The morning started with a moment of deep wordless gratitude, sitting in the living room under the pots of blooming flowers. Sitting quietly on the floor while sun gently shines through my eyelids. The room full of bright coloured cushions and soft things. A white cuddly toy cat patiently waiting for the tiny hand to touch and squeeze its soft cotton tail.

The tiny one is awake, cosily wriggling in his safe little house, gently pushing his round little bum through the skin of my upper belly. I sing for him softly and gently cuddle the little knee as it moves trough my skin.

Dain came early from work. Our little ritual of kissing for long time on the door, he with his cycling helmet on. Making a big colourful salad together and going for a walk under trees in Hackney Downs. The fragile young oak tree that we were watering is getting better now. Slowly growing fresh green leaves, whole bunches of them, some straight from its gentle trunk. I feel like everything is growing and blooming around and inside me, such a magical feeling.

I feel so grateful for living this life as it is, maybe not perfect, maybe I could have achieved more (my mum would certainly say so) but I’m happy following my path. Learning and growing. Giving and sharing. Letting the nature unfold the miracle of life through my body. Slowly spreading my branches and watching the buds emerging from the leaves and opening very slowly. Gentle flowers gradually turning into little green fruits that under the soft touch of sunshine slowly become redder, plumper and juicier, until the stems slowly break, obeying to the roundness and ripeness of this new life and setting it free.

The theme for this week’s pregnancy yoga class was feminine strength and softness and childbirth as a perfect balance of the two.

For me personally, one of the most powerful motives from Yoga Sutras is bringing together the opposites of constant efforts (abhyasa) and detachment (vayragya), finding a balance between being strong and letting go. In yoga we strive to find a way to reconcile these seemingly conflicting qualities so they could become one – understanding that a relaxed body is a strong body and a relaxed mind is a strong mind.

Applied to the birth, this means that strong muscles and a fit body are not enough to prepare you to go through the challenge of opening your body for the new life to emerge. Especially in the last part of pregnancy it’s all about melting and softening, learning how to relax and go inwards, taking the mind out of the way of the body, allowing the cervix to soften and open. Besides cultivating the strength in ourselves we need to learn how to embrace our weakness too. Instead of fighting against pain you need to be able to dive into it, relax into it, letting go of any inhibitions, giving up your ego in hands of a force much more powerful than your own will – the force of nature.

Photo credits: uwenna

Finding inspiration somewhere in between Yoga Sutras, Vinyasa Flow, Hypnobirthing relaxation techniques and Tantric visualisations, think I finally managed to strike the fragile balance between a restorative and enough physically challenging class to keep all my mums-to-be happy.

Since I have a very mixed group of expectant mums in different stages of pregnancy, with very different levels of previous experience with yoga, I’ve been experimenting with various ways to make the class suitable for each of them. So far I had the best experience with combining active segments with frequent short relaxation, either in one of the restorative poses (e.g. child pose and its variations), either in a form of active relaxation through slow and relaxing movements. In this class I’ve tried to go a step further and make the active segments shorter but more intense, interlacing them with guided relaxation, visualisations and deepening techniques, trying to reach a very deep level of relaxation in a short time. And it worked perfectly! All the mums-to-be were able to follow the class without any strain.

Here are some drawings I made planning the class:

As a kid I was always fascinated with soap bubbles. I would spend time connecting them and turning into triple, quadruple, octuple, “recycling” the bubbles and trying to extend their life. I dreamt of a soap bubble that would last forever. But what would be the point? - most people would say. There is nothing really interesting in soap. The beauty of a soap bubble lies in its fragility, in its impermanence. Each bubble is new and special, fluttering in front of your eyes, impossible to grasp and that is exactly what is fun about them.

It’s a strange nature of the human mind. We stop noticing beauty in things that last, that are simply there. It’s only new that manages to tickle our curiosity and trap our short attention span used to restlessly click between links in the browser or between TV channels. We always look for new, and turn it into old as soon as we reach it. And this is what the whole consumer mentality is all about too - chasing soap bubbles that disappear as we touch them, running after a butterfly that turns into a catterpilar as soon as it lands on your palm.

