Unwind Yoga The Pause Practice

21/10/2026

In a culture that equates productivity with worth, doing feels valuable and resting can feel like wasting time.

Several things reinforce this idea:

Conditioning: We are rewarded for achieving, helping and being busy, rarely for resting.

Guilt: Rest can feel selfish, especially when there is always something that needs doing.

Identity: Being productive gives us a sense of purpose and control.

Nervous system habits: When we are used to constant activity or stress, stillness can feel uncomfortable rather than relaxing.

Invisible work: Mental loads, caregiving and emotional responsibilities make it difficult to feel 'off duty'.

The paradox: We often feel we must earn rest through productivity, when rest is actually a fundamental human need, not a reward for getting things done.

Do you feel guilty when you are resting? Ie not sleeping, but simply pausing during the day? I know I do!

16/10/2026

Has it been another day of holding everything together? If the answer is yes, then here is your pause practice, this one is targeting your outer hips. Once your outer hips feel release, the whole body and mind can follow a little better.

Hips can vary so much tension from sitting, standing or even walking and gardening. This little sequence gives you a few moments to notice that tension in the hips, and soften with time and support.

When you're able to let the muscles go, your breathing can relax.

When the breath relaxes and slows, the mind de-frazzles, too.

Stay for a few minutes in each pose or as long as feels good, your body is different from mine and everyone else's, your outcome of this sequence is yours alone, no need to perform or achieve.

🤍🤍

12/10/2026

07/10/2026

The next Pause Practice is on YouTube - this is a 10 minute practice that's amazing after sitting all day. You'll move your back and spine and stay in each pose for a while to allow the muscles to relax and your mind to quieten - just want you need when you need to come back to yourself after 'doing' all day.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/udYvocTP8ys

04/10/2026

The Pause Practice is here 🙏

I nearly didn’t post the first video because, naturally, I have watched it back and can see approximately one million things I would now do differently....

But if I do not post it now, it simply will never happen!

The Pause Practice was never meant to be about perfect yoga and that is also not how I teach. There isn't a perfect (yoga) body or a yoga production. This is about having somewhere to go when you need to slow down for a little while.

So here it is!!

Come Down Yoga is 25 minutes of slow movement, soft stretching and a little stillness. This session is good when you feel stiff, tired, have trained, have spent too long sitting or when your head is still going long after you’d quite like it to stop.

Nowhere else to be and nothing else to do - just 25 minutes to come down.

Want the full YouTube video? Sign up to The Pause Practice: https://www.unwindyogastudio.com/the-pause-practice

or DM me for the link 💛

03/10/2026

12 years ago today, I took Liam to Specsavers on a Friday after school.

Just an eye test. Except it was not just an eye test.

What they found that afternoon was called papilloedema, the swelling of the optic nerves caused by raised pressure inside the skull. We were told to go straight to hospital. Don't go home. Go to A&E, here is a letter.

And that was the beginning.

A&E actually send us home that night as Liam showed no neurological urgency, but they reluctantly asked us back for another eye test the next day, a Saturday. All day Liam and I stayed at the Royal Berkshire, I should have known something was not quite right when we got free sandwiches...

The eye check prompted a CT and from then it was pretty much straight to Oxford, blue lights for Liam, no parents allowed as he was traveling with a critical care team. I had to go back home and fetch Simon - we had no idea, NOT A CLUE, what was before us, all we knew was, there was a massive tumour on Liam's brain and he was critical. He did not look critical, he was just Liam.

Yet at that point, he was actually dying. Had we done nothing, he would have died.

What followed was a diagnosis of a brain cancer called medulloblastoma. 2 x brain surgery. Proton beam radiotherapy in the US. 12 months chemotherapy back in the UK. A completely different life from the one we had woken up expecting that morning of the 3rd of October 2014 (ctd. in comments...)

02/10/2026

I think I always had a love for Yin yoga. The slower, deeper, indulging-for-the-brain and fascia yoga.

I first trained with Bernie Clark Yoga and Science Stuff, one of the most influential teachers and authors in modern Yin Yoga, in 2020. Six years later it felt important to return to his work and revisit it through his updated teaching and the research that has developed since.

That now makes 100 hours of study with Bernie and the equally amazing Diana Batts, with a particular focus on functional anatomy, skeletal variation, fascia and what all of that means when we practise yoga in a real, individual human body.

I love Bernie's approach that yoga poses are not shapes we have to achieve.

Bodies are different. Bones are different. Range of movement is different.

A pose that works beautifully for one person may need to look completely different for someone else.

So the question is less “Does this look right?” and more “What am I trying to experience here and is this version of the pose appropriate for my body?”

That has shaped the way I have taught for years and this latest training has given me plenty more to bring into my teaching.

Still learning - and hopefully will never stop!