As our world begins to reopen bit by bit over the coming months, have you given thought to how you can create a practice of stillness to help you navigate this period? Stillness doesn’t mean being stationery, if you lie on the grass and look up you will see our world is constantly moving. As you sit and read this your feet might be moving, you are breathing, your mind might already be thinking of lunch and what to cook for dinner.

There are so many ways to embrace stillness that don’t involve sitting still for hours on end in a stuck position. Meditation, and if you are new to meditation please approach this like you would anything else, start small. Some people tell me they try to meditate for 20 minutes a day. When I ask how this is working out, mostly it’s not very well. So be kind to yourself and try 5 minutes. It can be hard to develop a meditation practice, so start small, create achievable goals.

Perhaps you enjoy walking. Can you do this without listening to a podcast (and believe me I love podcasts). However if this particular walk is part of your stillness practice try without the podcast. Also try walking without music. Music is wonderful but again if this walk is part of your stillness practice leave it off.

Or maybe you enjoy reading poetry, the song of words on a page. The comfort of reading the beauty of an artist’s voice. Again be there, read the poem absorb it. It doesn’t mean approaching some practice from a stuck position but rather an approach to moving through the world.

Swimming in the sea, how can we still in the sea? Very easily, lie on your back drink in the vastness of the big blue overhead. This for me at the moment is my practice of stillness.

The benefits of being still are enormous. There is so much comfort in taking time each day to allow the body to absorb everything nature is offering you. You might even say it is a shelter, a place of refuge, a quiet in the midst of chaos.

Try to be attentive, whenever you can, to the spaces between thoughts. This is where the wisdom resides. There exists in In your mind an unchanging field of awareness, which in itself is never altered by the thoughts or experiences passing through it.

Whenever possible, sense into that still ever-present awareness.

Everything that changes has an unchanging stillness at its heart.

The Curious Yogi –

Thank you so much to those who have booked into the Curious Yogi course. This 4 week course starts Monday 24th 7-9pm. There is still time to join us simply click here to do so.

Schedule this week –

Tuesday 9am – Morning Flow, the class to build strength.

Wednesday 8.30pm – Nidra on Instagram Live

Thursday 7pm – WindDown, the class to nourish your body in a safe and gentle way

Saturday 10am – Nature inspired Vinyasa, a class to raise your hear rate. Do as much as you need, nothing more.

To join me for 30 days of Yoga please click here. But also know that you can drop in to classes whenever you like with drop in rates available for all classes.

Have a wonderful week.

Much love,

Chris