Am I free?

Am I free?

I invite you to ask yourself, Am I free?

When we do perhaps most of us would answer, yes.

And yet…How often do we find ourselves pulled from our centre by another’s words, a passing glance, a look we cannot quite interpret, or a silence that seems to speak a thousand words?

How quickly the mind begins to weave a story, spin a tale.

We replay conversations, imagine meanings, question ourselves and listen to that familiar inner voice, the judge, the critic, the one who whispers that perhaps we are not quite good enough.

And before we know it, we have wandered far from the present moment, caught in a story, a tale that was never true in the first place.

How often are we waiting, wishing for something outside of ourselves before we allow ourselves to be free?

Someone else's approval.

Permission to be who we are.

A little more certainty.

A different set of circumstances.

If only….

That moment when everything finally falls into place.

And all the while, life is here, unfolding around us, quietly inviting us to participate.

To breathe.

To feel.

To play.

To love.

To live.

To say YES to life, to our life, just as it is, right here, right now.

Freedom isn't something we must chase or earn. It is something we can begin to discover beneath all that we have come to believe about ourselves.

It is the spaciousness that emerges when we no longer have to believe every story the mind tells us or follow every thought down its familiar winding fairy tale path.

But so much of what keeps us from experiencing this freedom happens quietly, beneath the surface.

Woven into our inner chatter. Hidden within our reactions. Repeated through our relationships. Playing out in the ways we meet ourselves and the world.

In the yogic tradition, these deep-seated impressions and habitual patterns are known as संस्कार Saṃskāras. And a couple of weeks ago I wrote deeply about these and pulled them together last week in ‘the best version we can be’ post, so you can re-read at any time.

These are imprints left by our experiences, our conditioning, our fears and our repeated ways of thinking and responding.

Some may once have served to protect us. Others may have grown from beliefs we absorbed long ago, beliefs that no longer serve the person we are now.

The feeling of not being good enough.

The fear of being misunderstood.

The need to please, to prove, to hold everything together.

The familiar pull towards self-judgement, comparison, doubt.

The need for praise (one sugar lump or two?)

Patterns so deeply woven into our being that we can mistake them for who we are, rather than recognising them as patterns we have learnt along the way that are now holding us back.

But what if we could begin to meet these patterns differently? What if, instead of fighting ourselves, we became friendly, curious?

What if we could gently turn towards the places within us where we feel bound, and begin to discover a little more space, a little more understanding, a little more freedom?

This month (November), We are offering a Monday evening Sangha a welcoming space to gather in circle, to bring your questions, your curiosities and those places within you where you might feel a little stuck or held.

Together, we will explore traditional yogic tools and practices that can support us in bringing these hidden patterns into awareness and creating new possibilities in how we experience and respond to life.

With compassion and through gentle movement, meditation, mantra, mudrā, breath and stillness, we will create opportunities to listen more deeply, to observe without judgement and to reconnect with the quiet space that exists beneath the noise.

By beginning to loosen the threads that keep us bound to old ways of being.

Not through force. Not through fixing ourselves. Not by becoming someone else.

But through awareness.

Through understanding.

Through patience, practice and kind self-care.

Because perhaps freedom begins not when we finally get everything right, but when we no longer have to be at war with ourselves.

And as these old patterns begin to soften, as we learn to pause rather than react, to observe rather than believe, to meet ourselves with kindness rather than criticism, something beautiful becomes possible.

We find a little more room to breathe.

A little more freedom to choose.

A little more courage to live from the heart rather than from our fears.

You don't need to arrive with answers or even know exactly what it is you are seeking.

And perhaps, little by little, we begin to remember the freedom that was never lost just obscured.

Come and sit in circle with us as we discover how these ancient yogic practices might support us in living with greater awareness, greater compassion so we can truly be free in this precious lifetime.

You don't need to attend every session, and you don't need to have any previous experience of yoga before.

The invitation is simple: come as you are, and let us explore what freedom might feel like with an open heart, together. 

❤️