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The Buddhamama Blog

Finding Calm within the Chaos

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Leaving the Gaps Unplugged....

3/29/2020

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'The earth spins, on its axis One man struggles, while another relaxes'
Massive Attack, The Hymn of the Big Wheel*

I don’t know if I believe that things happen for a reason, but we can certainly find reason in what happens. There are a plethora of explanations for why - on a global scale- we might have needed to collectively press the pause button on human activity. We have arguably all, to greater or lesser degrees, been caught up in a global mania that has spiralled out of control. The arguments have been much chewed over, but rampant capitalisation, the ills of globalisation, consumerism in the extreme, the quest for more and more and more of everything, fuelled by innate human dissatisfaction and exaggerated by all pervasive social media- it is undoubtedly the perfect storm and only the very rare & resolute have lived completely beyond its reach.

It needs not said that the world will be grateful for our stopping. It already is. We’ve all no doubt heard of the drop in pollution levels in China ( I read something somewhere that the lives saved by a reduction in pollution in China could easily outstrip their deaths from COVID-19 - food for thought even if it is never entirely verifiable). Europe is enjoying skies that are 40 percent more free of pollution. We are now able to see Venus over Britain, much to astronomers delight. And I can not stop thinking about the waters of Venice running clear, or the image of swans returning to their canals. 
As here in the Northern Hemisphere Spring continues its steady unfurling march onwards, its hard not to think that it might be doing so with a little more space this year. We will undoubtedly all remember - for the rest of our lives potentially- the period when the world stopped and took a deep breath. But perhaps only fruitfully, if we do so too.

I am acutely aware that for many people this is the hardest of times. Front line NHS workers to whom we will all owe a unrepayable debt - acknowledged so emotionally by the nationwide clapping on Thursday night. I sincerely hope that happens again. 
Those whose livelihoods, many of them decades in the making, that have gone up in smoke. 
The many who will have economic hardship gnawing in the pit of their stomach, stealing their sleep in those early hours. And the working mothers who have been turned overnight into school teachers and for whom each week will be nothing but an impossible juggle. Not least, those who lose loved ones before their time to the virus itself. 
It would be churlish to say that everyone will see this as a gift.
But some will. Many say they already do. It is a testament to how time poor we have let ourselves become that alongside the anxieties and concerns there also seems to be a collective sigh of relief that we are being offered up a break from the usual. It suggests too that ‘getting back to normal’ should not necessarily be our aim. 
But there is a very real danger too, that if we aren't mindful, ‘old world’ manias start to enter into isolation. ‘Nature abhors a vaccum', and so too- it seems-does the human mind. The creativity that has been thrown up by the threat and actuality of isolation has been staggering. Online offerings, which had already begun to have traction, have literally exploded. I hold my hand up to say that I jumped just as quickly on the ‘Zoom’ bandwagon and taught three brimming yoga classes this week whose collective energy was off the scale. If you weren't there last week then consider joining next week. They were tonics, no less.

So much of what is happening is of course wholly good. From the confines of our homes we can learn a language, take up guitar, practice calligraphy, have virtual drinks with friends we haven't seen for far too long. There are online poker games, chess championships and community pub quizzes, every bit as amusing as their real world counterparts. We are bombarded daily with funny snippets, recommended reading lists, podcasts that are essential to listen to, articles that are must reads. We can watch live streamed open mic nights, recordings of Royal opera house ballet. It is like an online festival of ideas and opportunity, and it smacks of human genius and brilliance and resilience and creativity- but it is also potentially overwhelming. Without careful curation, we could feel as bombarded & inadequate in our isolated lives as we so often do in the real world. 

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Whilst coming out of this with a new skill or hobby will be a good thing if we find it, so too will having taken some much needed time to simply reflect, to be as a family, to get more comfortable with simple living and leaving gaps unfilled. As Matt Haig said, ‘The current era is crap enough without having to feel guilt that we aren't learning Greek and painting watercolours of daffodils’. 
I have always said that a life with gaps around its edges is one that is essential for well being; physical, mental and emotional. This might just be the time - amongst other things- to master leaving gaps unplugged that as a necessary art form. 