Well, it’s not the fault of the butterfly, it’s our hand that breaks the magic, it’s our eye that doesn’t see it as such anymore. Nothing in the world is static, everything keeps changing and every moment is new and unique. It’s just that we get stuck in our own idea about things and people that surround us and this overshadows their real nature. We don’t see them as they are, we see our opinions about them, memories, judgements and prejudices. Labeling the things around us we stop finding excitement in them, always chasing the “new” and untouched.

Isn’t it ironic that it usually takes an accident or a terminal illness to be able to stop, take a deep breath and check what is really important in your life? To find beauty in things that were there all the time but you just didn’t notice them anymore…

There is an ancient practice developed by Jain monks which I find quite interesting. Every evening you wrap the day up by sitting down and closing your eyes, letting the day unfold in your mind frame by frame, like on a movie screen. Simply watching everything that happened without analysing it, you scan slowly through your day, from the moment of waking up all the way to the moment when you sat down and closed your eyes. And with time you not only improve your memory, but gain the ability to detach and experience your life from the aspect of an impartial witness. You develop the habit of living in the present moment as it happens, seeing the life as a succession of moments instead of continuity. And you realise how everything is changing, how precious and unique each moment is, new and unrepeatable.

So yes, I do believe it’s just a matter of practice - escaping from the established perception patterns and being open to see things as new in each new moment that unfolds. Developing appreciation for the world around us and the ability to notice beauty in “ordinary” things, we overcome the need for short-term thrills. Every moment of your life becomes a new and irreproducible experience, reflected in billions of soup bubbles dispersing light always in a new way.

During my last year’s stay at The Yoga Institute Santacruz in Mumbai I was amongst other trained in pregnancy yoga. This included assisting and teaching in both antenatal and postnatal camps / weekend workshops that the Institute held for local women. The camps reflected a holistic approach to yoga and pregnancy focused on learning about yogic philosophy and the way of life, from diet and positive thinking to different traditional Hatha yoga techniques adapted to pregnancy.

It’s beautiful how Hindu people see pregnancy and motherhood as a manifestation of the female divine force in each woman. The life-giving role is empowering women and raising them to the god-like level in this society which is still quite discriminative towards the “weaker sex”. From the Hindu perspective, becoming a mother awakens and cultivates the qualities of the universal mother in every woman - strength, selflessness and unconditional love. So a real mother is not only the mother of her baby but mother to every child, realising motherhood as a part of her dharma, her innate purpose.

India made me recognise and embrace my own, back then quite shy, mother instinct. After coming back home I felt I was ready… if it’s possible to ever be. The right time you don’t wait for, you make it, I guess. “Let’s make a tiny creature!” - I whispered to Dain. “Let’s!” - he answers, being always open to support me in all the crazy ideas. And everything happened so quickly. A couple of weeks later here we are, Dain and me in a supermarket manically searching for radish, my first craving.

Becoming a mum-to-be gave me a chance to deepen and ground everything I’ve learnt about pregnancy yoga before, this time on my own changing body. I kept practising yoga every day since the first day of my pregnancy, slowing down and doing more relaxation during the bad days and being more active during the good days. It helped me stay calm and bright thought the period of nausea and strange pains and strong and energised afterwards. I’m really grateful that everything has been going well so far and I’m going through my pregnancy cheerful and full of energy. I try to express this gratitude through sharing my passion and this bit of knowledge and experience with other mums-to-be who might be going through similar things.

Since coming back from India I’ve been learning about some contemporary approaches to yoga in pregnancy as well. I am really passionate about Active Birth movement and work of Janet Balaskas, the founder of the Active Birth Centre. Also I find hypnobirthing (the Mongan method) quite interesting, as well as Birthlight pregnancy yoga based on work of Francoise Barbira Freedman, a medical anthropologist from Cambridge inspired by energetic but gentle mothering of tribal women from Peruvian Amazon. All these have tremendously influenced my pregnancy yoga classes and my own everyday yoga practice.

After some 300 years of development of modern obstetrics and dominance of medically imposed recumbent positions for labour, forceps, epidurals and unnecessary cesarians, luckily there are now stronger and stronger voices speaking up for the innate right of women as instinctive birth-givers. The right of a mother to give birth to her child changing positions guided by her instincts, in full control of her birthing experience, is more and more recognised as important for health of both mother and the child and for development of a healthy bonding between them. I am so grateful to be living in a country where alternative approaches to childbirth have been slowly melting into the mainstream. If everything goes right, Vuk is going to be a water baby, gently swimming from water into the water, before being ready to take his first breath of the chilly London air.

