‘LIFE IS A DARING ADVENTURE OR NOTHING:

SECURITY IS MOSTLY A SUPERSTITION’

Helen Keller

Do you ever find yourself repeating patterns in your relationships, classes or internal thought processes? We often get so caught up in being comfortable, or within our perceived ‘ways to be comfortable’ that we resist changing: ourselves, our surroundings or our relationships. 

I was walking along in Kohimarama, the area in which we are living in Auckland, New Zealand, contemplating this very thing, when I saw a tree that had mangled its huge roots around an ugly metal bar. Literally the metal had been there for so long that nature had wrapped itself around it and seen it as ‘normal’: staying put forever, laying down its roots.  I took a photo straight away and began a process of realizing how used to things we really are, as a way of making our ego ‘comfortable’.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all over the place without a fantastic juicer to make my delicious morning green juice, and therefore am literally now travelling with a juicer (my poor long suffering hubby has to carry the darn bags bless his delicious heart)  So even our ‘healthy’ choices become engrained in our psyche enough that we cannot live without them. What about our ‘unhealthy’ choices? The repetitions of failed relationships, our same arguments with family, our inability to speak up when we are in pain: ‘I’m fine thank you’.

Like the root entangled in the tree, daring to bring yourself out of comfort can be scary, something you need to literally re-train your mind to do. The ego perception and identification with what you are like, the things you need, the job you ‘do’ keep you in a place where you believe that these things are what make you more secure. 

Imagine how else this life could be for you, focus on illuminating the possibilities. Every time you feel you do something out of comfort: teach the same class over and again, use the same playlist, chant Om with embarrassment, spend too much money on things that do not elevate your knowledge rather than your insecurities, try this: Aim to not focus on the limitation, flip the switch, turn that thought around. Every day, every hour or every minute if needed, until you begin to gradually retrain yourself OUT of comfort, of security or neediness, of fear, until your thought processes begin to unbind you from the steel roots of your past and begin to bring you closer towards your highest dreams, potential. Towards loving, encouraging and nurturing relationships, towards the true influence that you hold over your inner and outer world.

In the words of Wham!” Choose Freedom! Choose Life! GO GO!!

For an asana manifestation of this, please practice with my new online video class: FREEDOM FLOW

Namaste,

Claire Missingham

I'm very excited to be able to share with you, hot off the press and direct from New Zealand, these short and sweet video classes that I'll be recording over the next few months during my travels. Each class can be enjoyed on its own or combined with others for a complete practise. Stay tuned to the blog, Facebook and Twitter to hear first when my Vimeo channel is updated. In the meantime, here's the first of two new classes... A steady, standing flow. Enjoy!

NB: Save your eyes from squinting lines: Click on the Vimeo logo to access the second class and to get a full screen version of this one!

Let me hear you say!

‘IN!’ ‘HALE!’ ‘INHALE!’

‘IN!’ ‘HALE!‘ ‘INHALE!’

In a hip-hop stylee, I am donning my trainers and doing as they do here in New Zealand: getting out into the good old fresh air, come rain, wind or shine.

After having some seriously needed R & R in the deep sunshine of Santa Monica, Los Angeles, we arrived here in NZ with our bags full of summer clothes and suncream. Ohhhh noooo... the NZ climate is unpredictable to say the least, especially in Spring as it is here. Now I am very connected to seasonal yoga practice that reflects the natural state of the overriding guna & dosha when I am doing my yoga thang in the UK. My body seemed to my surprise to be ready for Winter, and here we are moving into summer, again.

My perceptions have been literally and physically turned down-under here as in one day we can experience rain, winds and then beautiful sunshine. One thing we noticed was that people are always outside here. At home, especially if it’s raining or cold, we tend to hibernate, and eat accordingly with heavy warm foods. I have had to rid these habits and embrace layers, 3 changes of shoes and varying the times of my yoga practice so I can allow my body to ‘feel’ and understand the connection with nature. I am riding my bike 6 miles along the edge of the shore and having welcoming ‘Hello’s!’  from people riding or running past (albeit faster and with a little more ease than me!!)  - what a way to connect before I practice. Raining at home means hibernation, here it means do the same as you always do, be outside, just with some rainwear on!

So here I go: tying up my trainers and getting outside, to be inspired by the beautiful birdsong, trees and elements...Fresh!

Now let me hear you say!

‘EX!’ ‘HALE!’  ‘EXHALE!’

‘EX!’ ‘HALE!’  ‘EXHALE!’

Claire Missingham X