Michelle Carter Yoga

23/08/2022

This looks like an absolute belter of an investment into your teaching. A must for most yoga teachers I’d say!!! Run by the inspirational Heather.

Some wonderful things being shared at Heather Yoga at the moment xXx

Introducing a 4 Day live online experience to elevate your mindset around self belief, to help you move forwards with confidence & clarity, and expand your business & attract more students!

Every yoga teacher, and every business owner experiences self doubt and feeling like a fraud at different times – whatever stage and whatever level you’re at.

Recognising it, understanding it, and learning how to navigate & overcome it – is absolutely vital for you on this path as a successful Yoga teaching business!

You can choose to let it block you, hold you in place, and not move forwards – losing time, energy and money in that unworthiness & stuckness….or choose to recognise it, move through it, and experience a deep trust, self belief and real certainty that generates abundance, ease and flow, and builds your impact, influence and income!

It’s always a choice.

With the awareness, knowledge, mindset, tools, inspired action, support, and continual practice – we can transmute, overcome & transform the obstacles, get in energetic alignment and connect to our ability to walk along this path as a yoga teacher in a deep space of trust, confidence & value of who are and how we help our students, and access the freedom & abundance that is available to all of us.

This is really the business of Yoga!

Join me for 4 Days Of Live Training, Coaching & Support!

We start 31st August.

Find out more and what you’ll receive and learn - head to link. www.heatheryoga.co.uk/positive-mindset/

Heather x

20/05/2022

Hoping everyone has a wonderful weekend, whatever that may bring.
I hope you find some elements of yoga in it. Find time to be present, embrace what the day brings you and be thankful as much as you can be 🥰

06/11/2021

09/10/2020

Literally feeling on top of the world right now. So grateful I am here. So happy I was able to walk along some of the cornish coastal path when 1 year ago, exactly as I write this post, I was under the knife having a removed from my femur. What a crazy ride it has been since ‘hurting’ my knee at home June 2019; an A&E visit where I collected crutches and started non weight bearing; an MRI then showing a tumour; biopsy and eventual diagnosis at the wonderful Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham in August / September then surgery 9th October 2019. I still have pain, tightness and lack of function in some ways. The recovery is still ongoing, which I never expected. I can walk now unaided, I do a short yoga practice and I am continuing to build strength at the gym so I can get back to hiking properly.
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This year has been such a test for us all in different ways. I hope me telling my story can give you hope that even when you honestly feel like your life / world has fallen apart there is so much to be grateful for and things will open up for you in new and unexpected ways. Here’s to overcoming challenges and sitting with discomfort. Here’s to the ups and downs and riding them with grace.

04/10/2020

Autumn. Favourite season. A time to notice change, to visibly see time passing as the leaves change colour, then fall. Time to reconnect to the first limb of yoga: the Yamas. 5 moral guidelines to guide us through this life!
•Ahimsa (Non-violence, Freedom from Harming)
•Satya (Truthfulness)
•Asteya (Non-stealing, Freedom from Stealing)
•Brahmacharya (Moderation)
•Aparigraha (Non-hoarding, Freedom from Grasping)
As .by.letty wisely reminded me today, Asana or postures are 1 small small part of yoga. Reconnecting to this foundation 🍂

01/09/2020

Photo from 2015 which doesn’t sound like a long time ago but boy does it feel it.

I would say from 2012 onwards I had a disciplined yoga practice. I got up every morning before optometry work to practice for 90mins which meant getting up in the dark most of the year and at some points sleeping in my yoga clothes so I could just roll out of bed and onto the mat. I stopped going out, seeing my friends much and basically ate, breathed and slept yoga. I was leaving a party lifestyle, so it felt like a ‘healthy option’ but now I look back though, was it more an addiction?

Yoga is a great place to hide from your negative emotions and feelings; breathe, sweat and vinyasa them away. They don’t really go anywhere though. They just get pushed down beneath a lot of ‘love and light’. Then something happens (let’s say a traumatic tumour diagnosis for example) and all your old ‘stuff’ from a childhood of mental abuse comes hurtling back into your face and then some.

