Did you ever read a bed time story as a child?

Or maybe you listen to the radio, or have a comfort TV show that you watch before bed.

The human brain is primed to find stories comforting and relaxing. For millennia we have told tales in the evening in front of a fire. They remind us of safety, of belonging, of being part of a tribe.

A sleep story is an adult bedtime story, specifically picked for their gentle, cosy nature. They are interesting enough to stop your mind wandering but not so interesting you get involved in the plot.

I have wanted to record one for ages but it’s a little bit different to what I normally post so I haven’t had the confidence. So when someone in my zoom studio specifically asked for one, I jumped at the chance.

I have chosen the Wind in the Willows as this was a particular favourite of mine when I was a child, and if people enjoy it I will make it into a series.

So pop it on when you’re dropping off and let me know.

Did you know?

That you can now download substack videos so you can watch them offline. Just click the three dots and choose download so you can then listen without having to be connected to the internet.

That means you can listen without being distracted by other things.

Oh that little green eyed monster.

We all have one, and it can cause so much misery in our own minds and in our relationships.

Jealousy can be a destructive emotion if we let it fester or push it down or use it to lash out, but it can also be a message from our deeper wisdom guiding us on our desires and showing us our path towards a truthful life.For years I struggled to know what I wanted in life, I’d been living in survival mode just trying to be liked and fit in, and when I came out of it I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted.

And it wasn’t until I started turning with curiosity and compassion to the parts of myself that I had tried to push down that I realised they’d been showing me the way the whole time.Tapping into your intuition doesn’t just mean looking for positive signs but also listening the less socially acceptable parts of us too.Yoga teaches us that emotions are morally neutral, they are all part of being human, it’s what we do with them and how we act that matters.

What is your green eyed monster trying to tell you?

Coming up on Monday we have something a little bit different.It’s a bedtime story for helping you drift off to sleep. 💤I’ve recorded the first chapter of Wind in the Willows as a super relaxing sleepy story to make you feel comforted and put you in a slumber.This is an experiment and if people like it I’ll make a series. Look out for it in your inbox on Monday.

One of the biggest misconceptions about yoga is that if you practice yoga, you should never feel irritated or angry again. That you should just be able to go through life above it all, removed from the ups and downs of being human.

And this is just not true. Yoga is not there to bypass our very real and valid emotions, it’s there to help us feel steady as we experience them fully.

So instead of feeling like a little boat being rocked and tumbled about, at the mercy of the waves and storms of our mind, we remember that we ARE the ocean and this weather is simply passing through.

Because at the end of the day, we can’t just go and live in a cave by ourselves. And personally I don’t think we should, we are social creatures and life is for living. For me, yoga has always been about living our life in the world rather than distancing yourself from it.

And the world will always include people we don’t get on with, stressful situations, and things that annoy us.

It’s so common to feel guilty for any negative emotion, like they make us a bad person, or mean we are ‘bad’ at yoga. But emotions don’t have any morality attached to them, they are simply data. There to be felt.

It is how you behave, not how you feel, that makes the biggest impact in the world. And yoga can create the space you need to make sure you are behaving in a way that aligns with your morals.

When we react out of anger, this is often when we lose integrity and do something we don’t feel proud of later. So taking a beat, returning back to ourselves and then responding means we are acting from a place of self power, and it usually means we get better results.

This is never about pushing away our emotions or making ourselves okay with other people’s not-okay actions. We are not putting ourselves in ‘time out’ for having a ‘bad’ emotion.

Instead, we are returning our nervous system back to a more steady state so we can decide how to act, and make the changes we need to make, to respond rather than react.

So next time you are activated by someone try this 5 minute session to bring you back.

Don’t forget to save it for when you need it.