Yoga for Cyclical Well-being

Do you feel like you are at a crossroads in your life?

Have you had enough of living in a non-stop way that neglects your own needs and saps your resources?

Would you like to stop feeling you are swimming against the tide - and ending up ever further from what really matters to you (if you can even remember what that is)?

Whatever has brought you to this point, you know that the future cannot look like the past. But you do not not how to bring the change you long for and are struggling to access a positive vision for that future.

As a Yoga teacher specialising in female health and well-being, I meet many women at this crossroads.

Often they are feeling stuck, lost, empty, overwhelmed or utterly burned out.

Many have lived in line with the cultural messaging that they were brought up with: that the way to achieve our dreams and lead a fulfilling life is to push on through and keep on marching onward and upward in a linear way, ever faster, better, higher.

But so often women tell me they have ended up with a sense that they have spent their lives running around focused outwards and on the needs of others. And it has left them feeling wrung out and disconnected from their feminine selves, with a sense of powerlessness as mental and physical health symptoms spin out of control.

Take Jessica, a mum with a busy career who came to see me a few years ago.

Jessica was struggling with back pain, debilitating menstrual symptoms as she navigated peri-menopause. She told me she felt like she was "disintegrating" and going crazy - and often just wanted to "throw in the towel". And she felt an utter loss of connection with any feminine softness or rhythm in her life.

She acknowledged that she had never much liked her body or its female processes (menstruation - "just a nuisance"). Like so many of her friends, she had simply over-ridden with gritted teeth and medication any symptoms that threatened to slow down her busy life.

I totally related to her story! I spent my 20s in just that place while living in Beijing and running the catering company I had founded. My failure to pay any heed to my cyclical rhythms led me to what, in hindsight, seems like the logical conclusion - no menstrual cycles.

It took me those very painful two years of no menstruation and four years of infertility in my early 30s to wake me up to the fact that my striving linear ways were making me ill.

I've spent the past two decades exploring how to live in a more harmonious, meaningful and sustainable way. And I have found Yoga - practised in a self-reverent, cycle-centric way - to be my trusted ally in bringing me home to my female body, myself and my natural rhythms and in supporting my ongoing process of becoming.

My upbringing imprinted on my nervous system the idea that giving into impulses to slow down, step back, do nothing were not qualities to aspire to, but rather signs of laziness, low achievement and certaintly not the road to success.

Today, I deeply heed these impulses. I recognise that, far from being the enemy of moving forward in life, the cyclical call into stillness, reflection and rest is the key to staying connected to what matters, nurturing a fertile and smooth creative process and to getting where we want to go without burning up all our resources.

Just look at nature. Summer knows she cannot stay Summer all year - else all would overheat, dry out and wither. Instead, nature endlessly turns through and is worked by the vital processes of all four seasons.

To be well, to live well and to heal our planet, us humans need to remember that we too are the natural world.

The reality is that, if we fight against nature's flow, life becomes a struggle and we experience existence from a place of separation, not connection.

And living in a state of non-stop summertime busyness is particularly damaging for women, who embody nature's rhythmic dance in the menstrual cycles that turn in us for decades of our life.

Yoga for Cyclical Well-being - an embodied journey back to intimacy with your ever-changing self

The YCW program is a distillation of all that I have learned on my own journey.

The three words in the title act a container for that distillation. Each one is equally important and carries equal weight in the program. Let's look at them briefly (backwards) one by one.

• Well-being - My overall aim is to guide you to restore well-being on every level in your being and life. I believe cyclical living and an embodied practice to be essential allies in that journey.
• Cyclical - Embracing your cyclical rhythms is the only way to live a fulfilling, creative and productive life as a woman (of any age) without neglecting your own needs and sacrificing your sanity and your health. In the YCW program, we explore this truth and put to rest the myth that making time for our quieter, slower softer 'feminine' side will somehow make us weaker or less capable of realising our dreams (and discover that the opposite is true!). And we get intimate with the subtleties, challenges, powers and tasks of each of our Inner Seasons, feeling into Spring's energy of emergence and growth, Summer's peak-energy manifestation, Autumn's decline and Winter's death and rebirth.
• Yoga - As much as we might like to shed beliefs and patterns that hold us back so we can emerge anew, it is not easy. That is in large part because these patterns are written into the fabric of our being. So without coming closer to ourselves through a lived somatic experience of our body, it is hard to bring real positive change to ourselves and our lives. In this program, we will practice Yoga in a self-exploratory and embodied way that gives us the opportunity to evolve.

YCW is an online program

The online format offers great benefits in allowing you to go deep into this work through sustained practice and study in the comfort of your own home.

