It’s so easy at this time of year to get caught up in the whirl of feast planning, crazy shopping, gift wrapping, tree decorating, christmas parties and catch-ups, and not be truly present to ourselves and our loved ones.

I’ve often found myself searching high and low for the ‘perfect thoughtful present’ for a loved one or the box of bon-bons that matches the table setting, getting frazzled and stressed, having left it all to the last minute.

This year, I’m far from home in the lead up to Christmas so things are a little different. Even though I’m surrounded by snow and fairy lights, it doesn’t feel like it’s just a few days from Christmas. I don’t have a long list of gifts to buy or a feast to plan, or a calendar full of dinners, drinks and parties.

On the one hand, it feels strangely quiet. On the other, it gives me a wonderful opportunity to connect with those I am with in a way that hasn’t happened in past years, when I’ve been moving quickly, ticking off to do lists and filling up every space on my calendar. Slow time. Present time. I have a chance to reflect on what this time of year is really about. Connecting and sharing with our loved ones, near and far. Giving the gift of our ‘perfect thoughtful presence’, in whatever form that takes.

In the past I’ve found this time of year a particularly challenging one for maintaining my practice and staying centred in amongst all the activity. I’m sure many can relate to that. This year, the challenge is in ‘being there’ for my friends and family in Australia when I’m on the other side of the world. As always, I will turn to my spiritual practice and that quiet inner guide that always has the answer, when I can be quiet and still long enough to hear it.

As Christmas moves ever closer, I’m bringing forward the reflective process I normally save for the ‘post-Christmas pause’. I find myself being able to reflect more deeply on what this time of year is really all about for me – love and gratitude. Plain and simple. Gifts, feasts, parties and decorations are all wonderful parts of the celebration but ultimately it’s about spending time with and sharing with the people we love, acknowledging the gifts in our lives, and hopefully finding ways to bring a little light and love to the lives of those that have not had our good fortune.

So here are some questions I’m posing to myself to connect with the essence of Christmas and to reflect on what I’d like to bring to the fresh new year that’s fast coming our way (oh I do love a new year!):

1. What am I most grateful for and in what new ways can I ‘pay it forward’?
2. In what ways can I give that have meaning to others (and to myself)?
3. What practical steps can I take to be present for my loved ones this Christmas?
4. How can I maintain this presence as we move into the new year?
5. What is no longer working for me that I’m ready to let go of?
6. What do I want to bring more of into 2017?

I love the promise of a new year, the fresh start, the chance to reflect. And this year, I’m grateful to be able to start that process a little early..

With love and gratitude

X

 

 

 

I have to be completely honest, I procrastinated writing this article for weeks, it was pushed to the bottom of the ‘to do list’ time and time again. So much happened in my one week Italian adventure, how could I possibly summarise my experience in a couple of pages?

Lucky for me, I was given a deadline. As I (finally) sat down to write, I thought to myself, firstly, wow what a week, I could write a short book on all my amazing experiences. Then, secondly, I tried to pinpoint my favourite moments of the trip. Asking myself what did I enjoy most? The simplicity of the Italian cuisine, the exposure to authentic Italian music, the breathtaking landscape, the ancient architecture, the art and history, the people I connected with along the way or simply the time and space I created for myself? I quickly came to the conclusion that there were no favourites, I loved every moment, every moment was unique and loved for different reasons.

The decision to go

After approximately three minutes of contemplation on a quiet Tuesday afternoon in the office I booked my flights. From that moment I approached my European adventure with enthusiasm and passion (once I had drawn up a detailed spreadsheet outlining the logistics of my three children for the week). It was time to celebrate, the stars had aligned and the universe had presented me with a wonderful week-long gift.

The name of the ‘Yoga Holiday’ was SAVOUR. The concept of savouring and being present in the moment resonated and spoke to me loud and clear as did a trip to Italy and doing what I love most…..Yoga! It was a win win in my eyes.

Firstly I would like to say….Italy…I love you! From the minute I boarded the high speed train from Milano and set eyes on your spectacular countryside you stole my heart….forever.

A yoga holiday, not a yoga retreat

Here is my personal experience of my first ‘Yoga Holiday’. This was not a ‘Yoga Retreat’. What is the difference you ask? Well a yoga retreat often includes many hours of yoga classes each day, dietary limitations and structured schedules. A Yoga Holiday on the other hand, while there is still plenty of yoga, offers so much more. Savour Italy presented endless opportunities to savour all that Italy had to offer – beautiful countryside, organic markets and cooking experiences, local organic wine, day excursions exploring the natural enviroment and local historic towns and the warm hospitality and shared celebration the Italian culture is famous for, and everything was optional.

