mindfulness – Joanna Corbet

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that 2020 has been all about revelling in the little wins. It’s been about celebrating the tiny nice things that have oiled the news-rusted cogs of each day. Sometimes, it’s simply been clinging on to delicate rays of light at the end of unexpected tunnels. And lockdown 2.0 in the middle of a rainy English autumn has only heightened that need (for me, at least) to find the good in the often bad and sometimes ugly.

This post is in honour of some of those random little things that have been my delicate rays of light.

In no particular order, they are…

watercolour clouds. Fluffy, wispy, and wavy; low, heavy, and menacing; in pretty purples, peachy oranges, pastel pinks, shining golds, glittering silvers, and grumpy greys. Clouds at this time of year certainly know how to keep us all guessing what their next moves will be. Which isn’t always ideal, but it is often nice to look at.

jumpers. I love summer, but being reunited with my jumper collection makes my heart ridiculously happy. I just love wrapping up in oversized knitwear, snug as a bug. If you need me anytime in the next six months, you’ll find me hiding in a cocoon of wool.

singing Fleetwood Mac around the house. My family and neighbours might not appreciate me doing this, but I appreciate me doing it so there. Songs to be particularly careful of when they start to play include: Isn’t It Midnight (my favourite), Gypsy, and – of course – Everywhere. Tbh though, no Fleetwood Mac song is safe from my vocal butchery.

bake off. Ah god, the Great British Bake Off brings so much joy to my 2020 wearied soul. It’s comfort TV at its absolute best. Although, did anyone else find watching all the bakers mess up the making of brownies during chocolate week worryingly distressing? FREEZER JUICE! *suppresses eye twitch* Freezer. Juice. I just can’t. *cries*

fresh sheets. Clean sheet day is my favourite day of the week. I love being snuggly, I love being squeaky clean – the match is made in heaven. Sweet dreams are made of this.

watching hair tutorials gone wrong on YouTube. I lay the blame for this obsession entirely at Brad Mondo’s door. It’s such a waste of time, but I can’t seem to stop and I kinda don’t want to stop. It is worryingly addictive witnessing people melt off their hair with bleach, and it somehow makes the worries of the world melt away too…

new music. Old favourites keep my soul cosy, but new finds keep my ears happy. I’m one of those annoying people who has no preferred genre, I just like what I like when I hear it and I don’t think internet algorithms and cookies know quite what to do with me. I’ve been on a new finds roll recently, and one of the tracks from this roll is Loom by Olafur Arnalds and Bonobo. I love it. And how b.e.a.utiful is this video?!

old photos. I love the nostalgia, I love the embarrassment, I love seeing how much clothes/hairstyles/make-up/tech has changed, I love the little stories behind each one… I can’t get enough. And they don’t even have to be my old photos. Vintage/antique photographs make me wonder about lives I’ll most likely never know anything about, and are great for inspiring story ideas.

chocolate. Chocolate makes pretty much every list post I write, which is probably a sign that I need some serious help… but I don’t actually want to recover from this addiction so there. *sticks out chocolate coated tongue*

putting on socks fresh from the radiator. I cannot recommend this enough. It is SUCH a toasty warm feeling and makes for VERY happy feet. If there’s only one thing that you take away from this list, let radiator socks be it.

reflections. One of the few good things about rain is that it makes great puddles, and great puddles make great reflections. And I love a great reflection. What can I say?

eBay. Lockdowns and the reduced opening hours of a lot of local charity shops have made second-hand shopping sprees rare for me this year, but eBay has been a great substitute fix. Which leads me onto…

dressing up. Lockdown boredom has resulted in me reaching to my wardrobe to brighten up quieter days on (a lot) more than one occasion. Sure, sometimes the visual results of my “pick the sparkliest, floweriest clothes I can find” attitude are questionable but it makes me happy so I’m not really fussed if I offensively clash a pattern or two.

wild time. Spending time in nature makes painful days bearable, and already good days even better. Most of my favourite memories from this year involve blue skies, trees, the sea, and/or flowers in some way. And although autumn and winter make outside time a little more tricky, it’s nothing a good piece of knitwear and a hot chocolate can’t fix.

boooooooks. I’m not even going to explain this one. My love will never die. ❤

So, those are a few of the very random things that have been seeing me through the harder moments of autumn 2020. How about you? I’d love to know what little things have been bringing you joy in all of this year’s strangeness…

So. Yoga.

