Hello all,
I am on an Ante and Post Natal training course on Saturday 31st January so there will be NO Saturday morning class, my apologies. The class will be back on as normal the following Saturday 7th February.
Enjoy your weekend,
Lucy
Bearwood Tuesday night address change starting 3rd Feb January 23, 2009
**Tuesday 27th January will be the last class at Bearwood Baptist Church, we will start at the Bear Tavern from Tuesday 3rd FEBRUARY**
At last I have found a new hall for the Tuesday night Bearwood class, hopefully this one will be warmer. Please note the class is at the SAME TIME 7-8pm, it is just a change in venue, details as follows:
BEARWOOD
TUESDAYS (from 03-02-09)
7.00PM -8.00PM
THE BEAR TAVERN
FUNCTION ROOM UPSTAIRS
500 BEARWOOD ROAD
BEARWOOD
BIRMINGHAM
B66 4BX
Handy Man! January 23, 2009
Hi,
After nearly getting locked out of my house on Monday when my front door lock broke, I called my ‘handy man’ Graham to come and help me get in! He put a new lock on my door and only charged me £20, which was much more digestible than the £800 the emergency locksmith was asking. The reason I am telling you this is Graham is great! He put new windows in my house last year and his brother fitted my boiler, Graham works in the local Harborne/Quinton/Halesowen kind of areas so if you need a handy man – he’s your man!
This is his email: graham.howell@homecall.co.uk
x
Really pleased!! January 17, 2009
Hi,
It’s good to back in full swing with the classes, thank you all for coming back – you all look great!
A student told me on Friday that they find my stick man programmes helpful, it absolutely made my day!! So I have scanned another programme for you, we did this routine on Thursday night, and Friday so you may be familiar. Apologies for spelling mistakes and scruffyness – it’s late!! (I should buy some tip-ex!)
Also a condensed version of my India diary and a post on CHOCOLATE!
Please enjoy
See you next week
x
Chocolate bar?? January 17, 2009
If you really want a chocolate bar, should you just have it?
If you really want the chocolate bar and resist from having it, tell yourself you shouldn’t have it, doesn’t the mind get obsessed with it? All the mind can think about is ‘Chocolate bar, Chocolate bar, Chocolate bar’, the more we resist, the more it shouts at us.
If we have the chocolate bar because we wanted the chocolate bar, will it satisfy our need? Will this be the end of the craving? Or will having one chocolate bar lead to a craving for more chocolate bars?
What do you think?
Have the chocolate bar?
Or resist the chocolate bar?
Obviously this is a theoretical question and can be related to any craving of any description……….you responses please…………!!
India January 11, 2009
I’ve just written this to go in a magazine, it’s kind of a condensed version of my experiences on my month retreat in India.
You don’t choose to go to India, India chooses you!
I had saved money to go away again for a month over winter and hadn’t decided where to go, I toyed with the idea of Thailand, Spain etc, but somehow I found myself booking a flight to Mumbai. I have been to India before and explored its beautiful mountain ranges in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. On this occasion India called me to go to its beautiful beaches and so I arrived in Goa on the 22nd November 2008, it was 30 degrees centigrade and 3am in the morning!
I had booked myself on a Meditation, Pilates, Yoga and Reiki retreat starting the following day at 7am in morning. My journey getting to Goa had been a long travel; 37 hours in total, but when I arrived for Meditation a little sleepy at 7am on the 23rd November my journey had only just begun. I documented my experiences, so I have quoted some of my diary extracts.
My retreat timetable: 7-8am – Meditation, 8-10am – Yoga, 12-2pm – Reiki, 3-4 – Meditation, 4-6pm – Pilates or yoga or three hours Mandala dancing.
I had chosen this journey just for me, I wanted to focus on my practise, go deeper within myself, know myself better, and become a whole and complete person.
“Here, in this place, I can achieve the kind of calm, peace and stillness I have been searching for my whole life.”
Of course there are retreat centres in England I could have gone to but in Indian it is not just your retreat timetable that teaches you. India affects your whole timetable of life. Here are some of the things outside of Meditation and practise that inspired me:
The Indian way of life and people
The greeting of one person to another says it all “Namaste” literally meaning: I bow with respect to the divine within you, to whom my life is dedicated. It puts “Hello” to shame!
The pace of life is slow, calm and relaxed. Indians have a great deal of patience and love they ooze understanding and care. The D’Souza family who ran the guesthouse where I stayed looked after each other with real compassion. I was incredibly grateful to them also when I became ill in my first week. The family dispensed my medicine and told me to knock on their door in the night if I needed anything. I’m not sure I would get this kind of ‘one of the family’ treatment if I were in an English hotel.
Lockies bar in Arambol
“Clearly a whole community of hippies landed in Arambol in 1969 and have never left. All singing songs about enlightenment, meditation, love and opening your heart, I just love it! Lovely energy, lovely people and lovely vibe. It feels like a collective consciousness, all people in this little community are searching for inner peace and world peace!”
A quote from John, a Lockies regular who sang and played guitar; “If you have a room full of darkness and you throw a bucket of that darkness out of the door, you will still have a dark room. To make the room not dark, you have to fill it with light”. That is what we need to be – the light in the rooms of darkness.
