Carla Araos Yoga

The other day, while talking with a group of mums-to-be, the conversation turned to a common feeling: fear of what's coming next.

It made me realise how universal that feeling is.

Whether we're expecting a child, changing careers, navigating a relationship, facing a loss, or simply wondering what the future holds, most of us are trying to make peace with not knowing.

We spend so much energy looking for certainty, wanting to know how things will unfold before we take the next step. Yet so much of life asks us to move forward without guarantees.

I came across this passage from Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion by Pema Chödrön, and it stayed with me:

"We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part of the adventure, and it’s also what makes us afraid." 

Maybe life isn't asking us to have all the answers. Maybe it's asking us to trust ourselves enough to take the next step, even when we can't see the whole path.

How do you relate to uncertainty in your own life?

🙏📸Rowan Thornhill

What is home?

For many of us, home isn’t just one place. Life takes us far from where we began, and we learn that belonging isn’t tied to a country, city, or address. Sometimes, home is a feeling, a practice, a community.

Moving away can invite us to find home in new places, in new people, and ultimately, within ourselves.

One of the gifts of Ashtanga is that it creates a sense of home wherever we are. The practice is home, and practitioners become family. Because home is less about where we are, and more about how we belong.

I was reminded of this recently in Munich: Ashtanga is a family, beautiful, imperfect, supportive, challenging, and connected.

Grateful for the teachers, practitioners, and spaces that keep this feeling alive. Thank you 🙏

Brett Porzio Patanjali Yoga Shala Kamil Kociak Ashtanga Yoga Munich Ljus Studio Zürich

Life is both a mystery and a miracle.

Some stories unfold exactly as we hope. Others take unexpected turns. Some lives stay with us for decades, while others are here for only the briefest moment. Yet the value of a life is never measured by its length.

Like the Queen of the Night flower, whose rare bloom lasts only a single night, some moments are fleeting, yet leave a lasting imprint.

We learn this through the practice: to meet life as it is. To stay present with joy and sorrow, certainty and uncertainty, beginnings and endings. To hold space for it all.

Because even when we do not understand the mystery, we can still honour its beauty.

Memories that live in smells and colours...

For the last few weeks, I’ve kept having these beautiful memories of “la parcela 80” and my family each time I smell sweet violets or aromo flowers or mimosa in English.

Happy memories of my childhood, when at some point during the year that huge tree in the antejardín would turn yellow and carry such a lovely scent.

It was nothing special, no particular occasion. I used to visit my family a lot.
Those were the times when I would visit my granduncle and aunt and spend time with my cousins.
Nice, simple times.

I don’t think I realised those memories were being made, or how I would return to them years later with a quiet sense of nostalgia.

When we would leave and go back to Santiago, my uncle Tito would give my mother small bouquets of sweet violets (un ramito de violetas), and an extra one for my aunt Fresia, since we always passed by on our way home.

Those tiny violets, with their wonderful smell, would fill the car as we drove back… and then make a little corner of our home feel cosier for the following weeks, until the next visit.

I am nostalgic… but it’s a gentle, heartwarming kind of nostalgia.
The kind that comes from having shared good times with people you love, even if you didn’t always say it out loud.
The kind that comes from having many places and moments that you’ve loved, and called home.

What smell or colour instantly takes you back somewhere?

Happy Spring Equinox 🌼🪻💛

Thanks you for the mimosa bouquet 🙏

About trust...

Five years ago, Sukha came into our lives. Today my heart feels incredibly full.

It was not easy in the beginning. She was cautious, watchful, and unsure. It took months, maybe even years, of patience and gentleness to build what we have now.

There are not many things I feel proud of, but this is one of them.

Today I can pick her up and she knows I will not hurt her. If she shows the slightest sign of discomfort, I put her down gently. She lets me trim her nails without resistance. Recently she has started sleeping by my feet every night, which makes her the softest leg warmer and she is also the most reliable alarm clock.

She has taught me that trust is earned slowly, quietly, and over time.

Trust grows through consistency, patience, and a willingness to listen carefully. Through respecting boundaries, especially the subtle ones.

Trust cannot be rushed. It grows when someone feels safe again and again.

I feel deep gratitude for this little soul and for everything she has taught me about trust and feeling safe.

Five years with Sukha, and still learning. 🤍

When the practice teaches you about love.

In Ashtanga we speak a lot about strength, effort, discipline, and heat.

But strength without openness falters, and openness without strength collapses. The heart is not just something we open, it is something we strive to steady.

The practice teaches us that the heart opens through structure and freedom, discipline and integrity, softness inside of strength.

Each day we are asked for dedication and devotion.
Each breath asks us for discipline.
Each posture asked for courage, determination and humility.
Each practice also asks for detachment.

We learn about love, the willingness to stay. To stay when the breath and the body are strong, but also when they tremble. To stay when things feel effortless, but also when they are not.

The practice teaches to steady the heart, to be kind, free, open, strong, and awake.

Deep gratitude to this practice.

🙏📸

Healing doesn’t respond to force, but it does respond to presence.

Sometimes, the best we can do is slow down and breathe. This therapeutic yoga course gives you five weeks to move gently, rebuild trust in your body, and feel stronger, without pushing, without forcing.

Through awareness-based movement, meditation, breathing, and relaxation, we’ll create a practice that supports you: 

• After injury or birth  

• After a long pause from movement  

• During periods of stress or overwhelm 

• When you need a therapeutic, contained approach

The group is intentionally small (only 9 spots) to ensure you get the attention you deserve.

5-Week Therapeutic Yoga Course: Rebuilding Strength & Trust in the Body
Mondays, 3rd–31st March | 18:30–19:30
studio.zurich

Spaces are limited to 9 students for personalized attention. Reserve your spot through Ljus Studio’s booking system (link in bio). DM me if you have questions, I’m happy to help!

🙏📸

Sometimes I go about pitying myself
and all the while
I am being carried by great winds across the sky.

~ Ojibway Indian




🙏📸

Reflections on practice, a practice rooted in acceptance.

Yoga is a profound practice and requires effort. Yoga does not guarantee transformation, but perhaps offers the means to do so.

At its core, practice is about learning to listen to the body, the breath, and observing ourselves with honesty, and accepting the reality of where we are. The practice is there not to change our reality. Not a performance. Not something that has to be ideal.

My practice and the way I intend to teach are rooted in acceptance. Bodies are different. Life changes. Energy moves in cycles. A meaningful practice adapts without losing its integrity.

I value structure, tradition, and discipline, not as rigid ideals, but as frameworks that support clarity, care, and continuity. Within that structure, there is space for individuality, intelligence, and honest self-inquiry.

I move at my own pace, not to do less, and not to do more, but to do what is appropriate, practising in a way that supports both physical and emotional wellbeing, now and over time.

This is not about selling spirituality or promising outcomes. It is about cultivating steadiness, resilience, and trust through practice.

Yoga, for me, is a holistic and lifelong process. Quiet, consistent, and deeply human.

🙏📸