It’s unexpectedly become an important part of my life.

I’d been thinking about trying it for years, I’d just never plucked up the courage to attend a class – but in June, along with a friend, I finally braved the gym and had a go. I’m so glad I did.

And – although I’m only still very much a beginner and am in no way qualified to tell people how to look after their bodies – there’s still a part of me that wants to shout from the rooftops about how good I’ve found yoga to be and why I would recommend it to anyone right from the bottom of my heart.

This here blog is my rooftop.

And this here post is my shout out from the bottom of my heart.

Heart drawn on steamed up car window, with raindrops in the background. Blog post about yoga.

So, in no particular order, these are some of the reasons why I’ve come to love yoga:

aaand relax. Yoga is ridiculously relaxing considering it’s a form of exercise. Relaxing doesn’t come naturally to me – and I’m sure that’s something that is true for a lot of other people too (why would you relax when you can obsessively worry about illogical things instead?). So for me to be on the verge of sleep in a room full of strangers at the end of every yoga session (in savasana) is a. big. deal. I don’t know what magic is at work, but it is magic.
feel the burn. Okay, so yoga is relaxing. But it’s also not relaxing. It’s hard work. It takes a lot of effort to hold poses that look effortless (ahem, poses that other people make look effortless). I wibble and wobble and wince and grimace and overbalance embarrassingly often, but I can feel my muscles getting stronger with every session. No healthy pain, no gain.
in sync with your body. I’m very self-conscious about my body but not very conscious of my body, if that makes any sense. Yoga helps me feel more aware and accepting of my movements/my posture/my muscles/my fat/my bones/myself and that awareness feels peaceful rather than critical and judgemental (like it used to be).
looking after yourself. This ties in a lot with the point above. In the past, I’ve had what can only be called a hate/hate relationship with my body. I wrote about it back in the summer (not very well *grimaces* but I tried my best) so I won’t bore you with the backstory of this subject again. Basically – and I know this probably sounds like the most obvious thing in the history of the universe to most people – looking after your body feels nicer than doing things that damage it and saying things to degrade it. I mean, who even knew? Who. Even. Knew. *laughs, but mostly cries* Punishing your body, hurting your body, and deriding your body is weirdly and dangerously addictive, but it’s a habit that – slowly and steadily – can be kicked. Every body deserves to be looked after. ❤
focus pocus. Yoga forces you to focus on every breath you take and every move you make *don’t sing, don’t sing, don’t sing* and I’ve found that sense of focus helps me to sideline the worries (and songs) that normally flood my brain, not only during classes but outside in the actual real day-to-day world too. That focus is incredibly freeing. And weird. But good weird.
for everyone. Don’t be fooled by instagram. You don’t have to be young, skinny, perfectly tanned, and positioned in front a setting/rising sun to practise yoga. You can be any age, any shape, and (pretty much) anywhere.
excuse for a lie down. Any form of exercise that includes a lie down at the end – savasana, a.k.a. corpse pose (lovely name) – gets the thumbs up from me.
agency. I think this is true of any exercise, but is particularly noticeable in yoga because of the slower pace and focus on precise movements. There’s something powerful about feeling in control and feeling able to affect positive change. I know the times when I’ve felt most stressed, anxious, and/or depressed are the times when I’ve felt incapable of changing anything happening around me, or felt like my voice didn’t matter/had been taken away from me, or felt like my body was worthless and useless. That’s not to say you should blunder about being a control freak and acting like you’re the most amazing human being that’s ever lived, but giving yourself a sense of agency and dignity is (in my opinion, anyway) important for mental wellbeing. Yoga has helped me with that.

And, if nothing else, yoga helps me feel like I’m counteracting the bad posture I’ve developed from spending so much time with my shoulders hunched up while I’m reading and writing.

♦ Have you tried yoga? ♦ If you have, what did you think of it? ♦ What’s your favourite exercise? ♦

Tag: mindfulness

Yoga Fever