Hi, I’m Rae. Nice to meet you and welcome to Balanced Soul Yoga & Therapy!
Yoga has been a part of my life for many years and over the last few has it become integral to who I am. However, for me, it was not love at first sight…or in this case, love at first stretch. My first experience of yoga was at University whilst studying for my Psychology degree. At the time, I was playing a lot of hockey and my hamstrings were very vocal in their lack of support towards my new yogic endeavours! As a result, after only one class, I did not return. I truly thought that as I couldn’t touch my toes, that yoga was not for me. I want to take this opportunity to say that this absolutely is not the case at all! Yoga is for everybody and EVERY BODY. However, being in my late teens and fairly headstrong, I had begrudgingly accepted the common misconception that you have to be flexible in order to do yoga or attend a yoga class. It wasn’t until several years later that I revisited the practise and was able to completely turn this narrative around.
Following graduation, I performed various roles spanning 15 years, from working in Human Resources/ Recruitment in London and Norwich for 7 years, to beauty therapy for 2 years and finally becoming a Mum for the first time in 2018 and again in 2020. Despite enjoying various aspects of each role, nothing ever truly felt like “me”. I also experienced various health issues due to glandular fever and M.E. through my mid-twenties and early thirties. As a result, I felt pretty unfulfilled and disconnected from life.
I had started practising yoga more regularly again from around 2014 as a way of helping me to manage fatigue and muscle pains due to the glandular fever and M.E. I was instead now listening to my body and moving it as much or as little as it wanted me to and being grateful for what I could do, rather than what I could not. This was in stark contrast to my previous assumptions as a teen that your body needed to look or perform postures in a certain way in order to be able to “do yoga”. However, it wasn’t until the experience of post-natal depression following the birth of both my incredible children, that I decided to embark on my yoga teacher training. Yoga for me during that period had acted as a guiding light in the darkest of times and a way to re-discover and celebrate the wonder of life, helping me find my way back to myself.
Realising finally that what I was meant to be doing (your “dharma” as it is known in Sanskrit), was sharing with others the power of yoga and its physical, mental and all-round awesome benefits, I completed my 200 hours Yoga teacher training with both the wonderful Swami Atma Gyanam Saraswati and Jackie Heffer-Cooke, qualifying in December 2022.
Following this, Balanced Soul Yoga & Therapy was born!
Yoga isn’t just a series of postures, the asana, it is a way of being. A guide to living your most true, productive, fulfilling life.
I do understand that life today can be absolutely crazy! Trying to fit everything into an already jam-packed schedule, then adding in the pressure for “self-care”, can often feel even more overwhelming. The aim of our classes is to provide the opportunity and space for you to step away from the noise, even if just for a little while, taking you into a moment of calm and helping you to find the balance that lies within; which you can then take off your mat and back into your daily lives.
I very much look forward to meeting you and sharing with you the joy that is yoga!
