Firstly, hello new readers *waves*, where have you all come from?  It’s lovely to see you.  Do sit down and have a cup of tea and a vegan cookie.  Anything you want to know just ask!

Ch-ch-changes (as Bowie would say), that’s the topic this morning.  Do tell me what you think.

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Do you ever look back on your life of a year ago and wonder how so much has changed in just twelve months?  Last April I had no idea I would be living in Cambridge again now.  I had no idea that I would have sold my yoga business.  Last April it hadn’t even really dawned on me that my life in London had started to make me unhappy.  I certainly hadn’t realised how unhappy Himself had become there.

Our old house in London (the white one with the blue door, second from the left – not actually the pub)

We were in Paris for my birthday when we suddenly decided to make the move.  My birthday is 6th June for all of you wanting to send presents and cards!

In Pareeeeee!  It was freezing.  In June.  I had all of the clothes I’d brought with me on in this photo.  Also I look as though I have been superimposed.

“Let’s just do it,” Himself said as we realised how much we wanted to change our lives.

And we did.

By September we were in Cambridge.  Fast workers eh?

In just three short months I sold my yoga business, found a house for us in Cambridge, organised a cross country move and managed to relocate two incredibly temperamental cats without them going insane or peeing in their crates.

However, if somebody had told me this time last year what the next twelve months had in store for me I would have panicked at the thought of it.  Too much to organise, too much to co-ordinate!  But when it came to actually doing it, everything was plain sailing. And here we are a year later, happier, more settled, able to afford a bigger house, and just look at the view from the back window.

All of this reminds me of the fourth of the Five Remembrances of the Buddha.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

At first glance that can be quite depressing can’t it?  But if you think about it and allow yourself to accept the inevitability of change, embrace it even, life becomes full of anticipation, challenge and wonder. All that was dear to me this time last year has changed.  And yet I don’t miss any of it.

What has changed in your life over the last year?

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

picture source

A regular yoga practice does not automatically make us yogis. A lot of people mistakenly imagine the world of yoga to be different from the rest of the world, but sometimes I think yoga amplifies us, defines not just our better qualities but also those not so nice ones as well. Those prone to ego can grow an even bigger one as it were.

Practicing yoga doesn’t change a person overnight. All the difficulties of everyday life are still there as soon as you get off your mat and the only thing we can control is our reaction to these difficulties.

We are all human and we all make mistakes. However hard we try we will probably continue to make mistakes. And while it is easy to spot flaws in other people it isn’t always so easy to spot them in ourselves.  Believe me, as the self-crowned Queen of Unsolicited Advice, I know this.  The phrase “physician heal thyself” springs to mind.

A long time ago during my yoga teacher training, I attended a workshop on hand balances. The teacher was strong and flexible and could not understand why I had such a problem with hand balances. She even insinuated that as this was such a problem perhaps I should think twice about teaching yoga.

My problem with hand balances is two-fold. The pain in my hands and wrists from the fibromyalgia can make it excruciating to put weight through them a lot of the time. Secondly, the curvature of the spine from my scoliosis is exacerbated when I’m upside down. Basically that means that without a wall, I fall over sideways.  Which in some ways is hilarious.

These days I show my yoga students this amusing overbalance just to show them that none of us are perfect. Back then it was still quite a touchy subject. My fragile ego was shattered by an off-handed remark about my ability to teach. Yoga practice may amplify overinflated egos, but it also amplifies the underinflated as well; lack of self-esteem and self awareness. The strong flexible teacher reacts negatively to the condition of scoliosis and the scoliosis sufferer reacts negatively towards their practice. I’m not sure that in this case either teacher or student were practicing yoga. We were both certainly a long way from being yogis.

I call this blog the Suburban Yogini. That is less a description of me than a description of what I aspire to be. I have come on in leaps and bounds since that workshop on hand balances; I am more sure of my practice, my teaching, my path in life.  But I can also be stubborn, irrational, impulsive and moody. I get impatient and irritated too easily a lot of the time. I forget to breathe and open my heart when I’m in everyday situations. I am very much a work in progress.

We can choose to participate in competitiveness, ego and negative feelings or we can tread our own path and try to create examples of open-mindedness and compassion, transcending not only the competitiveness around us but also our physical bodies themselves, wonky spines, painful hands and all.

Because, as Dumbledore says, it is our choices in life that define us.

How do you practice compassion and open-mindedness?  What choices have you made that define you?

Brighton Beach at sunset – by me

This is my 100th post in this blog. It amazes me how much my life has changed since I first started to post here back in early 2008. That’s less than two years ago but to me it feels as though a entirely different person wrote that first post.

In early 2008 I was still working in corporate law in the City whilst teaching yoga three nights a week. I was exhausted as you can probably imagine. Luckily I was already well into the process of changing my life for the better. A couple of months after that first post I left law for good after 8 years and set up my own business, teaching yoga.

Since then things have changed again. Life is nothing if not unpredictable and in constant flux. We live in Cambridge now I work for a local arts charity and make the most of my evenings off. And since the move I have started using this blog a lot more and have met some fantastic fellow bloggers. It started off as an outlet for my thoughts on teaching and practicing yoga. It has since also become my notebook for recipes, and album for photos of my spoiled kitties and a blank page for the ramblings of my mind.

So dear readers, how has your blog changed since you started writing it?