Samasthiti

I realised the first post on Sleep was a tad bit pessimistic, so as an apology I offer you a funny picture above. But I am only writing words that more or less represent my feelings of shock & awe as I read chapter after chapter of  Why We Sleep.  The truth is so very stark that it does make one feel fearful of the future, especially if you are one of those who has trouble sleeping or is not getting enough sleep or hasn't gotten enough sleep for a very long time now. When I was visiting England recently, at dinner one evening we spoke about how it is difficult to get a human answer the customer service helplines since it has all been more or less automated. If a human does answer the phone - it will mostly be someone from India, helping you solve your problems. The Call Centers are synonymous with India - companies can afford to outsource medium-skill tasks to countries with cheap labour for a good looking bottom line. This sadly has resulted in many many young adul...

I love sleeping and I am fortunate that getting sleep is not a problem I have to deal with. Unless I have had a very stressful day or I am particularly stressed about upcoming events the next day, I find it quite easy to get some good solid shut-eye. I am blessed. But there have been times in my life when I have tried to sleep and have been quite unsuccessful at it - leading to terribly unproductive days - not feeling good in body, mind and definitely not in spirit. Those days thankfully have been far and few. But when I have lived them, I haven't felt myself, my emotions are usually on the edge, I do not feel the flow of life as gently as I would on other well-slept days. I can not imagine having to feel like that all the time, every day, all day. And yet, there are many of us who survive with 5-6 hours of sleep daily which if my experience is anything to go by, is not ideal and definitely not happy. When I first started practising yoga at a studio in Singapore, I was so dilige...

I have never been a public speaker. It has been and will always continue to be daunting to me. When i worked in a corporate, i hated sitting in meetings where I needed to share updates, I would run through what I wanted to say in my head some ten times before finally mustering the courage to say it. If I wanted to share an opinion on a matter being discussed, I'd do the same scan in my head, but while I was busy mentally analysing content, the moment to share it would pass, leaving me quite upset about the whole scenario. And I would chide myself for not being so weak in the first place. By this time my heart rate would be comparable to me riding a bicycle up a hill. When I signed up to go be a yoga teacher, it was only so I could deepen my personal practice further. I was also falling deeply in love with Bali and any reason to spend an entire month there seemed like a good idea. I had no intentions of teaching full time or even part time. When we had our first micro lesson -...