Change
Change
Today, on Friday 24th March, I was meant to be launching my Yoga Clothing at the Om Yoga Show, Manchester . Instead, I'm waiting in for a food delivery order, during lockdown of Covid-19. #WTF!
Change.
I started exploring the idea of creating a small capsule range of yoga clothing back in 2016. My background is in design (I'm a footwear designer) and I wanted to bring my two worlds and passions together - design and yoga - creating a range of clothing to help you move and sweat during your yoga practice. I found a UK-based supplier who I was happy to use, even though the cost-price per unit was quite high, I was ready to explore sampling, but then I was made redundant only 2 months after signing a mortgage and moving into my first ever own home! The project had to go on the back-burner as they was no way I could invest into more sampling and pay a mortgage with no secure income. Fast-forward a couple of years, 2018-2019, I secured another footwear design job and picked up the project again, this time exploring factories in China where the cost-price per unit is lower, even though the MOQs (minimum order quantities) were high. I sampled with a couple of different factories, invested into lots of different trials and concepts, but decided to bring the project back home to the UK . . .yes, the unit-price would be high, but the attention to detail and quality would be much better, not to mention a healthier lower MOQ. After securing another UK-based supplier, Fazane Fox Production Lab , the cost-price per unit was workable, and together we moved heaven and earth to get samples made, fit-testing and wearer-trials carried out, and the product fit for purpose for April 2020 - Om Yoga Show, Manchester, which was were I chose to launch my product and share it with the yoga world! Finally - after years in the making, FLAMINGO YOGA MAYA was ready to launch the capsule range of yoga clothing for you all, after years in the making! The exhibition space was booked and paid for, production of clothing paid for, thousands of pounds spent . . .and then BOOM! Lockdown! Covid-19!
I'm left with stock of clothing which is in the final stages of production & packaging, huge invoices to pay, and no show to launch at. . . all with a crippling economy. Oh, and I lost my job again one week after lockdown, because of Covid-19. Another day, another redundancy!
Why am I telling you all the above, you may ask? What has this got to do with yoga, you may ask? It is because we have to learn to CHANGE. Change with what is going on around us. Change with what we are dealing with. Change and manage our solutions to the problems. And learn to let go of the results.
One of the best teachings from yoga philosophy that I find to be really helpful with life, and I'm sure you will too, is to learn how to let go of the result and practice non-attachment. Once we realise not to put all the energy and focus on the result, we are taking away the results power it thinks it has over us. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not 100% perfect at practising this (I'm only human!) but that is why it's called a yoga practice - because it takes practice every single day to stretch a little further, hold that Dancers Pose a little longer, practice yoga philosophy and non-attachment more and more.
I remember when I got made redundant (the first time round!), after just moving into my new home and it was then that this practice really started to help guide me - I kept reminding myself that my home is just a home, my things are just things, a job is just a job. If need be I"ll rent my flat out, if need be I"ll cut-down on all my spending of things to jazz up my gleaming new home. I lined up an interview for a part-time contract footwear design job (my dream job as didn't want to go back to the 9-5 job and craved more flexibility with work to teach yoga), and I rocked up for the interview. I remember my mum stressing over the interview with "what happens if I don't get it. . .what happens if it won't cover your mortgage. . .what if you don't like the people" and so on. I just sat there, taking deep breaths and reminding myself to practice non-attachment. Non-attachment to the job interview - what will be will be. And oh my god, did that ground me and help with my mental state.
And this, my fellow fabulous yogis, is what we must try and practice during Covid-19 - non-attachment and change. We have been forced to change through what has happened, so how do we deal with change? Like I said, I'm not 100% perfect at it, but I'm reminding myself to PRACTICE it. Practice non-attachment of the results after Covid-19, as no-one knows what world we will wake up to. Will it be better? Will it be worse? No-one knows. I'm hoping it will be for the better and I'm sure, within time, we would have learned from all this and we will have a better world - or at least, I'm making my world a better world after Covid-19. And I'm doing this by accepting change. Be open to change and evolve - go with the flow, ride the wave, and learn to live in the now, survive and celebrate the now, because ultimately, right now, that is the only real thing we can (for want of a better word) control.
So, my word for 2020 is CHANGE. What's yours?
#change
