While this work is shaped by the lens of yoga philosophy and psychology, it is not limited to yoga.
Yoga is an ancient wisdom and science that offers a way of understanding the body, the mind, and the process of healing.
It offers us principles and guidance to support us on a pathway toward resilience, self-regulation and true happiness.
But the duty of care itself is universal and can be applied wherever human beings are being held, supported, guided, or impacted.
This includes:…..
Read MoreThis acronym is a framework I learnt about many years ago, from Brene Brown in her book Dare To Lead. It has become a moral compass for me and one I share with many of my students.
I’d love to share it with you all as it holds so much wisdom.
B - Boundaries
Boundaries are an act of clarity.
They help us understand and name what is ok and what is not ok and help us move through the world with a sense of clarity. Setting boundaries can be hard for some of us, especially if we have not been taught how to set them or if we are people pleasers.
They help us to create conditions where we can remain open-hearted without becoming overwhelmed, resentful or depleted…..
Read MoreWe are living in a time of great evolutionary change.
What Eckhart Tolle called a New Earth , and what ecologist, Joanna Macy describes as the Great Turning - a shift away from an industrial growth society toward a more life-sustaining way of living.
On the outside, and currently playing out on the world stage it can feel chaotic, uncertain and overwhelming.
Crisis and chaos don’t just signal breakdown - they often precede transformation. They reveal what is no longer sustainable and expose the fault lines in many of the systems we are currently embedded in.
This is the nature of lasting change…..
Read MoreI wrote this poem after witnessing how many people gathered in peaceful protest for the No Kings march in America over the weekend.
Over 8 million people, across more than 3000 cities, standing for justice, for dignity, for truth….
Read MoreWe hear the word healing more and more.
Healing journeys.
Healing retreats.
Healing practices.
Healing spaces.
But what does healing actually mean?
It is one of the most commonly used words in spiritual and wellness spaces, yet it is rarely defined…..
Read MoreThis term has become over-saturated and homogenised in spiritual wellness spaces and it’s something I write about in my book The Duty Of Care.
So the question is this: what does “holding space” actually mean and what does it require?
In The Duty Of Care, I talk about creating a safe container and the metaphor of the scaffolding of care.
To explain - consider this - A house without scaffolding is unstable and unsafe. It might look beautiful on the outside with all the right aesthetics, but when the wind or rain comes it will not withstand the pressure and will most likely collapse….
Read MoreOver the past six months or so I have come to the hard realisation that some of the friendships in my life are not what I thought they were. That really they were not reciprocal and they didn't rest on shared values.
I started questioning myself and wondering whether it was me - maybe my expectations were too high or I was too needy or that I was doing something wrong……
Read MoreOver the last few weeks in our mindfulness group, we’ve been exploring the meaning of expectations.
As human beings, expectations are normal.
We all have them. They are not wrong. They are human.
They show us what we care about and value. They often point toward longing - for connection, fairness, respect and recognition.
The problem isn’t that we have expectations but that they are often invisible, unspoken or unrealistic.
Brene Brown calls them “stealth expectations.”…….
Read MoreWe live in a time where our attention is increasingly being pulled in a thousand different directions all at once.
We see more.
We know more.
We witness more and more suffering, more injustice and more information - faster than ever before.
Technology has given us extraordinary access to each other and the world at large. It has opened up conversations, amplified voices and made collective and social change more visible and possible than ever before……
Read MoreThere is a well known quote by Viktor Frankl:
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom”
This is profoundly practical and is at the heart of what we are taught through mindful practices such as yoga and meditation.
When the gap is narrow - when we feel overwhelmed, stressed or under-resourced - the space between stimulus and response is small and maybe doesn’t even exist at times. We can get triggered more easily - perhaps by an email, a comment, a tone of voice - and we automatically react…..
Read MoreI love connecting with like-minded people but I’ve never felt a strong pull towards networking groups, even though it has been recommended to me as a way to grow my business, many times before.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on why I feel this way and I’ve realised that what feels “off” for me is that something about the culture of networking carries a subtle undertone of extraction and transaction.
It can feel like……
Read MoreOur digital world is louder than ever before, but our inner world is where meaning and purpose is found.
This is easy to forget or even know, when we spend so much time on our digital devices - scrolling, posting, consuming - the endless clamour of being “on” and trying to keep up with a pace our nervous systems were never built for…..
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