiet mind - something we all know is rarely the case in reality.  But a different kind of meditation asks us to just let all the thoughts in.  Don’t resist them, don’t judge them, don’t try and banish them, just be with your thoughts as you meditate.  Yield to the crazy and just watch what happens.  I’m often surprised at how effective this act of surrender is in dissipating unhelpful thoughts or an overthinking mind.  It’s like by giving the thoughts permission they stop being interested in sticking around.  Pema Chödrön talks about this in so many of her teachings and calls it making friends with your pain as a way to reduce suffering.

It’s also possible that we surrender to food this week and by this I don’t mean surrender to that false craving for the entire tub of ice cream in the freezer of the five bottles of wine you stashed in the cupboard for an emergency situation.  But let’s be honest we are in an emergency of sorts and rather than give ourselves a hard time about the outrageous amounts of COVID cooking we’ve been doing, (mine includes some dough, kombucha, chocolate chip cookies and a banoffie pie), let’s just give into wherever the food takes us.  James Gordon, MD and author of The Transformation talks about the negative impact stressful times, especially prolonged stress, have on our digestive system and notes how our bodies need more nutrients than usual to deal with additional stressors.  Not surprising then that our bodies need and crave different things right now because we consciously or subconsciously feel a certain level of threat and uncertainty.  Things like iron, omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin D3 are more important than ever during these troubled times and tumeric can give a natural added boost to your immune system.  So this week try taking a breath before your hand reaches into the cupboard and listening to what nourishment your body is asking for.  I’m pretty sure you’ll find that your body wants prana filled foods, it might just be that they’re different to the ones you normally eat.  So give in to what you need to eat rather than feeling that you have to stay in control of your usual eating habits and patterns. And if it makes you feel any better at all I’ve shifted from 7pm dinners and bed by 10pm to 10pm dinners and bed at god knows what time.  I spent a few weeks feeling stressed about this total change of eating schedule then gave up and started enjoying my new found change and the freedom and greater sense of alignment attached to it.

I love the idea of succumbing or even yielding to Mother Nature and the planet as part of our nature appreciation this week.  The idea of letting the elements guide us feels so good and it makes me feel more aligned and at peace in life overall.  What can this look like in our day to day existence?  Well I can’t help but think of that wonderful German saying ‘there is no bad weather, there is just bad clothing’.  I know not everyone can go outside much these days but if you can, even just a little bit, try and commit to time outdoors every day this week no matter what the weather.  Surrendering to the planet might also mean making more of an effort to catch a sunrise or sunset, or if you’re really game then try rising with the sun and sleeping at sunset.  Instead of ordering your usual veggie box, choose a seasonal one and be prepared to eat / cook whatever it delivers, yielding to whatever the planet is producing locally.  Pick one thing about the natural world this week and just surrender to it.  One of my absolute favourite things to do is to stand outside and turn my face up to the rain and surrender to the sky opening and pouring down upon me - try it and you’ll feel AMAZING I promise!

And finally try succumbing to gratitude.  Let go of any feelings of entitlement and victimhood and allow gratitude to pervade your entire being.  Stop holding on to the idea that you deserve this or that and instead stay present with what you already have.  Release frustrations around what you can’t control and refocus on what is already turning up for you.  If it’s helpful you could try writing down (or even just thinking of) moments in your life when you have surrendered to something and then give thanks for the positive results you experienced from that moment of surrender. 

And if you’re looking for a little more on how surrender can impact your life positively, check out this great article on the Science of Surrender from Huff Post  which might inspire you further and reminds us how the relaxing practices of yoga and meditation that we are all already doing, help us succumb to life right now as it is.  Enjoy giving in dears ones and have a blissful week.  NAMASTE, Donna x PS Join me for live classes and workshops over Zoom and book your spot here!

Bliss Blog Week 17: Living light hearted in troubled times

So amazing souls how are you this week?  I’m wondering if you managed to burn off some of those old stories last week with our fierier practices and hoping that you feel at least a little bit renewed and ready to emerge reborn from these ‘Panny-D’ times.  Don’t you just love that phrase - ‘Panny-D’?  Brilliant British mockery (thanks to The High Low) of one of the greatest crises of our times and it’s been reduced it to a silly little hyphenated phrase.  We could all use a little bit more humour these days couldn’t we?  And whilst I really don’t want to minimise the seriousness of current global affairs to total silliness I do appreciate being able to laugh during our darkest moments.  I think our hearts need that right now, a bit of light heartedness in troubled times.  And that means that this week we are going to be tuning into our heart wisdom, using our five big bliss commitments to lighten our hearts and feel uplifted in whatever we are doing.

In yoga we’ll be practicing some beautiful, soulful heart openers, poses and practices that really give us an opportunity to soften into the heart space.  My experience is that when we take time to listen and feel the heart it provides us with unfathomable wisdom.  One fantastic and super easy way of tuning into our heart and all it has to tell is to literally place your hand over your heart whenever you have a wobbly or uncomfortable moment and breath into your hand, asking your heart to tell you whatever it needs to tell you.  My amazing coach Judy Okten shared this little trick with me and it is a game changer people.  If you want to practice more heart opening asanas on your mat and weave them into your practice then I highly recommend staying simple so that every practice isn’t about working up to some grand pose, rather your practice is all about the heart.  Something you can add in easily is cobra pose which comes around again and again with our sun salutations.  Variations on cobra include taking your hands wide and up onto your finger tips (I love that Kathryn Budig calls this intimidation cobra) and then dropping one should down, one at a time.  You could also add a salabasana to your sun sal to extend your practice or take ustrasana / camel pose every time you drop your knees to the floor.  Think simple and regular with your heart opening asanas so that you spend this week consistently softening your heart, listening to what it has to say and staying wide open to all the world has on offer right now.

Meditation is also a place where we can focus on our heart and really listen in to rhythm, beat and wisdom.  Did you know that if we were all together breathing, meditation, chanting or singing at the same time, that our heartbeats would naturally synchronise to the same rhythm and our hearts would literally be beating in unison.  Sort of like how clocks start ticking together when in the same room.  There’s lots of research around this and many choirs deliberately synchronise their heart beats so bring more unity and connection to their singing.  This week try a specific heart meditation.  There are so many that I love, anything by Deepak Chopra or Sarah Clark on Glo but here’s one from the incredible Tara Brach - Embracing Life with an Open Heart.  Even if you just sit for a few moments with your hand on your heart, breathing and feeling the rise and fall of your chest and staying open to any wisdom that makes itself known to you in this stillness - this right here is enough.  We can easily add our gratitude practice to our meditation this week so as you’re sitting in stillness tuning into all your heart has to say you can also ask it ‘what am I most grateful for’ and ‘who am I most grateful for’.  Trust what and who comes immediately to mind and silently give thanks, filling your heart with gratitude.  

There is so so much that literally be stills my beating heart out in nature and as I roam the planet even in these Panny-D times. The other day it was an eagle soaring high in the sky, riding the air currents and the glassy smoothness of the lake minus the busy boating crew that’s usually out there.  This week write a love letter to the planet or anything in nature that fills your heart with love and joy.  You can tell Mother Nature how much you adore and love her, or thank her or share whatever loving words you want to write to her.  As you do this take time to slow down your breath, sit quietly and see what words of love arise that you want to share with the planet.

This the week to eat heart healthy foods gorgeous people and there’s a whole list of things that make our heart happier and healthier.  Green leafy vegetables such as spinach or kale, flax seed, berries, nuts such as almonds and walnuts are all considered heart happy foods.  The good news?  Red wine (1-2 glasses maximum per day) and 70% + dark chocolate are also on the list.  So do your research and spend this week nourishing your heart with all the foods it loves.  The symbolism of ‘feeding’ your heart will also help it feel happy and light and loved within your own body.

And whilst laughter is not (yet) on our list of big bliss commitments (maybe we should add it?!) I strongly recommend doing anything and everything that makes you feel light hearted this week.  Laughter is definitely one of those so think funny movies, stand up comedy, telling ‘knock knock’ jokes, dancing madly to your fave 80’s play list, eating pancakes for breakfast - whatever it takes to lift the heart from heavy to light, do it and do it with all your heart.  So from my heart to yours dear ones, have an incredible, light hearted week.  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 16 -Prepare for a fiery rebirth

Dear ones, whether we like it or not we are right in the middle of transition.  The thing that makes me feel that more than ever these days is the arrival of Spring’s sunny days, the appearance of the wild flowers on the mountain trails and the fact that it was the Easter holiday weekend and yet I barely noticed.  So often we resist transition and change and yet as we see so clearly, nature continues on her journey of changing seasons and regular transitions whether we are up for it or not.  Here we have a choice.  Do we put all our energies into resisting the changes around us that are going to happen anyway or do we gracefully surrender and allow ourselves to conserve our energy and free flow right into the middle of transition and (eventually) out the other side?  I say embrace the whole damn thing!  Let go of what we can’t control and step into the messy middle of transition setting our intention to emerge out the other side of it like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

And that got me thinking about this age old legend of the phoenix.  Every 500 years, the phoenix builds herself a funeral pyre and lies down within its flames only to re-emerge from the fire and its ashes more beautiful, more powerful and stronger than ever before to live out her next 500 years.  I am in love with the idea of burning off the old to be reborn again, (N.B. I’m a Leo, we like fire a lot!).  And so I want to share with you some ideas on how we can use our practice and our bliss commitments to jump right into transformation and emerge reborn and more gorgeous than ever.  I mean if we have to live through a pandemic we might as well come out the other end of it feeling fabulous! 

That means that this week’s yoga practice is going to be fiery and we’ll be tackling some more complex poses.  We’ll go step by step as always so you can find your version of each posture.  Our peak pose this week will be bird of paradise or Svarga Dvijasana which translates as ‘paradise twice born’ - our very own yoga phoenix! I’ll be posting daily poses on Instagram and Facebook with all the asanas to work on to lead up to the majestic bird of paradise.  I’d love to see your version of each posture so feel free to post them in the comments section on FB as a reminder that both a fiery practice and a rebirth look very individual for us all!  I would so love it if you could follow along each day.  It’s just one pose a day and then by the end of the week we’ll all be ready together to emerge from the metaphoric ashes into beautiful Svarga Dvijasana.  On Sunday 19th April I’ll be sharing a live two hour workshop called Phoenix Rising and we’ll have a chance to practice all we’ve learned this week. My beautiful pal Chloe, owner of The Yoga Revolution is hosting this so if you’d like to join, grab yourself a ticket here and get 50% off the normal price with the code BlissArmy2020.  

Try journaling this week as an addition to your gratitude practice.  Think of times in your life when you went through a big change or transformation and emerged out the other side.  No doubt there were some challenging moments but take some time to write down all the good things that these transformations brought you and then offer up a special thank you and a heartfelt moment of gratitude for all the goodness such change brought into your life.  You might also take a few moments to write down any lessons or tips that you learned that could help you through this current transition as a reminder to yourself that you have been reborn before, stronger and more powerful.

Kapalabhati in Sanskrit means ‘shining forehead’ but is most often referred to as ‘breath of fire’ and is a common pranayama breathing practice.  It is perfect for this week’s theme of rebirth and emergence and has many health benefits.  Kapalabhati is said to cleanse the lungs and the entire respiratory system (always a great idea to do this when we’re living in ‘Corona Times’), and awaken the nerves along the central spinal nadi (energy current), creating increased energy and a sense of overall renewal.  This breathing exercise is also an excellent way to enter more deeply into meditation.  This week try using Kapalabhati as a gateway to arrive on your meditation seat already feeling refreshed and renewed.  You can read more here on how to engage in this pranayama and keep your eye out on my FB and Insta where I’ll be demonstrating live.

Nature has already started it’s rebirth in many parts of the world with the arrival of Spring and if you’re on the other side of the world then no doubt you are already entering into the transition of Autumn when the air begins to feel fresher and has a certain crisp smell to it.  This week notice the transitions of the planet for your nature appreciation.  It could be as simple as the transition between night and day, the popping up of the wildflowers out of the earth, the falling of the leaves from the trees as plants begin to hibernate.  Take time wherever you are to notice how nature changes every single day and how our planet has these completely natural cycles and rhythms which it operates on, independent of anything us humans are doing.  Maybe even write what you notice in your journal as a reminder that the world at large is built on cycles, rhythms, flows, death and rebirth.

Food is also a way we can feel reborn.  Either by feeling nourished with foods that are full of vitamins or especially fresh or by being fed by someone we love.  This week I want to introduce an Ayurvedic perspective into our prana filled foods.  In short, the ancient science of Ayurveda works on the premise that each of us is born with a certain ‘constitution’ or ‘dosha’ and that depending on which dosha you are, some foods work better for you than others.  In Ayurveda we also believe that your dosha can become out of balance, especially during times of transition and by readjusting your diet you can bring yourself back into healthy alignment.  If you feel like you’re in the fires of transformation then a good rule of thumb is to avoid foods that over stoke your internal digestive fire (agni) and bring more pitta (fire) into your body.  Such foods and drinks include chilli, citrus fruits, raw onion and garlic, coffee, alcohol and it’s best overall to minimise heavy, salty and spicy foods.  Instead cool the fires of transformation with fresh fruits and vegetables, rice, quinoa, spelt, barley, oats, milk, butter, ghee, and foods rich in the bitter tastes such as green, leafy vegetables, rhubarb and rocket.  Pukka Herbs is a fantastic resource on Ayurveda and as a starting point you can take this short quiz to see what dosha you are and perhaps even make some small adjustments to your diet to help you see through these transformative times.

So enjoy it all gorgeous souls.  Stop resisting, step into the fires of transition and transformation and emerge reborn and renewed and stronger and more divine than ever before.  I’m right here beside you in these changing times and looking forward to seeing you on the mat VERY soon.  NAMASTE.  Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 15 - Stillness is the new super power

These days so many of us have gone from operating life at 100 miles an hour to suddenly being forced to stay home and slow down.  And by slow down I realise that for many of you that doesn’t equate to doing less.  For some of you I know this means doing more - especially if you have kids and animals at home.  But no matter how much you are trying to juggle in life right now the likelihood is you’re probably not able to do that at your usual pace.  Whether that’s because everyday services are not available right now ,(Barclay’s Bank quoted me a minimum of an hour wait on the phone this week!), or because you’re not in your usual workplace and have other people and pet demands on you, or because it’s just not possible to carry out daily life in the usual way at home in the house.  And I know that all of this is not necessarily an easy transition so I thought this week I’d write about the benefits of stillness and why cultivating this in our daily lives is just as important as chilling out on our yoga mats.  And, most importantly, how balancing time between stillness and action actually makes us feel more balanced (or more sattvic in yoga terms) in body, mind and soul.

