In Yoga, we often cue to let go and release, to soften and to surrender. Even though, I feel that this is an important part of regaining balance in the body and life, it’s only part of the work and on its own only very limited in its effectiveness. The other part of the work is encouraging muscles that have lost their ability to hold onto energy, i.e. hypo-responsive muscles, to regain that skill and to thereby become fuller and more present. The muscles that are overworking, hyper-responsive muscles, benefit from letting go. However, hypo-responsive muscles have moved into a more collapsed state that does not benefit from releasing, as there is nothing to be released. The protection in those muscles is a distancing vs. a holding on. Inviting hypo-responsive muscles to soften encourages them to further move into collapse, i.e. further away from balance.
 
Those parts of ourselves that have gone away need kind encouragement to return. Working with dosage is a key aspect in the work. Gently inviting more aliveness to increase the capacity for holding onto energy is crucial.
 
The question is: What is missing? What is not present? And then to listen to the silent voices within.
 
I’d love to hear your reflections on your missing parts and the areas in the body that tend to go away.

The pandemic has been an invitation for myself to reflect on the vision I have been having for Equilibrium. When I left the software company I was working for in 2006 – at the age of 27 – I told my work colleagues that I would be opening a yoga centre. There were only a few who did not think I was a little crazy.
 
Opening the studio in Peterborough was definitely not an easy birth and I’m pleased that I did not really know what was involved in starting a business. The building works took longer, were more expensive and we encountered problems along the way which we did not know existed. When Brian, my now husband, and I opened Huntingdon in 2011 and we encountered some of the same problems, even though in a much milder form, he could not understand that I had agreed to opening a second centre having experienced the horrendous birthing pains in Peterborough. I guess… one forgets. 
 
The vision for Equilibrium has always been about an interdisciplinary approach where a community of practitioners, clients, teachers and therapists can come together to create something bigger than the sum of the individual parts. It was always meant to be a place of growth, exploration, healing and a space to simply be. For me, it has always been about the physical space and the energy that gets created when we are together in a room. I loved the first yoga studio I went to in Edinburgh in 1999, which has been a huge inspiration for Equilibrium. 
 
And at its core, the vision is the same: it’s about creating balance. I feel that this is more current than ever. I can see so much polarisation around me. I hope as a centre we can strive for balance and come into equilibrium: 
 

• Be personable and professional.
• Be warm and welcoming and also realise high standards. 
• Present a clean and safe environment without being sterile. 
• Be specialised and inclusive. 
• Be attentive and spacious.
• Integrate yoga and therapies. 
• Find an equilibrium between heart, gut and head; between mind, body and spirit. 
• Bring in themes that are deep and intents that generate lightness and fun. 
• Combine old and new. 
• Respect traditions and be innovative. 

 
My vision is that Equilibrium can create a great balance within the team of teachers and therapists, in what we deliver, the people we attract and the space we create. 

Part of my supervision is to reflect on my own process and how it is moving through me. The word that came up recently during one of my sessions is “gestation”, which medically means the period of maturation inside the womb from conception to birth. More generally, it’s about the development of something over a period of time. The normal limits of the human gestation period are from 37 to 42 weeks. It has now been about 34 weeks since the start of the first lockdown and in myself I get the sense that something new will be born in the near future. Since March of this year I’ve completed one of the biggest projects of my life (UKCP registration as a psychotherapist), I let go of a role that I had been holding for the last eight years within the Forrest Yoga community and of course I have stopped travelling completely, which brought about a huge change in the way I deliver my work. I have felt that there has been a true integration within myself of the different passions I have: yoga and body psychotherapy. For me, it’s culminating in a two day training I will be teaching online at the end of the month where I’m bringing together different aspects of my work. In some way, I’m being more un-apologetically me in my work.

What has been developing within you? What new beginnings are lurking around the corner for you? What are you giving birth to?

We hope you are safe and healthy.
 
Due to recent governmental policies, we will need to close the physical centres from Thursday 5th of November until Wednesday 2nd of December - as it stands. Our last in person class will be Tuesday evening in Huntingdon and Wednesday evening in Peterborough. From Thursday 5th of November, all classes will be streamed online. We're currently speaking to the teachers to finalise the timetable, so all sessions with your most favourite instructors should be streameable.    
 
Use this link to see all live-streamed sessions. Please remember that we have two locations and some live streamed sessions are under Huntingdon; some are under Peterborough:
Live Streamed Scheduler 
 
Plus we've been developing our video on demand offer. If you have not tried it, it's only £12 for an introductory offer. We're adding new videos every week. It's £19 after that or £15/month if you commit to 12 months. 
 
Our thoughts are also with those of you who are financially struggling and we would like to support you. We're giving away two times one month of video-on-demand to two people who would not normally be able to afford yoga. This was enabled through the kind generosity of Carlton who donated his teaching to this cause. Contact us if you or somebody you know could benefit from yoga, but can't afford it.   
 
If you had technical issues in the past, please contact Brian on [email protected] and he will walk you through the set up step by step. We've learned a lot during the last months and even though you might not have had a satisfactory experience before, the solution might be simple. 
 
If you can't go online or don't want to, here is what we can offer you:
 
- If you are holding a membership and you'd like to freeze it for November, please contact us. We're waving the notice period. The £10 admin charge still applies.  
 
- If you are holding a valid 5 or 10 class pass, please contact us and we can credit your account with the monetary value of the remaining sessions. We're waving our regular policies for November. There is a £5 admin fee. There is no time limit on the credit. 
 
Please contact us by end of November 2020 in order to make use of the more flexible and changed policies. You need to hold a valid membership or pass in order for us to process your credit. 
 
Let's all stay grounded, centred and kind to one another.