Be Still And Notice: A Yoga Podcast

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I'm sharing with you my top yoga books. These are the books I come back and refer to, time and time again. Books that enlighten me, comfort me, inspire me, make me think and stir my soul. These are the main books that have helped me along the path find deeper meaning and understanding, although it was super difficult to choose just these alone! There are so ma...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I am taking a pause to celebrate 3o episodes and 3 seasons of be Still & Notice. Its a great acheivement and we're gonna keep going. I talk about how far weve come, subjects weve explored, and some of the topics that are top of my mind right now, my current read on plant consciousness, my yoga programme, and whats coming next on the podcast. Thank you for...

Send us Fan Mail In this epiosde Im talking about why we shouldnt out our yoga mentors and teachers on pedestals, the importance of critical thinking and individuation, and how we often need to umlearn what weve learned to really embody that knowledge. For students and teachers alike. I hope you enjoy :) If you have any comments, questions or anything you would like to hear about related to this p...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everyone, I hope youre all well. This is a candid and personal episode where I explain why I've been taking a bit of an unintended pause recently. I thank you for your support and understanding as always. With love, Helen xxx If you have any comments, questions or anything you would like to hear about related to this podcast, I'd love to hear from you. Please feel fre...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I get to have a lovely chat with my friend, and incredible yoga teacher Vic Quilliam. Vic lives in Spain with her husband and toddler and she is a Yin, Hatha Vinyasa, Pregnancy and Post Natal and Yoga Nidra teacher. Our converstaion flows around these different practices, embracing femininity and how becoming a Mum changed Vic's practice and teaching completel...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I first have to apologise as I get on my soapbox and a little fired up talking about this. This episode might resonate more with the women in this audience but its definitely for the guys too. I talk about how yoga in the west has been seriously sexualised, through fashion, pop-culture, branding and marketing, morphing it into something with far less than the respe...

Send us Fan Mail In this epiosde I'm exploring how yoga practices can help us feel both psychologically and somatically "safe." I explore some of my own personal experiences such as realising that I had been anxious my entire life at 40, and how yoga has been and continues to be a powerful tool for learning to feel safe in your own body, and mind and how to hold yourself in love. If...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I'm talking about Burnout-physical, emotional and mental. At the moment I'm seeing a lot of it around me and its becoming more and more common in our crazy, over busy digital age. I talk through simple things you can look at to help you combat and prevent burnout, including of course lots of lovely yoga.  If you have any comments, questions or anything yo...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I get to have a lovely conversation with my friend and Ayurvedic Doctor Garima Pandey, all about Ayurveda and functional medicine and how a blend of the two is such a powerful combination in terms of holistic health.  Garima was recommended to me by a friend on my first trip to India in 2020. I was struggling hard in an abusive relationship and my IBS on that trip...

Send us Fan Mail Hi everyone, in this episode I share my musings around the brilliant 2022 Michelle Yeoh film: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. It ties in so beautifully with the yogic concepts of self, ego, buddhi and divine love, and brilliantly and weirdly! shows how we can all be trapped by our limiting thoughts, behaviours and self concepts, and how if we are not careful this can turn to...

Send us Fan Mail This is the final installment in the amazing conversation I had with one of my teachers the lovely Katja Patel. In this last part we look at the final three limbs: Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. These final 4 limbs (incluidng Pratyahara) are all concerned with the mind and stages of meditation withinn your practice. They guide us in how to train the mind to focus, develop our medita...

Send us Fan Mail In this second part of my lovely conversation with Katja, we continue looking at the Eight Limbs of Yoga. We continue to discuss our interpretations of what they mean and how we can  apply them to our practice and modern, everyday life. We begin our conversation with a brief look at Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, and I reference my copy which is translated and commentaried by Swami...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I'm joined again by my lovely Yoga teacher Katja Patel to begin exploring The Eight Limbs of Yoga. We thought we might be able to summarise each of the limbs within one episode but we definitely bit off more than we could chew here, and once we got going we found ourselves diving deeply into the many layers, meanings, practical applications and interpretations...

Send us Fan Mail In this sensitive epiosde I talk about a subject that I feel is still pretty taboo in our western culture. With or without the framework of religion, many people in our society are afraid to talk about death and will go out of their way to avoid it. Whilst other cultures around the world openly accept death as an integral part of lifes miraculous cycle, and in so doing create more...

Send us Fan Mail Having just been on a recent Shamanic retreat, and thinking about what that really means to go on retreat, I spend this episode exploring what a retreat is and what it can offer us in terms of experience and introspection, community and self expression. I also ask the question: "Do we really need to spend thousands of pounds flying half way around the world to retreat or can...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I look at one of the 8 limbs or integral parts of a yoga practice that is often overlooked: The Yamas and Niyamas. These beautiful codes of conduct were talked about by Patanjali some 5 or 6 thousand years ago and are as relevant today as they have ever been. I love how practical and accessible they are and how all of us can start implementing them straight away. T...

Send us Fan Mail Hello everyone, Im super happy to be back with a new season of the podcast. Today Im talking about how ego and ambition can show up for all of us in our practice and how to move away from the ego towards a practice of self acceptance, self love and surrender.  This of course is not easy and I talk about how, with time, yoga can really begin to highlight for each of us the nature o...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I give a little bit of a personal update, and talk a bit about the importance of rest and stillness for integration. This is so important not only for the physical but for the mental and emotional bodies aswell. I talk about the  culture of "busy-ness" that we have in the UK and how in my career as a make up artist being exhausted was a toxic badge of hon...

Send us Fan Mail In this lovely first conversation with my amazing yoga teacher trainer Katja, we talk about what bought Katja onto the yogic path, being human as a yoga teacher, religion versus spirituality, discipline in our yoga practice and how trust and faith in the practice and process is a vital part of the journey.  We also talk about how we are sent the right teachers at the right time, h...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I dive into the basics of how the nervous sytsem works in the body. I explain how the fight or flight stress response works and why its there, and how it is an essential part of our bodies innate ancient wisdom and survival system. I look at how when this system is switched on too much, and the body is in a chronic state of stress it can become disastrously detrime...

Send us Fan Mail In the west we still think of yoga as being all about stretching the body, but thankfully this paradigm is now beginning to change, as more and more people are recognising the powerful holistic effects a yoga practice can have on us. In this episode I take a little look at how yoga practices can help shift our energy, physically, mentally and emotionally. We take a brief look at t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I guide you through a lovely mantra based meditation practice. "Aham Brahmasmi" basicaly translates as "I am the universe" " Or I am universal consciousness." This mantra comes from the Advaita Vedanta tradition, and is one of four important mantras from the Mahavakyas within the ancient scriptures of the Upanishads. Without getting to...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I talk about what an important lesson it can be for us to get comfortable with uncertainty. How its a mistake to think that any of us know anything with any real certainty, and how everything is constantly changing all the time. Acknowledging this allows us to be more present and opens up the glorious possibility of the here and now, away from the pain of the past...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we take another look at the benefits of meditation, specifically looking at meditation as an incredibly powerful tool to help open the door to self enquiry, which is the first step towards greater self knowledge, self awareness and healing. When we can take this first brave step towards getting to know ourselves better, we can begin to understand that we are not ou...

Send us Fan Mail In this short episode I take a brief look at the power of silence, and how practicing being in silence can have a profound effect on our wellbeing. I refer to my own experiences during a 10 day silent Vipassana Meditation retreat, and talk about why in our modern society we might be talking too much and not listening enough. In the episode I read from the beautiful book "Be A...