So however you’ve had to slow down, and however frustrating that is, perhaps it’s also a an unexpected chance to do some resetting that will strengthen your personal resilience and bring you to a more chilled place not only for now in these ‘Corona Times’ but for the years of your lovely long life that are still to come.  Yes yes yes - there is life after Corona I promise!

One of the simplest (but definitely not the easiest), ways to create stillness is with our physical yoga practice.  So this week ditch the fast flow and ease into longer holds between your usual vinyasa or sun salutation or crank up the yin practice which is the ultimate way to cultivate stillness - we’re talking 8 minute plus holds in every pose here people!  If that ain’t stillness then what is?

It’s highly likely this kind of practice might feel weird and pretty frustrating at first if you’re not used to this kind of yoga.  But being still in our practice isn’t all about relaxing.  Imagine holding Warrior II pose for three minutes.  That’s stillness but it’s also building fire and strength too and you can practice some or all of that every time you step on your mat this week.  On Vimeo this week I’ll be offering a mix of both to inspire you.  Some long, still, fiery holds and some more chillaxed, still yin postures.  I hope you can join me at the end of our fifteenth week (I know can you believe it???) together to practice this stillness on the mat.

When we sit down to meditate I think we sort of assume that we become immediately still.  I don’t know about you but this is not often the case for me and how restless my body is, is usually a good sign of where my mind is at.  Think restless body, monkey mind!  Strangely it shows up in my eyelids of all places.  Sometimes I close my eyes to meditate and my eyelids keep flickering and won’t stay shut.  This is a guarantee that my mind is all over the place.  This week forget setting goals to create complete stillness in your meditation practice (especially if you’re home with others!).  Instead the work this week in meditation is just to notice the level of stillness, (or alternatively restlessness), when you sit down to meditate, put your hand on your heart, take a deep breath in and tell yourself that wherever you’re at right now is perfect.  This small action alone will give you at least one moment of stillness as you sit.  Accepting where we are at, with whatever we’ve got right now is also a way to surrender, relax and be still.  Try it out and let me know what you notice.  I’d love to know I’m not the only one out there with flickering eyelids!!!!

Let’s simplify our gratitude practice this week as a way of creating stillness.  Some days and some weeks we’re seeking out all that makes us grateful.  And maybe sometimes finding gratitude seems like a ‘have to do’ rather than something that fills us up.  Now is not the time to add more things to your list and stillness is definitely not created by adding more things to our lists or our lives.  So take whatever gratitude practice you have right now, whether it be daily, weekly or random moments and just make it one single thing to be thankful for.  So no searching or seeking or feeling like you have to be grateful for so many things.  Make whatever thankful comes your way THE moment of the day or the week.  And when you find it, sit with it and breathe for five deep beautiful breaths, imagining that all these feelings of gratitude and thanks are seeping deep into the pores of your body, into your DNA.  And enjoy this state of just being.

Do the same thing with your nature appreciation. Don’t feel pushed or compelled to seek out something extra special.  Instead whenever you have a view or a moment outdoors, simply slow down and let your gaze rest on something interesting or beautiful that catches your eye and makes you feel curious.  As you let your eyes observe, see if you can stop and stay physically still for five breaths.  This very action of stopping, slowing down and observing, especially when it is linked to the natural world is a profound way to create both stillness and a sense of awe in our lives. And both of these sensations often help us realise two things: 1) that there is something bigger than ourselves and 2) that we are all intrinsically connected.  If we never stop and breathe then all this passes us by.  So at this moment in time when the entire world slows down because it literally has to if it wants to save itself, practice that stillness like it’s the new super power you’re developing to take into your ‘post-Corona’ life.

And finally food…….this is maybe the most challenging of all this week.  Try eating in complete silence!  Maybe not so hard for those living alone right now but it does mean turning off the TV, music and podcasts whilst you eat.  Maybe trickier if you’re surrounded by family but who knows - maybe you find a way to turn it into a blessed game of silence with the kids! :-) The World Health Organization reports that there is growing evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse health effects on people.  And let’s face it, we’re being bombarded in so many ways these days, noise, news, fake news and more that a little bit of silence whilst savouring dinner might just be a welcome oasis of stillness in the middle of a world gone mad.

In the mean time I’m sending you all much love and energy for your efforts in stillness this week and would so love to hear how you get on developing your new super power.  Have a blissed and blessed week wherever you are in the world gorgeous souls and thank you thank you thank you for being on this wild ride called life with me!  NAMASTE, Donna x

Bliss Blog: Week 14 - Keep breathing and carry on

Gorgeous souls it’s truly a blessing to be here with you on this page and in this universe.  On the 1st January when I started my 2020 Year of Bliss, I never imagined that I would be writing to you all about a pandemic, that I would be staying at home soooooo much and that the writing of this Bliss Blog would become a little life line into your worlds and a motivation for me to explore my yoga and the five big bliss commitments more deeply.  I could not have dreamed that solo nature walks would become a way of life and that I would find time to look more closely and slowly at what is both inside and outside in my world.

This last week I’ve been exploring the yogic idea of drishti or concentrated intention, (see week 13 blog for deets!), and have been far more intentional personally in choosing where I put my focus.  This has been so helpful during these days of global crisis.  I’ve also delved back into the yoga sutras in an effort to better understand the role that our breath plays in our lives on a more emotional and spiritual level, rather than just on the physical level.

If you’ve never read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras then it’s worth a go.  I will tell you straight up though that even an ‘easy’ translation will take some serious brain space.  The history of the sutras is a just one reason why you likely won’t devour them in a weekend.  Sutras themselves are essentially short phrases that teachers gave their students, (when teaching was carried out in the oral tradition), to connect or hold together bigger ideas that were being shared and taught.  The word sutra comes from the same root as the medical term suture which also holds things together, albeit usually your body!  So when we read the yoga sutras it’s important to remember that we are not only reading them more than 2000 years after they were written but we are literally reading the top level ideas and not the full teachings.  If you’re interested to dig deeper into Patanjali’s ancient yogic wisdom then I recommend grabbing a copy that includes a simplified commentary checking out the Chopra website.

So what does Patanjali teach us about breath that can be useful for today’s world as we all stay home, hoping to stem the spread of a pandemic and save the world?  One of his key teachings is that by regulating our breath, realisation dawns and our mind becomes fit for concentration.  In yoga we often practice more intense breath regulation or breathing patterns but in the yoga sutras Pantanjali really just talks about observing one or more of the qualities of the breath such as its rhythm, length, quantity or the area where you feel it as a simple gateway to create an environment that no longer supports ‘agitated mental states’.

I don’t know about you but anything I can do to lessen my agitated mental state during these ‘Corona Times’ seems like a good idea!  And that’s why this week is all about breath and how we can integrate the observation of our breath into our five big bliss commitments.

Probably the easiest way to start is as part of your meditation practice and in fact regulated breathing is often something we use in yoga to help us prepare for and access a deeper meditative state.  This week in my Facebook live session on Thursday 2 April (11.00 Swiss time) I’ll be sharing some ways in which you can become more of an observer of your breath.  In the mean time one of the easiest techniques is to count your breath, in for four and out for four.  If you’re feeling frisky you can lengthen the exhale for 6 or 8 counts or even hold the breath at the top of the inhale for 4 counts - or any combination of any of these!  My favourite is literally just to inhale for four counts and exhale for four counts.  I find this instantly relaxing and that I’m instantly aware and observing of my breath.  Have a go and see what works best for you.

In yoga one might imagine that we are always aware of our breath considering that one of the aims of yoga is to synchronise breath and movement as one.  But I promise you that it is entirely possible to make your grocery list, redecorate your living room and feel utterly annoyed with your boss whilst flowing through the asanas - yep - been there, done that!  So this week to better align our breath and our bodies during our yoga, practice breathing all the way in and all the way out with very complete breaths.  It can help if you slow your yoga down so less poses, more breathing.  Often in a vinyasa practice we shorten the breath to try and keep up with the flow and fit all the poses in.  Try lengthening the time you stay in a posture to the length of your breath rather than the other way around.  It might mean slower sun salutations or slightly longer holds but I guarantee you’ll feel better for it.  And you might even notice the pause between when you finish one breath and start a new one. This neutral space which I like to think of as the pause of possibilities or even a brief fleeting moment of enlightenment is always there and available with every breath we take if we are willing to really truly observe our breath enough to notice.

Breathing and food you might ask?  How do these relate to our bliss commitment of nourishing ourselves with prana filled food?  If we think of breath as prana or life force then by being conscious and mindful of our breath whilst eating we can have a more nourishing experience with the food we put into our bodies.  Instead of feeding ourselves mindlessly this week consider the art of pause.  Take an easy breath between each mouthful of food.  You’ll probably notice more how the food tastes, be more aware of how hungry or satiated you really are, be able to decide if you really need to add salt or not and feel more connected to whoever you’re sharing a meal with.  You get the idea.  A breath between bites provides us with the opportunity to bring more prana into our meal and to appreciate more what we are eating and who we are eating with.

I know these days it can really be struggle to get outside for real, especially if you’re living somewhere which has gone on full corona lockdown.  And even if we still have some freedoms we no doubt have limitations on our nature adventures and are wondering if we should really even be outside with other people around.  (The answer to this by the way is please please stay inside if being outside prevents you from keeping the recommended COVID physical distance from others).  So how can breath and nature collide?  Try this beautiful 90 second video from Greenpeace where you can breath in time with the rise and fall of the tide.  Or lie down whilst you play some beautiful nature sounds (Calmsound has some great ones) and just let your breath flow naturally with the sounds of the planet.

And here’s the final bliss commitment which you can weave into your breath this week and beyond.  GRATITUDE.   Straight up gratitude for your breath, for the fact that whilst you are breathing you are alive and privileged to be walking the earth at this very moment in time.  You can add special elements about your breath that you’re grateful for and speak them out loud or to yourself.  I am grateful for my breath, no matter how choppy or smooth.  I am grateful for every breath that breathes life into my body.  I am grateful to breathe in prana and to exhale what no longer serves me.  Whatever resonates most to you about your breath just add it to your daily gratitude practice as a simple way to appreciate being alive.

Enjoy using your breath this week yogis as a tool to navigate these uncertain times.  And remember you can grab all my online EY classes here on Vimeo for free and tune into more Facebook live meditations here.  Stay well, keep breathing and carry on!  NAMASTE

Bliss Blog: Week 13 - Finding focus in times of crisis

I don’t know about you awesome people but living large during a global pandemic crisis is no easy feat.  Staying focused on anything when our lives are suddenly bombarded with news, fake news and fearful conversations about what ifs is pretty challenging.  And so as we round the corner of 80 days together on my 2020 Year of Bliss I want to talk about focus and how we can bring more of this into our lives at a time when everything feels scattered and uncertain.  In yoga we often use the Sanskrit word drishti which translates as ‘focused gaze’ and is used for developing concentrated intention.

Many physical yoga poses (asanas) have a specific drishti to them.  For example warrior two pose asks you to gaze out over your front middle finger to help you focus your breath and steadiness.  In upward facing dog we gaze at the tip of the nose to find focus, whilst in fish pose we gaze at the third eye or the space between our eyebrows.  I like to think of this practice of narrowing down our gaze during our physical yoga as a metaphor for life off the mat.  Surely if we can cultivate awareness of drishti on the mat, we might just have a better chance of becoming more focused in our daily lives.

Focus also helps us feel more grounded and connected which are important sensations when life throws us a curve ball and chaos reigns.  And let’s be honest, focus helps us get s&%*t done when we need to take action and that more broadly gives us at least an illusion of control over our lives when we don’t have control over much else these days.

This week in our yoga we’ll be practicing poses with drishti to develop our focused intention and help us see the world as it really is right in this very moment.  Consider that drishti can also be translated from Sanskrit as vision, intelligence or wisdom and that just by focusing your gaze in a regular old yoga pose, you might these qualities in your life overall  Here’s a list of the nine different drishtis used in yoga.  This week’s yoga bliss commitment is to choose one or two poses from this list and practice them daily using their related drishti.  At the end of each pose where you put extra efforts into focusing your gaze, remember to pause and notice how you feel.

One of my favourite and easy combined meditations and pranayama techniques I learned from my teacher Bryan Kest.  Take a comfortable seat, begin to breathe smoothly and with ease, in and out through the nostrils. Allow your body to feel steady and relaxed all at once.  Focus a soft gaze on the tip of your nose then take 10 cycles of breath, inhaling and exhaling deeply and mindfully.  See if each cycle can last a little longer than the last one, really slowing the breath down and noticing the pause at the end of every exhale.  This pause is ‘neutral’ space and a chance for you to check in and see if your drishti is still engaged, continuing to gaze at the tip of your nose.  This is called Nasagrai drishti.  At the end of your 10 breaths, come back to normal breathing and let go of the meditation.  Notice that your mind probably hasn’t been thinking about much else for the last few minutes.  Bravo you - I’d call that a successful meditation session!

It’s so important these days to continue to nourish and feed ourselves well with prana-filled food so we can maintain optimal health.  As so many of us are home and many countries have already closed down restaurants because of the pandemic, cooking at home becomes essential.  That can either fill you with excitement or overwhelm you depending on whether or not you love cooking and how many mouths you have to feed.  So just as we have a drishti in our yoga practice this week you can also find focus when you cook and nourish yourself.  What I’ve noticed in stores that are still open is that many canned and packaged goods are in limited supply but that fresh vegetables remain abundant.  What people forget is that food freshly made with love can also be frozen or reheated and even often tastes better the second time around.  Choose a  focused food theme for yourself this week.  It could be a couple of ingredients that remain in easy supply (lentils, tomatoes or pumpkin for example), or a food region (Asia and the Middle East are two of my favourites) and then cook around these.  This week I keep finding sugar snap peas left in every supermarket so these have been made into a wonderful salad with rocket and burrata, into stir fried vegetables with noodles and Asian spices, and boiled and buttered to accompany my roast potatoes. The idea of focusing your food choices this week is not to limit you but to inspire creativity and leave space in your brain for other things.  

We can also focus our nature appreciation on what we have around us which is especially useful when we can’t always go outside.  Have a look at what plants are on your balcony or in your living room, or what trees you can see from your window.  If you absolutely have no view then you can choose an animal or a landscape or something in nature that completely fascinates you.  If you have a chance to observe your natural specimen of the week then take a few moments and five breaths to do this every day.  This kind of observation technique is wonderful for bringing us into the present moment and helping our minds focus.  All you have to do is watch and breathe.  If you’re really stuck for something to look at then get online and find out more about your favourite part of nature.  Find yourself five fun facts about the Grand Canyon or sharks or discover the name and qualities of the tree you can see from your house.  Expand your mind as well as your focus this week with your nature drishti.

