Embodied & Awake

I can still remember my first yoga class at eleven years old, nervously stepping into the studio at Triyoga in Primrose Hill. The room was filled with sunlight and scattered bodies, and I had the uneasy sense that we were about to do something sacred. Perhaps it was childish naivety (everything feels grand when you’re small) but perhaps it was also an intuitive 36 understanding that we were entering a practice. A form of devotion, discipline, and deep embodiment that went far beyond the physical movements themselves.

Then, as now, yoga — and other forms of meditative movement — became a vital part of my intuitive self-care. These were moments hastily scheduled or stolen from larger responsibilities, invitations to drop back. To let my mind soften, my need for control ease, and my body come into the foreground.

What began in those early years was a tentative knowing of myself from the inside out — shaped by curiosity, intrinsic self-respect and a willingness to be led by something other than my cognitive will. Perhaps that leader is a teacher. Or perhaps, as you read this, you recognise the deeper truth: the body, in its innate wisdom, has its own quiet authority. I wonder if that small spark of awareness feels like trust? Because it is. A bodily trust and humble listening that, as a culture, we have largely forgotten.

Looking back now, I can see my gradual drift into something less human, something far removed from what my mat and my teachers were teaching me. In their words and in the asana, I found peace. Moving alongside bodies of every shape and size, guided by those wiser than me, I learned what time and experience eventually confirm: what sustains you through life’s fluctuations is not academic excellence, professional status, or wellness credentials. It is your capacity to be at rest within the flow of life. To feel deeply alive, yet deeply at peace. To navigate the tides with equanimity and appreciation.

Psychologically and emotionally, that is balance. From a nervous system perspective, it is homeostasis, a window of tolerance wide enough to hold both your highest peaks and your lowest troughs. My teachers understood yoga as a pathway to this state of being. Not as a mentality, philosophy or action plan, but as a way. A quality of presence, authenticity and assurance that we recognise in great spiritual leaders and in our most magnetic creatives. The irony is that we cannot fake it. It requires radical stripping back, disciplined practice and, most crucially, a felt sense of oneness. I call that embodiment — a stepping fully into the self. This now underpins everything I do. My work is about supporting others to find what yoga and movement naturally cultivate.

And yet I often ask: what happens when we step off the mat and into the ‘real world’?

I look back on my descent into anorexia— cycles that repeated throughout my teens and twenties — and wonder what prompted my unlearning of wholeness. What took me from a hopeful, attuned state into one where appearance, performance and professional success felt like my only strategies for survival? It was a kind of dehumanisation, one I now see echoed throughout modern culture, in tabloids and among celebrities placed on a pedestal. In the compulsive way we consume our phones and televisions. In a glamourised health and fitness industry that has turned ‘wellness’ into an elite, value-laden pursuit.

Even now, clients tell me how much easier self-love would be if their stomachs were smaller, their food more controlled, their skin smoother. Having lived it, it saddens me to see how collectively misdirected we have become. I work with actors of extraordinary talent, yet many find their confidence dismantled by pressure to conform to stereotype. to escape. Yoga becomes a compensatory tool — a way to offset an otherwise fast, aggressive, emotionally suppressed life. And yet, in that same studio, if you look closely, you will see a counter-current. Practitioners who use the space to truly tune in. People who sense what is alive within them and allow their body and mind to soften into something deeper. In this space, the body becomes a conduit for a form of spiritual intelligence that many spend their lives trying to access intellectually. Embodied people cultivate this daily. They carry it off the mat, into how they move, speak and lead. The ego-driven, fear-pressurised identity recedes, replaced by a more spacious awareness. From that vantage point, we access our fullest expression and true self possession. Agency returns. Vitality returns. The obsession with appearance loosens its grip. Beauty is no longer a bargaining chip for safety. They miss the beauty of their own presence — despite the light they cast for others.