This is what I’ve been dealing with over the last 8 months and I’m now luckily in the care of a psychologist trained in medical trauma who’s helping me navigate the box in my mind where I shoved all my negative thoughts, feelings and emotions connected to childhood. There’s people pleasing, codependency and all sorts in there guarded well by my inner critic.

Now I’m learning to look at these elements, sit with these feelings and accept what I see as negative or ‘bad’ as part of me. I’m also somehow making my way back to my yoga practice that used to give me so much pleasure (none of this negates the positives I got from the practice it’s just the shadow side). So yeah, lots of heavy lifting going on over here. So for all those going through some tricky s**t- I see you ♥️

12/07/2020

So happy to have completed a massive 14,000 steps today without crutches or a stick round Fewston reservoir. The last time I did such a big walk I was hobbling on the way back downhill (tumour was showing itself for the first time). The second photo shows the result on my operated leg; some lovely swelling! I’m currently still finding a balance with rest and exercise to minimise swelling but I’m really excited about gaining more strength and going back to the gym when it reopens. My yoga practice is currently a place of retreat; I’m not chasing postures like I was which makes me feel like I’ve really begun again in a new headspace. It feels great 🥰🙏🏼♥️

21/06/2020

Any of us who have practiced or taught yoga, know about the umbrella of ‘wellness’. In this industry (of course wellness can become an industry! This is a capitalist society!) is doing so much to make it clear that racism is an issue and ignorance is rife. Please sign up to her email newsletter for real insight, awareness and ways to take action. (Shown here: interview with )

19/05/2020

Through this little window of trees you’d think I lived in a pretty Yorkshire village... I do! Armley!! There is beauty to be found EVERYWHERE you just have to take time and care to be present and look ♥️🌷😘

01/05/2020

I was inspired after reading a lovely post from about what we do when we cant do the practice. Yesterday my practice looked like this after some movement. Some days it looks like seated meditation (not cross legged anymore like Buddha but in a comfy chair in my pjs). Some days it looks like breath work and in others it’s going for a walk. The thread that flows through all these is my intention to at least try to be present with the sensations of my body in the here and now. It is a practice, I sometimes can’t do anything because my leg hurts, my body is tired and I need sleep. Sometimes I have pain, discomfort or so many thoughts spinning round it’s dizzying, but I sit with it. “I hold the charge” (thanks for teaching me this ). Now I can’t do the practice I used to I’m actually relishing the space, what a magical time to recalibrate and explore my connection to everything. The shock and grief have past and I’m left in the stillness and I’m truly happy with that.

31/03/2020

This is the face of someone who’s tumour hasn’t come back!! I spent this morning in a very empty hospital for my first post op MRI and then got my results via a phone call from my surgeon this afternoon. I’m relieved and no more tests for another six months. Will I be back teaching then? Let’s see. I’m just taking things day by day and I know you’ll understand that with the situation we all find ourselves in at the moment! I hope everyone is managing as best they can be in the circumstances and all my students have found online classes? I’ve shared some teachers in my stories today who you could check out while physical in person classes can’t happen. I have to say that my journey with the tumour has prepared me very well for this current situation! I’ve had a lot of practice of sitting with uncertainty and feeling I’m not in control of anything. So if you’re struggling or need someone to talk to please DM me. Sending love virtually!! ♥️🙏🏼♥️

19/03/2020

A lot has changed since this photo 7yrs ago! 1) I can’t do this pose any more due to my surgery 2) I’m covered in tattoos! 3) I can deal better with uncertainty.
Last year I had to do a lot of what we collectivity are having to do right now. Sit with uncertainty. Sit in unknowing. Sit with many possibilities simultaneously without passing judgement or worrying about the future. I feel like last year was a training ground. talked yesterday on the teacher support call about how she feels everything up to this was training for this time, for the work she’s sharing with us on her mentorship Liberate. I feel the same about having to sit with uncertainty and as Naomi would call it “hold the charge”. Sit with all the ‘stuff’ and not react. Be with all the emotions as they arise and not try to stop them or judge them or change them. Just sit with them. So trust me when I tell you that this will end at some point and we’ll come out mentally stronger for it. Try and take this time to down regulate and not try to ‘do all the jobs you never have time for’. Us introverts are in our element but I understand it’s not that comfortable for all. Try to let this time teach you to do less and be ok with it. Practice not knowing and not trying to fill that not knowing with doing. A work in progress 🙌🏼

