You have gifts & talents. How are you using them?

Each and every person on this planet has gifts and talents that are unique. You might be a naturally gifted athlete. You might have a musical talent. You might have a gift for making people feel special. You might have a smile that instantly lights up a room. You might be able to make a really good cuppa. You might be a gifted communicator. You might be a talented scientist finding the cure to cancer. You might bring joy to people through dance. You might be really good with a hoover (something I pride myself on ;)). These are just a few gifts and talents that you might have - there are millions more out there. So take out a pen and paper (or your notes app if you're more digitally inclined) and make a list of at least 5 of your own gifts and talents. Go on. Do it. And don't be shy, we all have things that we're good at and I won't make you show your lists to anyone else, so you can be honest with yourself here.

Have you got your list? Good, you can carry on reading. (If not, go on, make that list - I dare you!). Read over your list. That's a nice little list you have there. You're a pretty awesome human being. Give yourself a nice little hug for your gifts and talents. It's more than okay to be proud of yourself and we all need to acknowledge our good points from time-to-time.

Read over your list one more time with a question in mind: how am I using my gifts and talents? If you're a naturally gifted athlete and you haven't put your trainers on in over a year then think about this. If you're musically talented but your guitar is collecting dust then something is up. If you have a gift for making people feel special but have spent the whole week in your living room watching catchup TV then something is wrong. You get the picture. If you're not using your gifts and talents then my first piece of advice for you is to change that. You have been blessed with these gifts and talents for a reason and your first duty in life is to use them to bring yourself pleasure.

But don't stop there. If you are already using your gifts and talents to bring yourself pleasure, then read over your list again and ask yourself: how am I using my gifts and talents to help others? If you're a gifted athlete but you're just going on that daily run to keep yourself fit then what's the point? If you're a talented musician but you keep your music to yourself then why bother? If you have a talent for hoovering but you only hoover your own bedroom then what good is that doing? Hopefully you get my point. Run to train for a race and raise money for a good cause. Play music in a public place to bring people joy. Help your housemates out by offering to hoover the whole house. Use your talents to bring hope and joy to others.

Use your gifts & talents to spread the love! 

I want to develop this point by celebrating some of my inspirational friends who are using their gifts and talents in extraordinary ways. I am blessed to know a whole bunch of people who use their gifts and talents to really make a difference to the lives of other people, often with little or no rewards. But they do it out of love, compassion and hope, and this is what we should use our gifts and talents to express. So as you read through this little list of inspirational people I am honoured to know, I encourage you to think about how you can use your gifts and talents to serve the world, after all, what's the fun in keeping them to ourselves?

• Vicky Ferguson who uses her gift of overwhelming love and inspirational personality to support the street children of Mombasa through her project Glad's House. 
• All of the team and volunteers at Street Child United - especially Joe, Jo, Karin, Jess, Alex, John, Elisa, and Ruth - who use their amazing array of communications talents, organisational gifts, and huge hearts to work day-in-day-out to ensure that street children are provided with a global platform to be seen and heard. 

Street Child United volunteers in Rio de Janeiro, April 2014

• Garth & Gill Hewitt who have used their talents of music and their gift of love to create support for various causes in Palestine, Nicaragua, and South Africa (to name a few) - you two are inspirational!
• My Mum who has used her gift of looking after children to volunteer for various toddler groups and Sunday schools over the years.
• All of the project leaders related to Street Child United who use their gifts and talents relentlessly and with unconditional love to help street children within their respective communities. You are all incredible.
• Tom Hewitt who has used his talent for surfing to create the inspirational Surfers Not Street Children project in Durban, South Africa. 
• Clarity Coddington who uses her creative talents to consistently inspire children in schools and on the streets from London to Rio de Janeiro. 
• Laura Youngson who uses her gift for science to support The Lightyear Foundation and her talent for enthusing others by making them feel like they can always contribute.
• Chloe Szakacs who is a gifted yoga teacher and is using her talent to provide free weekly yoga lessons for the homeless in her hometown in Canada. 

Chloe who is using her gift for yoga to inspire the homeless. Image source: http://tinyurl.com/nnvgnao

This list is by no means comprehensive of all the inspirational people I know, and how gifts and talents can be used to make the world a better place. But I wanted to share just a few examples with you to show how you can use your gifts and talents to not only bring happiness and hope to yourself, but also to others. Happiness and hope are not meant to be kept to ourselves, they are meant to be shared, and what better way of sharing it than using your gifts and talents to create it?

No matter how big or small your gifts and talents might seem to you, you never quite know how just by using them with love you'll be able to make a difference.

So I challenge you to look at your list one last time. Appreciate the gifts and talents that you've written down. The world needs you to use them. It is your responsibility to think about how you can use them to bring happiness, joy and hope to others. Know what you have to do? Go and do it. 

Namaste y'all!

