WELCOME To 2023...

Happy New Year! I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year break and time-out. It's been a while since I last caught up with you and hope you've been happy & healthy! :)

Over the last few blog posts and years, we have stood by certain words to help guide us through the challenging years the whole world has experienced - those words were CHANGE and PRESENT. In the first year of the pandemic and lockdown, we welcomed CHANGE. Firstly because we had to. We had no choice. But secondly because it was vital that we change the narrative and perspective and make CHANGE a positive experience. To embrace change. Because without change nothing happens. Without change, we do not grow. Because if you change nothing, then nothing changes.

For me, personally, I struggle with CHANGE. I like a routine and order. It allows me to know where I am and feel safe. With CHANGE comes uncertainty, and with uncertainty comes anxiety and worry...all an illusion (a habit I'm trying to stop, or at the very least pull back.)

Then, coming into the second year of the pandemic, we embraced the word PRESENT. To remind ourselves to live in the now, not to live in sadness with the past or worry with the future. To live in the here and now and experience those PRESENT moments. Being PRESENT is a fundamental skill to craft and tool to guide us. So often we are reading a book and thinking about what outfit to wear for the party Saturday night. Or doing meal-prep and planning the email response to your boss. Or practicing yoga and worry about an argument we might have had with a loved one. Being PRESENT is also a habit I'm practicing daily.

Coming into 2023, we are still going to embrace CHANGE and continue to explore the practice of being PRESENT. But we welcome the GAP.

Do me a favour, and have a think about the following: 

• Who were you LAST year?
• Who do you want to be THIS year?
• Where do you want to BE this year?
• And how are you going to CLOSE THE GAP between the OLD you and the NEW you?

You see, everything we do consists of habits and learned behaviours. And as I work through my own personal journey of self-development and discovery, I'm realising it's less about YOGA (shock, did I just say that!?) and more about HABITS. Small consistent habits, every day, make up the sum of all parts. And if you look at your yoga practice, you'll notice that you body remembers habits and patterns, your muscles remembers learned habits of stretches you've done or asanas you've practised.

Think about it, when was the last time you practice the physical yoga (asanas) and you were TRULY PRESENT - I mean, fully connected to your breath for the whole 60mins, fully aware of the touch of your clothing on your skin, fully connected to each transition you move your body through and into, not just each pose. How did you breath respond to the pose and how did the pose respond to your breath? A lot of the time, for a lot of people who practice yoga, they are physically on the mat, but their minds are elsewhere (let's come back to the story of cooking and mentally planning your reply email to your boss)...it's the same with yoga - 'I must remember to pick up a cucumber on the way home!'

So if we come back to closing the GAP between the OLD you and the NEW you - what positive habits with you adopt? Which negative habits will you stop? And WHY should you care?

Because - how do we look after our loved ones, without looking after ourselves?

Because - yoga is more about self development and finding peace within our minds, then moving on the mat.

Because - if we want that dream house, dream job, dream life, then we need to change.

How do we change? We embrace being PRESENT and we accept CHANGE. We connect to our WHY and use it to ignite the power within us all. We use our WHY, or North Star, to guide us on the days when we are struggling.

Because - to be our NEW, Upgraded 2.0 Version of ourselves and to live that dream life, we need to build new small consistent habits. We need to close the GAP.