Now normally I would tell people to expand their gratitude practice far and wide and be as grateful and thankful as possible but there are also times when practicing focus serves us well and can help us feel a deeper sense of gratitude.  There seems to be a lot out in the social media world these days asking us to find the good in this pandemic or to be grateful we are still healthy and grateful for all the health care workers and shop keepers and everyone who keeps working to support us during difficult times.  These are very fine things to be grateful for and if it doesn’t feel too overwhelming for you then please please include all of this in what I hope by now is your daily gratitude practice.  But if you want to find focus in your gratitude this week, try creating what I call a gratitude chain.  Each day choose something very simple that you are grateful for.  For me it’s often that first cup of coffee in the morning and then I use my curiosity to explore who was involved in bringing me my cup of coffee.  In this case it’s the supermarket cashier who was willing to take my money for the coffee, for the truck driver who brought the packaged coffee to the supermarket, for those who work in the packaging factory, all the way down to the person who planted and watered the coffee plant and grew the coffee beans. A simple cup of coffee allows me to create a long lines of gratitudes!  You can make a gratitude chain with anyone and anything.  It could be the doctor who answered your call this week, or the fact that you have toilet paper in the house (but obviously I hope you’re not hoarding it! :-) ), or gratitude for the government official who put you in ‘pandemic pause' so you don’t have to commute to the office every day.  Just choose one thing to focus on every day and let your gratitude chain focus and develop around this.  That way we bring the drishti’s concentrated intention into what we are thankful for.

And as we find our focus and our drishti this week with our bliss commitments, we might also find that our energy becomes less scattered, that we feel more grounded and that we can also focus our love, care and attention on the people that mean the most to us during these most challenging times.  Stay well awesome humans and NAMASTE.

Bliss Blog: Week 12 - #communityloving versus social distancing

Welcome again to another week of bliss gorgeous souls and I hope that our work last week on cultivating presence has you in a really positive space to continue creating that upward spiral of positivity.  This morning I received a message from one of my soul sisters, sent to remind me that we don’t have to make big, grand gestures in life to be able to change the world.  That we don’t have to be physically close to show love, care and attention for the community of awesome souls we feel connected to.  That every little thing we do that is cultivated in positive intention, love and generosity has the ability to touch someone’s life and make their moment or day a little better, a little more filled with ease and light.  And so this, amazing yogis is the theme of this week, small acts of love and connection that make so much difference to those around us.  At a moment in time when global headlines read ‘social distancing’ - a phrase that feels like the very opposite of yoga and everything I personally stand for - I’m going to offer up a new opportunity.  It’s called ‘community loving’ and you might want to start hash tagging the sh*&t out of that because I’m planning for it to go viral. #communityloving - you heard it here first! You can keep your space and keep safe but think of this as an act of love for the communities in which we live, work and thrive rather than part of a social distancing, separatist agenda which quite frankly just gets way too much press in the world today. 

I’ve seen such generous acts of love from the yoga community, including some studios staying open and adapting to keep people safe but also the offering up of heavily discounted or free online yoga so people can keep practicing even if they have to remain home to self quarantine. This week Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, yoga teacher and wife of Canada’s Prime Minister tested positive for COVID-19 and I bet Sophie will keep practicing on her mat whilst she recovers from the mild symptoms she is experiencing from the virus. My teacher Bryan Kest is one of those generous souls offering 3 months of his incredible online classes for just $20.  And of course you can always grab a class with me for free on Vimeo, anywhere, anytime.  And all this?  Social distancing or community loving?  I’ll let you be the judge of that.

In times of crisis, love and generosity reign supreme.  So my challenge for this week is how can you be generous and loving towards yourself in your own yoga practice.  What does your practice look like and how can you serve your own community if you let love rule?  For me it means starting my practice lying down on the floor. This makes me feel calm and connected and less pressured about being dynamic.  I find when I start yoga lying down, my practice is more organic and flowing and evolves more naturally than if I start straight up with sun salutations.  Maybe it means only practicing all your favourite poses, or getting sweaty or putting on your favourite music or taking a class with a beloved teacher.  Maybe a practice full of love means forgiving ourselves all the things we think we should do on the mat and just turning up and doing what comes naturally.  A couple of little no fail extra love practices I try to incorporate into my practice - massaging my own head in savasana, rubbing the arches of my feet in butterfly (badhakonasana) pose, looooooooong forward folds or extra child pose moments.  Try them out and see what works for you.

Let a sense of loving community rule in your meditation practice this week by sharing it with others or joining an online meditation group.  Meditation in community is extremely powerful and really raises our individual and collective vibration and overall feelings of love and wellbeing.  I’ll be holding a global meditation session this week so check out my Facebook events page to see how to join.  We’ll be in community meditating together, around the world and you can send your love into this vortex of fabulosity, making your own personal contribution to a safer, healthier, happier world.  If you use a meditation app like Headspace then you can see how many people are meditating at the same time as you and imagine how your meditation connects you to everyone else in some way.  I also like to use the chant LOKAH SAMASTAH SUKHINO BHAVANTU in my meditation.  It translates from Sanskrit as, ‘May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.’  Generous loving wishes that we can give easily whilst we are just sitting here breathing, being in community through meditation.

In some strange way the COVID-19 crisis is being extremely generous and loving with our planet.  Or at least all the airlines and governments that have cancelled flights are loving our planet with this significant, if indirect reduction in CO2 emissions that less planes in the air brings us.  What act of love can you give the planet this week as part of your bliss commitment on nature appreciation?  With so many people in self quarantine these days why not cultivate some plants on your balcony or window sill to help oxygenate the air around you?  You could use a bike for your day to day transport rather than public transport which will keep you both fit and healthy and emit less green house gases in the process.  You could make a donation to an organization such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth to support their planet protection work. And why not join a loving community of planet protectors such as Earth Guardians so you can both learn and contribute more.

Believe it or not COVID-19 may also be an opportunity to lower our own carbon footprint by changing how and what we eat.  With less transport going on in the world right now eating more simply and locally is also a great way to up our intake of prana.  The less ‘air miles’ on our food the less ahimsa (or non-violence) is attached to what we put into our bodies.  See if you can simplify everything around food and eating this week so the very act of taking meals feels relaxed and uncomplicated.  Rather than fixing elaborate dishes and going out for extra shopping, get creative around what’s already in your cupboard.  We all usually have things like lentils and pulses and rice and pasta around the kitchen.  These can all be cooked together with a few spices and seasoning to make a hearty dish or soup.  Ageing vegetables can be cooked and blended into a stew and canned  and dried goods can be assembled with a good homemade vinaigrette into a tasty salad.  Here think chic peas, quinoa and dried tomatoes together or cous cous, toasted nuts and sultanas as interesting takes on simple dishes.  Have meal times at home, preparing your food with loving thoughts, light a candle, offer up thanks and gratitude for being nourished and enjoy the silence or company of loved ones - whichever surrounds you in this moment.

Which leads us nicely into our practice of gratitude for the week.  Personally I find the act of expressing thanks so grounding and centring - like a big dose of humility.  It might sound strange but try thinking about what COVID-19 has brought into your life in a good way.  For all the fear and panic out there in the news and on social media, there is also an incredible sense of global solidarity in tackling this pandemic and looking after each other.  Whilst I hate the term social distancing, I still have a deep sense of gratitude that people want to protect each other and keep each other safe.  Maybe you give thanks for the chance to work at home, or have more time with your partner, family or children that was unexpected.  How about gratitude for your health, the opportunity to avoid your commute or the traffic that you usually face every day going to work.  Make a list of the  welcomed and positive things that this crisis and adversity have given you and stick it up on the fridge or on the bathroom mirror to remind yourself daily that within darkness there is always light.  I love this saying that ‘what we resist persists’ and so here we find ourselves in a moment where we are trying to resist so much, social contact, contracting a virus, even resisting reading about COVID-10 because we don’t like the fear this creates in us.  What if we used our gratitude practice to welcome in whatever Coronavirus brings with the underlying hope that this small act of love and surrender shifts us out of resist / persist mode and into a better more loving and light filled space.  You can follow all the wonderful health and safety advice out there at the same time, but just bring a sense of love, community and generosity to today’s troubles and see how this makes you feel in body, mind and spirit.

Have a wonderful week amazing people and be sure to stay connected in the loving community of our incredible bliss tribe so that you can keep well and keep making those deposits in our global upward spiral of positivity.  NAMASTE

Bliss Blog: Week 11 - The yoga response to COVID-19

Dear ones, part of me wants to not give any more energy than I have to, to the madness of Coronavirus but I also want to equip you with all the blissfulness possible to support you through this moment in time.  So I’m caving in and mentioning COVID-19 in this week’s blog.  

I’m writing this from my living room in East Jerusalem where I am currently legally bound by the state of Israel to be in home quarantine after returning from Switzerland just over a week ago.  The quarantine is retro-active so fortunately I only have just a few days to go to meet my 14 day quarantine requirement.  For the rest of those days before, I went about business as usual with work, yoga and life, washed my hands a lot, coughed into my elbow and generally kissed and hugged less than usual.

In these ‘Corona Times’ it is oh so very easy to head down the dark spiral of ‘what ifs’ and panic but my favourite quote of this week comes from the Deputy Director of the World Health Organization / WHO, (also an epidemiologist), Bruce Aylward who said ‘Panic and hysteria are not appropriate’.

What is appropriate is PRESENCE.  Being in this very moment right now and not letting our minds wander to to an imaginary apocalyptic future.  If I think about some of the stuff I’ve had to deal with this week then the only way I have survived mentally in tact is to be practicing the art of presence.  I’m due to fly back to Switzerland for an important medical appointment this week.  I had to get permission from three different levels at work to do that. I was waiting for this permission as I was being told to go home and into quarantine (by the way I’m not sick and I don’t have the virus).  I had to change the medical appointment tin Geneva o a later date to respect my quarantine requirements (no easy thing to do when dealing with Swiss medical receptionists let me tell you, but I put one of my most charming friends on that task and he delivered successfully - a reminder too of the art of asking for help!).  I had to change my flight.  Returning to Switzerland later this week means I won’t come back to Jerusalem before the end of my mission because I will have to do another two weeks quarantine if I do.   This means madly packing up my life here in just a few days (the benefits of being stuck at home!), whilst the Palestinian Authority declares a state of emergency and no one quite knows what that means.  And of course not to mention all the emails and text messages from well meaning friends and colleagues telling me what ‘might’ happen and what I ‘might’ have to deal with.

Me?  I’m just being in the moment right now, letting the drama of others, of the media, of government wash over me and finding the still place inside me to just be.  It’s a solid reminder of what yoga and meditation have given me over the years and how this practice allows us to be the calm in the middle of the storm.   And so this week I’d so love to give you the gift of presence in all of our five big bliss commitments. 

In yoga this means slowing down, breathing more, letting go and just being.  It means more pranayama (yoga breathing) and more meditation.  In our 2020 Year of Bliss we’ve already practiced some poses with longer holds and even busted out a little yin yoga so gather all that you’ve learned so far and bring it into this week.  Personally I find there are two ways of practicing yoga that bring us into the present moment and you can either combine them or choose the one that works best for you right now.  A complex flow practice leaves little room for the mind to wander because we are so busy trying to figure out where to move our body in the flow and to follow the asanas which are often more challenging than our usual practice.  I highly recommend my Brahma flow class which is a full 90 minute flow from my fabulous teacher Bryan Kest. This kind of practice is great if you feel you have a lot of frenetic, moving energy to burn off and will really help create presence and stillness. If you’re leaning more towards cultivating presence through longer holds and more grounding postures, then I recommend a slower practice which you can find here with my Emergency Floor Yoga class - 12 minutes that will definitely help the mind slow down and feel more present.  Stay tuned for the new bliss class at the end of this week which I call the Yin and Yang of Prana and which will bring both a strong flow and yin yoga together for optimal wellbeing.

How can you be more present in your prana filled food you might ask?  Start cooking is the answer.  It’s really hard to think of other things when you’re chopping vegetables with a sharp knife or stirring dinner to make sure it doesn’t burn.  So schedule time this week to make your own meals.  Even if you don’t like or don’t know how to cook you can follow some of the very simple recipes on my Blissologist’s Guide to a High Pranameter page.  Another tip for more mindful presence with food is to set specific meal times.  This is something that is more easily done when you are eating with friends and loved ones so see if you can take moments to gather together over food this week.  If you find yourself in some weird quarantine situation (welcome to my world!) then connect with friends virtually and agree meal times or share recipes and cooking time over video call.  And here’s some great tips on more mindful eating overall that can help us stay present and focused on this very moment whilst nourishing ourselves with food.

This week your nature appreciation becomes more important than ever.  For me being in nature is the biggest life hack I have to bring me into this very moment.  The colours, feelings and sensations of the planet overwhelm my senses, make me feel humble and bring my curiosity alive.  In our overstimulated lives when news and information and being pushed at us 24/7 it’s so so important to take time on the small stuff, to pause, to breathe and to notice.  So this week whether you’re able to be out in nature or stuck in doors, allow yourself a moment (every day if you can) to notice the planet.  Choose a view.  It could be standing in front of a beautiful tree, staring up at the sky, watching the ants or bees being busy, whatever you feel curious about or discover when you’re outside or looking outside from within.  Then stop and take 10 beautiful big deep breaths whilst watching this view.  Whilst you’re breathing the only other thing you need to do is to be curious about your breath and whatever beautiful part of the planet you are looking at.  Try not to move around too much, just be still if you can and notice what you notice.  Sights, sounds, smells, feelings, breathing.  It’s all good.  It’s all a beautiful practice for being present with the planet.  Then once you’re finished, smile, look up and keep going on with your day and repeat.

Meditation of course is our biggest challenge in staying present as when we sit still and breathe it is almost like a permission slip for our mind to wander.  But still ,the act of meditating, no matter what your mind is doing whilst you sit there, is like a deposit in the presence bank.  I always feel that no matter what happens during my meditation, the most important thing is to turn up for it and keep making those deposits.  This week why not try a slightly longer meditation with the fabulous Tara Brach.  This meditation titled, ‘Resting in a Sea of Presence’ includes a mindful body scan and is designed to create a sense of wholeness and peace within us.  I feel like that’s something we all need and want during these crazy times.

Gratitude is also a practice that brings us into the present moment and one which I recommend upping the ante on in these times of uncertainty.  Expressing gratitude on a regular basis reminds us of where we are right now and of all the goodness in our lives.  It prevents us from dwelling on the past or projecting into the future because through giving thanks we are acknowledging the abundance of our lives in this moment.  This week I encourage you to link your gratitude to your sleep.  So when you wake up choose one thing you are grateful for and just before going to bed take one thing from your day that you give thanks for.  Gratitude helps us avoid negative fantasies that fuel our fear and is a mental practice that protects us from stress and anxiety so wherever and whenever you can bring more of it into your life.  And on a final note (and it’s why I propose you link your gratitude practice to your sleep), please sleep as much as you can these days.  I know this isn’t necessarily one of our big bliss commitments (maybe it should be!), but getting enough sleep is a game changer (check out The Sleep Revolution) in creating abundant health in your life.  And at a time where our health may be challenged from working on or worrying about Coronavirus the best thing you can do is sleep and rest and allow yourself time to heal.  I’ve been linking in to the fabulous Arianna Huffington and her Thrive Global network this last week to educate myself on staying healthy and so check out some great resources here on keeping the vibes high in these challenging times. 

