January is a very different experience in the southern hemisphere.

Back in Europe, we often feel the post Christmas „blues”, having to face going back to work and the grey skies. Festive overindulgence, cold weather and short days compound the feeling of tiredness while at the same time, we desperately embark on brand new commitments to life changing goals and wellness.

In the meantime in NZ, in the middle of summer holidays, everyone tends to be in a much more energised and happier mood, embracing the new year with seemingly less stress.

The theme for our yoga practice in January was creating and finding more space. This would have meant different things to different people. As our yoga classes focus heavily on the physical practice of asanas, a lot of the time we would have been finding additional feeling of spaciousness within different poses.

But the interpretations of creating extra space can relate to a lot of other things - space to breathe (paying attention to length, quality and direction of the breath), space to think (slowing things down deliberately to bring a little more awareness to quality of our thoughts) and space to feel.

The last thing has been especially beneficial for me personally.

As I struggle to reconfigure myself in my new reality, finding even the tiniest distance between “self” and emotions and thoughts flooding my being, has been the single most difficult and best thing in equal measures.

20th century psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl famously said this:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

I hope our yoga has given you the extra inches of precious space within which you feel you have extra room to breathe, to live and to grow.