Mindful Living

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

~ Jack Kornfield

When I decided to do the Yoga Teacher Training 200hr program with The Mindful Yoga School, my aim was to be physically strong as well as flexible. I guess I wanted to prove that if someone who wasn’t very fit could do yoga, then surely others could too - and I could show them.

Hence, I was very focused on the physical challenge and imagined I'd be pushing my body during the training program.

What I didn’t realise was how deep we would end up delving into the workings of the Self - beyond just the physical body.

During our explorations of the Koshas (the five layers of the Self) and the Eight Limbs of Yoga, I came to learn so much about compassion - or at least my awareness grew to realise when I was or wasn’t being compassionate.

I was thirteen when I first heard of Ahimsa. I was watching the 1982 documentary Gandhi. I remember Mahatma Gandhi's determined, but peaceful resistance to oppression. H...