Michelle Finlay Yoga

29/10/2025

You’re in OVER-DRIVE again!

Saying yes to all the things. Allowing your boundaries to get blurred.

Staying late a work to help a colleague or picking up after a family member for nth time this week. Sacrificing much needed sleep, telling yourself you’ll catch up later.

Then your body starts to show the signs.

The sore throat
The headache
The body aches

Bam - 3 days in bed for you to recover.

What if you didn’t wait until burnout hit? What if you took action before it got to that point?

Right now, you’re snapping at your partner over something small, zoning out in meetings, everything feels hard.

Does this sound familiar?

What if I told you it doesn’t have to be this way? That I may have just the thing to help you find the re-set button.

Imagine taking a couple hours for yourself and actually feeling like you again.

You know that moment—you come home lighter, patient instead of irritable, able to laugh at the things that used to drive you up the wall.

You’re present. Things feel easier.

The re-set isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.
Take the time now - you, and everyone around you, will feel the difference.

Join me this Saturday for a Yin Yoga & Yoga Nidra workshop DM and I’ll send you the link.

26/10/2025

Ever felt conflicted trying to force your body into a shape because you're told that's how it's supposed to look?

Or hold a balance that just feels impossible today?

This negates what yoga is trying to teach.

Which is honouring your experience of the moment and making choices based off that.

To show up and do your yoga practice for the sake of practice regardless of the outcome.

Releasing attachment to needing things to be a certain way - tree pose and all!

Tuning in to felt experience rather than external performance.

The poses are not the point, they are a tool for you to explore yourself just as you are.

24/10/2025

There is always choice!

You don't always have to hold Downward Facing Dog in your Sun Salutations.

Some days it might not be appropriate during asana practice for any number of reasons: sore wrists, low energy, just not wanting to weight bear on your hands.

Might you tune in to your reality? Your present moment experience, and make choices based off the experience at hand? Rather than any pre-conceived ideas about what should happen or what you're told should happen?

22/10/2025

"The yoga begins the moment you want to leave the pose."

I’m not sure who said that, but I respectfully disagree. Here’s why...

If you know my posts, you know yoga is much more than asana.

When you want to leave a pose, notice what’s happening inside.

Your body has wisdom, you can trust it.

Say you’re in a deep backbend like wheel or bow. It’s fine for a moment, then your breath shortens, your muscles tremble, your back aches.

Then the teacher quotes that line, so you stay, thinking this is the yoga beginning.

But those sensations are your nervous system signaling stress, even danger. Discomfort can be useful in certain situations, but is ignoring your body’s intuition really Yoga?

Yoga teaches presence and acting from awareness. It’s about moving toward steadiness of mind and that’s hard to find in an enforced stress response.

When you practice really being with what is.

Meeting reality as it is.

Seeing yourself as you actually are.

You begin to see the patterns of behaviour that are hindering you.

You start to make better choices.

And when you get it wrong - you forgive yourself more easily.

It's these lessons and practiced skills that change your life, not your ability to endure endless struggle and strain in a pose.

21/10/2025

Sat 1st November. 2 whole hours of Yin and Nidra. An opportunity to slow down and tune in. Perfect for this time of seasonal shift.

17/10/2025

The typical online image of yoga is that of someone incredibly flexible, most likely hypermobile - making insane shapes that most people will feel intimidated by.

Then you hear students talking about certain teachers and how "good" or "talented" (wtf) they are.

But what they mean is that they can perform party tricks with their body. It says nothing about their relationship with actual Yoga.

This perception needs to change - and I beleive that it is, slowly.

I'm here to remind you that the performance of cirque du soleil type Asana is all bo****ks without the under-pinning yoga philosophy!

A yoga practice is so much more than how you can bend and twist at your joints.

You can be the "best" in the world at making shapes with your body and your life can be a shambles.

Physical ability does not equate to having all your s**t together or living yoga in your life.

A yoga practice is way more to do with how you show up in life, the choices you make, how quickly you regain a sense of internal equilibrium when life life's!

Yoga teachers, let's make an effort to do better when communicating what yoga is, especially on social media!

15/10/2025

You're beginning to understand some of the core concepts in yoga philosophy and in your mind you're trying to square the circle of what happens in a public yoga class.

You're becoming more aware of yourself in the moment as you practice. Sensing, feeling and noticing what's there.

Then the teacher comes over while you're in Warrior 2 and tells you to move your back foot.

You're wondering how this makes sense when you’ve read the part of the Gita that says about following your own Dharma, even if imperfect, being better than following someone else's.

To blindly follow someone else's idea of what's right for your body feels like abandoning your own wisdom.

You're not wrong. It is.

Attending public classes is starting to feel at loggerheads with Yoga as you know it!

You want to be left alone to move your body the way it wants to move without being told your that present moment experience is somehow incorrect.

If you're ready for the type of class that honours you and your unique experience and anatomy, I'm here for you.

If you're local to me, come and say hi and if you're not you can join me online every Wednesday starting again from next week.

08/10/2025

Inhale arms up

Wait, what?

For years I taught sun salutations in the same way. Even with everything I know about human anatomical variation, I never considered that it might not work for everyone.

Until my dear friend stepped in and shared her experience.

As teachers, when we listen and observe others, we have the opportunity to learn so much. Thank you Marietta!

I started playing with different ways of reaching overhead in some of my classes and there was one particular break through with a lady who hasn't been able to put her left arm above her head for a long time, found a way of accessing this movement.

This might seem inconsequential but to not to her. She said she can now reach items on the high shelf without assistance.

All from being open and curious enough to explore an alternative way of moving! If only I could have bottled her smile!

06/10/2025

We've all seen that meme about going to yoga to forget all our problems.

I know it's meant to be tongue in cheek but there's some truth in it as to how yoga is often used.

You had a bad day. Something went wrong at work, you got home, took it out on your kids/partner - but it's ok you tell yourself as you drive to the studio. Your yoga class is going to fix it all.

This is common.

I hear it a lot as students enter the yoga studio. Bad day but they're here to "forget and make it all better."

But is this what yoga is really trying to teach us?

I'd argue not.

Yoga is a practice of facing things as they are, not as you'd like them to be.

When we use our practice to escape reality, it's not looking at the situation with truth or honesty.

Feeling guilty for snapping at your loved ones earlier? Good. That means you’ve owned what happened.

Rather than brush it under the carpet, you can lean into your yoga practice as you face the discomfort of saying sorry and making amends. Clear the air and move on.

Yoga isn’t a sticking plaster. It's more like a mirror that helps you see yourself more clearly.

03/10/2025

This Sunday at Yoga Blend with the lovely Lou! 💚💚💚 I would be there if I could - will not be missing the next one, that's for sure!

Join me this Sunday for my first monthly pranayama session at Yoga Blend. My classes are an opportunity to practice techniques to support nervous system regulation and are gentle, accessible and suitable for everyone - a space to find inner peace.
Please book through Yoga Blend's website or app 🙏

03/10/2025

Dharma.

Who you really are.

Your true nature.

Not something you need to discover or find. It's more like the very essence of who you are. The you-ness that you just can't help you-ing no matter how hard you may try to fight it.