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Happy Mothers Day

3/28/2020

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Today is Mothers Day in the United Kingdom. I am acutely aware that for some people it is always a difficult day; those who might have tricky relationships with their mothers, or those who have lost them, especially if it was prematurely. 
But this year- uniquely- it is potentially a hard day for everyone. Very few of us will be able to see our mothers on the day we might most want to. Many will be separated by country & closed borders. My mum is 12,000 miles away at the moment, and never has the distance felt so far. I haven't seen her for well over a year and I dont know when I will again. It's a thought I can't ponder for too long. But even those whose mothers are just up the road, or down a motorway, self-isolation & social distancing- terms that have taken up sudden & ominous residence in our language-  is asking that we keep away. The old rules have been turned on their head and staying away is now an act of love. But nothing stops us from thinking of our mothers, or of each other, and there is great power in our thinking. 
There is a beautiful Buddhist meditation, my favourite of all of them, known as Metta or Loving Kindness meditation. It invites us to use our mothers as the foundation for evoking immense love & then to transmit this feeling ever outwards- to ourselves, to friends, even to foe and then wider still to everyone else. Done once it is simply beautiful; an antidote to all the fear & anxiety we have rightfully felt over the last week or more. Done repeatedly this meditation can be truly transformative to our minds, to how we feel and crucially to how we interact. In that sense, it has perhaps never been more necessary.
I have recorded a (short) guided version of it below for you all to practice ( let me know if you like it and I can record a slightly longer one too). USe it as often as you feel the need to in the coming weeks & it is for you to share with the mothers of the world, yours or anyone elses.
With much love and Happy Mothers Day,
Nicole
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CLASSES ARE ON-LINE....... Join me in the 'Live Lounge'

3/21/2020

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What a difference a week makes. The last time I messaged you feels like an actual life time ago.
I must confess to having spent a large part of this week reeling from the pace and the content of the news. Whilst I recognise the opportunities inherent in being forced to change, I also feel acutely aware of the enormity of what we are all being asked to do & the challenges every single person - young and old- now faces.
The rest of the week, I have been working out how I can stay in touch. I feel it is essential that we all find ways of staying connected. As humans we are nothing if not innovative and already I am marvelling at the fortitude, resilience and innovation of many. But we are also fundamentally social beings, even the more introverted amongst us, and isolation- whilst having its inevitable silver linings- will also take its toll if we aren't pro-active.
With that in mind, I am offering a timetable of yoga classes online, starting from this Monday. It would be amazing to have as many of you as possible signing up & in a virtual room together. I have used my reluctant teenagers as guinea pigs to get to grips with the technology, and I must confess to being surprised at the atmosphere that can still be created over the ether. 
ONLINE YOGA......
Next weeks timetable is below.
To book a class, email me and I will then take you through the steps to get online. Classes will be £10 a session, payable in advance or £80 for a pack of 10 classes. Those of you who are still in credit this term, you can of course do as many classes as you'd paid for, before paying anything more. If you are struggling financially then give what you can, and all classes are free to NHS workers.
ONLINE CLASS TIMETABLE Week Beginning Monday 24th March
MON    9.30am-10.30am HATHA FLOW      Book Here
WED    8am-9am 'RISE AND SHINE' YOGA FLOW    Book Here 
THURS      9.30am-10.30am HATHA FLOW   Book Here
I am timetabling this for now but I am also really open to suggestions ( An even earlier class one day? A lunch time classes for those who are 'working from home').
Let's start like this and see how we get on......but do email me with your thoughts.      
BLOG......
As so many of you have very kindly said over the years that you have loved my newsletters, I decided that it was the time to resurrect my long lost blog. Expect more regular postings on all manner of musings on life in isolation, tips on how we might cope, lessons drawn from the teachings of Western philosophers and Eastern sages – anything that I feel might be useful in finding a sense of calm within all this quite unimaginable and unexpected chaos. 
SPREADING THE WORD......
Finally, I have always loved the fact that my work is very community based, and that I have a small circle of wonderfully loyal and dedicated yogis. Many of you I have now known for many years and I consider genuine friends. I also love that this circle broadens whenever I run retreats. I have always been reluctant to take this any further and have chosen deliberately to be relatively quiet on social media, but it seems the right time to widen the net a little more. So if you know anybody, in any part of the country or any other country for that matter, that you think could benefit from my classes or blog, then please forward this newsletter to them & encourage them to sign up or join the online classes. It would be fascinating to see how far we could get. The one thing this experience has taught us so far is quite how interconnected we all are. It would be lovely to turn that to a positive. 
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If it ain't broke, still fix it.....