Welcome to Le Marche

The Le Marche region of central Italy is breathtaking and full of charm. It attracts visitors seeking the taste of genuine Italy, untouched by mass tourism. Our accommodation at Oasi Biologica is known as an ‘Agriturismo’ — a working organic farm and winery run by a local ‘bellisimo Italiana’ family. The farm is an oasis of peace, nestled between the green hills around Ascoli Piceno, among vineyards, olive groves and endless rows of fruit tress. The vast landscape reminded me of a beautiful patchwork quilt. The still unspoilt nature was the perfect place to restore my mind, body and spirit.

On arrival (after a few missed turns in my little rent-a-fiat), I was welcomed with open arms by the owners Giovanni and Irma, a friendly smile and a much needed coffee, “uno macchiato prega” (one macchiato please). Oh the coffee! I have to admit, I love my coffee, and it is fair to say that Italy’s coffee culture is one of the world’s finest. Coffee is enjoyed standing up, usually at the bar and the options are limited, the Italians are all about simplicity, “thou shalt not muck around with the authentic and natural beauty”. This applies not only to the coffee but to the Italian food as well.

The food

They say people either “eat to live” or “live to eat”. When I was backpacking in Italy 18 years ago I was eating to live, to survive, however, this time it was a very different experience. The Italian’s celebrate food, they eat seasonal and local produce and they share their meals with family and friends. We were lucky enough to spend an afternoon in the kitchen with Irma, learning the art of making biscotti and an evening in the basement of the farm amongst the wine vats, with Giovanni walking us, step by step, through the organic wine making processes. Read this article, written by one of the Savour Italy hosts, Janet Lowndes, for a more detailed description of the Italian food experience.

The people

I love the Italian people. They are kind, modest, gentle and completely relaxed. The connections I made, with my limited Italian dialogue and their limited English, were unforgettable. I learnt that you don’t need words to connect and communicate, facial expressions and gestures can tell a story and create lifelong friendships.

The yoga

Let’s talk yoga, after all this was a Yoga Holiday. Firstly, what type of yoga did we practice? Did it involve making shapes on our yoga mats all day? Absolutely not. To practice yoga asana (postures) a yoga mat is very helpful, however, yoga is so much more than asana and very little of yoga requires a yoga mat. Yoga is about connecting, coming together and uniting. When I say this, I am referring to the connection of the mind and body, the connection with your breath, the connection with other people (the sanga / community), the connection with your external environment, Mother Nature, connection with your ‘self’ and a connection and understanding that there is a power higher and greater than ourselves.

Michael opened our first session together as a group with a quote by William James “Our lives are the sum total of whatever we have chosen to focus our attention on.” This quote sang to me and I decided from that moment my intention, my sankalpa, for my Italian adventure was to pay attention and see what happened. I disconnected from the digital world and decided to truly live in the now.

So, although we practiced on our mats most mornings and evenings, the yoga element of the holiday was integrated into every moment of every day, it was about connecting and savouring. Whether it was picking a bunch of organic grapes from the vines, noticing the distant sounds of bells from the local hilltop village, gazing at the ornate ancient architecture or simply noticing the sweet aromas escaping from the kitchen before meal times.

Paying attention and connecting

I quickly realised it was quite difficult to pay complete attention and connect with each precious moment. First I needed to adapt, as everything in Italy is a little different from being at home. The time difference was a big one, the weather and the effects on my skin and hair, the food (I have never eaten so much bread and cheese in all my life), the language (ordering an espresso and receiving a large milky coffee). What challenged me the most was the gift of space and time I had all to myself.  I have a busy life back in Australia with work and children and I was not used to or comfortable with this feeling of spaciousness. At first I found myself reacting instead of adapting, it was confronting and I felt a little anxious. Then I was able to ‘let go’ and surrender.

Once I was able to let go and connect, I was able to REALLY notice, to pay complete attention. This is when the magic happened. I started to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. I felt a racing sense of excitement and burst of energy but at the same time I felt calm. As the days went by the feeling intensified and I felt so many wonderful emotions, gratitude, love, but most importantly I felt content and I felt happy.

Not only did I have all these wonderful feelings radiating from the inside, my vitality levels increased, my quality of sleep improved and my inward journey during my asana practice deepened.

Savouring the extraordinary in the ordinary

As we waved arrivederci (goodbye) to Oasi Biologica and headed to Rome I decided to continue my ‘Italian intention’, I was committed to paying attention and seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Since arriving home, I can honestly say, I have brought a piece of Italy with me. I am savouring my moments, I am taking time for ‘me’ and connecting with my family and friends in a way I have not done before. I am happy to have returned home a better version of myself, stronger and clearer, more grateful.