Stay well amazing people and let this beautiful practice of yoga keep you in abundant health.  NAMASTE 

Bliss Blog: Week 10 - The health boost edition

Here we are amazing yogis in week 10 of our 2020 Year of Bliss, sixty days in and a whole new month ahead of is.  What a gift you all give me to continue to practice with me, to together create more goodness in the world, for ourselves and for each other and to build our upward spiral of positivity with our bliss commitments.  I find March is often a month when we start to feel the excitement of the new year vibes fading but also the possibility of what the change of seasons will bring.  I want this week to be a special support to you and your wellness and so we’ll be focusing on boosting your immunity and health with our five big bliss commitments.  The timing is perfect as news of the Corona Virus becomes more intense.  Anything we can do to stay in top shape in these coming weeks and months will serve us well in staying healthy not only for ourselves but for those around us too.

One of the easiest ways to keep well is with our prana filled food and how we start our day is such a metaphor for how the rest of our day unfolds.  I’m a mega-fan of breakfast because I know that if I feed myself well at the start of the day then I at least have energy and sustenance to keep me going with whatever happens after I walk out the front door.  The good news is I’m not going to tell you not to drink your coffee! :-). But before you drink your coffee how about giving yourself a cleansing opportunity to wash away the night before with warm water and lemon juice.  If you want to boost this you could add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, a drop of honey and a dash of cayenne pepper which is a recipe from the fabulous Tiffany Cruikshank and her Optimal Health book.  Follow this cleansing drink with something nutritious such as oatmeal /porridge with fruits and chia seeds, a green smoothie (spinach, banana, berries and coconut milk go well together), or avocado toast on dark bread.  This means you get vitamins and slow releasing energy foods into your body before you even step out the door!

Morning routines are a wonderful way to continue to build great habits in 2020 and this year I’ve been focusing on journalling in the morning.  Although I love writing I’ve always been resistant to journalling on a regular basis, however this year I’m finding that writing things down is a fantastic way to cleanse the mind of any early morning worries and clear things out for the day.  It’s also a great way to get really clear on what I am grateful for and to write down some really genuine thank yous for what it is I already have in my life.  This week you could focus your gratitude practice on your health.  Try thanking your body for all the things it allows you to do each and every day, whether that’s the simple act of walking or moving to the more complex practice of yoga.  Thank your mind for it’s ability to think and to reflect and for all that your brain gives you.  And thank your  breath for keeping you alive, for helping you remain present.  Whatever it is about your health that your feel grateful for write it down first thing or say it out loud as you sip your hot lemon water over breakfast and remind yourself how lucky you are to have your health.  If you feel like you’re struggling with your health right now, go back to basics and express thanks for the simple fact of being alive on the planet in this very moment.  

This week our bliss commitment of nature appreciation is more important than ever according to studies in ecopsychology.  A growing body of research indicates that spending 120 minutes or two hours a week immersed in nature has significant health benefits including making people feel healthier and giving them a stronger sense of well being.  In a study of 20,000 people , the research found that people who spent 120 minutes or more in the natural environment each week were substantially more likely to report good health and psychological well being when compared with people who spent less time in nature.  So this week make 120 minutes in nature your goal.  It doesn’t have to be all in one shot and in fact the research says it can be many mini-moments in nature that all add up to 120 minutes at the end of the week.  Keep a log in your journal or on your phone and watch the nature appreciation and your good health add up.  120 minutes a week is only 17 minutes each day so it could be your walk or cycle to work that counts, or a lunch time breath of fresh air outside or a sunset view.  Log your nature time this week with the full confidence that it is literally making you a healthier person both physically and psychologically.

We know our meditation practice is also a key factor in our overall health and well being.  If you haven’t already done so then add in some meditation to your morning routine.  Here’s one of my faves from my awesome teacher and king of the Blissology tribe, Eoin Finn, with a self love meditation.  This meditation which is just 10 minutes, will also boost your capacity to feel gratitude and thanks for your health this week.

And finally on the yoga front, this week is all about boosting your immunity to stay healthy and well as we move into the year and head towards a change of seasons.  With the Corona Virus on the move, anything we can do to keep our immune system in tip top condition is more than welcome.  Inversions are a great way to increase the circulation of lymph—a clear, watery fluid that moves through the body picking up bacteria and viruses and filtering them out via the lymph nodes.  You don’t have to go crazy with handstands and headstands (although go for it if you love this kind of practice).  Instead challenge yourself to take one inversion a day, holding it for between 3 - 5 minutes.  Some of my easy favourites include utanasana (standing forward fold), viparita kirani (legs up the wall pose) and supported setu bandhasana (bridge pose) using a block underneath the tail bone to rest on.  And make sure to check out my daily asana posts on Emergencyoga on Instagram  as there’ll be lots of yoga inspiration there to guide your practice and boost your health this week. Stay well gorgeous people and NAMASTE.

Bliss Blog: Week 9 - Get playful in your practice

There are too many days when I feel like the concepts of playing and playfulness have been forgotten in our world, well for anyone over the age of about 14 that is.  And when we lose our playfulness we also lose our joy and our ability to see the funny side of life and have a good old, rolling on the floor crying belly laugh.  And in 2020 in my Year of Bliss, I want a whole lot more of all of that!  Because being playful is one of the critical elements that helps us live our lives in a state of flow, where we will feel that life is truly working for us and we become more open to a life of possibilities of all kinds.

I’ve been lucky and I’ve laughed a lot these last months especially.  Spending more time with my friends with kids has definitely brought out my playful side, because 8 year olds don’t think you’re crazy when you’ll do anything for a laugh, instead they just think you’re funny and creative.  Dancing around the living room to bad remixes, or making shadow puppets on the wall, or telling bad jokes or silly riddles is all considered ‘normal’ in the world of small humans. Kids also like to move around a lot and feel what they’re feeling in their bodies and I’m of the firm belief that the more we feel the more deeply we know what we need in our lives and what we often need is play.  I mean think about what’s more fun? Checking in on your watch every few minutes to see if you’re close to reaching your prescribed 10,000 steps for the day or spending half an hour in the park with your dog, the kids or a mate kicking a ball around and chasing after it?  The 10,000 steps sure doesn’t feel like play and whilst I don’t often go to the park to chase a ball I love the feeling of running along the streets like a crazy woman trying to keep my feet in time to the beat of Footloose blaring at full volume in my headphones.  These days I’m using a lot of music to get into the play zone and feel more in flow.  And it’s not just me who’s discovered this tactic for feeling more playful.  In this Goop podcast on ‘The Unexpected Upside of Movement’, Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist, talks about the idea of letting go of exercise as something to make us look better so that we can tap into the pleasure of movement in its own right, an act that helps us to connect to spirit and reveal our true selves. In Blissology we call this being in your ‘joy body’ - the place where movement, breath, mind and spirit all become one without having to think about it.  You don’t have to be dancing alone to hard trance in your living room to make it happen (although I highly recommend you do).  One of my regular joy body feelings is running full tilt down mountains.  In fact the only reason I ever run, (oops I mean walk!), trails on stupidly steep uphills, is for the sheer playful, freedom inducing pleasure of running down hill in complete playful flow.

So what can play look like in your life this week, especially for us as grown ups? Yoga is in some ways the easiest place to start.  I believe yoga should feel like freedom but we often find ourselves constrained to the four corners of our mat - as if that was a rule to practice only on that mat.  So this week I want to challenge you to take your physical yoga asana practice off the mat and outside your usual borders (read comfort zone here!).  This might mean you move around your yoga mat and on and off it with the different postures.  But it might also mean you take your yoga outside to a park or to your office, or use a bench on the street to stretch and breathe or put some great music on and freestyle your yoga in a way that feels good but maybe doesn’t look like the cover of Yoga Journal.  Choose anything that feels playful to you to inspire your practice this week and see if that playfulness happens to spark more joy and a sense of flow in your life in some way.

Keep your food playful too this week.  Sometimes adding extra little touches that make your food more beautiful is a nice way to do this.  Like flowers in your salad or smiley faces on your pancakes or a mini cocktail umbrella on your smoothie.  I also like eating different foods at ‘unusual’ times.  I mean what would happen if you ate your dessert before your main meal or if you ate breakfast for dinner or lunch for breakfast?  Nothing and you might just feel playful and have some fun along the way!

For your gratitude practice this week, write a list of five things, people or activities that make you feel playful or make you laugh a lot.  Then take a moment to read through each of your five points, saying out loud for each one, (because that has more freedom and fun to it than saying it silently), ‘I’m so grateful to you / this for making me feel playful, for bringing laughter and joy into my life and for supporting me to live in a state of flow - THANK YOU!’

For me the ultimate meditation to break the rigid barriers of adult hood is Osho’s four stage Kundalini meditation.  If you’ve been with me on retreat we’ve probably done this together.  Each part is 15 minutes (you can always shorten if you need to), and you can download the music and find more details of the meditation here.  Essentially you spend the first phase shaking to loosen up the body, the second stage freestyle dancing, then meditating and finally lying in savasana relaxing.  Whatever you think about Osho (watch Wild Wild Country on Netflix for one version of his story), this is a great meditation which feels freeing and playful and brings more flow into your life, especially with the cool music that it’s set too. 

And finally for your nature appreciation be playful with the planet.  Run or roll yourself down a hill or put your skis or skates on and get out there.  Think of a game you played outside when you were a kid and then grab some willing companions - kids make great accomplices of course - and go play it.  Frisbee golf or rubbish bin cricket or handball or jump rope or basketball or hopscotch or whatever.  Just do it outside and don’t take yourself too seriously whilst at it!

Let me know how you get on this week amazing people as I’d so love to hear what felt playful to you and whether this playfulness brought you more joy and more sensation of flow and life working for you.  Have a playful and joyful week!  NAMASTE

PS My bonus yoga class is a short face yoga class which will definitely get you in a playful mood!  Try to prevent yourself from smiling when you’re doing this - not possible!  Thanks to Sadie Nardini for the inspiration on this one.

Bliss Blog: Week 8 - Choosing happiness

Gorgeous souls this week I am making extra special efforts to choose happiness.  Gone are the 80’s, George Michael (may he RIP) and Wham with their Choose Life slogans and in is Choose Happiness!

And yes I know that choosing happiness sounds soooooo much easier than it feels some days in real life, which is one of the reasons I want to dedicate an entire week of my 2020 Year of Bliss just to choosing happiness.  You may have heard one of these phrases, ‘ we are not our thoughts’ or ‘ our thoughts do not define us’.  But getting out from under the control of our thoughts, especially the unhelpful ones is tricky business.  I’ve been gorging on Tony Robbins this week and one of the things I was reminded of when I watched his documentary ‘I am not your guru’ is that most of the shitty, negative thoughts we have are not remotely original and have been thought by a bazillion people before us over thousands years.  It’s a pretty humbling idea isn’t it?  So for every time I’ve chosen to believe an unhappy thought in my brain, I’m not good enough, I’m fat, I failed at such and such, I’m not loveable, it’s not even my own original content.  It really does beg the question as to why we allow such unoriginal thinking to cause us such vast amounts of unhappiness.  And so this week let’s not.

Instead let us choose happiness, at least for this next week together and as a little test to see if we can perhaps change our brain chemistry with the help of our five big bliss commitments to feel happier and more content in our lives.  For me meditation and gratitude remain the biggest game changers in creating happiness.  A regular meditation practice enables us to be more of an observer of our thoughts and to watch them come and go and make wiser choices about how we use them or react to them rather than just getting caught up in them.  When I meditate regularly I find that there is often a little pause that allows me a brief window to decide if that thought I am having is really true and meaningful or just one of those thoughts that a thousand other people have had before me.  It means I have space to choose happiness over unhappiness and that’s BIG.  

You can also combine your meditation and nature appreciation together.  Get out your journal or notebook and write a detailed description of an experience you had in nature that made you blissfully happy.  Record how the light looked, how the breeze felt on your skin, the colours you saw, the people you were with, the sounds around you, all of it in great detail.  Then sit quietly and either read through what you’ve written or use your imagination to bring yourself back into that happy moment.  It’s a beautiful way to both create instant happiness as well as enjoy the amazing nature appreciation moment over and over again.  In case you need some inspiration I recorded a special meditation for happiness just for you this week - just 8 minutes to feel the bliss people!

The other thing I’ve discovered is that it is pretty much impossible to be unhappy when you’re in a state of gratitude.  So when you feel sad or down or depressed or not yourself, the reflex to express gratitude is almost a guaranteed way to shift those feelings into a more positive and helpful state.  It doesn’t mean you have to ignore the feelings that make you feel less happy.  I’m utterly convinced you can be sad or grieving or angry and still be grateful and thankful at the same time.  I’ve been in that place many times.  The gratitude will prevent you from heading down the unhappy spiral though and might just even help you create that upward spiral of positivity instead.  So this week design yourself a ‘gratitude anchor’.  Something that you can rely on to shift you into a state of gratitude. It can be a small rock or pebble you carry in your pocket or bag, a phrase or mantra that has meaning for you, or a physical action like pinching your thumb and finger together.  Something that anchors you in the midst of challenge and brings you back to gratitude.  And when you feel the anchor, the only thing you have to say is….’I am grateful for…..’

What does it mean to choose happy foods?  Think of a meal you shared or had that was especially happy.  It could be that the food was amazing but it might be that the company you kept or the news you shared over that meal was the thing that brought you happiness.  Can you recreate that this week?  Call the friend who announced their good news last month and go eat with them.  Or go see your parents or family members and eat Iftar , Christmas or Thanksgiving style dinner together with them if that’s your happy memory - who cares if it’s not that time of year!  Sometimes I make pancakes for breakfast midweek and this makes me feel the happiness of being a kid again when my parents used to make us pancakes on a Sunday morning (see amazing blueberry pancake recipe here!).  Recreating happy food moments will definitely bring more prana and life force into your week.   

This week in our yoga practice I want you to see if you can let go of struggle and what’s ‘good for you’ and just lean fully into happiness.  A yoga class often throws us a series of poses, some of which we love and some of which we might even hate, even though we know they do us good.  This week you have full permission to practice only the poses you love.  Write yourself a list of the poses that bring you happiness, (even if that list only includes the word savasana that’s still amazing!), and practice at least one of your happy poses each day this week.  All you need to do is hold each pose for five breaths (more if you’re really into it of course).  And that’s your practice.  I’d love you to post your favourite poses on Instagram or Facebook and tag @emergencyoga so I can see what lights you up this week.

