Yoga for Life

I wrote this last year, but being a full-time mum, with no time for internet and leaving the whole blogging community to my children, I never fully published it.... Leo, my beautiful, black 19-year-old cat died in February this year. We buried him in the garden and planted a rose on his grave, which is now known as Leo's rose. He was part of the family – he was the family. He was my first baby – I had no children when my sister and I adopted him and his brother Tiger at only three weeks old. I still miss him. My youngest keeps asking "Where's Leo?" "Has he got food?" It's difficult to explain to a two-year old the concept of death - she wouldn't understand even if I tried. At the same time, I'm not sure I can explain it to myself either! Yoga prepares us for death – after all, Savasana is a "corpse” pose! Yet I'm still learning to cope with the loss of a loved one - a grandparent, a friend, a pet or death in general! Meditating on He...

Often, when we go to Yoga classes the teachers talk about yoga philosophy, some will mention Patanjali (The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali), some won’t (and you may leave the class wondering what on earth they were talking about or may be curious and study further; like me. So what is yoga? And how do we control our minds? The direct translation of the second sutra – Yoga citta Vrtti Nirodhah is, according to TKV Desikachar: "Yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively toward an object and sustain that direction without any distractions". So, by controlling the mind, one manages to achieve peace and quiet. Or, perhaps the complete opposite – by not being able to control the mind we become more disturbed! Which one is it? Only you will know! By controlling one's mind and achieving the peace with oneself, it is possible to control the world and our surrounding – or at least have the perception of controlling it. I recently received an angry email from a fitnes...