Wecome to Assuntina’s first blog!  Yippee.  I’ll be writing here regularly and hoping that you reply either here, or to my email address… take your pick.

This blog is about how I view the world, how I live my life and how yoga is or isn’t helpful to me in that.

Today I was sitting having hot chocolate in the Steamer Trading Cookshop, a place that is very beautiful to browse in and to fantasise that I could be a good cook!  Two blokes were sitting next to me and I heard one say to the other, presumably commenting on the gorgeous stuff the shop is full to the brim with, “Yeah, but I’d need a bigger kitchen and a bigger house, a much bigger house”.

He said it like he didn’t care about it too much though and was quite happy with the way his kitchen and house are.  I, on the other hand, immediately flew headlong into a stream of thought full of envy, disappointment and even some bitterness about my own kitchen and home not being big enough, or good enough for the life I aspire to.  Although these thoughts only lasted a few seconds before I checked myself, it was enough to unleash within me the feelings of lack, and questions tht I’m sick of hearing myself think: ‘why is my life the way it is? Why isn’t it better? Why is life so unfair?

Yoga and meditation though have taught me that life is about making choices.  There are always choices I can make about any situation starting from the smallest, but not always the easiest, to change my attitude right up to the choices of looking for anther better paid job, moving to an area where I could afford a bigger home, employing a consultant to advise me on maximising my storage space etc etc.  The choices we make depend on our circumstances, motivations, skills.  I can choose to sit with the feelings of envy and bitterness which I have done on loads of occasions, in the total belief there are no other choices open to me.

Wise people tell us we always have choices even if its only how you react to a situation.  People who survive dreadful experiences do it in part because of how they view their lives: Victor Frankl famously describes in his book whose name I don’t remember how concentration camp inhabitants chose not to believe they had lost their freedom if only their freedom to choose their thoughts.

I try and remember that I’m free to choose how I think every time I want to throw a tatntrum or sulk or any of the horrible behaviours I like to indulge in.  I have a long way to go before I feel I’ll truly be exercising my freedom to choose muscles but each time I do it, its a small victory for me.  A wonderful student of mine inspired me when she related that she had parked in a dodgy spot knowing she was taking her chances and got a ticket.  previously she’d have felt resentful and angry.  This time she felt she had to take it on the nose: pay up and lump it and take responsibility for her actions.  She said she felt empowered rather than victimised and that yoga had helped with this process.

In Steamer Trading I changed my emotional state by deciding that I didn’t need any fancy gadgets or new crocks, not even the fabulous French stripy cutlery that starts at £6.99 for a teaspoon (although it is Christmas soon anybody?) and that I can barely keep tabs on the stuff I already own, and as for cleaning a bigger house, but then maybe I’d have a cleaner and a gardener and a….bla bla….

When I went to collect my car from the car park, having forgotten the time as I was so engrossed in writing this blog I found a beautiful gift from Lewes Council in conjunction with NCP and East Sussex County Council to truly reinforce today’s lesson. Grrr…. Bastards.