Love Lucy x

Yoga Teacher Training Week Four

Four weeks, 200 hours of classes, a lot of laughs, a crazy amount of yoga, three assessments, too many chaturangas, a few tears, two Bountys, 1,000 Oms, a truck load of veggie curry, 100 litres of ginger tea, a couple of bindis, 30 Indian sunsets, a group of beautiful new best friends later, and I can finally say that I'm a qualified yoga teacher!!! I am a qualified yoga teacher. WHAT?! How crazy is that? I think it's going to take a while to sink in!

This week has been a challenging one and I wouldn't have changed a single second of it. I've pushed myself in my practice, in my meditation, and in letting go of expectations (finally!), and it really has paid off. I've tried not to be as hard on myself and to accept where I am in both my practice and in life off of the mat, and by trying to do that just for a week I'm already feeling stronger, happier, and more ready for the next steps in life.

One of my final assessments this week was teaching an hour long Ashtanga based flow class to a group of my fellow teacher trainees. It was a pretty daunting prospect as they all knew exactly what each pose should look like, how it should be instructed, and how to pronounce the Sanskrit names for each pose (well, supposedly! We all struggled with this! Try saying Savasana and Svanasana and let me know how you get on...). The theme of my class was heart opening, and again this was pretty daunting as I was really opening up my own heart to share what's going on in there with my class - I felt pretty vulnerable, but it was me and I was honest so it felt like the right thing to do. We all suffer pain and heartache, and it can be so easy to close our hearts to life and love, but really what good does that do? An open heart can be filled with love and happiness, and in my experience the more you receive the more you can share with others, and sharing love and happiness with your fellow human beings is one of the most amazing feelings in the world. The class focused on poses which physically open the chest area such as wheel and camel, and I encouraged my students to work with their breath to inhale positivity and to exhale everything that no longer served them. I was really quite nervous delivering the class, but my students were amazing and gave incredible energy throughout the sequence. I closed the class with a restorative Savasana and a quote about perfect love from the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 for anyone who wants to take a look).

The feedback I got from the class blew my mind. Everyone was so encouraging and supportive; it was a truly humbling few minutes hearing what they all had to say. I also got some really amazing feedback from the assessing teacher - Magda - who is the most inspirational yoga teacher out there. She really knows her stuff, and so when you get praise from her it's a really great feeling. She said that she felt happy to relax and to just let me lead the class, and that she'd be really happy to come to one of my classes! It was incredible to hear. She also gave some really constructive feedback on things to work on which was super helpful, and I now feel confident enough to come home and to share my newfound knowledge!

We also had two written assessments - one in philosophy and one on anatomy and alignment. They were both challenging but I surprised myself and knew more than I thought I did! Philosophy was totally fine - if you read my last post you'll know that everything is Om so that's all we really had to know ;) And then somehow I managed to get 100% in anatomy and alignment, so anyone who practices with me can rest assured that you'll be 100% correctly aligned and I can fill you in on the muscles that are working in the poses!

So I passed all the assessments and have my certificate to say that I am qualified to teach Ashtanga and Vinyasa based flows (still can't believe it!), but it isn't necessarily all the "yoga" knowledge that I'll remember most about this whole experience. One of the most invaluable things I've learnt is how to spend time with myself, and through spending time with myself I've learnt that I really am stronger than I thought I was. As our teacher Upendra has told us time-after-time "you are the bliss" - bliss is inside of you, you just have to take some time to be with yourself to discover it. I think it's about acknowledging that happiness is a choice and that happiness really is in the hands of each individual.

Happiness is also easier to achieve when you're with happy people, and that's who I've been with for the last four weeks - the most happy, amazing, beautiful, encouraging, loving, inspirational people you could ever imagine. My fellow yogis and yoginis here at the Yoga Village have really made this whole experience more than I could ever have hoped it would be. Some of them are most definitely friends for life and I am confident that we'll continue to support and inspire one another in our lives and yoga careers for years to come. Thank you Kranti family, you are all beautiful and I am so blessed to have met you! You've also introduced some amazing new words into my vocabulary ;)

The only sad thing about becoming a yoga teacher is that it's now over, and tonight I'll be flying the nest! For the next two and a half weeks I'll be travelling around Southern India, but as soon as I'm back I'll be more than ready to begin sharing everything I've learnt here and I really can't wait to spread the love! So until then remember:

1. Open your heart to love and happiness - you never know what's around the corner...
2. You really are stronger than you think
3. You are the bliss and happiness is in your hands
4. Surround yourself with people who will support you and love you exactly for who you are

So I'm off on a little adventure (bring on the 14 hour train journey to Kerala tonight!) and won't be online much for the next few weeks - it's time for a tech detox! - but if you want to check out any photos from my course then follow my Instagram: lucyvictoriajackson. If you'd like to book in any yoga lessons with me when I return, or if you've got any questions about yoga, the course, or just want to say hi then please do drop me a message and I'll reply when I have a little internet session on my travels.

I've really enjoyed sharing this experience with you all, and hope that you've enjoyed reading the updates (sorry if I crossed a line with the "contract the anus" story from week three!), and this certainly isn't the end of the journey... I've got so much more to write about and will be continuing to write posts about yoga, health, fitness, lifestyle, well being, beauty etc when I return home. Thank you so much for all of your support, it really means so much - special thanks to my family and friends who have supported me unconditionally and lovingly on this journey. You make me who I am today and I am so blessed to have you in my lives.

