Why yoga is not for me anymore.

Having spent sixteen years practicing yoga and 7 years teaching it's fair to say most people know me as a yoga teacher. Considering what I actually do, I did myself a disservice. Why do I say this you ask? Well, just over a year ago I found myself in church, a place I had not been to in about fifteen years. I simply became disillusioned with the meaning of it all. I had nothing against it per se but I did feel that so much wrong has been done in the name of religion. I didn't understand there was a big difference between having a relationship with God and being religious. Most of the extreme behaviour we see in the news is very much religion and very off-putting. 

Now back to yoga, I turned up very late on a day in August to church and I remember the pastor saying something to me that no one would have known aside from me. I was thoroughly freaked out, I even took a swift look behind me to see if someone had been watching me. I kept going but it was such a struggle, I kept feeling tired, it always seemed like a struggle to get there, I was teaching in East and church was in West London. So suffice to say I must have really wanted to go.

Fast forward a couple of months to October and I was going to York for a friend's wedding. I turned up at the Airbnb, my host never meets her guests and has a lockbox. On this particular day, she had even offered to collect me from the station. She offered me a cup of tea, I accepted because it was raining and I was cold. It rained the whole weekend but somehow I had a really great time. 

We talked about life, cloning, miracles, and then moved on to God. She asked me if I was born again and I told her I had no idea what it meant to be born again. A rather eccentric blond British lady with a little dog asking me this question was a little odd looking back on it. God really does work in mysterious ways.

She simply said oh no problem, you just read this prayer and that's it, as she handed me a card. I for some reason did not hesitate. I started to say the prayer and literally felt like a wave washed through my body from the top of my head down into my feet. I started to cry, actually sobbing halfway through the prayer, quite unexpectedly. She prayed over me, while I sobbed. I knew straight away that something profound had just happened. 

I finally dried my tears, a little shell shocked. She gave me my key for the weekend and said her goodbyes. I have not seen her since, but she did check in on me a day later. 

When I called a friend to tell her I was born again, she screamed down the phone. I had no idea really what had happened and just how significant it was. 

I have spent the last year going through a deep spiritual transformation. Everything I understood about myself has literally turned upside down. 

I realised I had been hearing from God long before my encounter in York. 

When I was a teenager I was walking down the street near my home. There was a row of trees along the road, it was a slightly wide turn. Cars tended to go around it just that bit too fast. I was walking on the roadside of the trees and I remember hearing a very clear voice saying “If you don't move you are going to die”. I simply stepped to the right one step and continued walking on the other side of the trees, within 30 seconds I heard a huge bang, then another and another. A mini bus was going too fast and the side was smashing along the line of trees on the other side of the line of trees. A nun came running down the road expecting to find me badly injured, from a distance it looked like I was under that mini bus. But God had other ideas for me that day. She was so shocked and so happy. I still get goosebumps when I tell that story and sometimes even tears in my eyes. 

The Carolyn who is typing this today is literally a changed woman, I do not recognise myself let alone people around me. In terms of the way I was teaching, I had already began shifting away from yoga. My sessions were a little unusual, sun salutations had become sparse. But classes were very effective and I would run out of space in the studio with the number of people wanting to join in. I always said I was downloading my classes because they were never planned and just evolved but it was always exactly what people needed. I have had grown men crying in class, whatever it was needed to come out. I think men are not allowed to cry enough. 

As lockdown hit London my classes came to a full stop. I was a little relieved to have the time off, to be honest, OK a lot relieved. I had been doing some crazy hours with 5 am wake ups, leaving home at 6 am for 7 am sessions, so suffice to say I really enjoyed catching up on my sleep. 

I had the opportunity to assess my methodology and the framework I was working with in my sessions. I realised it was not yoga. It was something far more powerful. It was effective and a mix of different movement modalities and elements of different therapies and some of it is simply intuitive. 

Yoga does not sit well with my Faith. I always felt like something was missing in my life. I felt like I was constantly searching, I always felt like the odd one out, set apart, like I did not fit. The moment I acknowledged God, I felt complete, the hollowness was gone. I don't recognise myself or my life anymore. I have such confidence in my abilities, I don't feel anxious about anything anymore, just a deep knowing and trust. Faith is trust in that which is unseen. Despite any challenges in life, I am calm and confident that everything is working out for me.

I refuse to teach what people call traditional yoga because it's not what I do, the key difference is the source of the healing I offer. I am able to actually feel someone's discomfort in their body and guide them through it. I found teaching remotely was actually extremely effective, however, I do enjoy in-person sessions. 

I removed yoga from all my platforms apart from acknowledging my training and experience. This is important in order to not downplay the amount of dedication and discipline it took to do the training. However I am NOT a yoga teacher, I am a healer, passionate about Alignment and igniting the light within others. I don't do yoga and you probably won't be seeing me in a yoga class anytime soon. Some of the movement side of yoga is still a part of what I do, however, I have modified the combinations and I have left the spiritual side behind fully as I only have one God and that is Jehovah. So if you do get in touch, ask me how Aligned Movement is going, not how yoga is going because I will tell you I don't do yoga. 

The biggest shift for me is how my life is far more successful now. I only see victory and abundance in everything I do. Before I made the shift, I would try things and on the surface, I had a little success. Now I know I am unstoppable and there are no limits to what I can achieve or how many people I can help. I think everyone deserves this feeling of completeness. Something I never had when practicing yoga, it was always temporary. 

So this is why I refuse to teach yoga, if you want healing, completeness, and love in your body then I am for you, if you want yoga then I am not the person for you and I am perfectly OK with that. 

 “14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can not be hidden”. Mathew 5:14 ESV

“15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a blanket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house”. Matthew 5:14-15 ESV

I believe that we were created with limitless potential and as Nelson Mandela once said “As we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.”

My purpose is to be a light of the world and to inspire others to shine bright. 

Have you ever taken the leap of faith when you felt or knew that things were out of alignment in your life? Drop me a line HERE and lets chat.