Hello beautiful friends,
As we’re getting older and the decades are mounting up, it’s easy to be complacent about, or to accept as true, the idea that our bodies will become less flexible and more uncomfortable and that our minds will become more set in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviour.
Well I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. And everything that’s happening to me is telling me differently.
My body feels absolutely amazing right now– light, strong, free, clean and energised. Emotionally I feel a greater sense of resilience and self-love than ever before and mentally I’m at peace, with new creative ideas flowing constantly. I’ve just had another birthday … the years are clocking up and I’m defying them!
Instead of getting older, less flexible and rigid in my thinking, physically I feel like I’m literally turning back the clock and resurrecting the gymnast I was in my teenage years… I have an enormous penchant for doing cartwheels at the beach at the moment! (seen above)… and my mind continues to astound me with the new insights and perspectives that arise on an almost daily basis.
HOW is this happening?… The answer is two simple and age-old practices…
YOGA AND MEDITATION
It’s no secret, you all know, I’ve long been a convert to yoga and meditation, but the practice has ebbed and flowed in my life from time to time. Recently it’s ON, amplified… and the benefits just keep piling up and amazing me.
What’s becoming apparent, loud and clear, is that-
If you want to feel alive and keep on living each day with the youthful exuberance you had as a teenager, you HAVE TO MOVE YOUR BODY FULLY IN EVERY DIRECTION, LIKE YOU DO IN YOGA, to keep all systems moving, open and functioning within you to full capacity.
AND you HAVE TO CLEAR YOUR MIND, of all the ‘debris’ and the ‘clutter’, that builds up day by day, to keep your mind fresh and open to new experiences and new ideas.
This leads me to one of my all time favourite topics. All that clutter I referred to, is what I call “Unlived Experience” - i.e. the reservoir of unconscious thoughts and feelings that we carry around within us from one day to another, from one year to the next, from past experiences that we haven’t resolved or simply ‘completed’. I’m sure you’ve all met the person who speaks with prickly anger about an injustice, from the way, way distant past as if it happened yesterday.
Perhaps you think it’s ‘normal’ for this to happen and sadly, it IS common, but unfortunately, not healthy. It doesn’t work. It’s precisely the holding on to this sort of emotional past history that creates the premature demise of both mind and body.
Your mind is just like your computer- it can’t function fully if you don’t ‘DEFRAGMENT’ regularly… it slows down and gets stuck on the same page. And you have to ‘defrag’ your mind, ’empty cache’ and ’empty trash’, otherwise all this clutter is what you bring to every experience and every relationship or interaction you have with others. When you carry around unexpressed thoughts and feelings it means that you see this moment, your everyday experience and others through the veil of all that ‘static’.
So how do you ‘Defrag’ your mind? Easy.
MEDITATE.
Meditation is your de-brief and your ‘defrag’ at the end of the day. It’s time to allow your mind-body to think, feel, fully experience and integrate the days’ events. The practice of sitting quietly in meditation, allowing your mind and body the space to sift through the days experience, brings not only greater clarity and peace, but also learning and growth, so that you can move forward with an enriched heart and an open mind, ready to embrace the next, new, magical moment that this never-ending wonder of life brings.
And just for the record, one more time…no,
… you don’t have to be flexible to do yoga and you don’t have to have a calm mind to meditate!
You can start at any time, no matter how you feel or how busy your mind may be.
I take one-on-one or small group sessions in both YOGA and MEDITATION JUST FOR YOU… FOR COMPLETE BEGINNERS THROUGH TO ADVANCED STUDENTS.
So, if you’d like to reconnect with that youthful you, discover new frontiers in your mind and continue to enJOY the wonder of life, then book a session today.
Phew, my energy is high today, I can barely contain myself … feeling some more cartwheels coming on … and remembering the time I used to do them ‘sans’ hands, a ‘Barani’ it’s called … now that’s something to aim for!
I so hope this mobilises you into positive action and I look forward to sharing the next new exciting chapter of life, as it unfolds, with you.
See you at the beach for cartwheel lessens (with hands) or on the mat or a cushion soon.
JOY in being truly alive.
