Namastayzenyoga

Pregnancy relaxation classes announcement!

You might be wondering why has it been so quiet around here lately, well, it’s because of my beautiful little bundle of joy who came into our world to turn it upside down with love, lots of smiles and lots of sleepless nights.

I had yoga in my life for around 9 years now and it has always been a huge help in managing stress in my personal and professional life but as I was to see, it had an even bigger impact during my pregnancy.

I practiced yoga my whole pregnancy, even when I was sick during the first months and tired, and exhausted, and forgetful and sick again. It helped me relax, ease pain, release the anxiety of giving birth and becoming a first time mom and overall to experience the pregnancy and the joy in silence.

If you are like me, the thought of giving birth for the first time (and even second or third because no pregnancy is the same) might leave you a bit terrified. Maybe you already have one or more children, you work full time or even have two jobs. What is 100% certain is that the stress doesn’t lessen just because you are now pregnant.
Before going on maternity leave, I was working full time in retail, in one of the biggest and busiest shops in an outlet village in UK. Working with people, in a big team, during the pandemic, had definitely added to the stress I was feeling daily.

When I found out I was pregnant, last year in June 2021, I knew I had to do something alongside my yoga practice to bring some relaxation in my life. Being pregnant is tough. You feel like all you want to do is sleep all day and if you are lucky and feel sick at random times of the day like I was, well.. you really need to be kind to yourself and take it easy as much as you can. During my pregnancy I discovered the relaxation sessions especially designed for pregnancy and I experienced first hand how amazing you can feel during and after one of these sessions.

These weekly moments were just for me and my baby, my moments of heavenly peace, of being free of to do lists and running around.
I know how useful these classes were for me and my mental health during pregnancy so I decided to start sharing with you, all the future moms out there who might be feeling anxious, stressed out, tired, forgetful, scared of giving birth, maybe with some aches and pains in your body, just how amazing it can be to be able to relax and let go of everything for at least 1 hour weekly.

So, these sessions are for you if:
– you want to enjoy a moment of deep relaxation together with your partner;
-you want to be able to experience your pregnant body more;
-you just want to slow down;
-you want to connect with your baby;
-you want to improve your sleep;
-you would love to feel more relaxed and prepared for birth;
-you want to become more aware of your breath and experience how the breath awareness can support you in your pregnancy and birth;
-you don’t have the time and energy to go out of the house and would like to be able to relax in the comfort of your own home.

In these virtual sessions I will be using breath awareness, visualisation exercises, progressive relaxation techniques, yoga nidra and hypnobirthing inspiration, all to help you achieve a better sleep, improved breathing, improved levels of energy and less anxiety related to birth, with the use of affirmations.
The biggest advantage of joining online is that you don’t need to leave your house, you can join even in your pyjamas, use your favourite blanket and even lay on your sofa or armchair.
P.S. I can’t guarantee you won’t fall asleep!

If you are interested, please email (namastayzenyoga11@gmail.com) or to book your place, sessions start on the 31.10.2022, every Monday and Tuesday 19:00-20:00 UK time.
You can pay in blocks of 4 weeks, £20 or pay as you go, £7 per class.

The lessons we receive from the Universe

Today I will write about the lessons that we receive from the Universe…And why we keep getting stuck in the same situation over and over again.

You know those same people, situations, experiences that piss you off but you keep going through the same thing over and over again? It probably feels like spinning around in circles, right?

And when you think you got your lesson, BOOM! You get it again, obviously a little bit different this time, but the lesson never changes.

If you know me, or you have read my posts before, you probably know about my need for control, about how I want things to go my way, about how irritated I am when I have to change my plans (even though I am most of the times a flexible person) and how I like to plan in advance. Oh well, things have changed for me in the last year, a lot!!!

And my major lesson was to stop getting attached to my plans, to learn to accept and trust what comes. In some situations, I had to stop planning everything all together because of how unpredictable everything was.

The same message kept coming for me in the last 5 years, in different circumstances. But the lessons kept coming. And do you know why the Universe keeps sending you the same lessons over and over again?