But I do not leave you to fend for yourself in the virtual world. You will feel yourself supported by the other women in the program and I am there throughout to guide and champion you - and help you avoid some of the pot holes that have tripped me up along the way.

• I give you the context, the clearly structured frameworks, the expert personal support and the uniquely transformative tools to embrace your natural rhythms as the foundation of a new, life-enhancing way of being in the world.
• I support you to make yourself a priority, to establish an intimate, loving and confident relationship with yourself and to remember who you are and what you are passionate about - and to step that person out into the world.
• I show you how to stop fighting against your natural flow and how instead to harness the powers of each of your Inner Seasons to boost your well-being, move easefully forward in life and to achieve your goals in a meaningful, creative, insightful, productive and self-replenishing way that does not suck you dry.
• I give you the knowledge and the tools to experience the medicine of cycles and to take responsibility for and bring positive change to your own health and well-being.*
• I guide you step by step to become a cycle-centric, explorative, self-reverent, self-reliant Yogi with a pratice that supports (rather than blocks) your evolutionary process - and teaches you that stepping back is the source of going forward.

The program is not for everyone. It is certainly not for anyone who is looking for a superficial quick fix to what is ailing them.

But it is for women of all ages who:

• Want to stop living at a fast linear clip and to find a different rhythm - one that honours their cyclical reality.
• Are looking for a way of doing Yoga that respects and shifts with those rhythms, giving them an intimate felt sense of the subtleties of their Inner Seasons, adapting to meet them where they are at day by day and making space for them to constantly discover themselves anew.
• Yearns for the support and sustenance of a warm sense of connection with other women.
• Would like to become an expert in and a devotee of self care.
• Are ready to invest in themselves and to commit to doing what it takes to achieve real and lasting change.

If that sounds like you, I pledge to be there for you all the way through this life-changing program.

* I recommend the Yoga for Cyclical Well-being program to anyone struggling with menstrual, fertility, menopausal or other physical or mental health issues.

What's in the YCW box?

Here's what you get when you join the YCW program:

• Unlimited access to YCW's eight modules of high-quality, richly structured recorded content (video and audio recordings and text documents) through its online portal - with no time limit and including all future versions.
  
• Ongoing personal guidance from me - I support every woman who joins YCW to achieve the transformation she is looking for. So I am here with you all the way. For six months*, you'll have access to:
• Weekly virtual group Support Calls (live on Zoom; recordings available) - these weekly 60-minute calls are at the centre of our caring and supportive YCW community. You get a chance to connect with me and other women in the program, to listen, to share as little or as much as you wish and to ask me any questions you may have.
• Private group chat forum - this is our channel for ongoing communication and sharing.
• Two 1-2-1 Support Calls - these two 30-minute calls are your chance to get private and personalised support and guidance from me to help you find your way and explore any particular challenges you may be working through.
• Live online Yoga sessions - you'll get weekly or bi-monthly (depending on what's available) access to live classes (and their recordings) for six months. I do sometimes take breaks from these sessions.
  

* Six months gives you time to work through the YCW modules with my support. But remember, you then have all the time in the world to go back through them, exploring more deeply and using the content to support your own cyclical process.

Each of the eight modules contain several lessons, with various types of content. These include:

The life-changing study of cycles and their phases

• I'll help you understand why trying to live your life in a linear way is bound to end in tears. And why and how embracing your natural rhythms through embodied practices is the secret living a thriving life and fulfilling your dreams without burning out.
• I'll share with you the frameworks I have developed over the years to help you grasp the subtleties of your Inner Seasons and thus navigate your whole cycle with greater ease. You will learn, for instance, the four key stages of the Spring season of new beginnings and growth. Then you'll know what you need to do to move through this season more smoothly - without tripping up by perhaps rushing out the gate too fast, getting serious too early or running out of steam.
• I'll guide you to feel into how our female rhythms - while anchored in our menstrual cycle - are woven into a rich cosmic tapestry of cycles that holds and works us through the whole of our lives. We will explore this ebb and flow within and without, for instance through our breath, our menstrual cycle (if present), the moon cycle and, of course, the seasons themselves.
  

Gentle, cycle-centric Yoga - suitable for beginners and experienced Yogis

• I'll take you step-by-step through the foundational skills and qualities that underlie a sustainable, adaptable and transformational Yoga practice that values self-reverence and self-care over propping you up so you can continue to drive yourself harder and harder in life.
• I'll help you develop a practice that has the power to evolve you and capacity to evolve with you by encouraging you to come to your mat each time with no fixed ideas or set outcomes in mind, but simply ready to listen in to whatever is going on in your inner world, to be curious and to explore different ways.
• I'll guide you to become deeply present to and accepting of yourself in each moment and to develop an intimate awareness of your body's felt sensations.
• I'll invite you to trust those felt sensations as your truest guide so you can always make good and safe choices for you and your body in your Yoga practice.
• I'll ground you in the richness of your Inner Seasons, so you know how to adjust your practice as their different energies cyclically work you.
• I'll give you the knowledge and confidence to create your own self-directed home practices to perfectly suit your cyclically changing needs.
• I'll show you how to harvest the benefits of your Yoga practice so they can follow you off your mat to support you in daily life.