My week in Italy was an adventure of a lifetime, memories were made that I will forever cherish and new habits formed that have positively changed my life.

Thank you Savour Italy.

With gratitude x

Written by Kirstie Christensen

Learn more about the Savour Italy experience…

Here at The Yoga Institute, we cannot overemphasise the benefits of yoga on your health and well-being. An integrated yoga practice extends far beyond the bounds of the mat and encompasses our moment by moment choices about they ways we treat ourselves and others. How we choose to start our days can have a big impact on the quality of our experience. We were recently featured in Bupa Life Insurance’s post on healthy morning rituals entitled, ‘Lifestyle Experts Share Their Healthy Morning Habits‘.

The article offers tips from Australia’s leading wellness experts on healthy ways to start your day. Quoting Michael, The Yoga Institute’s founder, Bupa said, ‘Michael de Manincor believes that a morning ritual that’s tailored to a person’s needs, aims, challenges, and circumstances will be the most effective. For him this means mindful, breath-centred movement of an integrated yoga practice for improved wellbeing.’

There are some more things that you can try to see if they help you have a more mindful rest of your day.

Waking Up

Try to wake up naturally if your schedule allows. Especially in the colder, darker months see if you can let some natural light into your bedroom so that you can awaken naturally with the sun. This lets your body’s natural circadian rhythms to come into effect, giving you more restful sleep so that you can wake refreshed. If your work schedule requires you to sleep at odd hours, invest in a natural light lamp that gradually grows in brightness as your time to wake up nears, mimicking the natural effects of the sun.

Hydration

Throughout the night, your body processes the fluids in your body, so you need to replenish those fluids in the morning to fuel you into the rest of the day. Start off with a cup of warm water with lemon to hydrate your body and stimulate your digestive system. If you can’t miss your caffeine fix in the morning, have some water first. Coffee is delicious but caffeine can be dehydrating, so make sure to keep your fluid intake up throughout the day to counteract this drying effect.

Positive Thoughts

As you are getting ready to go out for the day, take a look at yourself in the mirror and say something positive, like ‘I feel vibrant and alive today’, or ‘I am surrounded by good in my life’. By giving yourself this positive reinforcement in the morning, you are setting yourself up to be happier and more confident throughout the rest of the day. It may feel a bit silly at first, but less so as you start to notice the benefits in your daily life. Be sure to smile too while you are doing it.

Morning Practice

But for the biggest impact we encourage you to make the time for a personalised morning practice even if it’s just 10 minutes. Get some advice on a sequence which incorporates mindful, breath-centred asanas (postures), pranayama (mindful breath practices) and meditation. Such a practice can have incredibly positive benefits on physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Even just a few minutes a day can make a big difference.

These tips are so simple, but you’ll be amazed at the large effect they’ll have on your day. Each small change you make to your morning routine will be compounded and the positive benefits will continue to grow with each new change. Try it out for yourself and see.

Check out this short film ‘The Science Behind Yoga’ which launched last month.

This is a fascinating film that delves into new areas of research that are emerging, looking at the physical and mental health benefits of yoga. It features contributions from experts in the fields of yoga, meditation, neuroscience and psychology including our own Michael de Manincor:

“There is actually something very powerful in what’s going on in here, and that’s worth investigating”

by Brook McCarthy

There’s a time for working for free, a place for charitable yoga teaching and a role for working for profit. As a yoga teacher, knowing the difference between these will help you avoid heartache and thrive as a professional, while helping to lift the entire yoga sector. Whether you’re a fledgling yoga teacher, a studio owner, a seasoned teacher at others’ studios, or someone in between, it’s useful to differentiate between these three.

Free to be me

Let’s start with working for free. When just starting out, you’re rich in enthusiasm and poor in experience, so working for free makes a lot of sense. Fresh from your yoga teacher training course, you need all the experience you can get in order to develop the necessary skills to teach.

There’s no other way to learn how to adjust, assist, instruct with just the right amount of words for bodies that are tall, short, wide, skinny, old, in menopause, with duff hips, slipped discs, heavily pregnant bellies, tight hamstrings, and rotator cuff injuries and personalities that are striving, depressed, distracted, uncomfortable, inhibited or shy. And no, the three volunteer classes you taught in during your course don’t count.

You need diversity, you need unexpected situations, you need more experience.

How long you teach for free is really up to you and the guidance of your teacher. And free is totally free, not “I owe you” or “you owe me” from yoga studio owners, family, friends and colleagues. No funny feelings, no weirdness, no negativity.

