​Brene Brown in her book "Rising Strong" talks about comparison as the killer of joy and creativity and I could not agree more. Endless hours of social media often leave me in a place of confusion, doubt and exhaustion. Part of my commitment to myself is therefore to limit my hours on social media platforms and become aware when I'm moving into comparing myself with others, highlighting other people's achievements, undermining mine and feeling therefore not good enough. I'd like to stress that this has nothing to do with what other people post; it's about my own process. The internal feeling is "I need to do more" and I experience it as a constriction in my chest and frequently my throat. It's in those moments if I can catch myself, be with the direct experience in the body and get out of the story, things shift. What has helped me before is to remind myself to "swim in my own lane", which is an expression Brene Brown coined. She uses swimming for joy and meditation. However in the past, when she synced her strokes with the person next to her, she almost injured herself. Swimming in my own lane for me means feeling into the questions of: What do I need? What brings me joy? What is my own rhythm of life? As a community, we connect through our similarities, but we thrive by making room for our differences. I invite you to make room for your own differences, have your own back and follow your own path. There is no blue print on how to move through these times right now. Be guided by your own feeling and intuition, be inspired by people around you, but stay away from comparing. 
 
We'd like to offer a free recording for this week again. With these free recordings we hope to support people who are financially in a difficult place right now and can't afford to come to live sessions or sign up for our recordings. But of course, it's for the enjoyment of everybody. Thank you Marta for your generosity in providing this class.

​Words and concepts that have been coming up over the last couple of week are: balance, paradox, juxtaposition, polar opposites, integration and abandonment. They are all qualities of the fourth chakra, the heart chakra, which is the middle point and the centre of the chakra system. Interestingly, on a physical level this chakra includes the heart and the lungs. According to Anodea Judith (Eastern Body, Western Mind), in the heart chakra we continue our individuation, i.e. our journey of finding ourselves and becoming who we are, by developing balance of the inner female and male, anima and animus. This is less about gender than about opposites forces that are residing in each of us. We all carry paradoxes: On the one hand we might want to really come out of the lock down, on the other hand, we might be scared of and tread it. Instead of needing to choose one over the other, Anodea Judith suggests that "the more we allow one kind of energy, the more the other can come through". It's not about either looking forward to OR being scared of it, it's about looking forward to AND being scared of it at the same time. Both are true and the work is to make room for the paradox, in that sense widening our identity and not abandoning parts of ourselves.
 
Thank you all who contributed to these reflections.
 
We hope that yoga enables you to expand and contain seemingly opposing aspects of yourself. Here is a free recording - thanks to Janet's generosity.  

​Gestalt therapy talks about the paradox of change, which at its core says that change only truly happens when we are fully invested in what is. The moment we push away our experiences and feelings and wish for things to be different, lasting transformation is elusive. This week I have witnessed beautiful examples in my clients and also in myself when there was a letting go and accepting of the moment, often a difficult reality, and how feelings and sensations organically shifted into the opposite direction.  
 
By allowing the dark, the light appears. By feeling the pain, excitement enters. By admitting the sadness, hope comes in. Sometimes, the sense is that when we do yoga, meditate or do other mindfulness practices, difficult feelings should not appear. Actually, all these tools help us to relate to what is happening differently, so that we can hang out in the present moment without running away or drowning in the experience. When we can be present with what is, shifts occur and lasting change surfaces - organically and sustainably. Whatever is arising is part of the process and it's pointing us in the direction of our next step. It's not something to get rid of, but something to pay attention to. It's about staying with the direct and immediate experience of what's going on.
 
In that way, we hope you will be able to use yoga as a practice for true transformation. Enjoy this free session from us. Thank you Kate F. for making this possible: 
 
Free Recording of Live Streamed Class