3/20/2020

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Other cultures live more gently than ours. They siesta of an afternoon, go weekly to a hammam, or ‘sauna’ ( used as a verb; 'to sauna'), as a matter of course. And in the language that surrounds such ritual, the words indulgent, lazy or luxurious just don't feature. Looking after oneself is a fact of being, not something to apologise for or explain away.
In contrast, ours tends to be a far more protestant culture. We boast of our busy-ness, whisper of our well being rituals, and only allow ourselves a tonic when everything else has been first prioritised. 
Yet nurture as a need rather than a want is deeply embedded in holistic medicine. My acupuncturist once told me that where he is from in China, people don't wait until they are ill to see their doctor. Instead, they visit them as a matter of course, cyclically, not to get well but to stay well. And they are so confident in this prophylactic approach, that the Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors will only charge their regular patients when they are well. If they come to them when they are sick, then the consultation is free.
When I asked Dr Cheung how often I should have a session he suggested 4 times a year, ‘At the turn of every season’, he said. ‘To stay in balance’.
As the seasons change, the external world undergoes change too, often very rapidly. Temperatures rise or fall, humidity alters, light levels vary & the sun’s angle rises or dips by degrees, giving rise to the tonic of enticingly different painted skies at dawn or dusk. Despite our air conditioned lives, our rigid timetables and our electrical lights - all of which muffle our exposure to these changes -we are necessarily impacted. Winter asks and commands different things of us than the summer does. 
As we move into spring we, like the natural world around us, move from a  period of relative dormancy, of turning inwards, to one of potential growth and rejuvenation. As the sap rises and the trees bud and then unfurl into flower, we have the ability to tap this upward and outward energy. But the changes are rapid, and very often it can be hard to keep up. It is not at all uncommon to feel especially tired in these times of transition, as we struggle to recalibrate- energetically -with the change that happens beyond us. Our yoga regular practice, at once grounding and energising, is of particular importance because balance that is so elusive at the best of times, can be especially so at the cusps of the seasons. 
If nothing else our practice gives us time to pause to acknowledge the changes, and the tools we have - of body, breath and mind- to respond to them. It is no coincidence that traditional societies hosted celebrations to mark the move from season to season. Pagan and druid cultures, often now stereotyped and maligned, acknowledged as a matter of course the equinoxes, the solstices, all the festivals that welcome or wave goodbye to the light.
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The Illusion of Not Enough TimeFEBRUARY 2020Dont say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” H Jackson Brown 
For the past ten days I have been wanting to write a post about the illusion of not having enough time, yet haven’t found the time. Or at least that is what I have been telling myself.  The irony of this is – of course- not lost on me. Nor is my tendency to use ‘not enough time’ as my fall back excuse whenever I fail to get things done. There is no doubt that there are patches when I am exceptionally busy, so much so that the hours in the day simply aren’t enough to accommodate a to-do list that it usually entirely unrealistic from the off. In this regard, I suspect I am by no means alone. The cult of busy is a hallmark of our times. And our busy-ness is often bemoaned but more often strangely relished –  I remember a friend once confessing that she loved being so busy she could boast about it.  