Experiential inquiries

• I'll take you on various adventures into your cyclical process (now and right back to your teenage days) and the qualities of your own Inner Seasons through movement, stillness and reflection.
• I'll guide you to get familiar with the phases of your cycle in which you feel most at home and where you are repeatedly undone - and to make the most of this self-knowledge in living your life.

Self-care practices

• I'll share nourishing practices that will help you fall back in love with yourself, your female body and its natural cyclical processes. I believe that embracing our goodness at this essential level is the only true way to restore self-esteem and tap into our authentic feminine power.
  

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the YCW program start and finish?

You can start any time and work through the program at your own pace.

Is this just a program to learn how to practise Yoga?

Yoga is a key element of YCW, but there is much more to this program than Yoga. I'll guide you through self-study, explorations and Yoga practice to discover your own personal relationship with your feminine self and with the Inner Seasons that are constantly turning in you and working you. It is this exploration that is at the heart of the program and that is the source of the positive change and well-being that it offers. Yoga is one of the precious tools we use in that exploration. That said, the YCW program will take you step by step through all you need to become an 'advanced' Yogi (ie one who trusts their own perception as their best teacher on their mat) and to build you own cycle-centric Yoga practices to meet your ever-changing needs.

Do I need to have done Yoga before and/or be fit and flexible?

A resounding no! The program is designed for beginners and experienced Yogis alike and celebrates all kinds of bodies. At the heart of this way of practising Yoga (which I take you through from the foundations) is an invitation to welcome yourself just as you are each day, to move on your mat from the inside out and to adapt your movements to suit the particular needs of your body in that moment. As you progress through the program, you'll find yourself becoming an increasingly independent and self-reverent Yogi.

Is the program only for women in their menstruating years?

No. The YCW program is for women of all ages who want to reconnect to their feminine selves and their natural cyclical rhythms. In the early modules of the program, I invite you to reconnect with aspects of your menstrual cycle and menstruating years, as anchoring ourselves back into this uniquely female cycle is a very healing and empowering thing for us to do at any point along in our life journey as a woman. But, from this embodied menstrual rhythm, we feel ourselves supported and worked by a cyclical tapestry of life that extends far and wide. In my experience and that of other menopausal and post-menopausal YCW women, feeling into the holding of the Moon's cycle becomes particularly precious as our monthly bleeding fades.

How long will it take me to complete the program?

I suggest a six-month time-frame for your first pass through the program, so that you stay motivated and don't get bogged down. During this time, you'll have access to my personal support through various channels (see above). But this is not the kind of work that you just 'complete' and tick off your list. So I recommend that you then keep going back through the modules - either in order or dipping into wisdom or Yoga practices that supports you in a particular phase in your cycle. At this point, I suggest you go at whatever pace feels right to you, taking as long as you need to explore, repeat and integrate. This is important if you want to get the most out of this transformative, embodied work and learn to move at your own pace, not at one imposed by others.

How long will I have access to the program?

You will have unlimited access to the recorded program and any future updates or versions (so you'll get to benefit from my new insights as I continue to evolve). You'll get my personal support for six months.

Do I just work through the program on my own?

The modules guide you but I am always here for you in our weekly video Support Calls and live online Yoga sessions, plus in the private group chat.

Will I get to meet other women in the program?

Yes, absolutely. Through our relaxed and friendly weekly support calls - and our live online Yoga sessions - you'll be able to connect with others and find yourself part of a wonderful community of like-minded women. I've watch some beautiful friendships develop between women in the program.

How do the live online sessions work?

We use Zoom for the weekly group Support Calls and the live Yoga sessions.

What if I can't make the times of the live sessions?

I offer Support Calls at different times (alternating weekly) to help make them more accessible to people in different time zones. These calls and the live Yoga sessions are also recorded, so you'll still be able to access them even if you can't always make it live.

Ready to join the YCW program?

Book your free 45-minute Discovery Call

This call holds no obligation to sign up to the program.

Instead, it is an opportunity for you to find out more about the content and timing, the pricing and payment options etc.

And, most importantly, it's a chance for us to meet, for me to offer you any immediate guidance that I can and for us to see together whether you and the YCW program are the right fit for each other.