Mandrem Beach
“Everything is so organic here, the whole town is taken down during the monsoon season and rebuilt ready for the six month ‘tourist’ season (November – April). Most bars, restaurants, beach huts, sun beds/shelters etc are built from basic materials, wooden cross-hatching supported by palm trees, bamboo bridges etc. I wake up and walk to the Yoga shala and a new hut has been built, so quick and so well done – incredible.”
Going deeper
Days turned into nights and each day held a new surprise for me. I had thought that I was quite aware, my energy flowing freely and my meditation practise good, but the further I delved I realised that there was much work to be done.
Acknowledging pain
Realising that emotional events from the past, if not dealt with can manifest within the physical body as aches and pains. Feeling a need to find the true source, the real reason for holding on to pain in my body. My Reiki master said to me: ‘The past gives us a better present and the present gives us a better future’. I go in search of the mysteries behind my aches and pains……..
The most important physical practise for me was dancing. The act of being free within my body to express myself was better than heaven! Through dancing for three hours a day I realised that the movements of the body say everything about our personality and characteristics.
For example, the left side of the body relates to feminine attributes, the self, receiving (mainly of love) and has the characteristics of moon. The right side of the body relates to male attributes, others (friends, family etc), giving (mainly of love) and has the characteristics of the sun.
Movements – trouble moving the body forwards can symbolise a difficulty in placing your thoughts and plans in the future, worry, anxiety and fear of the future and what it holds for you. On the other hand, trouble moving the body backwards can symbolise difficulty in acknowledging the past, problems in the past that haven’t been dealt with etc.
My main focus became balancing my body through movement, making figure of eight shapes forward and back, left and right. Moving both sides of my body equally, breathing evenly through both nostrils (with the help of special breathing techniques) and sleeping on my right side, which subdues the busy side of the brain and aids rest. So you could say I danced my way to freedom within my body!
“My body is wonderful, amazing, I love my body because it shelters my soul, it is my vehicle in this lifetime.”
Thoughts on training the body too hard;
“Rather a healthy pain-free body than torturing my body to make it beautiful.”
Breathing
Going deeper in meditation I realised how the way I breathe affects everything in my body, the tension and pain I have manifested over time is held in place by incorrect breathing. I practise Pranayama (breathing exercises) and start to enjoy and love my breath.
“Continuous flow and harmonious breathing = peaceful, clear mind.”
Like for like
“Our body has an energy field, our aura. Our thoughts, feelings and emotions all stay within this energy field which is much bigger than we are. Those thoughts and feelings in the aura will reach people before our physical body does, this attracts a like response. If I carry positivity within my aura (positive thoughts and feelings), only like can return.”
I know now that my thoughts and feelings manifest, my past is what I am now, my present what I am tomorrow. I am learning the power of positive affirmation because after all;
“My mind is calm and silent” “Life is brilliant and I am happy”.
Practise makes perfect.
“A person who has read many books on flying can do a talk or write a book about flying, but put him in a plane and he can’t fly it!”
I have read many books on Yoga, Pilates and Meditation but without standing on my mat or sitting on my meditation cushion my mind becomes busy and hectic and I loose the connection to my body – my freedom.
“If you desire something, you need to make an effort to achieve it”
Leaving
So I sit and watch the sliding door at the airport waiting for my connecting flight, it makes me aware of every second that I am getting further away from my special place – India. I feel like I have left a part of myself behind, I feel heartbroken. It wasn’t just the place it was the sum of everything that was my experience; the practise, the dance, the freedom, the sun, the sea, the bhajan (devotional songs), the music, but most all it was the people. They popped up at this point in my life and rescued me, taught me, believed in me, supported me, trusted me, loved me, and directed me. The people I met on my journey opened my heart.
“Mother India is a piece of heaven on Earth.”
“It is officially the end of this travel, but it is only the start of the rest of my journey.”
“Never forget how far I have already come on my life journey.”
“I must continue working towards being a fully conscious human being.”
New Classes January 5, 2009
Hello all,
I have new classes starting this week if anyone is interested, the times and places are as follows:
Mondays
5.45pm - 6.45pm
Birmingham Sports Centre
201 Balsall Heath Road
Birmingham
B12 9DL
Saturdays
10am – 11am
Unique Physique
Unit 1, Borough Court
Grammar School Lane
Halesowen
B63 3SW
Maybe see you there!
Classes start back Monday 5th January January 4, 2009
All classes back on next week, see below. First class starting tomorrow – Monday 5th January.
See you all in a few days,
Big Love
Lulu
Welcome 2009 January 1, 2009
Many blessings to you all and wishing you abundance, love and prosperity for 2009.
Now the festive season has come to an end it is time to get back into the routine. All classes are back on as normal next week:
Monday 7.30pm, Onneley House, Harborne
Tuesday 7pm, The Bear Tavern, Bearwood
Wednesday 7pm, Quinborne Community Centre, Quinton
Friday 6pm, Birmingham Buddhist Centre, Moseley
Saturday 10am, Unique Physique, Halesowen
Below is a half an hour core programme to get you back into practice! Hope to see you all next week, enjoy the weekend and the remainder of your rest time.
Kindest regards,
Lucy