There is- if we are willing to admit it- something wholly validating and arguably addictive about being busy. As journalist Tim Greider says ‘it serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day’. It also, I believe, gives us the perfect, all encompassing ‘get-out’ clause. ‘Sorry, I didn’t reply to your email/return your call/pay that bill/turn up to that party because I am just SO busy’.  And its not just to other people that we reel off the excuses. We are just as good at selling ourselves the same story. ‘I would love to get to a yoga class/do my self practice/go for a run/do a daily meditation but I am just FAR TOO busy.’ But the truth is, in all but the most extreme circumstances, we have more time than we think. Plenty of it in fact. The problem is not the lack of time but how we use it, and crucially what we decide to prioritise. There is a Taoist saying that says ‘ Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say ‘I don’t want to’. My immediate reaction when I came across this particular nugget of wisdom was to bat it away. In fact, I almost felt offended. ‘Its not true,’ I thought to myself, somewhat defensively, ‘I genuinely haven’t had a moment’.  But as is so often the case with the insights of Lao Tzu, there is real truth in this. I usually have the time. I just don’t make the time. In an often described experiment to illustrate exactly this, a room full of people are given a glass jar, some large stones, more smaller stones and some sand. They are then asked to fill the jar. The amount of stones and sand they have been given is exactly enough to fill the jar to the top. But those who put the sand in first- as many apparently do- followed by the pebbles, find they run out of room for the larger stones. The only way to fill the jar is to start with the stones, slot in the pebbles and then pour the sand into the gaps that are left.  It proves a good guide for our days. If we start with the non negotiables- the big, essential priorities ( and anything that contributes to our well being should be at least one of those), then all the more menial to do’s, the squandered moments and the inessential but time consuming tasks can then, like the sand, be left to fill up the gaps. 
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Lessons from Never Never Land
January 2020
‘Take rest; a field that has rested 
gives a beautiful crop.’
OVID
I am writing this in the Neverland that is the time between Christmas and New Year. The clocks of the world might still be ticking but its as though they have been muzzled. I have no idea what day of the week it is, and I have ceased to care. It’s as though I have been given the gift of time without the to-dos, and this year I am revelling in it. Mornings to roll over and have postscript sleep; so much better than all the hours that have come before. Meals skewed, with breakfast rolling into lunch, and lunch into dinner.’Brunch’ and ‘Linner’ as they have been dubbed in our household. A walk in the gaps, maybe, if the sun is shining or day time movies- something I haven’t indulged in since childhood, maybe not even then. Absolutely everything that is important has been relegated to an afterthought, if even that.
I couldn’t live like this for long- the call of rhythm, the satisfaction of endeaveour, the need for movement and more distilled thought would win out in the end. But that is why this gift of time is so captivating. Because it is necessarily short lived. When does an extra hour land in your lap unannounced? We spend most of our lives trying to find time, safe in the knowledge that it never seems to find us.
Come early January, everyone will be shouting loudly about resolutions, alarms will be re-set, the ‘I wills’ and “I wont’s’ will neon light themselves in our minds. The cult of busy will take over again and the mantra of ‘too little time’ will be hot on its heels. And we will, no doubt, heed its irresistable call. 
Which makes the delight of rolling back over in bed, or a plan-free day stretched out in front of us, all the more necessary and delightful.
Hoping you’ve had a wonderful Christmas, wishing you a happy new year and hoping you are managing to find a suitably indulgent betwixt and between.
Here’s to the Roaring Twenties…….
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Teachings from India
November 2019

