I am excited about this series, “In The Spotlight”.
I will ONLY write about resources that have had a great impact on my own 19 years of Yoga Practice.
‘Living Your Yoga’, one of the first books I read about Yoga in daily life; alongside the challenges, the ups and downs.
Ideal for the weekly yoga student.
As an 18 year old, yoga began as a great way to stretch my body. Not long after my first class, I began to realize which poses felt like a sense of a release and which ones really challenged my body and mind.
Now, 18 years later, that mindset has grown into a passion for the many other layers that Yoga has to offer, far beyond a pleasant or unpleasant stretch.
One big question I would ask almost daily was “How do I practice yoga regularly along with the demands of daily life?”
Enter Judith Hanson Lasater.
Judith is a mother. She is a “real” woman living with “real” life and all of its trials and tribulations.
Judith has known love and loss through having children of her own and a failed marriage.
Over nearly 5 decades of teaching Yoga, Judith has published and written 9 books, along with co-founded Yoga Journal Magazine. Judith was so inspired about the power of restorative yoga that she wrote her very first book purely based on this topic alone. At the time, this helped to inspire a different perspective. Yoga students began to consider more restorative approaches to their yoga practices.
“Living Your Yoga, Finding the Spiritual in the Every Day Life” has a permanent residence beside my bed. Residing next to my lamp and clock, this book is my “go to” book for when I am seeking a little bit of extra guidance and “motherly advice”. Mum don’t fret you rock too!
“Living Your Yoga” was published in 2000 but is still so relevant today.
Judith has set the book out into 3 Parts. Each Part with different chapters covering different experiences and emotions one might go through on any given week.
To give you an example, Part 1 covers:
Letting Go
Perspective
Courage
Judith’s writing style makes me feel as if we are having a cup of tea together, discussing the ups and downs of daily life and how Yoga can really help us navigate it all.
What I love most about “Living Your Yoga”, is that you can tell she is a woman who understands about the stressors that life can bestow upon us. Judith is not a 20 something, lycra lover sharing her latest juice recipe and solutions to a busy digital lifestyle. No, Judith is a woman who has lived through moments of abundance and great loss.
Judith shares with us, as the readers, her little secrets to integrating a little pocket of Yoga into each day of our lives.
You may like to read the book cover to cover or, like me, open up to random chapters and explore.
Either way, “Living Your Yoga” is a book that has helped me not only to navigate the ups and downs of daily life but also inspire me to gently bring regular Yoga practices into each day.
