It’s still in me, the feeling in the room as we all breathed the same rhythm of breath for nearly an hour together. Utterly present and completely in awe. I can recall it at will, it has soaked in.

At any given moment on our yoga mats we can make a decision to either try harder and cultivate more strength, effort and determination or to withdraw, to soften, relax and try a little less hard. The same is true of life. The difficulty is knowing when to do which. How do we know?

“I can’t do this’, crept into my head. I want to kneel down on my mat and howl. I want to crumble, to collapse, I want to kneel down, and howl and howl and howl. 

The scary part … walk along the length of the trunk at a height, nothing to hold on to and the ground far beneath.

One of the most essential things in my life to remain calm is not, in fact, yoga. Yoga comes after this.

You have the power to choose. Find space in the pause, find freedom!

Who else is ready for duvets, hot tea, warm socks, couches, cushions and cosy-ing up?

For all practitioners there is a sense that Yoga Nidra is place on an ongoing journey towards the liberation of the self, a journey of observing the experience of releasing, of expansion, of resting in stillness, quietness and peace. In other words, as you drop through all the layers of your outer self, seeing everything on the way down, you become aware of all those layers themselves. This awareness can be brought back on returning to normal waking consciousness. You are gifted a sense of space within yourself, a sense of time and a consciousness needed to help choose what to say, how to respond, what direction to go in, in each moment. Witnessing and sensing physical release as the body sheds layer after layer of tension and holding is one of the most blissful yet practical aspects of the practice.