Remember the tests you were getting in school? You get multiple tests before you can pass your final exam. The beautiful thing about the Universe is that it gives us pleeeenty of learning opportunities. It gives us some time to absorb it, to get our heads around it and when we think we got it, the Universe has a weird sense of humour and sends us some more learning opportunities.

For me, personally, has been quite challenging to let go of my expectations and my need to control the outcome. When I wanted something desperately, it never happened. What I always wanted and needed, always came to me WHEN I LEARNED TO LET GO OF WHAT I THOUGHT WAS MEANT TO COME. The beauty of the Universe is that YOU JUST NEED TO TRUST THAT WHAT WILL COME TO YOU IS BETTER THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT.

When I thought I wanted a certain house, the owner changed its mind and didn’t want to sell it anymore. I was upset, I cried for 2 days, I couldn’t see passed the whole situation because I was overwhelmed with emotions. What we ended it up buying, was one house I haven’t even considered at the beginning, that was over our budget (the owners suddenly decided to drop the price the night before we went to view it) and was quite far from my preferred location. Do you guys see what the Universe did here?

The moment I stopped being stubborn about what I wanted and started trusting the process, something way better came to me.

I am still learning, I am still getting nudges from the Universe that there might still be some lessons for me, but now I say more often that whatever is right for me, it will happen at the right time.

We are forever students, no matter what is our age, our job, our financial status. The Universe is our teacher, even though the lessons tend to change over the time, but I urge you to start paying attention to that same situation that keeps coming up for you and try to understand your lesson.

What is the lesson that you keep getting from the Universe?

1 year of lockdown and my plans!

If you are like me, probably you started 2020 as excited as you could be about the new year. For myself and a lot of people I know, 2020 was supposed to be one of the best years so far. We were on a roll, riding the wave of life, we were enjoying the freedom of travelling, expensive holidays, seeing our loved ones, huge parties…And we kind of took it all for granted, right?

Set your intention and release it in the Universe

I don’t think any of us could have seen last year coming. We were so used to working fast, doing things as fast as possible, almost never stopping to reflect on our lives, that we the first lockdown came, it was almost like a shock. We weren’t used to have so much free time for ourselves all of a sudden!

For myself personally, 2020 was full of ups and downs and I learned more about myself than I did in the last 7 years. 2020 was supposed to be the year I was finally getting married after waiting for 2 years for a specific date: 10.10.2020. I hoped and hoped that the event will take place, but finally we decided that we will wait for things to get better before we have the wedding. It was a year full of personal challenges, realisations that maybe some people are not that close to me anymore and I should let go of them. It was a year when I realised that I need to reach out for help, I need to feel close to people and have a connection with them and it was the year of realisation that I have so much to share that it’s a shame to stay hidden behind my fears and insecurities.

2020 for me was the year I finally had to accept that being a yoga teacher is part of my identity and I don’t need to choose to be one or the other. But what I do need to be is focused, decided and willing to take action, no matter how scared I am to put myself out there.

What I learned about myself last year is that I have a lot of trouble with releasing the need to control my life. I had always been the planner, the achiever, the do-er. I always had things under control and whatever I wanted, I achieved it, according to my timelines: my job, travelling to Bali, getting a house, doing a yoga teacher training. And what I haven’t noticed until last year, even though some people have told me before that I shouldn’t plan so much, was how I am reacting when things don’t work out according to my plans. I had the surprise to find out that I actually don’t like to do things outside my routine, I don’t like to take detours and if plans are slowed down by events that I can’t control, I have a tendency of reacting like a spoiled 3 year old: I want it and I want it NOW!!!!

Last year has thought me that having trust that things will work out even when I have absolutely no idea how, it’s the best thing you can do for your sense of inner peace. Setting intentions instead of goals and releasing them in the Universe, knowing that if it is the best for me, it will happen, has done wonders for me in the last 6 months.

The difference between having an intention and having a goal (or plan) is that with intentions, you are releasing the attachment to the outcome. With plans, you know how things will work out and you know exactly by when they will happen. But if things don’t go according to your plan, you get upset and unhappy because you can’t see clearly if your goals will work out.

