The Glasgow Yogi

Functional Hip Strengthening Moves ✨

We spend a lot of our time sitting down in this modern age so our hip flexors can get weak over time.

These are some of my favourite moves to counterbalance that. If you joined me for Yoga on Friday Kālī Collective Yoga Studio Glasgow last month you'll for sure have seen these movements!

This month we pivot our focus to stretch rather than strength with a combined focus on pranayama. Come join me would love to see you on the mat 🥰✨

I release that which no longer serves me ✨

At the start of the year I quit my job. After 9 years of carefully crafting and honing a career, of dragging my way up a corporate ladder until blisters formed on my hands. I climbed until I woke up each morning with my chest feeling tighter and my spirit smaller. I climbed until I couldn't any more, I simply stopped.

I looked up - how far this endless ladder seemed to go, up and up and up more pressures, more deadlines, more responsibility - but the most heartbreaking realisation? That this place and this system did not place value in it's people.

I looked down. I looked down at all the mistakes I had made, the lessons I had learned, the hard work and the time and the effort and the many tears that had been shed shaping myself into a mould that never really fit me. And I simply let go.

I let go. I let go of the ladder. With no real plan and without having it all figured out I quit my job. Reckless? Maybe. Was it necessary? Absolutely. Because I knew in my soul I couldn't stay in a place where I did not feel valued.

And I suppose this is the part where I say I landed on my feet. That I became a full time yoga instructor or I found the coveted dream job or maybe even that I won the lottery. But the truth is actually much less glamorous, what actually happened was that I spent a few months in a panicked daze of needing to have control, and of needing to have everything figured out. I hid it all under a bravado but secretly I dreaded the question that everyone asks - what will you do now?

I didn't have an answer, and honestly, I still don't. In all of this I allowed myself time, precious time to give myself space to fully breathe and come home to myself again. The next few months my nervous system began to regulate this slower pace allowed my stressed tf out nervous system to rewire patterns that ran deeper than I first knew.

And I'm excited to let go of old patterns, behaviours and everything that no longer serves me to make space to welcome in this new season of spring, this season of growth 🌱

Even as I have no idea what that looks like!

How the moon lost her shine 🌙

Myths of the Asanas - Ardha Chandrasana

A story about balance - light and dark, yin and yang, dusk and dawn. Without one we cannot know and appreciate the other.

When Ganesha hurls his elephant trunk tusk at Chandra the moon is pierced and we lose it's celestial glow and the world is plunged into darkness.

After a time to quell his temper Ganesha agrees to allow Chandra to shine at her fullest potential once every 4 weeks. There are many layers of teachings we can peel back from this story one is a reminder of the balance of the sacred cycles.

Without the sun nothing will grow and without the moon there is no shadows, no softness.

This story can serve as our reminder to bring balance into our own lives. Like the physical posture Ardha Chandrasana (half moon) we are encouraged to invite balance into the body strengthening through our legs and flexibility through the hips. Off the mat we can also invite softness along with the strength, rest with invigoration, socialising with quiet reflection.

Like the moon shines at its brightest only once every 4 weeks we too can give ourselves permission not to have to shine at our brightness every single day. Like the moon we can give ourselves permission to wax and wane, to retreat, reflect and come back brighter than we have before.

I hope you enjoyed this tale 🙏 what asana story do you want to hear next?