‘A great storm is like a sunny day to a person of great faith.
A gentle wind is like a great storm to a person of great fear.’
Matshona Dhliwayo

When you first land in India, be it for the first or the fourteenth time, all you see is the chaos. A land  of over 1.3 billion people and rising, the country is teeming with people. In the larger cities the roads are clogged with all manner of transport; tuk tuks vying with family laden motorbikes and ornate trucks for non existent space. Pavements, where they exist, are thronging with people peddling wares, and others trying to weave and wind past them. Road journeys beyond the cities are notoriously nail-biting affairs, with often three cars to one lane & mandatory overtaking on bends making a back seat driver of even the faithful. It pays -incidentally-to take a train, whose platforms and carriages might be heaving, but who at least have more of a tendency to stay on the tracks.  
Even the beaches in India are often busy, being regular sites of worship that attract families in their tens of thousands, adorned with riotously coloured saris and garlands of flowers offered up in prayer to a pantheon of Gods. This is a land where chaos and colour undoubtedly reign supreme. 
As abject poverty is still a very real issue in India, it should be no surprise that stress is a very real thing for the Indian people. And recent studies have also shown Indian millennials are some of the most stressed out in the world, under the dual pressures of the pull of traditions and the push of modernity. Road rage in India, when it happens, is more absolute than anywhere else. And a queue that at one moment seems calm and orderly- British almost- can descend into what appears to be mob rule at any moment.
But amongst this chaos, there is also an undeniable calm. And it is this, above all else that has me fall in love with India, time and time again. It is a country imbued with spirituality. You can almost feel it in the earth, as though every square metre has been trodden and so blessed by the orange robed wandering sadhus that are so commonplace throughout the country. There are temples and shrines everywhere, built as such or created impromptu, in the hanging roots of the sacred Banyan tree. Every home and shop, even those with not enough walls to count as one, have alters which are tended daily. Even the cows, sacred to the Hindus, are be-decked with colourfully painted horns and ornately jewelled, the only thing it seems that can bring the whirlwind of traffic to a standstill, as their unhurried passage along roadsides is unquestioningly respected.
‘Do I imagine it?’ I one day asked the girlfriend of one of my yoga teachers in Goa, while we drank chai and scoured semi-precious stones on the verandah of her beautiful home. ‘Or is is truly more spiritual here?’ 
‘I think it is’ she replied, in her still beautifully thick French Canadian accent despite ten years of living in India. ‘ Indians have a way of living much more in the present moment than we do in the West. Their lives are rooted in spirituality, and they seem to be able to let things go’.
With the silly season now upon us, I am already surviving on a steady stream of hot tea and lip salve. Getting swept up in the cult of consumerism that Christmas has rapidly become is all too easy, as is the overwhelm that comes with an over full diary and too much to do- as lovely as the to-dos might be. Experiences that feed us- be they creative or yogic- and small rituals to keep us grounded in the present become even more important in the face of Christmas’s potential chaos. 
It can be in the recommitment to a weekly yoga class ( we have one more week of classes to go), or a pre-Xmas event to ground you ( see details below!), but we can also find calm in the smallest of ways- with three minutes of daily breathing practice from the warmth of our bed before we get up and face the day, or the simple lighting of incense or a candle at dinner, the process of which might call you to stop and take- at the very least- a single deep breath.
Hoping you all manage to find calm within the chaos, and wishing you a Magical Christmas
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Finding Your Tonic…..
September 2019

We are nearing the end of a long- and I hope for all of you- glorious summer. My hair is now dreadlocked and my mind has taken a back seat- signs, I believe, of a summer well spent. But change is afoot. You can see it in the light, feel it in the air, and in the prospect – welcome for some- of a change in pace and a return to more routine. One of the beauties of summers’ inherent time and space is that it affords the opportunity to step back. This year that perspective made me see quite the extent to which daily life exerts a centrifugal force on me. The way in which the clock, the to do lists, the juggling of work and children and play pulls me, in every direction, sometimes to such an extent that it is all too easy to lose my centre. In some ways it was ever thus. Buddhist meditation techniques, many of which are over 2,000 years old & designed to reign in the mind, attest to its natural tendency to disperse. In her beautiful book ‘Gift from the Sea’, which I read last year and whose well thumbed pages and bedside mantel are its ultimate compliment, Ann Morrow Lindbergh speaks poetically and compellingly about the radial pull on a woman’s life in particular (though I would suggest that the modern man is buffeted by life in much the same way). It was a bestseller in the 1950s but it feels as relevant today as it was half a century ago. And arguably things have got harder in that regard, where the natural chaos of the mind and the demands of life are exaggerated further by the pull of technology and the distraction of social media. A long and languid summer has felt – always feels- like the perfect & very necessary antidote to it all. A long inhale to an often constant and fractured exhale. A chance to draw in, to re-boot, to re-centre and I have really welcomed it.The danger is though, that we can quickly ricochet, like the proverbial pinball, from one languid extreme to a fraught other. That after the space of summer we launch- unthinkingly – straight back into a high paced, eternally busy term time only to be washed up on the shores of Christmas, exhausted once more.The challenge is to prioritise maintaining some of the spaciousness of summer as we transition out of it. It will come as no surprise that, for me, the answer lies in sustaining a constant yoga practice. Experience has shown me- over and again- that when yoga ( and by that I mean the whole remit; asana, pranayama and meditation) remains my priority, irrespective of the season and regardless of the other demands- I maintain my centre. For others it might be a daily walk,  a craft that absorbs you or some time- daily or weekly- tending to a garden. Anything that you find truly sustaining. The tonic itself matters much less than the fact that we take it. And not just take it but prioritise it, consciously seeking to weave our chosen balancing force into our otherwise radial lives.


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