Finding Zen

I've always been drawn to yoga, ever since I found out it was a thing, and while my practice has been piecemeal over the years, I feel it is fair to say that my yoga practice has coincided with some very significant and wonderful moments in my life. Over the last 20 years I have tried many different classes, and some have been life changing such as when I was attending classes at Yoga Baby when I was pregnant with my son, but many classes just didn't feel quite right for me. Hot yoga is sweaty and disgusting in my opinion and as someone who is hyper-flexible I was always having to be conscious of not over-stretching and hurting myself, other classes have felt too fast or focused of intense levels of contortion, which while I appreciate this may work for others just didn't help me to soothe my impressive Vata imbalance. Then by happy chance I found myself in Louisa's class. Her classes were the gloriously blissful highlight of my week, no matter how I was feeling her class just seemed to be magically tailored to meet my exact needs, it was like she knew my soul better than I did. Unfortunately, after about a year I was no longer able to attend Louisa's classes, but thankfully she pointed me in the direction of One Family Yoga and Fitness, where I found wonderful classes that also felt like just the magic I needed to soothe my soul and find a little zen in my manic life. It was here that I first experienced Restorative Yoga, if you have never tried it you really must, the feeling of stillness and of being completely held and supported is truly divine.

Now like most people I have a gazillion thoughts that buzz through my mind and become particularly noisy the moment I stop. And like most people I thought that made me bad at meditating and calming my mind, thus the spiral of additional thoughts on how crap I was at it and how I would never find peace etc would stir up like a whirlwind. So when I first started music was really helpful to distract my monkey mind and help me relax, it gave me something to focus on other than my thoughts and to be honest I didn't really care what the music was. As I continued to practice and became more comfortable with the stillness, I found myself becoming more comfortable with the myriad of thoughts that would present themselves during my practice and began to see it more like peacefully sorting through my wardrobe. I could see each thought as it arose, observe it and how it made me feel, then thank it and let it go, some into the no longer useful ether and some into the I'll keep that ether.

As my practice evolved so did my sensitivity to the music that was playing during my practice. In all honesty I generally prefer no music, which I never thought I would say but I really began to enjoy the opportunity to be still exactly where I was with only the environmental sounds around me keeping me grounded in the present moment. But there are times when my mind is racing and overwhelmed that I find low gentle music to be incredibly helpful to focus and settle my mind as I ease into my practice.

For me Restorative Yoga and meditation should feel like being alone in a beautiful peaceful environment, regardless of where I actually am or who is around me, more often that not I meditate to the sound of my son yelling with his friends as they play online games. The key elements I find appealing in music for my practice are that it feels quite gentle, smooth and peaceful, I find intense sounds and shifts in the music quite grating and distracting. I also avoid lyrics, while some chanting can be gentle and hypnotic I find words tend to get stuck in my head and when repeated can make me feel a little agitated and stressed, kind of claustrophobic in my own head. I also prefer the music to be in a lower range, one because I find this more grounding and subtle but also from the practical sense that if it is playing on lower quality speakers is doesn't get tinny and abrasive.

Insight Timer has been a fantastic app for finding the perfect music to bliss out to. My favourite piece is 14th Celestial Palace Of TAO by Cris Coleman. For some reason I am unable to embed a link but if you are curious just pop Insight Timer into the app store on your phone and it will pop up, and the best thing is it's free. Other favourite pieces include, Smooth Flow by Robin Burk, Deep Ocean by Raura Crystal and Endless Reflections by Vanyashi. I'll pop the link to my playlist on facebook as well.

While I am a fan of each to their own, I definitely believe Restorative yoga is for everyone so if you are interested I definitely recommend checking out the Sunday afternoon class at One Family Yoga and Fitness, it seriously changed my life in all the best ways.