35 years a go my now husband and I went for our first weekend away together to Glastonbury. We were into Echo and The Bunnymen and it was 1985, when you could get tickets the week before. The last Glastonbury I went to was 1997, by then the corporates had already moved in but it was a great line up year to finish. I don’t recognise it on TV now.
Another anniversary this year for me was being diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis 15 years ago, 2 years after my son was born. At first I listened to the experts and the doctors but found injecting myself 3 times a week with disease modifying drugs made me feel physically worse, worse than the MS.
These drugs were costing the NHS about £8000 a year. I started to realise ‘Big Pharma’ is an industry. I started back a regular practice of yoga and whilst meditating one day in the sun of the window felt instinctively that I was going to be alright but I had to start listening to my body, not hand over my autonomy to someone else.
I have been off all medication for 10 years now. Yoga is a way of life. The meaning of yoga is to ‘yoke’ , join or unite and by practicing yoga we become more conscious beings. Leading us to a more intuitive existence and a union between the body, mind and breath of the individual with the universal consciousness.
Ours bodies are amazing machines designed by nature and in every moment communicating to us what they need to stay in balance. We just have to be quiet enough to listen. When we practice yoga and connect our minds and spirits to the same intelligence of the nature around us we move into a deeper sense of interoception and intuition and can tap into the body’s innate healing response.
And that’s the wonder of yoga, it helps us to reconnect with ourselves and find those tools and resources already in us to help ourselves and you can find them too.
We all come to yoga for different reasons, whether it’s to find a little peace, to heal, find some connection to something bigger or improve how I bodies move, yoga is the key.
The following statement is as relevant today as over 2000 years ago. “The natural healing force within each of us is the greatest force in getting well.” – Hippocrates 460BCE
The light in me acknowledges the light in you, Much love, Karen
Milton Keynes Yoga for Health and Wellness 