Maddie meets Yoga

You have given me hope. 🖤

The outpour of support in response to my last post has quite frankly left me speechless. 🥺

From past employers to chance encounters, from people that know me extremely well to people that I haven't even had a longer conversation with, a whole lot of you took time to share your experiences and struggles or remind me of all the positive qualities you see in me that I might be blind to at the moment.

This experience has reminded me once again that healing is not a linear journey where you reach a certain point and you're done. That just because you understand some causes of your triggers doesn't mean they can't be reawaken in you. That it is essential to set boundaries and unlearn the guilt that comes with them. 😓

It has simultaneously affirmed the necessity of speaking about things that scare us, that make us uncomfortable because it makes us bare our wounded soul for everyone to see. Turns out we're all a little wounded, whether we're aware of it or not and in today's world where we can't seem to miss any opportunity to pit ourselves against each other, maybe we could all do with a bit more of radical and compassionate honesty. 🖤

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. For reminding me of who I am and why I am here and that I am enough. I hope you can show the same kindness to yourself today.

Yours, Maddie.







📸

I haven't been honest with myself.. 😔

I have been suffering in silence, telling myself that this too shall pass, that I should know better by now, I should have the tools and knowledge to support myself, it's normal to feel like this, everyone gets stressed. Etc etc etc.

As someone who has been brought up to always be the very best in everything they do, no exceptions, no quitting (and before we get any further it is hugely important that this is NOT interpreted as parent-blaming, most all parents do their very best with what they know and how they've been brought up themselves) I have acquired a lot of perfectionism, the need to do absolutely everything absolutely right all the time. 💯

When my mental health finally started to improve I felt like I was on a roll. I had dreams and ambitions again for the first time in years, I had a good morning routine to set me up for a successful day. It felt like the Universe was also noticing this and was offering me opportunities left and right and I said yes to all of them because they did offer me joy and fulfilment and it felt like my life was finally moving in the direction I wanted it to. 💫

Until it wasn't. Until I found myself sitting on the side of the bed on a Monday morning, crying, because it was a new week AGAIN and I was SO tired. 😔 From spring this year I have been trying to balance an almost full time job, yoga teacher training (and then teaching), the hiking project AND starting a small business in food production. There were times when all of this combined into working every waking moment for weeks in a row.

And I ignored the signs. The increase in alcohol consumption. The anxiety, which had never been a part of my life before. The constant feeling of exhaustion regardless of how much you sleep. Loss of interest in the things that made me SO happy before.

(continued in comments..)

I am tired of feeling like this. 😞

I've struggled with mental health since I was a teenager. The blanket of depression would come over me and in time I would learn to hide it so well that most people in my life had no idea I was suffering. 😶

Carrying on in a state of being half-present, half-drowning for almost 2 decades was exhausting but I didn't know any better. I didn't remember what it was like to feel any other way. I thought it was puberty, then the struggles of adolescence, then at one point I had no one else but myself to blame for all my sorrows so in my mind I just accepted that I was broken. 💔

Who knows how my life would have turned out if I had better tools to support myself? I absolutely believe that everything happened so I could find myself exactly where I am right now, but there are little stings of sorrow sometimes that just want to feel sorry for little Maddie for all the unnecessary pain she inflicted on herself. 😥

If this sounds familiar to you then please know that you don't have to suffer in silence. 🤐 You are not alone and help is out there. ❤️ There are resources and tools and steps you can take, but you have to decide.

Without the actual commitment to wanting to feel better you can be given all the information to succeed yet it will be wasted on you if you just want someone else to fix you. 🤕 Standing up tall with your head held high requires you to be able to look at your flaws and say "I am aware of this and I love myself anyway." 🖤

If you are ready to take that step where you put excuses behind you and really commit to growing into your skin, flaws'n'all, drop me a comment or a quick message. ✉️ You are the only person who will be by your side for the rest of your life, so why not attempt to make friends with them? 💗

"I need to keep moving."

One of the biggest arguments I hear against practicing yin yoga is that it is boring, it makes you sleepy and you're "not doing anything". 🙄

Which makes me want to turn around and tell them that that is exactly why you need yin yoga. 🙃

We live in a society where our "value" is equated with what and how much we produce.. Create social media content, let everyone know all the time how amazing your life is, wake up at 6 am every day and hustle for your dreams, produce more s**t, sell more stuff, be number 1, break even more limitations. 💪 💪 💪

When was the last time you were told you are fine exactly as you are, wherever you are, whatever your current physical or mental state❓Or maybe you are not fine, you are struggling to keep up with all those demands and you're fcking tired but every time you try to rest you feel an overwhelming sense of guilt? 😕

Learning to be still, to notice our internal dialogue (or monologue), to just be without needing to do is a revolutionary skill in today's world. If any of this resonated with you, I invite you to come practice with me. 🧘🏻‍♀️ I will do my best to remind you that wherever you are today, it is okay. And if it is not okay, we will learn how to accept what is so we can change what we can. 🖤

"I haven't felt this grateful in ages.." 🖤

Words I happened to overhear on the last morning of the Näkid Metsa season closing retreat.

What started as intuitive feeling grew into a season of 15 hikes and almost 100 women that hopefully feel a little bit more confident in themselves and their hiking abilities today. 🏕

Last weekend a bunch of us reunited to learn even more skills, watch a sky full of thousands of stars, turn our attention inwards, laugh wholeheartedly, support each other and lose track of time. ✨

To call it an honour and a privilege to stand with and in front of these women would be an understatement. Out of the 15 hikes I got to take part as a guide in 8, from the very first one in early spring, through the sweaty, horsefly-filled summer all the way to the frosty mornings of late October. I guided my first ever group meditation on our first hike, I got to teach yoga in every possible weather outside in nature and I got to teach the ridiculously simple but effective forest bathing.

But most of all, for the first time in my life I felt a sense of belonging like never before. I have searched this Earth for a place that feels like home and tried to shave off and smoothen my edges to make myself fit in when all this time the home was within me and I just had to find the right puzzle to fit my piece into.

Thank you, each and every one of you. For the trust, for showing up ready to learn & experience, be still, open and present. Some of you have said that we have changed your lives, but you have no idea how much you've changed mine for the better. 🖤

Here's to the next adventures!
Your forest yoga fairy 💚

I'm not doing enough. 😩

Recently I've been struggling a bit with managing all my obligations and the many businesses I have taken upon myself.

Guilt, shame, anxiety - all good friends of mine from my life thus far, are always there to remind me that there's more work waiting for me at the end of every task. 😓

Which is actually one of the reasons I wanted to start teaching yin yoga as it would also force me to practice my own lessons on myself and allow space to just be, without doing. 🧘🏻‍♀️

I've been away from social media more just so I could focus the energy I have left on maintaining the support systems that help to keep me sane, mostly journalling obsessively to create space in my mind and meditating on my whys, imagining the future I want to build for myself.

Do you feel like it's impossible to stop the mind from generating new to-dos, even if you've already done plenty? What are your best tips for organising when there's just way too much of everything to keep in mind? Do you keep a physical calendar or is there an app that changes everything? Leave me a comment below, you might just change my life for the better! ;)