top of page
BLOG
Search


What Is the Ego? (And Why Yoga Isn’t Trying to Kill It)
In some corners of modern spirituality, the ego has become a kind of villain. Something to overcome, dissolve, silence, or eradicate. If you’ve ever heard phrases like “ego death” or “living beyond the ego”, you’ll know the tone - as if the ego were a flaw in our design rather than a part of it. Yoga tells a quieter, more compassionate story. In yogic philosophy, the ego is not a monster to be slain. It is a function of the mind - necessary, human, and profoundly shaped by ex
sjholisticyoga
Jan 63 min read


January Full Moon - The Wolf Moon
The Wolf Moon rises in January, when the earth is quiet and the year is still finding its footing. I always feel this moon as a threshold. Not a clean beginning, but a deep pause. A moment where the old year has not quite loosened its grip, and the new one has not yet asked anything of us.
sjholisticyoga
Jan 25 min read


The Books That Nourished Me This Year (and How They Might Have Shaped My Teaching)
This year, I read more than seventy books ,fiction and non-fiction, and each one left something behind. Some offered language. Some softened me. Some unsettled me in ways that later felt essential.
What follows isn’t a comprehensive list, but a shortlist of books that will stay with me forever. These are the ones that didn’t just inform me, but worked on me - shaping how I think, how I teach, and how I hold space.
sjholisticyoga
Dec 29, 20255 min read


2025: A Year of Trust, Depth, and Discernment in Practice. What Didn't Work So Well.
Each year, I take time to reflect on my work - not as an exercise in productivity or performance, but as a practice of honest listening. I look back at what worked well, what didn’t, and the growth I may not have fully recognised in the moment. This part of my reflection isn’t about failure. It’s about noticing friction - the moments where something felt slightly out of alignment, or where my body quietly asked for a boundary sooner.
sjholisticyoga
Dec 28, 20253 min read


2025: A Year of Trust, Depth, and Discernment in Practice. What Worked Well.
Each year, I take time to reflect on my work - not as an exercise in productivity or performance, but as a practice of honest listening. I look back at what worked well, what didn’t, and the growth I may not have fully recognised in the moment. These reflections help me discern what wants to be carried forward, and what is ready to be released. They shape how I plan for the year ahead - not through rigid goals, but through intention, attention, and care. This year I truly beg
sjholisticyoga
Dec 27, 20253 min read


Presence over Presents: Gentle Yoga Practices for a Calmer Festive Season
If things feel a bit much, you’re not doing it wrong.
When the pressure to get it right creeps in, pause.
Take one slow breath, soften the body, and come back to what matters —
presence over presents, connection over perfection.
sjholisticyoga
Dec 22, 20253 min read


Rooted Sangha - Session 16 - Tapas
Theme: The Practice of Tapas: The Sacred Fire of Commitment This week in our Sangha, we introduced Tapas — one of the niyamas, and a teaching that speaks to inner fire, steady devotion, and the courage to stay present with what truly matters. Tapas is often translated as discipline or effort, but it’s not the harsh, punishing kind we might associate with pushing or forcing. As Deborah Adele writes in The Yamas and Niyamas, Tapas is the heat that refines — the steady warmth t
sjholisticyoga
Dec 21, 20253 min read


Looking back on 2025: Word of the Year - Discernment
Every year, around the soft in-between days of December — usually somewhere near the 30th — I choose a word. I don’t make a vision board. I don’t set grand resolutions. I listen. I sit with a notebook, a cup of something warm, and the question: What quality do I want to walk beside me this year? Not what do I want to achieve — but how do I want to move through what comes. For 2025, the word that rose, steady and unmistakable, was 'discernment'. At the time, I didn’t fully und
sjholisticyoga
Dec 15, 20254 min read


An Introduction to the Chakras
Chakras are often mentioned in yoga spaces, but rarely explained in a way that feels simple, grounded, or relevant to real life. This short introduction is for complete beginners — whether you practise yoga or not. We’ll explore what chakras are, why they matter, and how they offer a compassionate way of understanding our bodies, emotions and inner lives, without anything being “blocked” or broken.
sjholisticyoga
Dec 6, 20254 min read


