08/09/2024
🧘♀️My Own Journey Into Yoga 🧘♀️
I shared this on my yoga page already but thought I would share here for anybody else who is on/has been on a big personal journey 💕
In 2016 my Bootcamp and Glow Fit business was flying. I was so busy growing and managing the huge empire I had built that I decided to treat myself to a yoga retreat in Italy (picture below!) I had never even done yoga before but I was craving some calm and recharging of my batteries.
The crazy thing is that I didn’t enjoy the yoga when I was there. I found it really hard! I was super fit but found it so different and challenging. I felt rubbish at it! However, during savasana (relaxation at the end) I kept getting visuals of a baby scan 👶🏻 Little did I know I was pregnant at the time. It was like my mind, body and soul started to connect! ✨
I didn’t revisit yoga again apart from pregnancy yoga in my second pregnancy where I did some prenatal yoga, which was lovely. Fast forward to 2020 when I started to become unwell with ongoing fatigue, my body just wouldn’t let me exercise or have any level of mental or physical exertion without giving me flu like symptoms afterwards. It turned out that my lifetime of pushing, striving, living at a million miles per hour, over -giving and stress on my mind and body had led to a chronic illness called ME/CFS. My fitness career was over. My mind and body simply said ENOUGH 😢
I spent a long time in denial, trying to go back to my old life but our bodies are so so clever. They are always trying to work for us and keep us safe. In 2021, a health coach who I was working with recommended that I try yin yoga to help me work with my physical body but also help with my nervous system. I fell in love straight away!
On that mat in those classes as I lay still in postures which challenged my physical body and my mind, I had no choice but to just be and breathe. I cried so many tears of grief during savasana at the end of most classes. It was like all of that stored stress and energy started to be released from my body and I would walk out of the class feeling lighter.
After a few months I started to be able to tolerate a little more movement without flare ups and I tried vinyasa flow classes. These are more dynamic where you work with movement and breath and one posture flows to the next. I LOVED them. They helped me feel like me again! Although I was working my body in terms of strengthening, it taught me that I don’t need to always push to 100% in everything I do and gradually it started to feel safe for my body to move again. I enjoyed being a beginner and it taught me how to be compassionate and loving towards myself.
In 2023 I embarked on a 10 month 200 hour Vinyasa Teacher Training course. Yoga had helped so much that I wanted to bring it to others.
I arrived at the studio on my first day of training full of excitement but also fear about if my body would cope. Another fear was “What if everybody is super advanced, in tiny crop tops looking like Instagram yogis?”😱 Genuinely, that was what I was worried about 🤦🏻♀️
Everybody was so lovely and although I did have a few flare ups along the way I was supported so well by my tutors and I started to build that resilience with heaps of compassion and acceptance for where I was in my own journey. Plus the fear about everybody being instagram super models was literally just a fear. Everybody had their own story and were just truly beautiful souls inside and out.
In June this year I completed my teacher training and threw myself in straight away. Literally the day after I qualified my classes went live. I didn’t want to wait and get imposter syndrome! 🙈
3 months on and I have built such a gorgeous little community of yogis who are a lovely group of people all striving to bring balance, well-being and happiness into their lives in a really positive way 🌱
My classes do provide a physical challenge but they are done with so much compassion and I always encourage people to be accepting and compassionate of where they are in their own journey. One of my favourite lines is “It’s your practice. Don’t compare yourself to anybody else in the room.” It’s an honour and a privilege to hold space for people at my classes, it truly is. 💕
I’m so passionate about well-being in whatever modality that is….yoga, dancing, nutrition, mindset coaching, reiki, circle gatherings, and my next venture starting in 2 weeks…..starting a Masters training as a psychotherapist 🤓
Life is a journey and one we are so lucky to have. I want to live my life having a positive impact on people and helping them to live a joyful, healthy life.
If you’ve got this far, thank you so much for reading. It’s a long one 😅 I hope to see you at one of my classes in the near future 🧘♀️💜
P.S. This picture is on that first ever yoga retreat in Italy 🇮🇹 😀