Bliss Blog: Week 7 - Finding connection

So yogis did your February start off with that extra energy that last week’s bliss commitments were designed to give you?  I hope however your week went that you are feeling wonderfully well and nourished.  I spent this last week working in the Gaza Strip and it has been a humbling time with my colleagues who live there, both Palestinian and expatriate.  The courage and joy that people share is in stark congruence to the limitations on life and services that abound in Gaza.  It was a week where I was reminded that people are amazing and inspirational even in the toughest of places and that beauty exists everywhere in the world no matter what the situation.  On the yoga front I admit that I couldn’t bring myself to take the daily yoga pose pics with the innocuous background of my Gaza room so I posted older versions of the poses I was practicing this last week – I so wanted you to see beauty too!  But I was lucky enough to be able to practice yoga together with colleagues and friends living in and working in Gaza and that was an hour of total bliss.  I feel like being on the mat with like-minded souls expands the joy of our practice.

So what does this new week have in stall for us all?  I’ve designed week seven as one of connection.  It’s a great place to go to with our bliss commitments after spending last week energizing and opening up our hearts.  See if you can find time to practice yoga with others this week or maybe even practice some partner or acro-yoga.  It doesn’t have to be complicated.  One of my favourite acro teachers, Daniel Scott has loads of videos for beginners which can try out with friends, loved ones or your kids.  Maybe inviting your pets onto your yoga mat is the way you connect with others in your practice this week.  A dog doing downdog is always something to make us all smile 😊 There are lots of other ways to find connection in our yoga practice.  Anything from connecting breath and movement, connecting our feet to the earth, connecting muscles to bones as we flow through the asanas.  Experiment this week and find out what a connected yoga practice means for you personally.  And why not take this spirit of connection into the way you experience food this week?  Make an effort to share meals with people you care about and see how the conversation and connection flows.  Or try cooking for others.  In my world food is love and the simple act of taking time to prepare a meal for someone is an incredible way to connect.  My favourite meal of the day is breakfast, especially on weekends when it can turn into brunch over a long coffee.  Shakshuka in a big pan is the ultimate breakfast for sharing.  And of course there is no other shakshuka recipe to use for this other than that of Ottolenghi!

We often think that meditation is something we do alone in the quiet in a darkened room but in fact there are millions of people all over the world meditating at any given moment.  This week try one of the many incredible meditation apps out there (there is usually free window to check them out before you have to sign up and pay).  My favourite is Headspace but Insight Timer and anything by Tara Brach are also great.  That way when you meditate this week you know that you’re in the company of oodles of other humans, meditating all over the world at the same time as you.

Last night was full moon and so taking a moment to do some moon and star gazing is a beautiful way to connect with our planet.  The full moon of this week is one of grounding, generosity and courage. I love to look up at the sky and imagine that the moon (which is feminine energy) is watching over me and protecting me.  Star gaze with friends and re-connect with your inner child by wishing on a star or practice searching for shooting stars.  However you experience the night sky this week, I promise you that just the very act of taking time to look up into the night will force you to slow down, pause and feel more connected overall.

Since we started our 2020 Year of Bliss I know we’ve all been working to gain a more regular gratitude practice.  This is the week to share the things you feel grateful for with others.  It can be so magical to remind the important people in your life how grateful you are for them.  Take some time to let people know what they mean to you.  It doesn’t have to be ground breaking stuff ever time.  Just telling someone that you are grateful for their presence in your life, or the laughter they bring you, or thank them for the favour they did you means so much.  And speaking our gratitude out loud not only connects us but tends to magnify the positive feelings it brings into our lives. And finally remember to connect to your breath gorgeous souls.  Breathe it all in and love it all out and feed that blissful upward spiral of positivity that we are creating together.  Have an amazing connected week!  NAMASTE    

Bliss Blog: Week 6 - Energising your way into February

Beautiful people it’s been a month!  I mean we’ve had a whole month of yoga and all the bliss commitments and upward spiral of positivity together!  Can you believe it?  As it turns February I admit that I feel a little bit proud of the fact that I managed to post you a new yoga pose every day of January and record you five whole new yoga classes.  ‘Cause let me tell you it’s not like I thought the whole thing through massively before I launched my 2020 Year of Bliss.  I mean I thought a little bit about what it would take and then I let the idea of posting a pose a day evolve into a weekly class and Bliss Blog and before I knew it here we all are doing this bliss thing together.  One thing that yoga has taught me is that for sure we have to plan but for sure we also need to leave space for things to transform and adapt and for all the good stuff to come in.  And I feel like that’s what’s happening on this Year of Bliss.  Every single one of you is the good stuff happening to me - so thank you!

I hope you’re all feeling strong in body, mind and spirit after last week’s focus on what strength really means.  And just a little reminder as we continue into our second month together that being strong also means being the truest version of yourself, so please please let these bliss commitments help support you on that path. In the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘Be yourself because everyone else is taken’.  And so I’ve also created a 40 minute class to keep you really focused on this - I hope you enjoy it (and yes maybe it’s still uploading……..remember I live in Jerusalem!)

This week we’ll be creating energy in all that we do and so I want to start with food because this is one of the biggest energy game changers on the planet.  What you eat will literally dictate the amount of energy you have to go about your life.  My biggest life hack on the food front is deleting gluten (or at least wheat flour) from my diet.  Two things sent me down the gluten free path.  The first was a day spent with friends by the lake where we didn’t pay much attention to food and so ended up eating croissant for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch then pizza for dinner.  Talk about processed wheat flour / gluten overload.  I woke up the next day in a fog of depression and lethargy and was wondering what the hell was wrong with me until a friend asked me what I ate.  That was years ago and was soon followed by a five week yoga trip to Bali where the entire month long menu was completely gluten free. People - I was on fire with energy!  And I noticed how I was so not on fire as soon as I came back to Europe and started back on my usual bread filled diet.  So see if this week you can lower (or event delete) your intake of gluten or at least wheat flour and notice if it makes any difference to your energy levels.  Don’t think of it as missing out on something but frame it as if you’re replacing your usual low vitamin / high carb food such as bread and pasta with foods rich in vitamins and nutrients such as quinoa, lentils or wild rice.  Don’t know what to eat instead of sandwiches for lunch?  Take a salad, soup or smoothie in a glass jar as a healthier, more energy giving substitute.  There’s plenty of ideas on Simple Most to inspire you.

In yoga this week we’ll focus on heart openers and relaxation techniques which are opposing energisers.  Because some days we need that heart opening energy that lifts us up  and propels us forward and other moments we need our practice to nurture and feed us in ways that allow us to rest and restore so we have the energy to keep going.  One of my all time favourite restorative heart openers is supported bridge pose.  Start on your back with your feet on the floor, hip width apart and knees to the sky.  Place a book or a yoga block underneath the very base of your spine (NOT under your lower back) so that you feel your tail bone rest on the book or block.  Take your feet a few centimetres wider than your hips and feel your inner thighs rotate inwards slightly.  Turn your palms to face the sky, breathe deeply and smoothly and just stay here for 5 minutes or more.  I find this pose which is a gentle inversion and heart opener all in one, gives me wonderfully grounded and controlled energy and feels really restorative.

Combining pranayama or breathing practices with meditation is also a great way to increase the energy in our lives in a more nurturing rather than neurotic (think caffeine and alcohol!) way.  Nadi shodana or alternate nostril breathing is a really balancing breathing practice which I find settles and calms my energy and makes me feel very alive at the same time.  If you’ve never tried it before here’s a short video so you can give it a go at home.  Once you’ve tried a few minutes of nadi shodana you can stay seated and just enjoy a few more minutes of quiet meditation within the stillness you’ve created.

Now how to receive more energy from our gratitude practice you might be wondering?  I know from experience that sometimes the whole world seems on a certain downer.  It can be politics, elections, weather, natural disasters, climate change or even a public figure who is just annoying the hell out of everyone that particular week.  Without wanting to belittle how challenging all those things are I often play a gratitude game with myself and friends to make positive, grateful statements about these challenges.  For example one particularly bad winter I could not take any more depressing weather talk from colleagues.  So a friend and I turned up for work every day talking about how amazing the weather was and how we loved snow and skiing and how the rain was so good for crops and the farmers and how we loved winter fashion. So this week take the thing that drives you the most crazy and flip it on its head with gratitude.  It usually takes a good sense of humour to be able to do this, so rope in some friends to join you and get your gratitude energy high from finding the bliss in the things that usually drive you nuts.

And finally how to receive energy from nature? If you have the chance to physically be out in nature as much as possible this week with the sky over your head and the earth under your feet then do it ,as this is the ultimate energiser to be in awe of the planet. And when I say earth under your feet I mean literally under your feet.  There’s an entire movement called Earthing which swears that having your feet touch the ground (sans socks and stockings) will cure anything from insomnia to arthritis.  Surely it’s worth a try?  If you feel very stuck in doors because of the weather or security then you could also try going to an indoor garden or try touching as many natural materials as possible in your home.  The very act of pausing and taking time to notice them will be an energising step in the right direction.  

So I hope this week’s bliss commitments will fill you with wonderful energy for yourself and for all those around you.  There’s so much these days about protecting our energy but this week let your energy be free and fun and go share it with others and give momentum to our upward spiral of positivity. Practice on beauties, practice on!  NAMASTE  

Bliss Blog:  Week 5 - What does strength mean to you?

Beautiful, amazing yogis what a wild ride this last week has been and I’m wondering how life a few weeks into 2020 is feeling for you.  Has this Year of Bliss made any kind of difference in your life, for better or for worse?  What’s on your mind these days as I yogaspam your social media with my poses, classes and bliss wisdom?  Reach out and let me know.  I’d so love to hear from you. I’ve been lucky enough to have spent January with you in a practice designed to clear out the old and make space for the new.  This means February is about calling in and creating.  I want to kick that off with a week of strength training with you – but not strength in its stereotyped, mainstreamed version.  I mean real, multi-layered, right down to the inner you strength.  So we’ll be building strength in a LOT of different ways this coming week.  For sure we’ll be tackling some physically strong yoga poses but you know even as I write this I’m reminded that I don’t even know that that means.  Because a yoga pose that I find physically challenging might be a breeze for you.  And an asana that you find mentally hard to stay in with your ‘monkey mind’ could be the same pose that I’m lapping up and loving.  So I think I’ll start all over again and just say that this week I’m going to serve you a buffet of practices with which you can strengthen your body mind and soul.  And who knows which ones will be your greatest loves and which will be your nemesis.  I’d love to find out though as we work our way through this week’s Bliss Buffet 😊

Before we head right into the five big bliss commitments I want to talk a little bit about what strength really means.  It so often has such a masculine connotation attached to as well as visuals of strong muscles and bodies.  Just to turn that on its head I want to tell you about my week.  This week I decided to finish my ICRC mission in Jerusalem early (like about 18 months early!).  This week has been hard telling people that and the way that I explained it was to tell people that this has been a difficult decision but it feels like the best thing for me right now.  And I’ve had a LOT of emails from colleagues telling me how ‘strong’ I am to make such a decision.  It definitely didn’t take me any muscles or physical strength to do this but it’s a great reminder that we also see strength in people when we do what’s right for ourselves, when we go against the status quo, when we stand up for what we believe in and share a little bit more of the most real version of ourselves with others.    So please please please dear ones, use this next week to explore the full range of what being strong means for you.

On the yoga front I’m going to recommend two things to build both physical and mental strength this week.  A wonderful practice that I was given many years ago was to take a series of 2 – 5 standing poses (whatever you’ve got time for), string them together and hold each one for five long, deep, smooth breaths.  What’s funny is that at the time I was shown this practice I could barely hold two poses for 5 breaths and found it such a struggle which is very different to my practice today.  Standing poses that flow nicely together include warrior II and warrior I.  You could add on with a bowing warrior or a warrior III from warrior I or take it back to reverse warrior from warrior II.  If you are left wanting more or you want to change it up then take the triangle series with regular trikonasana, followed by pyramid pose in the frontal plane and reverse trikonsana is a great add on.

For a mentally strengthening practice I strongly recommend trying yin yoga which is a practice that holds the poses anywhere from between 3 minutes onwards.  This sounds easy right?  Just hang out a long time in the same spot.  But oh my goodness, what happens to your mind when the body stands still is so so very interesting.  For many of us it’s almost like the body stopping is permission for the mind to go crazy.  To give yourself a little yin goodness try parchimottanasana, upavistakonasana or utanasana and hold one or all of them for 3 - 5 minutes each.  Hell, if you already have a yin practice try these for 8 minutes and see what happens.  I remember one of my first serious yin experiences was in Bryan Kest’s LSD (Long, Slow & Deep) class where we held an 8 minute parchimottanasana at the end of the class and I thought my world (and my mind!) was about to explode and I wasn’t sure if I loved it or hated it.  But now it’s one of my favourite practices and it is serious mind strengthening stuff.  Because it is a practice in just being, in being completely present, in accepting all that your mind throws at you (which is a metaphor for accepting who you really are), and in letting go so you can surrender into the pose.  Try it this week, see what happens and let me know how you get on! 

Because we are building strength this week I want to challenge you to try out silent meditations.  Rather than go for a one off long and guided meditation this week see if you can take three minutes of silent, timed meditation every day.  This kind of practice usually works better if you can find he same time each day to meditate but do what you can, feel good about it and see how you feel.  All you need to do is sit down, set the timer on your phone, stay still and breathe in and out for three blissful minutes of silence.  If you feel distracted, try focusing on the space between your eyebrows, almost like you were looking at that spot from the inside out. 

Now what can we do this week to build strength on nature appreciation?  I want to ask you to be strong for the planet this week.  Protecting and saving our planet from further destruction is probably the most important and vital work of our era.  Five minutes before I sat down to write this blog my cousin showed me a photograph of fires raging outside her house in Canberra.  My country is literally burning itself to death and the only thing I can hope for is that out of this darkness there will be light and a new approach, commitment and seriousness to looking after Australia.  So do me a favour this week, choose the nature issue you feel most strongly about and take action.  It might be making other people aware of the things in nature you care about, it could be donating to a charity that protects the planet and its wildlife, it could be offering someone affected by Australia’s wildfires a helping hand, it might be shining light on a part of the world that you love but that is challenged by pollution, deforestation or plastic.  Whatever you can do, do it, and stand strong in the knowledge that you are appreciating nature by protecting it and raising awareness of the world’s greatest challenge today. 

The food we eat is also strength both in what we eat and the way we eat it.  This week make a list of the foods that fill you with a sense of vitality and life force.  Post these on the Blissologist’s Guide to a High Pranameter and share any recipes you’ve used this week that feature the foods from your prana-filled list. Share the food love people.  And if you need inspiration then check out one of my favorite smoothies for a fun way to feed yourself with fresh goodness. 