09/03/2020

Starting over and feeling like a beginner again; There is so much to learn from this process! First headstand since the surgery that didn’t make me scared I was going to fall on my leg. Slow, small steps to being at home in my body again. 🥰

08/03/2020

Happy International Womxn’s Day!
To all the womxn out there who are struggling, winning, failing, living, loving and trying to be who they really are in this crazy world. Especially all the trans womxn out there. I see you and you are valid. Big love 💓

02/03/2020

Interesting post... what drives your dedication to practice?

https://www.kinoyoga.com/addicted-to-yoga/

Kino's Yogi Assignment Blog 1 Mar 2020 Addicted to Yoga Yoga can be addictive. That’s both good and bad. It’s good when yoga takes over your life and replaces old destructive habits with new helpful ones instead. When you crave a deep long yoga session instead of a drink after a stressful day, t...

23/02/2020

Shiva as Nataraja “Lord of the dance”.
It shows Shiva as creator, preserver, and destroyer all at once. If you know me you’ll know I have Shiva tattooed on my arm with his consort Parvati. He has always been the Hindu god I have felt a close connection with and not just because of the yoga connection (he was the first Yogi). This idea of destruction being something good used to be alien to me; to create something new first you have to destroy what was.
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These past couple of months have been a grieving process. Grieving for who I once was. How my body was. Releasing the label of teacher to fully inhabit the role of student. Letting go. Becoming humble and wanting to learn and discover more about this new iteration of ‘me’.
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Returning to one of my teachers this weekend felt so good. In the yoga room with my peers, we breathed and moved together but in our own ways. I was in the mind of the beginner with a fresh appreciation for the simplest of movement in my body. I want to hold onto that fresh eyed feeling, I want to practice in a way that feels like I’m discovering my body and breath all over again.
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Moving from a place of grief into a place of humility for what this experience has taught me. I’m so looking forward to what 2020 has in store.
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What are you excited about this year? What experience has you feeling like a fresh faced beginner?
🤓

30/01/2020

8 months on crutches! What the actual f**k?! A friend of mine said she had them for 6 months and I was like wow that’s a long time and here I am now (I’m down to 1 but still!) 😂 so yeah sometimes things don’t turn out on the same trajectory that you imagined. I thought three months rest and I’d be back teaching and practicing yoga. That’s not how it is turning out and I’m learning to be ok with that. I have no plans to return to teaching yet. Sorry to all my students who thought I’d be back in Feb/March. I have disconnected in some way from my body and practice because it’s just been so long since I’ve been able to do anything but seated postures on the mat. I need to continue to prioritise my body and listen to its timeline not mine. I will come back to teaching but I’m not sure when that will be. I thank everyone who’s covered my classes. I thank Heather at for her continual support and for the same at Virgin Active. To each and everyone of my students - I will be back please stay in touch for updates, I’m not sure how things will go but I’m just riding this wave! Going with this new flow. Love and namaste to you all ♥️🙏🏼♥️

13/01/2020

These last few days have been HARD. This recovery journey is sometimes overwhelming. You can have great friends, feel supported but still feel alone with your experience. As a very active person losing my physical practices has been really challenging. I am improving every week and although slow it is getting better every day. Today I dragged myself to do my physio at the gym as I know I have to keep doing it even when I don’t want to (the treat of a sauna afterwards makes it worth it!). But yeah I just have to keep going. If you’re struggling for whatever reason just take each day as it comes, keep going, don’t give up, know that things will change and even a small achievement each day is enough. That could be brushing your teeth, going for a walk, making a nutritious meal, try to do something no matter how small. Be gentle with yourself as much as you can 🙏🏼