You know.

That is what I have been teaching in the yoga room this week. Because, recently, I have seen clients in my private practice and students on the mat who have been feeling like they don't know. Don't know what to do, how to feel better, how to make a change, how to communicate with someone. The anxious state of 'I don't know what to do!' has been a common occurrence in my treatment room - and in my own life!

One of my therapists used to say - when I turned up in his treatment room, week after week, saying frantically, 'I don't know what to do!' - 'Well, when you don't know, you don't know.' It's funny how all of our habits seem to be organised around a need to know what to do and how to be right now. A need to take action in situations that are either painful or uncomfortable.

And yet, how often is the action we take when we are in that state one that leads only to discomfiture?

When my therapist kindly, repeatedly delivered his statement of fact, he was urging me to yield to the way things are, just as they are. To soften in the face of discomfort, to settle with whatever feelings of uncertainty I was experiencing, and allow.

This is such an important way that I choose to practice Anusara Yoga’s First Principle, Open to Grace. Radically opening to the way things are - especially when they seem really messed up - opens me up to something I spent so many years without - a sense of inner knowing. Kind of a paradox! Through my practices of meditation, yoga asana, working with clients, and just paying calm and close attention to my own process, it has become more and more clear that there is, underneath even the fiercest anxiety and discomfort, an inner knowing that sits in the heart. That knowing is a quiescent rhythm of perfect intelligence. It's not the same thing as knowing with the thinking mind, but I have found that - when I listen to it closely - I can cognitively discern what action to take, if at all.

Often the wisdom has been in the waiting.

I do know - because I watched this deep understanding open in the hearts of clients and friends, and because I have seen it open in my own life - and because I know - that this knowledge belongs to everyone. I have found that very special things happen when we choose to align with that sweet intrinsic intelligence. The ordinary becomes magical.  Synchronicity and coincidence become the norm.

And we feel more connected, centered, and empowered in every aspect of our lives. Effortlessly.

You know.

Leila Sadeghee is an Anusara-Inspired Yoga Teacher and Therapeutic Bodyworker based in Fitzrovia, London.  Her teaching is inspirational, bio-mechanically savvy, superbly fun, and driven by a deep commitment to serve people in opening to their highest potential, both on and off the mat. In her private work, through awareness techniques, bodywork, yoga asana, and deep listening, she assists people in doing the sweet work of coming home to authenticity and empowerment, one revelation at a time. Students and clients continually marvel at how much better they feel, how much more aware they are, and how powerfully graceful they feel in facing life's challenges. Unique to Leila’s work is the way that the transformation takes place at the level of embodiment; clients literally change shape and move differently, opening to radical freedom in the body, the mind, and the heart. http://www.leilasadeghee.com/

Chris Sacca is a a venture investor, public speaker, and former employee of Google and was one of the early investors in Twitter. Here at the Wanderlust Festival in Vermont, CA last year, he talks to Soren Gordhamer from Wisdom 2.0 about being mindful in our Twitter and digital use.

As someone with 1.3 million followers and, by his own admission, a pretty busy guy, Chris gives a refreshing and candid perspective on his social media use and how he makes time for other things in his life outside work.

Enjoy!

Yoga Place is a lovely yoga centre in east London. The space is decorated in cool white and Buddhist orange and there is always a sense of calm and inspiration with the walls covered in quotes about yoga. 

Last week waiting for my regular Anusara yoga class to start, I noticed a quote reflected backwards in the mirror that I had never seen before (so much for paying attention!). It said:

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection, from the quiet reflection will come even more effective action".

The quote is in fact not a yoga quote but comes from one of the most well known thinkers of the 20th century – management guru Peter F. Drucker who coined the term “knowledge worker”.

In the Western world, many yoga practices focus solely on the asanas or postures that make up the physical practice of yoga. However, without the aspects of pranayama (breathing practices) and the balance of action and reflection that make up a fuller engagement, a yoga practice can become little more than a keep fit class.

It is the same in our working practice. We spend most, if not all, of our working day being  ‘busy’ and focused on action and delivery leaving little or no time for “quiet reflection”. However, it is in these moments of quiet reflection that our best ideas for ‘effective action’ in our business or role can come to us.

So how can we ensure that we make time in our day for ‘quiet reflection’?

Many successful business people I follow have embraced meditation as a tool for having a daily practice of quiet refection but this perhaps is not for everyone. Instead, in my new ebook From Apps To Zen: 26+ Ideas for Building a Business with Balance, I talk about the lure of “Busywork” and the practice of mindfulness and questioning which you can use to move between effective action and quiet refection.

The free ebook is available to download from the 8fold website.