I moved to London just a bit over a month ago. The past few years I have spent in the Netherlands, in a teeny tiny fairy-tale-like town called Leiden. For being just a small town, Leiden has a lot of yoga to offer, and it does have a lovely little Kundalini Sangat (community), but there’s only so much that happens in little places like this.
In comparison, my first month in London has been just crazy.
It’s Halloween and I am scared.
As I am sitting at my desk on this special spooky Monday evening, I can hear the kids from downstairs screaming in excitement. They probably just completed their transformation into a bloody zombie, pale ghost or Spiderman and are ready to go out in the world and demand their treats from us ordinary mortals.
Continue reading “Halloween: a new beginning – everything starts with a seed.”
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Worrying about the future is a common way that makes people feel stressed, as much as it is a way to create stress to start with. We spend an awful lot of time to worry about what might happen to us, whether we will find a job after studying, whether we will be financially secure, what we want to do to be happy, what we could do, whether we can do what we love and still pay our rent… while some of these thoughts and questions can be useful and important (to set goals, to make plans, to create a path…), most of them are exhausting and won’t lead us anywhere: especially if they are determined by doubt and fear.
We can actually release a lot of stress by dropping this fear of the future. When we stop worrying and start to ask ourselves which future we actually want to create, things can start to fall into place. Can you allow to led your way be guided by what brings you happiness and joy rather than by your fears?
In this class, we will do exercises and meditations to help us drop the fear and connect us with our intuition, longing, and joy.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
How many things you do every day that create (more) stress in your life? Rushing to work every day with a coffee in your hand, procrastinating until the last moment so you have to pull an all-nighter, worrying about what your teacher or boss will think about you, jumping from one task to the next event. Telling yourself how this wasn’t good enough or that thing you should do better next time. The list of possible stress-enhancing and self-destructive habits is endless, and most of us fall into this trap again and again.
In order to release tension and stress, and to live a more happy and relaxed life, self-care is essential. Self-care should become your daily habit more than anything else. In this class, we will open our hearts for ourselves and strengthen our positive mind, to be able to access the wonderful stress-remedy called self-care.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
When we have a lot to do, we can easily feel stressed. But often, it is not the work as such that makes us stressed, but that there is a lot of work and not enough play in our lives. What makes us unhappy and stressed is the fact that things are not in balance. These “things” not in balance can be: work and fun times. Or: socialising and time for yourself. Or: Head and heart. When one area of your life is dominating for a longer period of time, it can be that you feel off balance, incomplete, insecure, tense, stressed.
How can you arrange the different pieces or parts of your life so they are in balance?
In this week’s class we will create balance within ourselves, so we are able to experience the totality of the self. When you sense your total you, you can project it outwards and create more balance in your life.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
Creativity is essential to most things we do, yet many people often feel “uncreative”. Studying requires a lot of creativity, and often feeling blocked in our creativity is what makes it so hard: sitting in front of that empty page or blank screen and not knowing what to write, reading texts over texts but not knowing how to connect them to your research question. But also in other areas we often feel blocked and feel we lack some creativity: cooking, solving a problem at work, communicating, making music, painting or writing,…
Often we feel too stressed to do these things or we are stressed doing them and struggling. That kind of makes sense, because stress is the Number 1 creativity-killer. This can lead to a dangerous circle: We are stressed because we have/want to do something, this blocks our creativity, we feel more stressed and hence more blocked… Time to get out of that circle of feeling stuck.
In this class we will work on our kidneys and adrenals to release deep stored up tension, to get our energy flowing and to tap into our creative flow again.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
Often, what really stresses us are not the stressful things that happen in our lives, but the fact that we don’t know how to properly relax.
When there is really a lot of tough stuff going on in our lives, we mostly do one of the two things: either we run away from it, we escape under our blanket or into a movie, we eat comfort food or drink to make ourselves feel better or forget about the problems for a while. Or, we power through it, we work all day and all night, we don’t stop fixing and doing and fighting.
Both options put a tremendous pressure on our nervous system – constantly activating the fight or flight mode. We are constantly over-stimulated. This leads to the fact that we are having a hard time to rewind, to let go, and we become more vulnerable to stressful situations.
We need to let go of all that stored up tension regularly! In this weeks class, we will learn to let go and relax in a healthy and healing way. A deep and conscious relaxation of our body helps to get us in balance again. By strengthening our nervous system, we become more resistant to stress in general.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
Did you know that the best and most effective tool for stress management is always available wherever you are, is absolutely for free, and super easy to use? You guessed it: It’s your breath. Most of the time, we take it for granted. Only think of it when we rushed somewhere and are out of breath. That’s a pity, because really, controlling the breath is the key to control your mental and emotional state – and to release stress!
Breathing consciously is the quickest way to connect with the energy and force of life itself. It gives energy and calms down and helps us to be in the present moment. In this week’s class we will dive into the technique of pranayama, breathing, and we will experience the immense power of it.
Now: Inhale deeply. A little bit more. Hold it. Exhale deeply. Then let the air flow into you again. Sense it. Life is a gift.
“When the breath of life becomes short, you become short-tempered. When the breath of life becomes long and deep, you understand who you are.” (Yogi Bhajan)
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
Stress is not caused by something outside, but from within. It’s how we evaluate, judge, and react to what’s happening in the outside. A great deal of stress is caused by our fear – of not being able to do something, or doing it wrong, of losing something on the way, of missing out on a chance, … or simply, of not being good or worth enough. Fear can be paralyzing. If we feed it, it will grow to become a big dragon standing between us and our potential. Instead of feeding that dragon, we can also decide to feed our inner lion or inner warrior. So we can become powerful and strong and confident to slay any dragon that comes along and wants to harm us or stop us from living fully and fulfil our potential.
“Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee to success” (Goethe)
In this week’s class, we will strengthen our inner lion and develop our ability to face all challenges with confidence and courage. Stop worrying – become a gentle warrior, and you will win the battle.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
One of the biggest causes for stress is procrastination – delaying a task, seeking for distraction, doing everything else but the one thing we should do or actually want to do. Why is that? We fall into the traps of our mind and our habits. Our mind is tricky, he always finds an excuse for doing something else that is easier, more convenient, safer to do. But while we delay the things we really should do, not only these things pile up, also a whole bunch of emotions. We feel guilty, insecure, bad about ourselves. That makes us even less confident to start with the actual work. So we delay it some more… it’s a vicious circle. It’s like sitting in a big wheel with closed eyes, going round and round, not finding the moment to jump out (or at least see what’s happening around you). How to get out of the loop?
Here is an idea: what if you delay the delay? Just for one moment, when you feel the urge to check facebook rather than doing your work – just for one moment don’t do it. Sit with your feelings. Notice your urge, your resistance. Be aware of the games of your mind, taking you on this constant ride in the big wheel. The moment you are aware, you are not caught in the games, and you can jump out. That is the first tiny step you can take to change your habits. In this week’s class we will do some supporting exercises and mediation that help you to make a change in your habits.
Looking forward to see you!
Sign up for the class by joining the event on Facebook or by sending a short email to AurynYoga@gmail.com
Auryn Yoga 