Rooted Sangha - Sessions 14 & 15 -Santosha
Santosha invites us to rest in the enoughness of this moment. We don’t need to wait for life to be perfect before we soften. Like a still lake, we can meet both ease and difficulty with steadiness and presence. Contentment isn’t something to chase — it’s something we return to, breath by breath.
sjholisticyoga
Dec 4, 20253 min read


Rooted Sangha - Session 13 - Saucha
Saucha is often translated as purity or cleanliness, but as Deborah Adele reminds us in The Yamas and Niyamas, this isn’t about striving for perfection or rigid order. It’s about cultivating the kind of inner and outer environment that allows energy, breath, and inspiration to move freely through us.
sjholisticyoga
Nov 13, 20252 min read


The Living Web: How Fascia Shapes Our Posture, Mind, and Mood
Fascia is the silken, fibrous tissue that wraps through and around everything — muscles, bones, organs, even nerves. It’s what gives us our shape and our sense of cohesion. And because fascia is living tissue, it adapts to what we do most often.
sjholisticyoga
Nov 3, 20254 min read


Rooted Sangha - Session 12 Aparigraha
As autumn deepens and the veil between worlds thins, the energy of Samhain drifts through the air — quiet, reflective, and edged with mystery. The harvest has been gathered; the fields lie bare. Nature herself exhales, releasing what has completed its cycle. The trees surrender their leaves without resistance, trusting that this falling away is part of a larger rhythm.
sjholisticyoga
Oct 29, 20253 min read


It’s the Most Wonderful Time… and Also a Bit Much
How are you with the festive period? Honestly, I find it difficult. The pressure, the busyness, the sheer over-stimulation of it all. That tug-of-war between “have I bought enough?” and “why on earth are we buying all this stuff anyway?” The internal battle between “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” and “it’s all absolute bollocks.” (Pardon the language). The wreath-making I love, and the Christmas decorations that don't look quite right...But who can recover from
sjholisticyoga
Oct 26, 20252 min read


Rooted Sangha – Session Eleven Brahmacharya
Theme: Brahmacharya: Walking in Sacred Balance There’s a beautiful stillness hidden in the word Brahmacharya . It’s often translated as *celibacy*, but that narrow definition misses its heart. In its truest sense, Brahmacharya invites us to walk through the world in sacred balance — to honour our energy, our attention, and our desire as something precious, not to be spilt carelessly into every passing distraction. In Sanskrit, Brahma means “the divine,” and *charya* means “t
sjholisticyoga
Oct 22, 20253 min read


Why I Chose Laurel Park: A Place of Transformative Rest
Laurel Park has been a part of my life since 2019 — a place I return to whenever I need space to breathe, reconnect, and remember what really matters. It’s peaceful, grounding, and quietly transformative. In this post, I’m sharing why this beautiful corner of Lincolnshire means so much to me, and why it felt like the only place that could hold my first weekend retreat: Transformational Rest.
sjholisticyoga
Oct 21, 20253 min read


The Alchemy of Menopause
For too long, menopause has been cast in the language of loss — a quiet decline, a soft unravelling into invisibility. But endings are never simply endings. They are compost, dark soil for something new to take root. What if menopause were not a diminishment, but an initiation? Not a failure of the body, but its deep wisdom at work — a fire that burns away the false so that we can meet what is true. Writers and teachers like Red School, Sharon Blackie, and Katherine May have
sjholisticyoga
Oct 16, 20255 min read


Rooted Sangha – Session Ten Asteya
In yoga philosophy, there’s a quietly powerful teaching that names four stages of being: Bogi, Rogi, Yogi, and Tyagi. It’s not so much a ladder to climb as it is a mirror — an invitation to notice how we’re living and where our energy is flowing.
sjholisticyoga
Oct 15, 20254 min read


Gentle Breathwork for Menopause and Beyond
There are seasons when life feels tender at the edges — when everything within us is shifting, asking to be met in a new way. For many...
sjholisticyoga
Oct 15, 20251 min read


Rooted Sangha – Session Nine Satya
What lies beneath the stories we tell ourselves? This week, we explore the art of being honest with ourselves — through yoga philosophy, core values, and the still lake of truth.
sjholisticyoga
Oct 8, 20253 min read
bottom of page



