“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprising of its own unfolding.”

- John O’Donohue.

Class updates!!

Tomorrow’s class will be as scheduled, but I will finish slightly earlier, at 9:30 a.m., since I have a train to catch.

Next week, I will be away, so there will be no Restorative class on Wednesday, November 13, or Saturday class on November 16.

Classes will continue as usual for the remainder of the year. The last Restorative class will be on December 11, and the final Saturday class will be on December 28.

Taking a break

I have an additional, fairly significant update to share with you as we approach the end of 2024. Today, I’d like to give you a heads-up about my plans for next year.

Starting January 1, I will be taking a long break from my day job for one year. During this time, I will also step back from other commitments, including teaching my beloved weekly yoga class and sending out this weekly newsletter. For my regular students and others who enjoy this community, I won’t be disappearing into the wilderness forever. I plan to disconnect for a few months but don’t anticipate being away from yoga or you for too long. 😉

Many of my colleagues have been curious, and you might be too, about why I’ve chosen to take a sabbatical at this time. I genuinely love my work and cherish my colleagues even more. I consider myself so ultimately fortunate at this moment; I feel more effective, valued, and empowered now than at any other time in my career.

So, if I could easily continue, with good health and agency on my side, why am I choosing to pause?

Listening

I’ve been giving an easy explanation to anyone who asks: “It’s so I can travel. So I can visit my parents in Korea for more than two weeks of annual leave will permit. I'll do a few things I've meant to do for a while.”

The more complete answer is one I recently shared with Yvonne, my restorative yoga sister and fellow teacher. I knew she would understand this sentiment completely: I am listening - heeding an intuitive call to stop and rest.

For the first time, I am following a feeling perhaps suppressed for much of my life. As I’ve allowed pockets and practices of pause to genuinely permeate my being, the larger message of rest refuses to be ignored.

This gentle voice encourages me to do the opposite of what I’ve always done: be busy and useful, do my very best, and focus on constant personal and professional growth. In contrast, this calling isn’t urging me to do more, achieve more, or even maintain my current pace; instead, it is inviting me, for a short while, to be and achieve nothing at all.

To stand acheingly still.

Resting

The practice of non-doing and experiencing states of being rather than doing taps into the beautiful yet often overlooked necessity and wisdom of rest. Rest is an essential part of who we are, a concept that has only become a reality for me through my dedicated yoga practice. And certainly one of the most profound and transformative things I’ve learned to date.

Last week, by most timely fortune, I had the opportunity to hear Uma Dinsmore-Tuli speak about Nidra Shakti, the Goddess of sleep, and the origins of Yoga Nidra. Her talk resonated with me deeply, highlighting insights about my relationship with rest and my challenge accepting it wholeheartedly. For much of my life, conditioned by a world so rewarding of productivity, acquisition, and stimulation, doing less has felt unnatural, selfish and indulgent.

Yoga has helped me recognise the strange beliefs about rest that are intertwined with self-judgment and guilt, beliefs that I can now begin to let go of. I am learning to prioritise rest as if my life depended on it—which it likely does. Deep rest honours the spirit of something profound within us that could be lost if not given the time to remember: the essence of the resting Goddess, from whose guidance we can evoke our inherent intuition, most loving wisdom, and creative force.

Planning

Once I made the necessary arrangements, I allowed myself a little planning and a loose list (I told myself) labelled ‘2025’. This list includes people to see, places to visit, books to read, and courses to attend. With each sneaky addition, the list is growing into quite a little beast.

As it appears, deliberately trying to do less just feels so damn weird. Unsurprisingly, my intention to rest is already being hijacked by all the fantastic things I could potentially do with new and precious time. The blaring loudspeaker of productivity is shouting over the soft hum I’m trying to listen to inside. This is still unfamiliar territory—leaning into non-doing.

I suspect some items on my list may be accomplished during my time off, which won’t be a bad thing. However, without mindfulness, I know new responsibilities will quickly replace the ones I temporarily set aside. From my privileged position of comfort and security, I see clearly that my life—its busyness or stillness, chaos or peace—will be entirely of my own making.

How well will I keep to my promise to honour the Nidra Shakti within?

Unfolding

Can I rest for the sake of rest and allow myself to receive this incredible gift? Let us see. My hope for 2025 is that it unfolds with both excitement and gentleness, doing and non-doing, inspired by the peaceful presence of the sleeping Goddess.

I will return to teaching sometime in 2025. However, since I wish to go with the flow, following whatever inner callings come my way, I can’t promise exactly when I will be back. I hope you will understand.

Until the end of the year, I will continue to connect with you weekly, sharing these small reflections and our yoga practice until it’s time for me to pause, go off-grid and be radically silent (radical for me, I tell you!). After that, however I re-emerge to return to this space we share; I hope that it will be informed powerfully by the spaciousness of deep rest.

Let’s practice.