Inspired by yoga

I love the feedback I get about yoga. I got this wonderful email last week about the two-week yoga challenge that launched a couple of weeks ago in the online library:
 
"I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying the 2 week yoga practice. I’m aiming for daily and achieving alternate days so far! Feeling good for it. Really helpful and inspiring."
 
Another student told me yesterday he has managed to ward of impending shoulder surgery, as his regular practice has done enough. He has been keeping up a regular practice since the January 30-day challenge and it has been well worth it!
 
What I love about these stories, is that they have done this for themselves. They have made it to their mats, found the impetus to keep it up, and discovered that the benefits far outweigh the 10-20 minutes each day that it takes.
 
The recordings were the seed of a starting point to get them going. The led classes at the studio help to keep up the motivation, refine the practice and bring in the reminders of how to practice that are so helpful once you are familiar with the basics. 
 
Yoga can be so simple once it gets your attention. The hard part is competing with so much noise in our lives: constant distraction and entertainment, phones, marketing and consumerism, busy lives, and false narratives that tell us that simplicity isn't as good as complexity and that everything should feel hard or it isn't 'doing' anything'. 
 
I feel fortunate to have discovered a simple and accessible approach to yoga. It's emphasis is on 'little and often' at home with inspiration via 1:1 support or through your weekly group class. The approach manages to side-step the gymnastic forms of yoga and saves you years of getting lost in perfecting the postures without looking further at what is available from moving and breathing well. 
 
With consistent practice of this simple yet powerful yoga, you'll discover the distracting noise of life and the aches and pains drop further away. Gratitude for simplicity, and the recognition of a more subtle joy comes into the foreground.
 
The practice of yoga helps you discover this, and helps it stay around for longer until it becomes your default way of travelling through the ups and downs of life.
 
Of course I think that everyone should do yoga. I know they won't as it is doesn't appeal to everyone (they don't know what they are missing!). But if you know about it, and you know how good it is for you, and you know how brilliant you feel when you've done it, but then you don't do it...
 
Make sure you get to your mat this weekend. ​