And finally, but definitely not least is strengthening our regular gratitude practice.  As you all know this is my biggest life hack.  For many years I’ve practiced silently speaking the things I am grateful for at the end of my morning meditation.  Late last year I started writing these down using a process called Morning Pages which is super fun to try if you like to write and are into journaling.  But even if you’re not, try keeping a small note book in your bag or using your phone once a day (or even throughout the day) to write down the things, the people, the experiences you are grateful for.  I noticed that when I started handwriting these down each morning I became overwhelmed with a sense of wellbeing and hope and humility.  Which quite frankly is a pretty good way to start my day.  Whatever you write the list doesn’t have to be long or fancy, it’s more the act of pausing and being intentional about what you feel thankful for which seems to hold the power. So enjoy this upward spiral of positivity you are creating in your lives gorgeous souls, share with the world around you, email me your successes, failures and faux pas throughout this week or share them on FB and IG so we grow our tribe of Bliss buddies and change the world entirely!  NAMASTE

Bliss Blog: Week 4 - Celebrating Life and Mimi

So you’re probably wondering who’s Mimi and why are we celebrating her and life?  Mimi is my dear dear friend Alexis’ mum and she has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given a prognosis of just months.  So this week we are going to use our bliss commitments to not only celebrate fabulous Mimi but to celebrate our lives and the lives of all those around us.  Because who knows what the next moment holds and I want to make sure that I am living in full bliss every minute of my life.

So gorgeous souls as we head into week 4 of our 2020 Year of Bliss together and I want to say thank you.  Thank you for believing in me and trusting me with your time and energy and thank you for your part in creating this upward spiral of positivity in the world.  It might sound crazy but these last days I can feel this connection and positivity building between us all.  Please keep doing whatever you can on your five big bliss commitments and share it all with whoever you come into contact with.  And send some extra bliss Mimi’s way too whilst you’re at it so we connect her into the high vibes and help her do all and anything she can to heal.

I know that when I practice yoga, meditation, gratitude, nature appreciation and nourish myself with prana-filled food that I have so much more capacity to give to others and to stand in the storm of life and surf the waves gracefully.  So fill yourselves up this week amazing people so we can spread the bliss far and wide.

As part of this celebration of life I want to see if we can all be unbelievably present in our yoga practice.  When you breathe just be with your breath.  When you move, notice your body.  When you are with friends, loved ones, colleagues, be in that very moment with them, check yourself in, not out.  Offer up immense amounts of gratitude for your life, for the blessings of your life, for the very fact that you are alive in this moment.  Take a pen and paper or your phone right this minute and write down the list of your humans you are grateful for, write down why you are happy and grateful to be alive, take note of the most joyous moments of your life.

This week walk through your world in awe, in wonder in humility for all that nature offers up to you.  Spend this week in awe of the very fact that your natural body continues to breathe without you having to do a single thing - can you believe that our breath keeps us alive automatically?  Let your mind me blown by the fact that the trees produce oxygen for us, using energy from sunlight, just to keep us alive and walking this planet.  There is so much in nature that allows us to live and be alive.  What else can you find out about the natural world this week that can help you appreciate the role nature plays in your life and supporting you to live?  If you’re stuck on resources have a look at one of my favourite books, The Hidden Life of Trees for some inspiration.

Maybe you can also work on making really conscious choices about eating food for life this week.  When I think of prana-filled food I think of food that feels more alive and nutritious, food that is as fresh as it can be, with no additives or processing.  This is the kind of food that puts life force back into our bodies.  Think of fresh unpackaged fruits and vegetables, simple recipes that include pulses and grains that have barely been touched and need little seasoning to taste great.  You can have a look here for a fantastically tasty recipe for my Greek watermelon salad, inspired by Kate at Levendis Esate on Ithaca. 

As this week is all about celebrating life and Mimi, we need to get ourselves into a seriously happy and joyful zone and the best way to do that is with some upside-downing.  Yes yogis, this is also called inversions!  BUT….it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be in headstand all week.  There are a bazillion different ways to get your head below your heart in yoga and to enjoy all the benefits that inversions bring.  Think of upside-downing as a free happy pill, or a natural dose or Prozac without any negative side effects.  Getting upside down is also what I call yoga make-up as a few minutes of this can leave you looking like you had a face lift but without having to see the surgeon.  So start by getting yourself into downward facing dog (see I told you inversions comes in all shapes and sizes).  Bend or straighten your knees depending on what feels good for you, press the earth away with your hands, lengthen your spine and let your head relax completely.  Breathe deeply for ten breaths if you can, imagining the inhale drawing in prana and life force into your body and the exhale expelling out what no longer serves you.  When you’re done, drop your knees to the floor and practice feeing awesome.

I also want to make sure that this week you have a life affirming meditation to practice, to keep you fully in your bliss and in love with life.  So here’s a truly blissful meditation from my teacher Eoin Finn which I guarantee will take you to another place and change your brain chemistry for the better. 

And finally I want to invite you to join a special healing circle for Mimi this week.  In our live practice here in Jerusalem we’ll be dedicating the class to Mimi (and anyone else who needs our high vibes).  We’ll be practicing on Wednesday 22 January at 18.15 - 19.30 local time.  We’d love it if you could join your energy with us during this time or any other time throughout the day and send some love and good energy Mimi’s way and also to her daughter and my darling friend Alexis. Let’s bring that upward spiral of positivity to life yogis! Have an incredible week and NAMASTE.

Bliss Blog: Week 3 - Creating Good Habits

Gorgeous people it’s the twelfth day of this amazing 2020 and I’m so thrilled to be on this incredible journey with you all.  Week three is critical in really strengthening good bliss habits as I heard that it takes 21 days to create a habit - so stay with me this week and it will really set you up well for the coming year and decade.  Saying that I’m always reminded when writing this blog to take my own advice on the five bliss commitments of yoga, meditation, gratitude, nature appreciation and prana-filled food.  It is you all who help keep me accountable to myself and who keep me making sure I fill myself up with all the good stuff this year - I’m so lucky we are in this together!

This week I landed back in Jerusalem with a new appreciation for this ancient and holy city.  I fully admit it was a bit of a mind f&%*k (as we say in Australia), hugging loved ones goodbye early in the morning in Geneva and then landing to flooded streets, wind, rain and cold in Jerusalem.  But meditation is the tool that allows us to be observers of our lives and so I mentally took a step back and just watched my crazy, somewhat schizophrenic day unfold and welcomed the love that I felt being back with the team here.  Thank goodness we have moments to practice our yoga both on and off the mat!

I hope you’ve had a chance to follow along on Instagram and Facebook with the daily asanas (yoga poses) and maybe even had time to practice the week 2 class which is a juicy little hip opening number.  January is still our month of clearing out and cleansing.  This coming week we will move from the hips and begin instead to focus on rinsing out our spine and making it nice and healthy for the coming year.  I mean it is the part of our body which helps us sit and stand and do so many things so let’s keep it happy I say!  You’ll find here two fabulous easy and opposing poses, cat (marjaryasana) and cow (bitilasana) to start off your week.

And I think in this third week of the year it’s time to dial it up on the meditation front.  Here’s a wonderful 10 minute meditation from one of my favourite teachers, Tara Brach which focuses on offering and letting in loving blessings.  In case you don’t already know Tara’s work, she is a goddess of self compassion, something I believe we all need more of in this world.  I hope you enjoy this mediation as much as I did.

I hope you’re also managing to cultivate a regular gratitude practice in your lives.  For me this is one of the biggest game changers or life hacks out there, to find ways in which we can be thankful throughout the days, weeks and months ahead.  This week try practicing saying thank you whenever anyone offers something to you.  So often we forget to pause and acknowledge the many gifts in our lives (both big and small) and this week could be an opportunity to speak or write more thanks and gratitude out loud.  I started doing this in 2019 during out Commit to Bliss season.  I started thanking people verbally or via text for the smallest things before I went ahead with the rest of the conversation.  Anything from ‘thank you for your message’, ‘thank you for the invitation’, ‘thanks so much for thinking of me’, ‘thanks for being here today’.  These words help me pause and appreciate the gifts I receive regularly before going on with the rest of whatever I need to do.  I feel so much more abundant in life when I do this so I hope you have a little time to try this out this week and see if anything changes in your life.

Now what to do on the nature appreciation front this week?  I’m always so aware that not everyone has the chance to run out into the forrest or along the beach and feel the wind in their hair.  I’m hoping however everyone has plants around them even if those are indoor plants.  So this week take some time to commune with the living, growing plants.  It could be anything from hugging a tree (aren’t we all hippies at heart?!), feeling its bark on your skin and noticing its texture, to touching the leaves of the house plants, whispering sweet things to them and noticing their health and how much they this week.

This third week is also an opportunity to really lock in the healthy eating habits you’ve been building, including making sure we continue to nourish our bodies with prana-filled food.  I’ve eaten so much great food these last weeks because I’ve been around amazing friends who love to cook (super grateful for that!).  And because I’m back in the Middle East I want to share with you this easy and really healthy falafel recipe which you can also find on my food page The Blissologist’s Guide to a High Pranameter.  This recipe is tried and tested and whilst most of the Middle East will claim falafel as its own, this one acknowledges this tasty dish as truly Egyptian. TOP TIP: Remember to soak the chick peas and split broad beans overnight and eat the finished product with some delicious ful.

Bliss Blog: Week 2: Keep building the bliss!

Hurrah!  You’ve made it to week 2 of 2020 and you’re still up for those bliss commitments.  Go you!  Maybe you made new year’s resolutions and maybe you didn’t, maybe you’re rocking it and maybe you already feel exhausted.  Just know that you are exactly where you are supposed to be right in this moment and the very fact that you’re reading week 2 of the Bliss Blog means you’re committed to creating a life of bliss.  RESPECT!  And thank you!  Thank you so so much for taking this wild ride with me in 2020 and being part of creating a global upward spiral of positivity.  

So well done you on week 1 of 2020 and no matter how much or how little you managed to pull off on your bliss commitments, please wrap your arms around yourself right now and give yourself a celebratory hug. Yes really!

I hope you’re still feeling some of the sparkle and hope that comes with the start of the new year and can use that to keep going with your bliss commitments.  This week on the yoga front we’ll be working on hip openers.  In yoga we talk about our hips being the place where we store our samskaras which are the patterns we hold in our bodies that often hinder our growth and development.  We can have positive samskaras too of course and working on our big bliss commitments is a way to create life affirming patterns to serve our higher selves.  So this week we’ll be working on hip opening poses to release the negative samskaras and make space for all the good stuff to come into our lives this year.

Our first pose this week is reclined pigeon pose so here’s the good news – you get to lie down on the floor and relax!  (See pic above). Place your feet on the floor about hip width apart, knees to the sky and just breathe.  Once you’ve taken five mindful breaths in and out through your nose we can start to move.  Keep your left foot planted on the earth but pick up your right foot and place it just above your left knee.  Let the right knee drop away from your body and keep your ankles flexed (this keeps your joints happy!).  If this already feels like a lot (read intense!) on your right hip then stay where you are, breathe, enjoy and relax.  If you want more intensity and stretch then take your hands behind your left thigh or in front of the left shin and begin to pull the left leg towards your body (head, neck, shoulders all stay down on the floor), whilst moving your right knee away from the body.  Take about 10 big easy breaths here, really noticing how the breath moves in and out of the body in long, slow cycles.  Then release the pose, switch sides and repeat.  Voila - your hips are hopefully more free and you’ve maybe even let go of a little tension there!

Wondering what to feel grateful for this week?  I like to focus on the little things which I also find helps me feel really humbled.  Next time you take your morning coffee or tea, or pick up a pen to write something down, or switch on your computer, or brush your teeth, pause and think about the people involved in making the products you use.  What had to happen to get your coffee to you this morning?  Who were the people who worked the land, who roasted the beans, who hauled the coffee sacks onto the truck, who transported it for sale and to the supermarket?  Who packaged your coffee and sold it to you?  And offer up a silent thanks to all those involved (including our amazing planet that grew your coffee!), in providing you with the daily conveniences of your life.  Here I’m talking coffee, but it can be anything you do regularly and usually take for granted.  This week try focusing your gratitude on all the things and people that make your life a little easier each day.

You can also do the same with your nature appreciation this week.  Whatever kind of transport you use to get to work or go about your day, walking, cycling, public transport or driving, be sure to take a moment to stop and breathe as you travel and look around you at the planet.  Think of it as ‘slow travel’ (which is a whole movement in itself by the way), and an opportunity to connect with the planet, so notice the sky, the plants, the flowers, the air on your skin, the weather temperature, the feel of the earth under your feet, anything that makes you feel more connected to the natural world.

A regular meditation practice also supports us in slowing down and noticing not only the world around us but how we really feel.  Meditation enables us to be the observers of our lives and to tune into what we really need rather than just the business of life.  To get started here’s a great little six minute meditation I recorded for you.  It’s a good one for those just getting started on a meditation practice and also serves the more experienced meditators who need a short pause in their day.

Keep up the amazing work this week in terms of nourishing yourselves with prana-filled food because when we put fresh, tasty things into our body, it allows us to share that sense of health and vitality with those around us – critical in creating the upward spiral of positivity we’re all aiming for.  So here’s a recipe for a super easy veggie and gluten free pie that you can whip up in less than an hour.  You can sub any veggies you like so it’s also a good one to use up left overs in the fridge and therefore have less waste in our lives.  I promise you’ll feel well fed and nourished after eating this for your dinner and it packs well for lunch the next day too.

And remember for every single effort you make whether tiny or grand towards your bliss commitments, you are contributing to our global, upward spiral of positivity and creating momentum towards a more peaceful and blissful world.  And for that gorgeous souls I offer you my deepest gratitude.  NAMASTE

Bliss Blog - Week 1: Welcome to 2020 The Year of Bliss

Soooooo here we all are in bright and shiny 2020, some of us feeling just as bright and shiny as the new year, some of us not. None of it matters. What matters is right here, right now, you turning up to read this blog and our joint commitment to create an incredible upward spiral of positivity on the very first day of this beautiful new year and new decade. 2020 The Year of Bliss! I’ve got one word for you all - GRATITUDE. Serious, deep, heartfelt gratitude that I am not alone, that you are all with me in wanting to create a blissful year and radiate our high vibes out into the world.

So this first week of the new year is going to be an opportunity to clear out any last cobwebs (read too much champagne here!) of the old year and make space for 2020. We’ll be working on yoga poses that do just that as well as offering up soul soothing meditations. Most importantly this first blog is your introduction to the Bliss Commitments: 1) yoga, 2) meditation, 3) gratitude, 4) nature appreciation and 5) prana-filled food. I learned these years ago from my amazing teacher Eoin Finn and the Blissology tribe and I can honestly say that when all goes to hell, coming back to these commitments is the best life hack out there. Keeping a daily record either in a journal or on your phone is a really profound way to step up and commit to your own wellbeing and hold yourself accountable for the coming year. If you manage to commit every day - amazing! If you manage to commit some days - also amazing! You do you (in the words of Sarah Knight) and we’ll all feel blissed out this year.

