Yoga makes me me

A friend of mine approached me today and told me that I put up such nice yoga pictures and was wondering if we could do a yoga program that she could follow in the mornings. Something that would make her more flexible. She is also a horseback rider and as you probably know I am more than keen on teaching the art of yoga to people that deal with horses.

Then I started thinking. She wanted me to make a program and feel more flexible because she had seen some nice pictures of me doing Asanas in the beautiful Finnish archipelago. She had seen the surface of what yoga is to me. Yes, it makes me more flexible, and yes, it makes me a  better horseback rider. But all in all it comes down to this:


Yoga has saved me and where I was at in life. It has made me a happier and much more balanced human being but it has also helped with my chronic health problems that I have been suffering with for many years. My chronic intestinal problems have almost been debilitating at times and even if I will probably never get rid of  the problems completely, learning to live with it and learning to calm my nervous system down has helped me tremendously. 

And yes, of course it is nice to take pictures of different yoga poses and try to look as nice in them as possible. Honestly though I am probably the stiffest yogi around and in most poses I look like I would be checking out the mat for the first time. But that doesn't matter either because my yoga practice that is truly my own has nothing to do with that. When I flowed through a sequence yesterday evening at a small hut next to the sea, with the sauna still warming the room in a warm summer night I remembered why I do this. I do this because it gives me comfort. It gives me peace of mind and it gives me that moment where I am present with what is right there, right now. It makes me tap into my own frequency, my vibe and my energy. It makes me tap into my tribe and really teaches me to listen to who I am beneath all that surface. Beneath all those pictures and smiles that we so easily put up toward each other. It makes me raw and naked to the bone. It makes me me. 

Here are some fantastic words that I wanted to share from amazing Lara Heinman. I wish I will have the possibility to study human anatomy with her someday. 

"That is all I am trying to do. To educate people to listen, to be critical thinkers. Everyone knows what their own history is, even if they are not consciously aware of it. If I have gotten a run down on somebodies injuries or their current state it still isn't telling me the whole picture. The person really needs to listen to their own bodies. I always start of by saying: "Do what feels good. Don't do what doesn't feel good." People love getting that permission. They love that simple statement. But I also try and sequence and think about things in a way that will put most people in a good place, an integrated place. I do believe that you have got to get people to understand what their core is. And the core is everything that is surrounding your ribcage and your spinal column. It is just not your limbs and in yoga a lot of times we cue more about the limbs than the core. 

When we own our power the sacral plexus and the shakras are right there. And when we discover them and really tap into them and don't give that to anyone else but ourselves, that is who we are. That is our identity, that is our security and our stability. So no wonder that you feel less fearful because you just automatically feel more secure in you. 

Anatomy is the structure of the body but it is the investigation of the internal workings. Anatomy is not just this frame, muscles, sceleton, ligaments, fascia. It is the container of out spirits. We are walking around in this container, this uniform. Do we want to have a bright, lit up Uniform or do we want to be like a dark shroud. We can wear our emotions on our body or we can free our emotions through our body. You are the body, mind and spirit. It is all there together." 
- Lara Heinman