To finish my post for today, I will say that I have never been so calm in my life like I am now, because I trust that what ever is the best for me, will happen. The inner peace that comes with this acceptance is unbelievable and I wanted to share this with you guys!

What was you biggest lesson in the last year? Share it with us in the comments below! 🥰

Love and hugs, Andreea❤

Today I decided to come back to myself

Today is the day I found myself whole, complete, in my essence.
It is the day I told myself “I love you like I never loved anyone else in my life”.
it is the day I looked in the mirror and I was proud of the woman I became.
it is the day I decided I am good enough
it was the day I found my way in life and fulfilled my mission.

Today is the day I decided to come back to myself.

Today, I stopped listening to my mind and dared to hug my heart instead
Today I heard the whisper of my soul in the middle of my mind’s noise
Today is the day I became one with my Soul and thrown away everything that doesn t serve me anymore
It is the day I smile and I am happy because I am who I’m truly supposed to be

TODAY IS THE DAY I FINALLY DECIDED TO COME BACK TO MYSELF

I am offering free yoga classes

Don’t underestimate the power of a 30 minutes yoga class. Sometimes, even a short amount of time, if done consistently, can have a big impact on our overall physical and mental health.

I offer gentle free yoga classes, beginners friendly in a non judgemental, inclusive environment for 4 weeks only. It is all about you, about how you feel, the connection that you make with your body, mind and soul. I am there to guide you and support you, with an open heart. We will soon mark the 1 year anniversary since we have been put in lockdown and I know that for many of us, this has probably been one of the most challenging years so far.

So, I thought this is a great opportunity for me to do what I love in my spare time and give a little bit back to my community. It might be a great opportunity for you to finally try yoga, to relax, get some time off for yourself and enjoy this journey.

I will guide you in the journey to find focus in our mind by controlling your breath, find stillness in your body and relax.

You can find me on Facebook and Instagram as Namastayzenyoga and please feel free to message me if you have any questions.

Accept your weirdness and own it!

If you have read my other posts or if you know me in person, you might think and feel that I am anything but normal.

I can be intense, hard to handle when I get angry, messing around if I am in weird mood, happy to extremes when I have a reason to celebrate.

I am crying when I am angry, sad, happy, frustrated, irritated, disappointed. I am crying at movies, romcoms, news (that’s why I stopped watching the news altogether).
I can be quite blunt and tell you what I feel to your face but I can also hug you if you need it. I am someone that leaves everything aside to run and help a friend in need but I can also cut someone off without notice if I feel that I am being taken advantage of.

I am interested in deep, spiritual stuff. I love finding and talking to people that have the some passion. But sometimes, I can get into conversations with people that have no connection whatsoever with this area of life. People that might be atheists, in between, people that are so focused on their careers that literally have no time to look after their souls, people that maybe don’t know what to expect and out of fear they put people in boxes.
I have been labeled me as weird, zen, always calm no matter what, vegetarian yogi, hippie, living in my own bubble.
At the beginning, I admit that I used to get defensive and I was trying to prove myself to people that were making fun of me. And now realise that it was because maybe a part of me wasn’t fully accepting that I am not like everyone else. I wasn’t accepting my weirdness and I wasn’t owning it.
For you to get an idea of how long it took me to get here, let me tell you. It took me more than 8 long years to accept who I am.

It took me this long to accept that other people are not on the same path as me and I don’t need to prove to anyone that my path is better than theirs. It is simply my path, my path is not necessarily better, it’s just different. It was about time to embrace myself with the good and the bad.

It was about time to embrace my journey and share what I have learned because man, I have learned so much in these years!

Sometimes you need someone from outside to tell you that it’s time to stop your bulshit and get your ass to work. And I had a few people for which I am deeply grateful in my journey that without knowing, they helped me by telling me that I should stop expecting perfection.

They told me that have a lot of knowledge already and it is time to stop looking outside for what is already inside me.
A small step is better than no step.
And this is what I tell you now as well: stop waiting for perfection. Make a small step in your direction. Be yourself. Embrace your weirdness. Don’t give a f*** about what people think about you.

Don’t try to prove yourself to the wrong people. You don’t have to work so hard to be accepted because when you embrace your true version of yourself, your own crowd will come to you with no effort.