So until next time, live the life you love, love the life you live. Namaste y'all!

Love Lucy x

Yoga Teacher Training Week Three

Once again this week has absolutely flown by. I guess that's what happens when you're doing something you love with people who make life so beautiful... It's also what happens when you have a lot to laugh about, and boy have we had a lot to laugh about this week!

The highlight has to have been in pranayama (breathing techniques) class when our teacher Upendra - possibly the most authentic and happy yogi I have ever met - described one of the techniques with an accompanying instruction to "contract the anus" illustrated by a hand action bringing all his fingertips together in a crab-like action...apparently it's meant to awaken your kundalini energy (yogi speak for an electric-like current running up your spine), but whatever it's meant to do I couldn't take it seriously as every time the phrase "contract the anus" was used in sync with the hand action we all giggled like a group of fourteen-year-old girls in a sex education class! We had also all assumed that the hand action was some sort of yoga mudra, as these are often used in pranayama, so we were all "contracting the anus" whilst copying the hand action. It wasn't until half way through the class that we realised the hand action wasn't actually at all necessary, and Upendra was only showing us his illustration of an anus contracting...(I apologise if you're reading this over a civilised cup of tea on a Sunday morning!). It was quite possibly the strangest lesson I've experienced thus far...

Or so I thought until we had Upendra for another class where he was to teach us his own version of yoga postures. This lesson began with a hardcore dance tune blasting through the speakers and thus the most surreal 15 minutes of a "yoga" warm-up began... The same tune was played three times in a row (one can only assume that it's his favourite, or he only has one on his iPod), and we literally just jumped around, kicked our feet in the air, and wriggled on the floor for a good 15 minutes. I haven't laughed that much in a really long time, I even cried I was laughing so hard! It was absolutely ridiculous and we all loved every moment. After all that jumping around we were well and truly warm, and we did settle down into some sort of relaxed slow hatha yoga flow and some yoga nidra (essentially lying on the floor for guided meditation). It was the strangest mix of insanity and relaxation. Once again we had experienced another special class by Upendra that left us all feeling totally bemused but in a state of pure joy...

And that's what I think he really wants to teach us: life can be silly, life should be fun, and that laughing is the best kind of medicine. He takes the yogic life seriously; he meditates constantly, he shares his knowledge, he promotes a peaceful way of living, he practices the physical postures, but most of all he walks round with a massive smile on his face spreading happiness and love. Really it's about experiencing the world like a child, but living in it like an adult. We could all do with an Upendra in our lives to see a wonderful example of just how this can be achieved.

Another phrase that he constantly reminds us of is that "everything is Om". When I first heard it I didn't think much of it, in fact I just thought it was a yoga cliche that was thrown around all too often. But actually it's quite a good way of looking at the world, no matter what your world view or religion may be. It basically just means that everything is oneness. We are all one. The world is one. And everything tiny thing that happens has a knock on affect on something else, and that affects the next thing, and so on. It's the ripple effect. It encourages you to think about each action and every word with consideration of how it might affect others, and if everyone was more aware of this oneness I really believe the world would be a better place.

Aside from all of Upendra's life lessons, this week the more physical side of the course - our morning Ashtanga yoga practice - has been interesting. You'd think that by week three I'd be feeling super strong and flexible, but actually this week I've found myself stiffening up quite a bit. Ashtanga is a strong yoga practice, it constantly requires you to actively stretch in the poses - meaning that you must contract certain muscle groups in order to stretch and strengthen at the same time. It can be a very frustrating practice - you will go through phases where you feel like you haven't made much progress, and annoyingly for me that's how I've been feeling this week. Apparently that's fairly normal, and apparently the hard work put in now will pay off in the future, you just need to keep working at it to receive the rewards. I think this is true for most things in life, and it's one of the reasons I love yoga so much: the lessons you learn on the mat will make you stronger and more resilient for life off of the mat. Our teacher used a lovely phrase in one of our morning practices this week, encouraging us to work on our roots and we will achieve our wings, both in yoga and in our real lives. So whether you practice yoga or not I want to encourage you to put the hard yards in now, it won't be easy and there will be times when you want to quit, but persist and breath (breathing is the most important!) and you will make it through, and you will grow your wings.

So to summarise the three lessons I've learnt this week that I wanted to share with you all:

1. Never forget your inner child
2. Everything is Om
3. Work on your roots and your wings will grow

Oh yeah, and don't forget to "contract the anus" if you want to get that kundalini energy flowing...!

The coming week is my last week of Yoga Teacher Training, I really can't quite believe how quickly it's gone, but I am so excited to be an official yoga teacher in just 5 days time! And as before, I can't seem to upload photos onto my blog as I'm using my iPad, so if you want to see photos please follow my Instgram: lucyvictoriajackson

If you have any questions about yoga, the course, or just life in general please do drop me a message :)

Namaste!

Love Lucy x