How I re-discovered my inner fabulous

Hello and welcome to today!

It’s a gorgeous sunny autumn day here again in Glasgow and I type today’s musings from a park bench in Kelvingrove Park.

The air is sharp and so refreshing, it almost feels alpine. Its good to see that the park life is out in force and I see a few fellow “regulars” wrapped up warm in their hats and scarves.

I’m halfway up the hill from home and feeling whimsical. Yoga has this effect on me and I have just attended a fabulous yoga class at Shanti Yoga @ the Hidden Lane on Argyle Street, Glasgow with Sasha.

I found today’s practice a challenging work out for my hips and back with lots of planking thrown in for good measure, but as they say, “no pain, no gain”.

The studio is such a beautiful oasis, I almost don’t want to tell you about it incase word gets out. Finding a great yoga studio and teacher can be tricky as connecting with mind, body and spirit is such a personal thing and is different for each individual.

As part of my search for “the one”, I experimented with a branded yoga class at my local branded gym. It was hideous in that it completely missed the point, that being, that yoga is not just another aerobics class, its much more holistic than that.

A traditional yet progressive practice is what I enjoy most. My favourite aspect is final relaxation.

There is something about taking ten minutes out at the end of an intense practice to close my eyes that sets my positivity up for the rest of the day. I prefer a guided final relaxation and visualisation practice, where the teacher talks through various areas of the body to focus on melting away.

My own journey with yoga started during an extremely stressful period in my life stemming from an old job where the hours were really starting to make me lose the plot.

In hindsight, I was becoming very ill with stress and when I look back at photos from that time it makes me sad that I didn’t harness some change in my life sooner. I was grey, bloated, not eating the right stuff and if I’m honest was probably drinking too much at the weekends, every weekend. I was also commuting between London and Scotland each week which meant a 3am airport taxi pick up on a Monday morning. Ugggh! The classic hamster wheel!

So, although I was relatively rich and my career was going stellar, I was deeply unhappy and not feeling very fabulous atall.

The project I was working on meant a 7am – midnight working day. After three months of this I finally decided a change had to come and so I opted to leave work at 5.30pm every Tuesday to do 1.5 hours of yoga then home.

Today, I find it amusing that leaving on time one day a week from that job was such a massive deal. The culture of leaving was such that I had to sneak out an emergency exit to avoid eyebrows being raised by colleagues.

It sounds a bit cheesy, but I can honestly say that the hour and a half I spent at Hatha yoga once a week saved me from crashing and burning. It relaxed and re-energised my outlook on life and allowed me to re-evaluate my priorities. Spiritual enlightenment is not an over exaggeration.

I finally found the courage to change employer and gradually my mojo began to return. I now swim 2 miles a week aswell as keeping up my Yoga practice. Life still has its ups and downs – that by definition is life but my outlook has changed completely! I smile!

So now you know how my desire to feel and spread the word of re-discovering fabulous started! Take time out to enjoy life. It’s a simple message – just do it!

Mwah mwah
Xx