So today’s yoga is a simple reclined twist. All you need to do is lie down on the floor and hug your knees into your chest. Stay here and take a few breaths, noticing how your breath feels, no good, no bad, just noticing. Breathe all your breath out of your body then take your arms out wide resting them on the floor and drop your knees over to the right side. Don’t worry if they don’t touch the floor, they can hover or you can rest them on a cushion or a book. Take five deep breaths in and out through your nose. Then switch sides and take another five, long, slow breaths. When you’ve done that you can pull your knees back into your chest, give yourself a hug and remind yourself how awesome you are for starting the very first day of 2020 with yoga! And if you want this week’s full 20 minute class you can find it right here on Emergencyoga on Vimeo.

Next up meditation (which can also be your nature appreciation for today if you’re short on time). I recorded this short meditation on the South coast of Sri Lanka a few years back and remember being so in my bliss looking out at the ocean, listening to the waves crashing on the shore. I hope these ten minutes help bring you back to the bliss zone and even if you haven’t meditated before, feel free to just sit back and listen and soak it all in.

Wherever you live in this great big world there are always opportunities to appreciate and respect our planet and the natural world that surrounds us. In the middle of a busy city it might be the simple act of stopping and looking up at the sky, noticing the cloud formations or feeling the rain or wind on your face. If you’re really stuck in doors in a compound or for security reasons (cause you have one of those humanitarian lives….) then try to find a ray of light, or a view or even some nature pics from a past adventure to do the trick. And if you happen to be out in the wild rolling around in nature this week then turn your face to the sky, feel your feet on the earth and give thanks for all that mother nature offers us.

Speaking of which, giving thanks is one of the most sure fire and fastest ways I know to improve my life. A daily gratitude practice is a game changer and it’s something I’ve been doing for many years now. It has been the practice that has saved me in the darkest of moments as well as illuminating the brightest of days. Just three things, three people or three places. Pick three of anything that you feel grateful for. Write them down if you can, let them seep into your DNA and come back to them whenever you wobble to remind you of what is good in your life.

And whilst all of these ideas are wonderful for feeding out body, mind and spirit we also need to feed bellies and keep ourselves physically nourished. So here’s THE most amazing Black Pepper Tofu recipe. We ate this last night before seeing in the new together, long time girlfriends in the mountains and it rocked our world (as well as our mouths thanks to all the spicy!). Always grateful to Ottolenghi for his fabulous food so I feel no shame in sharing this one with you! Serve this with a crispy green salad to cool down and you will be very happy!

Thank you gorgeous souls for joining me on this incredible year long journey. Make sure to check in on Instagram or Facebook everyday for the daily yoga pose and the end of week yoga class and I’ll make sure to hook you up with this weekly Bliss Blog to stoke the inspiration and feed our upward spiral of positivity. Sending you all so much love and bliss for 2020. Practice on! NAMASTE.

I declare 2020 The Year of Bliss so come along for the ride!

Right here, right now on the penultimate day of 2019, I know I want to bring more yoga into my life and into the lives of everyone around me. Because to me yoga and all it brings me, breath, breathing, life, love, equanimity and peace are what the world needs more of, more than ever. January has traditionally been our two weeks of Commit to Bliss as a way to bring more yoga, health and gratitude into our lives but this year I just can’t stop at two weeks and so I’m making 2020 The Year of Bliss and I really want you to join me. I’m committing to share with you a new yoga pose with guidance every day of 2020. You’ll also get a weekly blog which will include ideas and advice to help you on your way with the Big Bliss Commitments - 1) yoga, 2) meditation, 3) gratitude, 4) nature appreciation and 5) prana-filled food . Most importantly you’ll receive a weekly yoga class from me, designed especially to help you integrate the daily poses I’ll be posting, into your regular practice so that you can reap all the benefits that yoga has to offer and stay fresh and motivated on the mat. This is my gift to you for 2020, because I know that every time I share this practice that I love so much, it multiplies the love and peace in the world through all of you. And that gorgeous people, is what this wild world needs. So please join me this year, starting on the 1st January for Emergencyoga’s 2020 Year of Bliss and make sure you sign up below to get the weekly Bliss Blog and free classes straight to your inbox.

Commit to Bliss is back!

Thanks to the fabulous Eoin Finn and his Blissology Project, emergencyoga is back for a second year with our Commit to Bliss series. This is two full weeks of yoga combined with the six easy Bliss Commitments which enable us all to be part of creating an upward spiral of positivity. It’s a great way to boost your practice and to set yourself up for a fantastic year. We’ll be diving deep into yoga, meditation, gratitude practices, food and nature appreciation with a special daily wild card just to keep us all on our toes. From 11 - 24 February, 2019 you can check in here and find a daily updates, new classes and prana filled recipes to keep you in blissful shape and state of mind. If you’re in Geneva there will be live classes at the ICRC pop up studio from Monday to Friday with a specially discounted Commit to Bliss class pass for the full two weeks. Email me now to let me know if you’re in!

Commit to Bliss: Day 14 (24 Feb)

Well incredible people you have made it!  Here you are at day 14, the final day of Commit to Bliss and I want you to right this minute give yourself a hug or a high five to celebrate your awesomeness.  It takes a lot to stick with anything for two full weeks but you’ve done it so please take a moment or two to revel in how amazing you are.  It’s been an incredible journey and one that has filled me up with prana and all kinds of goodness.  I have so loved receiving all your messages of gratitude and encouragement as they have also kept me going throughout this time together – thank you so so much!

So on our final day here’s a fab yoga class for you (complete with happy dance moment). You can add to this class by hitting pause and extending your savasana with a beautiful reflection meditation. In savasana place one hand on your heart and the other on your belly. Allow space for any feelings and emotions of the last two weeks of Commit to Bliss to arise. Offer appreciation and gratitude for your commitment to creating this upward spiral of positivity in whatever capacity you were able to contribute. You are more than enough!

Today make a special effort to express gratitude and thanks to Father Sky for watching over you and to Mother Earth for holding you up.  You could add to this by planning a special day or weekend out in nature, arranging a trip to a local park or a hiking trail or beach, whatever kind of nature fills you up most.  Make sure to schedule it in your diary and invite fellow bliss buddies and nature loving friends with you on the trip.  One easy way to do this is to join me in June on retreat where you’ll find all those things and more combined.

And finally for your wild card combine it with fabulous food by taking yourself out on a foodie date to your favourite healthy restaurant or grabbing amazing take out food and then preparing it on a beautiful table with candles.  Whatever you do, take a moment before you eat to give thanks to all the nourishment and energy the food gives you and then mindfully enjoy each bite.

CONGRATULATIONS YOGIS!!!! And remember that whilst this might be the end of our two weeks of Commit to Bliss, our journey together continues and there are plenty of opportunities to continue that upward spiral of positivity with me whether that be live classes, festivals, retreats or my brand new yogic coaching offer and you’ll find all the details here on Emergencyoga.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 13 (23 Feb)

Welcome back fabulous yogis and I’m so happy to see you here on day 13 because this means you’ve been super motivated with your practice and your bliss commitments to make it this far – hurrah for you!  Here’s a really lovely grounding yoga practice for today.  It’s a great one to use any time your mind feels a little scattered or you feel like you need to calm down so feel free to repeat it any time you need it.

To add to your physical practice today, try this beautiful heart chakra meditation from Mind Body Green and allow yourself to feel full of love and happiness.

If possible eat a meal outside today to give yourself a double boost of prana by not only filling yourself up with good food but appreciating the planet and all it has to offer at the same time.  Find yourself a sunny terrace or park to take your picnic in or if it’s cold wrap up warm and bring a flask of hot soup with you.  Here’s a recipe for a hearty carrot soup which is cheap and easy to make.

If you find yourself with a negative reaction to any situation today, ask yourself ‘what can I learn from this?’  At the end of the day look back at this moment more objectively and feel gratitude for what this learning brought into your life.

And as a wild card you have full permission to get wild by turning up the music loud on your favourite song and dancing around the house.  Make sure you give it your all with your wildest dance moves, letting the body and soul dance free.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 12 (22 Feb)

I hope you’re all feeling amazingly fit and healthy after almost two weeks of putting a whole lot of prana into your bodies.  Some of you might also feel tired from doing so much yoga so just know that this is completely normal as well and with some rest you will find your energy very quickly.  Here’s your yoga for today so practice on and enjoy yogis!

See if today you can meditate on the qualities you want to embody during the day and going forward in your life. Do you want to feel less self-doubt? Envision what you look, feel, and even smell like when you’re full of confidence and empowered in who you are. Choose a state of being that most resonates with you and spend 10 minutes visualizing and feeling that state of being while breathing smoothly and deeply.

The best way we can possibly appreciate nature is by protecting it and our planet needs that more than ever right now.  Today spend some time getting informed about how you can reduce your carbon footprint and your waste, which are two of the most effective ways to slow down global warming and climate change on an individual level.

Whilst you’re investing in the planet also invest in yourself with a good meal.  Here’s one of my comfort food recipes.  It takes a bit of effort in getting hold of the ingredients because it really is better with real Italian Taleggio but this herb polenta with mushrooms is A-MAZING!

Gratitude requires humility, which the dictionary defines as being “modest and respectful.” Take some time to reflect on how you’re already a humble being and maybe aspects of your life where you could improve.

For the wild card, make someone laugh by telling a good joke. Really take some time to research and find the perfect one. Then deliver it with skill and flare!

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 11 (21 Feb)

Amazing to be on this journey with you gorgeous people – thank you thank you for all the energy you’re putting into you bliss commitments because I can personally feel the upwards spiral of positivity growing day by day.  Here’s a great little flow for your yoga today complete with meditation.

If you want to build on this then check out some of the great meditation apps out there.  Most are free or at least free for a trial and some of the most popular include Headspace (free for ICRC staff), Insight Timer, Buddhify (I met the guy who started this!) and Calm.  Try them out and see which one you like best, maybe even sign up for the trial or a subscription and enjoy a regular practice in creating a calmer and happier mind.

For your nature appreciation take a moment to hug a tree or care for your plants, any way that you can connect your body with the textures of nature.  If you have  grass around, take your shoes off and feel the earth under your feet, maybe just feel the wind in your face.

Keep filling yourself up on pranic food and to inspire you here’s one of my favourite gluten free cookie recipes.  This was inspired after buying some beautiful fresh lavender from a market in Sri Lanka and asking the stallholder what I should do with it.  He told me to make biscuits and so I created this shortbread like recipe fragrant with fresh lavender.  This is definitely one you’ll want to try!

Make a list of three ways you can show your gratitude more regularly, including something you haven’t tried before.  See if you can bring these into your life for at least the last days of our Commit to Bliss journey.  I’m practicing saying thank you very intentionally every time someone gives me something, whether it be feedback, a compliment or a nice message.

And finally for the wild card give some money away.  It doesn’t have to be much, whatever you can afford but give it to someone or something that would really benefit from your contribution.  It could be the person who is homeless that you pass on your way home from work each day or your favourite charity.  If you don’t where to give then I’m going to point you in the direction of little warrior Nina who really needs all the good vibes and generosity you can give right now.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 10 (20 Feb)

Beautiful yogis can you believe we’re pretty much half way through out second week together?!  I hope you’re feeling fabulous and whatever you’re doing remember to just do what you can and feel great about it.  Here’s your little yoga ‘prescription’ for the day so practice on!

For your meditation today try opening up Google or You Tube and typing in ‘guided meditation’ and then listening to one of your random finds.  You may love or hate what you find but you’ll definitely get to try something new!

Can you get up early today and watch the sun rise?  Drink you tea or coffee watching the sky lighten gradually – even if it’s overcast.  I promise you I don’t manage to catch the sun rise every day but when I do, it gives me a greater sense of being connected to the planet and feeling like I know what the day has in store for me.

As for prana filled food here’s my favourite recipe for Sri Lankan dhal which is one of those wonderfully filling comfort foods that makes you feel good about life no matter what’s going on.  It’s also a great antidote for a sore belly – a few days of eating just dhal will make you feel lighter and happier – which is a pretty potent result for such a simple yet tasty dish.

Have a look on your phone or on Facebook and see which of your friends is soon celebrating their birthday then send them a birthday message reminding them why you are so grateful to have them in your life.

For the wild card today practice some eco karma by picking up trash on your morning walk or recycling any plastics you find.  Anything you can do to make the planet cleaner and protect wild life from the negative effects that rubbish has on animals is a win for today.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 9 (19 Feb)

Welcome back to day nine you incredible people and thanks so much for continuing on this journey with me and all the other amazing yogis joining us today.  Here’s your yoga for today which includes a fun inversion – upsidedowning as I call it is like nature’s free happy pill without all the side effects of Prozac :-)

Today you can bring your meditation and food awareness together by preparing yourself a healthy meal (check out some of my favourite recipes from Kimberly Parsons who wrote the Yoga Kitchen).  When you sit down to eat take extra time for your food, chewing each bite carefully and mindfully, noticing all the tastes and textures and feeling real gratitude for the good food you are eating.

Tonight go or look outside and gaze at the full moon. Take a moment to watch the moon’s light through the clouds or let the full light of ‘la lune’ fall upon your face – something I always find feels very spiritual wherever you are in the world.  The Power Path website is a wonderful place to read more about this particular full moon which is apparently full of creativity and inspiration.

A little bit of a gratitude challenge today.  See if you can spend this entire 24 hours without griping, complaining, moaning or criticizing others.  Put only positive energy out into the world today and if you’re tempted with negative thoughts see if you can find the lesson to be learned from the situation or turn it around as something to be grateful for.

And the wild card today is to cook or share a meal with a loved one – maybe you could even combine your mindful eating with your partner or a friend and up the high vibe even more.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 8 (18 Feb)

Amazing yogis!  Thank you so so much for practicing with me the last week and I’m thrilled we are back together for week two of this incredible Commit to Bliss series.  I hope you’re already feeling the benefits of this upward spiral of positivity we are creating together.  I have felt my gratitude practice especially expand to new horizons and it has made me more alert to the people that I am so lucky to have in my life – and that includes all of you!  I’ve also felt super relaxed about getting out of bed early to practice every day – ‘cause let me assure you that does not usually happen and in fact I had shifted my practice to evenings prior to our Commit to Bliss series but this has really given me a lot of energy practicing with you all – thank you!  So on that note here’s some more yoga for you and hope you enjoy this practice for the start of our second week.

