Was this all a big mistake? Finding clarity in the chaos with your yoga practice
Was this all a BIG mistake?
This was the question I asked myself not even 24 hours after landing in Sri Lanka. A place I had dreamed of coming for many, many years. A place I felt drawn to. A place I had convinced my husband to come to spend his long service leave.
Setting off full of hope and joy, ready for the challenge and the learnings, excited to embark on a yoga teaching gig in another country for a whole month.
And yet, less than 24 hours after arriving, here I was in the middle of Sri Lanka’s capital city, Colombo, on my birthday, thinking…
‘Oh sh;+! What have I done?’
I wanted to leave!
It was a really awful experience, here’s my cliff notes version why:
Arrived in the middle of the night after a long travel day…exhausted,
Didn’t have any Sri Lanka $$$ yet (IFYKYK) 🤦♀️
The hotel…so many things wrong here. Rude and grumpy hotel staff, weird smells and when the elevator pinged a warning sound to say it wasn’t working properly and my husbands face drained of all its colour (he has a fear of being stuck in an elevator) - the attendant just grunted and squeezed the doors shut with his bare hands ‘No problem’ he reckons!
My entire body was in pain (dodgy spine doesn’t like long travel days and flights and I was in my luteal phase of my cycle which is hellish for me),
When I finally got to sleep around 3am the trains began and they were LOUD!
The fun continued with several men appearing to be ‘helpful’ but really just being transactional and wanting compensation (cash) for their ‘kindness’,
Street gang street fight broke out in front of us whilst getting money from the ATM,
More bad smells…and I mean nauseating!
Getting lost in the sweltering heat not yet knowing how to hail a tuk tuk,
Sunburn, heatstroke and panic setting in,
Chaos surrounding us,
The traffic fumes (yep, more bad smells),
Constant stares and creepy sneers from multiple men,
Could not find a shop selling water no mater how many streets we’d walk down,
It was my birthday,
My husband reminding me constantly that he felt bad because we were experiencing all this on my birthday!
It was, in a nutshell a really sh*+ time!
I felt guilty for choosing here and wanted to just go home!
But back in January when my inner wisdom started to whisper ‘ You have to go to Sri Lanka to teach yoga’, I had listened. Back then I was able to discern that this was the right direction to take and this current feeling; a combination of fear, regret, mistrust… bothered me. Was my intuition out of whack? Was it wrong? I panicked!
Arriving back at the hotel after an excruciating walk in the sweltering heat, I paused, showered, breathed and hydrated…and I checked back in with that January feeling.
And, there it was…that knowing that this was exactly where I should be, in this moment. I knew, KNEW I was in the right place at the right time and that this trip was 100% meant to be.
How did I know?
I knew, because through my own yoga practice (on and off the mat) I have been cultivating the ability to tune in and trust my own intuition, inner voice and wisdom for a long time. I know what it feels like to tune into that innate wisdom and to trust, despite the noise, the chaos and the momentary mental noise and questioning!
In yoga, this innate wisdom is referred to as the Vijnanamay Kosha or the ‘wisdom layer’ of the self. The Koshas are the five distinct layers of the self described in yogic philosophy and include the Annamaya Kosha (the physical body); Pranamaya Kosha (the breath/life force layer); Monomaya Kosha (the mental layer of thoughts and emotions); Vijnanamaya Kosha (the wisdom and intuition layer) and the Anandamaya Kosha (the bliss layer, where we experience joy, peace and connection to our true self).
The Vijnanamay Kosha is the layer of us that transcends thoughts. It includes both intellect and discernment and it allows us to reflect and align our actions with our deeper values. This is where insight, discernment and the ability to make conscious decisions reside and where we shift from thinking to knowing; from opinion and mental noise to clarity.
In the science word, this is referred to as interception.
Interception is your brain's way of sensing what’s going on inside your body.
It’s like having an internal dashboard that tells you if your are hungry, thirsty, if your heart is beating fast or slow, helps you sense your level of safety, notice if you feel anxious and stressed or calm and centred and even when you need to pee!
When our internal dashboard lights up, trying to tell us something, signals travel via sensory nerves through the fascia to the brain. The brain then interprets these messages, helping us to feel and respond.
*side note: Soz if car dashboard analogies aren’t your thing, the dashboard analogy is because I’m writing this article whilst sitting in a service centre waiting for my car to have something fixed so it’s just where my mind went🤷♀️😂
And here is the fascinating thing about interception, not only does it play a part in physical body awareness aka needing to pee, it also plays an important role in awareness of emotional states, perceptions of pain and yep you guessed it…our gut feelings, aka the Vijnanamay Kosha, aka intuition.
Gut feelings = this feels right! Your intuition or inner knowledge, subtle yet distinct.
But what’s actually happening when we have a gut feeling?
Our gut, has its own kind of ‘mini brain’ called the Enteric Nervous System (ENS). The ENS contains millions of neurons and it controls digestion but also constantly communicates with the brain via the vagus nerve.
If you’ve practiced yoga with me, you would have heard me talk about the vagus nerve A LOT and that’s because this important nerve (innervated in the fascia, something else I talk about A LOT) is the communication superhighway between the gut and the brain and it plays a part in developing our interception. When the gut dashboard lights up, the vagus nerve sends these signals to the parts of the brain responsible for emotions, decision making and assessing risk which interpret the signals well before we have had a chance for our conscious mind to catch up!
These gut feelings are fast, embodied and emotionally tuned in. And whilst gut feelings are not always 100% correct as they can be impacted by experiences, anxiety and stress. They are worth paying attention to.
What has yoga got to do with it?
Our yoga practice improves our interception and our ability to become more attuned to gut feelings, enabling us to learn to trust or question them with curiosity and wisdom. And when I say yoga, I mean the multiple aspects of a yoga practice that includes but is not just limited to asana (poses). Our yoga practice includes meditation, pranayama (breath work), ethical principles and self discipline (the yamas and niyamas).
Our daily hustle habits often drown out this inner wisdom so we often get swept up in the drama of what’s NOT going well. Spending our moments confused, frustrated, exhausted, experiencing chronic pain and lacking clarity!
Tired, wired, sore, stuck and in some cases completely burnt out.
We all have the ability to reconnect with our own inner wisdom and for me this is absolutely where my own yoga practice plays a part…but it takes consistent PRACTICE, yep I said consistent because although a quick scroll on the gram these days will have you signing up for the latest ‘magic wand program’ with the promise of overnight transformation…the hard truth is that building anything…interoceptive sensitively, strength, a career, a car (and it’s dashboard) all take time and consistency!
If you are feeling stuck and a little out of touch with your own inner wisdom, a tailored yoga program might just be the first step to building your own fine tuned intuition dashboard!
Back to the Sri Lanka story, it did turn out that my intuition was 100% correct! The whole experience even the dodgy Colombo day was all part of an experience of a lifetime that taught me so much about myself, my relationships with my people and the world around me. Sri Lanka was a huge time of growth for me, it tested me, lit me up, helped me to get unstuck and brought me back to the truest version of me, something I haven’t felt for a while…and if I’d never listened to that whisper of intuition I would never have gone!
Feeling ready to trust your inner voice again? Let’s work together to build an embodied therapeutic yoga program that reconnects you to your own intuitive power.
Ask me how to get started with your own therapeutic yoga practice to reignite your own inner wisdom. Online telehealth appointments are available.
Much Love
Kerry x.