Giving free lessons

Offering ‘first class is free’ at yoga studio also makes sense for studio owners that need feet through the door and bums on mats.

I have mixed feelings about how successful it is as a marketing strategy because there are lots of variables. These include: whether the studio will attract ‘price shoppers’ who only ever intend to use the free class and then disappear to the next studio offering free or heavily discounted intro passes; and whether the student recognises the value and power of yoga when she is not motivated by the dollar amount she’s invested.

Yoga for charity

I’m surprised there’s not more involvement by the yoga world in charity fundraising and outreach. With several worthy exceptions (such as The Yoga Foundation  and Off the Mat), there are pitifully few examples of organised, collaborative and cohesive giving by the yoga community. Most charitable endeavours are singular and happening in isolation.

To me, this is one of the most disappointing aspects of the yoga world. But the worldwide yoga movement is still in its infancy. We have not had decades of mainstream popularity, and yoga’s origins are very much counterculture, so this may explain why we are not more cohesive and organised. Perhaps we will unite in time to serve and give cohesively, similar to churches and parishes.

Working for charity means the funds raised go to charity. Givers should not be mislead – if the teacher is being paid, then ensure people know this. If marketing and advertising is coming out of the budget, then explain this.

When a teacher works for charity, she should expect that the fruits of her efforts go to the charity in question, not to the studio hosting the ‘charitable’ event.

Yoga for profit

Working denotes payment; if it were otherwise, you are volunteering or enjoying free time. Making a viable living as a yoga teacher is essential if you are to invest in a house, pay for children’s education, undergo further yoga training, and respect yourself as an individual. Of course, earning money does not equal self-respect. I don’t get paid to look after my children and my self-respect has risen exponentially since becoming a mother.

If you volunteer your yoga teaching to people who are clearly unable to afford it or cannot otherwise access it, I salute you. But teaching yoga over many years, amassing vast experience and considerable qualifications while still being unable to support yourself in full-time teaching will erode your self-respect if you let it.

Having decades of experience and being asked to teach or present for free at for-profit conferences or events is insulting, to the teacher and to the teachings.

Oftentimes, teachers express to me that they enjoy yoga teaching so much that they feel embarrassed to take money or ask for more. But enthusiasm and passion should be rewarded, not penalised. If you’re an experienced and skilled teacher and you also derive obvious joy from it, you should be earning more money, not less.

Confusing personal practice with teaching

Helping professionals – such as nurses, doctors, ambulance drivers, childcare workers and teachers – get paid. This doesn’t undermine the generosity of their profession. As yoga teachers, we seek to empower people to use the practice and philosophy of yoga to enact change ­– to their relationships to others and to themselves.

We still need money, and this doesn’t undermine what we do. In fact, earning a viable income is a necessary rite of passage where we accept responsibility for our needs and the needs of our family. This should be a source of pride, not of shame. And yet the yoga sector is rife with exploitation. Similar to other industries, such as fashion, media, the arts and higher education, where passion and aspiration is prevalent, unscrupulous people can easily take advantage of sincerity and enthusiasm.

Earning an income is part of our spirituality, but the personal practice of yoga shouldn’t be confused with the teaching of yoga. Of course, these should run parallel, but one is personal in nature and the other is public. Just because teaching yoga often facilitates spiritual awakenings doesn’t mean the teacher shouldn’t expect recompense.

In the last seven years of working in yoga marketing, I’ve been privy to all kinds of horror stories and been on the receiving end of a few, too. From studio owners who insist contracting teachers sign a non-competitive clause to prevent them working at other studios in the areas around which they live. To pressure to teach for free on behalf of the studio for expensive yoga wear retailers when the teacher doesn’t want to. To promotions run by the studio that mean the teacher isn’t paid per head for the students that take up the promotion – I’ve heard it all.

And I’ve heard countless teachers tell me that it’s okay to be running their yoga businesses at a loss because they’re ‘lucky’ to have an inheritance or a wealthy benefactor. It’s not okay to call your business a business if you’re not earning a profit and are convincing yourself you’re fine with it when really, you’re not.

But it’s especially not okay that we are quick to be labelled “unyogic” by students and colleagues because we expect fair pay for fair work. Being a yoga teacher is the hardest job you’ll ever love, made doubly so because too many people don’t consider it ‘real work’.

My advice – earning money isn’t incompatible with being spiritual, you set expectations for how others treat you, and if anyone calls you “unyogic”, don’t just walk away. Run.

Brook McCarthy is a long-time yoga teacher, digital marketing trainer and business coach. Her business, formally known as Yoga Reach, helps health and creative services professionals to grow their reputation, build their brand and do their best work.