For your combined meditation and nature appreciation today see if you can get outside with your bare feet touching the earth but if you not you can also do this at home or even at the office, still barefoot and feeling your feet connect with that’s underneath you.  Come into horse stance (sometimes called goddess pose) with your feet wide and turned out and your knees bent.  Close your eyes and connect to the sensation of your breath inhaling and exhaling, imagining that the breath extends all the way to your hands.  Allow your fingers to be soft as you gently move your hands around your body in whichever way feels good for you – kind of like you’re doing a slow motion Tai Chi class but in sync with your breathing.  Notice how you might feel a tingling sensation or a sort of energy in the palms of your hands.

I’m not sure where you are in the world but if you’re Australian then you know that beetroot is almost a national food and you can buy these fresh in Europe right now.  Here’s a recipe for the best looking (beetroot) hoummus I’ve ever seen and it’s so so easy to make.  Whether you eat it fresh immediately with sticks of celery and cucumber or add it to your lunch box salad the next day, the fact that it’s bright pink is guaranteed to make your day happier.

See if you can play your own gratitude game today by noticing things or people or actions that you wouldn’t normally notice and feel grateful for.  For example a colleague who always says good morning, or a beautiful tree that you pass each day on your way to work.  You can add these to your gratitude journal at the end of the day.  

As for the wild card….it might take a week (or more) to figure this out which is why we are starting with it on Monday.  Today’s wild card is to proclaim your life mission in one sentence, describing how you want to serve the world and what your reason for living is.  If you’ve never thought about this before, today’s a great day to start.  My life mission is world peace, for people and the planet – but it took some years and a few different iterations before I figured this out.  Good luck and let me know how you get on  - I’d love to hear more!

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 7 (17 Feb)

Hello beautiful people!  It’s amazing to see you here on day 7 at the end of our first week together.  Huge congrats for all the efforts you’ve put in and I so hope you’re finding that whatever you’re doing around the six easy bliss commitments is creating that upward spiral of positivity for you and those around you.  I cannot thank you enough for being part of Commit to Bliss with me – hurrah for us!

Our yoga class today is a few minutes longer – I so wanted to give you a little extra in savasana to make sure you get the rest you need.  I hope you enjoy this slightly slower and more restful flow and that it nourishes you at the end of this first week.

Today see if you can find someone to meditate with, whether that be getting a group of friends together to sit in silence or with a guided meditation.  You can also do it through your existing Facebook or Whatsapp friends groups if you’re not physically close by to your meditation buddies.  All you need to do is pick a time that suits you all and start and end your meditation together.  This works really well if you use an app like Headspace, (free to ICRC staff by the way!), Insight Timer or Buddify where you can choose to do the same meditation together.

For your nature appreciation, see if you can draw a picture using whatever nature you have around you.  It might be a stick in the sand, a light coloured rock on a dark coloured rock or even creating something more more complex out of leaves, flower or stones you find.

For more prana filled recipes have a look at The Blissologist’s Guide to a High Pranameter where you’ll see my latest foodie posts and where you can also post your own recipes and photos of all the good food you’ve been eating this week. Don’t be shy - share the food love with all those around you.

For our gratitude practice call or write a letter or card to your parents telling them how grateful you are to them for bringing you into this world.  If you’re parents are already gone, you can still write to them and express your gratitude for the role they played in your life.  Even if your relationship with your parents isn’t / wasn’t great try and feel gratitude for the lessons they taught you – even if they weren’t so easy to learn at the time!

And finally for today’s wild card download or make yourself an uplifting music playlist that you can take with you wherever you go.  For the ultimate mixed tape inspiration make sure you watch John Cusak in High Fidelity (one of my ultimate fave films).

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 6 (16 Feb)

Ok gorgeous yogis prep up for a sweaty little practice today with a challenge pose – side crow!  If you’re already quaking in fear, (and who doesn’t just a little bit when we find ourselves balanced only on our hands?), then have plenty of cushions on hand so that you can use these as a crash pad underneath your face.  It’s the ultimate way to practice arm balances because it takes the fear out of falling and increases the fun - I mean it’s hard not to laugh when you find your face in a bunch of pillow!

If possible head outside for a combined mediation / nature appreciation moment, and find yourself a natural soundtrack of birdsong or a babbly brook or wind in the trees.  Not an option?  Then here’s a beautiful nature soundtrack which you can sit and meditate too wherever you are (this one is from one of my favourite beaches at home in Australia).  Just set a timer for however long you’ve got and enjoy tuning into the natural world.

To fill yourself up on prana today try one of my super easy but highly nutritious quick fix dinners. Roast yourself a whole sweet potato (it can also be a regular potato if that’s all you’ve got in the house).  This is as simple as stabbing a fork in the potato a few times then putting it in a medium oven for about 15 – 25 minutes (check on it regularly and turn as needed).  Once it’s cooked, cut a cross in the top and squash the potato down a bit.  Then top with some spinach, seeds, bean (or other) sprouts, and whatever other veggies or yummy bits you’ve got in the fridge.  A dollop of sour cream, butter or cheese tops this off nicely – nomnomnom.

To up your gratitude levels today, send a text to three people you feel really grateful to have in your life and tell them why they make such a positive difference to you. 

Finally this is one of my favourite wild cards – proclaim your spirit animal!  What animal did you dream about lately, or what animal do you feel especially connected to these days?  Need inspiration?  Have a look here to find out which spirit animal speaks to you most right now.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 5 (15 Feb)

Hello awesome yogis and welcome back to day 5 of our Commit to Bliss series.  Before I say anything else I want to say a HUGE thank you for all the beautiful love messages I’ve been receiving, not just on Valentine’s Day but throughout this week. It means so much to me to have your feedback and to know how much we are all loving the bliss vibe and creating our upwards spiral. Rest in that beautiful gratitude you are all creating and allow it to uplift your lives dear ones.

I’m thrilled as ever you’re still with me so here’s some gorgeous yoga to keep you going.  You’ll find some strength building opportunities in class today as well as some lovely cleansing twists.

For your meditation today I’m gifting you a beautiful yoga nidra class – or yogic sleep from a truly gifted teacher Elena Mironov who is based in Zurich..  Apparently 20 minutes of yoga nidra (which you can do any time of the day) is the equivalent of around 4 hours of regular sleep – and seriously – couldn’t we all use a bit more of that!  I regularly take a short yoga nidra meditation – sometimes even before I head out the door in the morning and I find it so refreshing. If you join one of my retreats this is something we do a lot of to make sure we really rest and nourish ourselves.

You’re nature appreciation is a night time gig this evening as you take a look up at the stars (or the clouds) and take a moment to contemplate the idea that perhaps we are all made of stardust and that the universe is so much bigger and magical than what we can comprehend.  And as you look up take a moment to say ‘thank you Father Sky’, something I do each morning as well.  You can record this feeling of gratitude in your journal and maybe add to it by thanking people around you more intentionally throughout the day and the evening.

To make sure you’re nourished and full of prana today here’s the recipe for an Ayurvedic tea given to me by a wonderful Ayurvedic doctor in Geneva.  It’s the only thing I’ve ever found that gives you the same energizing effects of a good coffee but without the negative side effects of caffeine.  Grate a little fresh ginger and add this to almost boiling water along with a dash of powdered cardamom, cinnamon and clove.

And for the wild card today? I challenge you to look in the mirror and throw yourself a complement or two.  Speak these out loud and tell yourself how fabulous you are or remind yourself of all the great things you’ve achieved or what a fantastic friend / parent / son / daughter you are.  It might feel weird but I guarantee you’ll feel great as you go about your day.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 4 (14 Feb)

HAPPY HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY gorgeous souls and no matter how commercialized this day might be, any excuse for more love is just fine by me. Fabulous yogis you’re half way through the first week and I’m feeling super proud of you!  Just know that this is about the time the body might start to get a little tired and you might be tempted to skip your bliss commitments. Remember  that this is normal, give yourself a break and do what you can and feel great about it.  So if you’re with me, here’s your yoga for today and to accompany it a very special meditation from the Gratitude Podcast that always leaves me feeling really calm and relaxed.

 If there’s any possibility for you to get outside today and get sweaty, whether that be with your yoga, a run, a hike or even biking to work then go for it and whilst you’re there make sure to really appreciate the ability to feel the wind in your hair, noticing the different kinds of nature around you.  I get that being outside isn’t possible for everyone so even if feeling the wind in your hair means rolling down the car window and sticking your head out or doing some tree staring out a window then I personally count this as serious nature appreciation. 

You can link this with your gratitude practice today by noticing or imagining three things in the natural world that you feel super grateful for.  It could be as simple as clean air to breathe (if you’re not in Delhi or Beijing!), a lone flower on the side of the road or something more spectacular like a mountain view.  Whatever it is, take a moment to write this down in your gratitude journal and breath gratitude into your heart.

 To fill yourself up with prana today I’m including a link to one of my all time favourite Ottolenghi recipes – aubergine with everything fabulous on top.  Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi are two of my best loved chefs who started out in my favourite London location of Angel-Islington before it was hip and cool.  Ottolenghi (who is not vegetarian) used to write The Guardian’s vegetarian recipe column, often with a last minute recommendation as to how good such and such a dish would go with a rack of lamb – to the horror of his dedicated veggie readers!

 And finally the wild card! Forgive, forgive forgive – such a powerful practice.  You don’t have to go big, maybe you can do it face to face but you can also forgive through ritual, saying it out loud in an empty room or visualizing the moment in your mind.  Give it a go and you might be surprised as to what new space opens up for other things.  (PS I think I shall take my own advice especially on the wild card today!)

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 3 (13 Feb)

Yogis you’re still with me!  Fantastic news as we hit Wednesday and our third yoga class together.  I want to add on to our physical practice today with a beautiful meditation by my teacher Eoin Finn – I think you’re gonna love this! All about putting down your smart phone and tuning into our heart phone as he says.

Wherever you’re going today and however you get there can you practice being intentional about it?  So instead of what is often our usual mindless commute to the office or school or the café can you notice what’s going on around you (even if it’s only a short distance), smell the air and all the aromas within it, notice the light of the sky or the stars or the clouds?  Make your travels more connected with the planet today in any way you can.

Food wise I would love you to continue filling yourself up with prana.  I love to cook but I love it only if it’s easy, I can make it in one pan and eat it out of a big bowl.  So tonight see if you can pick up some greens on the way home – bok choy, Chinese cabbage, spinach, or even cabbage leaves or kale work well.  Fry them in a little hot coconut oil, add some sesame seeds (or any other seeds for that matter) and then a dash of tamari or soy sauce.  If you like it hot sprinkle with chili flakes and you’ve got yourself a 15-minute dinner full of flavour and goodness.  You can always add quinoa or rice to make the meal more filling. Recipe here if you want more deets and options.

Today we have an awesome gratitude practice – sometimes called pivoting as well. Think of three things you are not so excited about in your life and see if you can ‘reprogram’ your thoughts to feel gratitude.  For example maybe you hate your job right now but you can create a sense of gratitude for the fact that your job enables you to pay your bills and feel financially secure.  Even if you’re stuck inside due to the security situation, see if it’s possible to cultivate gratitude around feeling protected or being able to work from ‘home’.  This is not always easy but it’s a really powerful practice when we manage to hit the gratitude button on the things that generally get us down.

And finally for the wild card see if you can find an opportunity to pay it forward.  Surprise someone with a small gesture by paying for their parking, or their coffee or even buy a friend or colleague lunch if you have the chance.

Enjoy that upward spiral yogis and see you tomorrow.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 2 (12 Feb)

Welcome back fabulous people and so great to see you again.  Let’s kick off with your 20 minutes to awesome (i.e. yoga!) and then complement it with a short nature inspired meditation that I recorded on the wild south coast of Sri Lanka – you’ll even hear the waves crashing in the background.

In fact you could create your own mini-meditation moment by sitting on a rock or the grass outside, getting real quiet as you begin to listen to your breath.  As you allow your gaze to soften you might even begin to feel your senses become super aware of the world surrounding you.  If you’re stuck inside you can try pulling up one of your favourite nature pics on your phone or computer as it’s scientifically proven that looking at photographs of nature (especially if they’re your own personal fave moments) has similar benefits to being out in nature for real.

I’m not sure what you had for breakfast this morning but in case it was only coffee I highly recommend trying my all time favourite smoothie recipe.  You literally just whizz up all the ingredients in a blender, pour into a glass and drink this powerhouse of vitamins to get you through the day.  My favourite combination is banana, spinach, frozen berries, coconut milk, ground almonds and chia seeds. Nom nom nom nom.

And for today’s gratitude practice, tell someone you love them – and do it in a moment where you are fully present, meaning it with every cell of your body, looking into their eyes.

Finally for the wild card today (it’s one of my favourites!) – sing loud and proud in the shower or whilst getting ready for work today and belt out those tunes.  I promise you’ll feel great.  You can also post your favourite tunes on the Emergencyoga Facebook page and maybe we’ll even make up a playlist to share the love.

Have an incredible day yogis wherever you are in the world.

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana x

Commit to Bliss: Day 1 (11 Feb)

Awesome yogis, what a thrill and a privilege to welcome you to the first day of this incredible Commit to Bliss series, created by my teacher Eoin Finn.  This is just the start of our collective effort to create an upward spiral of positivity and I’m so grateful you’ve joined me.  Each day you’ll have a chance to try out the six easy bliss commitments which are guaranteed to bring more positivity, grace and gratitude into your life.  This means that for the next two weeks we have a daily menu of yoga, meditation, gratitude, nature appreciation, prana filled food and a special wild card to look forward to. 

So there’s no better way to get started than with your first yoga class which also includes a brief meditation.  For a longer meditation check out my 6 minute meditation designed especially for people who don’t meditate (and isn’t that all of us some days?)

If you have a chance to get outside today wherever you are in the world and even if that means just into the courtyard of your compound (because I know some of you are living and working in crazy places), take a moment to stop and look up at the sky, put your hand on the trees or a wall and notice the texture and sensation of this connection with your palm.  Breath easy and slow down your breath.  Say a silent thank you to mother earth for holding you up and give a nod to father sky for watching over you.

Today’s also a great day to start feeding yourself right so here’s my favourite gluten free granola / breakfast muesli recipe.  I can’t claim it as my own as it was given to me by a wonderful friend and teacher Fiona from Sanasuma Yoga.  It’s super easy and you can sub in whatever ingredients you have in the cupboard.  You can also join The Blissologist’s Guide to a High Pranameter where I have many of my favourite recipes uploaded.

I highly recommend keeping an easy gratitude journal throughout these two weeks.  Writing down three things each day or at least taking a few minutes each day to say what I am grateful for has changed my life completely and really helps keep me happy and sane.  I do this each morning at the end of my meditation or before walking out the door and I really recommend trying to do this at the same time every day so you quickly build a nice little habit that feeds into the upward spiral of goodness.

And finally the wild card for today? Compliment a stranger or tell them something nice to brighten their day – this way we share the love and the high vibe with all those around us. 

Practice on yogis and have an amazing day!

Love and hugs,

Donnaprana