The only person you can change is you!

Love and light,

Andreea

In the end, hard work ALWAYS pays off

My yoga journey started over 8 years ago when I was looking for a way to get rid of my back pain from driving at my job. I was working in a very stressful environment, coming home after long days and I really needed something to help me relax physically and mentally.

At that time in my city, there was no yoga class available so I used to practice yoga watching Youtube tutorials. At no point it crossed my mind or I had any intention of becoming a yoga teacher. When I moved to UK over 6 years ago, I was struggling because I didn’t know anyone and I needed to find a way to meet new people. This is how I found my first yoga teacher, an amazing lady that showed me that yoga is more than the physical poses and that it can be such a self-healing journey if you give it the time and a chance really.

In 2016, I started my foundation course, an 8 months course that would be the turning point for me. This course was the pre-requisite for the Level 4 Diploma in teaching yoga with British Wheel of Yoga (500hours of education) and it was without a doubt the best decision I have ever made in my life. Who would have known that the course that I started next in 2017 would actually be extended with 6 months because of the pandemic and that we will end up having some of the exams and few classes remotely? I now feel that this course for me has been a preamble for what was about to hit us..It prepared me not only to teach my students, but also to deal with unexpected situations, with the ups and downs of life and I now know that no matter what will come my way, I can handle it.

And yes, yoga is a major part of my life, it defined me and shaped me in ways that I would have never thought I will always change. I am still learning, I am still on my journey, I still have my ups and downs but knowing that I have my practice to come back to when times are hard, gives me the strength to keep going, to keep doing what I am doing.

Fast forward to this day, after over 3 years of study and hard work, all whilst working full time and being exhausted all the time, I have done it!!! I got my LEVEL 4 DIPLOMA (500 HOURS) IN TEACHING YOGA!! Even though I was about to drop off a couple of times, I now feel it was all worth it because I got my work recognised. It hasn’t been easy: the practice hours, the essays, the journeys to London on my one day off sometimes after working for 4-5 days but this has to be one of my greatest achievements!

This is just the beginning of this journey that I started around 8 years ago when I was practicing yoga on YouTube. I still have moments when I don’t think I can make it, when I think I don’t have anything interesting to share and then I look back and realise how far I am now!

2021 will be about making myself more visible, putting myself in the service of people that need me and a lot of hard work and learning! Feel free to message me for a chat, if you are going through something difficult and you think I could help you

When was the last time you checked on your strong friends?

Today’s post is about you, the ones always smiling, the ones always “zen” like people call you. The ones that have it all together, the ones that never complain, the ones that always seem to find the way out, no matter what life throws at you.

Until I was around 21-22 let’s say, I always used to be this person that had a lot going on. It was always about me. I never used to stop and ask even my closest friends the deep, important questions. After I started healing what I had to heal in my own life, I became the person that is always there for others. I became more attentive to people around me, to what they are going through.

Sometimes I feel that my problems are not important enough. And maybe they aren’t, because people around me are dealing with the death of dear ones, having dear ones struggling with cancers, or they are dealing with mental health disorders or physical illness. My point is that we should all achieve the balance. This year has been a bitch for a lot of us if you are asking me, but has also been a blessing in disguise if we knew how to look at things. Most of us can get really self absorbed in our own problems and can feel that what happens around us might be what is the most important. While you are preparing to go to work, someone might suffer because they were made redundant and don’t know how they will pay their rent/mortgage this year.

While you are preparing for your wedding next year, someone might be broken hearted because they lost their husbands/wives this year.

While you are excited for giving birth, someone close to you might be dealing with miscarriage or infertility and you have no clue.

While you are lucky enough to have everyone healthy in your family and around you, someone close to you might be dead worried about their close relatives that are sick.While you might be lucky to be strong mentally, someone close to you might be dealing with anxiety, depression, panic attacks and other serious mental health disorders.

Let’s not become so self absorbed in the good happening to us that we miss what is happening to others around. Check on your strong friends, ask them if they are alright, if their dear ones are alright. It might mean more than you would have thought because no one else is considering it.