Trying to describe the difference yoga has made in my life, I would compare it with the sun behind and out of clouds. Everything is still standing where it used to be, but painted in brighter, more vibrant colours, feeling fuller, richer and more real. Yoga brought together so many different puzzle pieces that I was collecting for years, encompassing values that I was unknowingly developing throughout my life. It felt like coming home - everything gently clicked into its place.

Silence

I have been always fascinated with sound - growing up surrounded with music, my dad was teaching guitar. It was through music that I learnt to make my mind clear of thoughts and just be, diving into every sound separately, letting them make me spontaneously smile. Through sound I discovered my fascination with silence, rich textures composed of different little noises blending together. I often remember places by their silence. I love silence of rooftops, for example, with faraway traffic sounds softly melting into children laughter and sound of cutlery from a nearby restaurant. I’ve learnt to quieten my mind and listen, gently pushing away any thought and letting the soothing mixture of background noises fill every corner of my mind.

Movement

My roller skates used to be my yoga mat, it was an over 10 year long passion. I used to skate every day, just putting my skates on and sailing the streets, switching the mind off and just melting into the long smooth movements, feeling the wheels caressing the asphalt as if they were my own soles. It was the same thing I liked about skiing - the smooth touch of snow under your feet as your skis glide down a sleek mountain side. The grace and lightness of the movement making the mind shut down to the level of a soothing background noise…

The Love Story

I discovered my fascination with yoga quite late, in 2010. But like with every true love, it felt like we always knew each other somehow. Funny, things we are looking for are often already there but we just don’t see them. This is how I met my husband too. We lived in Budapest 3 streets away from each other and we never met. And then years later when I was already living in Amsterdam for years and he in London, we both came to Budapest for a weekend and stumbled upon each other. It was funny to realise that we knew the same people, went to the same concerts and have memories of the same places, but we never met before. Less than 6 months later we got married.

Home

I was born in a small town on the River Drina in former Yugoslavia. Since then I moved over 30 times, first to Belgrade, then Budapest, Berlin, Amsterdam, London. Changes became a part of who I was and I kept restlessly moving around, trying to fill an emptiness of not feeling at home by moving again and again. It took me a long time to realise that home is not a place but a feeling - being at ease with the world and who you are.

Something That Matters

I spent 9 years of my life studying law and working in a corporate law office. Being a lawyer felt like being on a wrong bus, but warm and cosy enough to prevent me to simply get off. “When you feel fire lighting up within you just run” says one writer from my home country - “you never know when the flame is going to die out and leave you alone in the darkness”. I think I was lucky to recognise the right moment and jump off. So I decided to quit my career in pursue of something that matters. This wasn’t an easy journey, however I never looked back. Yoga was a catalyst and the driving force of my search for that something that matters, but completing the first teacher’s training I realised that yoga IS that something. And this is where my real journey began.

Sharing

I did my first yoga teacher training course with the Yoga Federation of Serbia in my home country. It was a 200h training spread over 8 months, based on the holistic approach to yoga and inspired by Bihar school of yoga and Sivananda yoga tradition. I started the training with the idea of using yoga to encourage my husband and me to move a bit more and even without a serious intention to teach other people. However along the way, I discovered that the real beauty lies in sharing. I realised how heart-warming it is to see glowing faces of people coming out of your class, energized and relaxed, how rewarding it is to give and share your knowledge and passion with others.

The journey took me further to India, to the Yoga Institute Santacruz in Maharashtra. The Institute was established in 1918 by Shri Yogendra, disciple of Paramahamsa Madhavdasji and since then run by Yogendra family, preserving traditional values of yoga. I spent last summer and autumn there, studying classical yoga (900 hrs) based on Patanjali’s Sutras and Bhagavad Gita and volunteering as a teacher in health camps and workshops that the Institute regularly held.

Life-Long Learning

Spending more time learning yoga, more I’m aware of its beauty and deepness. Even after years of studying it feels like you’ve just scraped the surface of its vast amount of knowledge. I’m just at the beginning of this journey and there is still a long way to go, but I’m happy to search for it. I believe in life-long learning, being receptive and open to always look at things in a new way. I believe in humbleness, dedication and learning - with mind, heart and gut.