Aroga Yoga: online yoga and wellness for chronic illness, is our latest sponsor. The opinions and words used here are, as always, my own.

Why Accessible Yoga Matters

I believe that yoga can be a catalyst for liberation.

I believe it can help us find our way back to our bodies.

I believe your daily practice can be what carries you through the hardest times.

I believe that yoga isn’t just handstands and flat tummies.

Most people think that yoga is for size 6 bodies that can jump and move but really, yoga is accessible even if you are bed bound.

That’s why I’m so glad to find Kayla‘s work, finally, I have someone to recommend and reference when I’m asked for an accessible yoga program.

Our Bodies Are Designed To Move

Our bodies are designed to move, but perhaps not in the way you are imagining.

For many of us with chronic illness, exercise comes with overtones of rough physios, cold therapy pools and wildly over-ambitious graded exercises programs that send us straight into relapse.

I want moving to be beautiful for you, even if you live with pain and daily access struggles. It’s hard to approach the mat when you fear doing too much will take away the precious health gains you’ve made, or tear from you the little ability and independence you have left. I’ve been there, I’ve felt that fear

I’ve been there, I’ve felt that fear. When you know you need to move, but moving hurts. Yet not moving hurts too. Catch 22?

What happens if we shift our relationship to movement? What if we change how we move, when we move and even what we think of as exercise?

Exercise Can Be Love Not Punishment

I used to see exercise as something I had to get through, to survive. Maybe it’s something to do with that time I collapsed in the gym or my first pilates class when everyone leaned back from a sitting position into lying down. Whereas I…fell slap, bang, owww, down onto the floor. Proving to everyone in the class that my physios were right, I had no core strength at all.

Now, I see yoga as a treat, a daily enjoyment, a blessing. It’s what I do to ease my pain.

I can’t say I’m overjoyed to approach the mat every day, but I’m always glad when I’ve finished.

Yoga Can Teach Us A New Way To Live

Hands up who feels overwhelmed, behind, less than? Yep, I thought so.

(If you don’t have your hand up, can you pleeease email me [grace AT gracequantock.com] because I want to interview you and learn your amazing wisdom. Thank you.)

I used to feel overwhelmed and stuck all the time. The only way I knew how to live was to run full tilt at life and suddenly I couldn’t run (or walk) and I didn’t know how to do, you know, life.

Yoga taught me another way.

Yoga taught me that resting in between the poses is the most important part as it’s when your body assimilates the new way of moving.

Yoga taught me that savasana (a lying still, breathing, relaxation pose) at the end of the asanas needs to be 1/3 as long as the asanas themselves.

(Translation: seriously, it’s a good, healthy thing to rest as long as or longer than you move? And non-chronically-ill people need to do this too? It’s not just me? Wow.)

Yoga taught me that gentle movement can restore my reserves, re-set my posture, calm my mind and my nervous system rather than strain my muscles and burn my energy.

That’s why I’m so glad to be able to share Aroga Yoga with you, check it out and sign up for a free 20 minute video here.

What’s your biggest yoga challenge? Let me know in the comments!

P.S Are you awesome too? Would you like to join as a sponsor and be featured here? Check out my new sponsorship program and get your work in front of so many amazing readers!