Where Have I Been? Yoga Teacher Training… that’s where!

Yes, yoga has taken over my life pretty much for the past six months since my last blog (I am ashamed).  I am two thirds of the way through my yoga teacher training with The Yoga Academy and every day it is impacting my life.  I am not complaining, far from it.

It has encouraged me to meditate daily, sometimes with a special breathing practice, other times just simply sitting and concentrating on my natural breath or perhaps a mantra or phrase to think about; gratitude for example.

I have spent many hours planning lessons; those of you who do classes and think the teacher just drives there and teaches… not so much.  I have spent hours practising drawing pin men (little stick people in various postures with legs up, down and rotating, heads facing this way or that, arms in the weirdest positions, and don’t get me started on whether the knees are forward or backward of the feet!).  Grids, curves and mirroring.  These words are now so familiar but before the course I used to get on my precious mat and move, not realising there was a whole other dictionary of words available.

There has been an overwhelming amount of information trying to squeeze itself into my (autistic) brain which is already overcrowded and tired.  I have read so many books (not, itself a problem as I love to read as you know), but some of the information is so new and difficult to retain.

I always say, when I am talking about my autism, that I have the wrong type.  If I had a wish from a Genie (or perhaps Buddha), it would be that I could retain in my head every piece of information I read; certainly it would be useful for my exam coming up in November.

Hmm, second thoughts, those adverts which keep popping up on Facebook would stay in my mind and I would be completely penniless if I couldn’t forget the content!

I digress, but seriously I do have an exam (they call it a big quiz, like that makes a difference) looming and I have to remember so much: not only cues for postures but alignment, anatomy, physiology, philosophy, Sanskrit, mantras, ethics, meridians, breathing practice, memes, gunas, cakras, sutras… wow, I wish I’d never started on this list.  I really must start revising.

Not only that I have two more observed class assessments, and a major project to complete – all by next March.  I am not complaining really, I love every minute of it – perhaps not the feedback, but the rest.  I have met some wonderful new friends, travelled to a couple of beautiful places, and spent a vast amount of money!  I also have an interesting array of leggings, and an ever increasing pile of notebooks building.

Very soon I shall be opening my own classes, not simply cover and assist, and I can get to enjoy putting into practice all that I have learned, and help others to discover the joys of my venture Blooming Yoga which no doubt I shall tell you much more about in the coming months.

For now I wish you ‘Shanti’ (peace) and invite you to join me again soon where I shall be telling you about another project underway as I attempt to sense the simple life more and more.

Until next time…

www.sensingthesimplelife.com

www.theautisticvoice.co.uk

Simple Sunday Morning

A lazy Sunday, with nothing major planned; a cold is brewing and my body simply needs a rest.  A quick trip to the vet with Rosie for her annual vaccination, and then we decided to try out our local Farmer’s Market for the first time.  I expected a few stalls with perhaps some preserves and some baked goods.

How wrong was I, and I have become so obsessed by what I found that I rushed home to book each monthly market into my diary for the foreseeable future.

The recently refurbished square in my home town was buzzing with people, and more dogs than I’ve seen at a dog show, wandering about on leads stopping to ‘chat’ to each other as they walked.  There was a real community buzz which was wonderful.  Everyone seemed to have time to chat, and were so friendly.  Does a farmer’s market automatically attract friendly people?  Some were sitting around on benches, drinking steaming cups of coffee and hot chocolate; others munching on hot sausage rolls or a cheeky slice of delicious homemade sponge.  There were stalls with such a wide array of foods from marshmallows to local sausages, locally brewed beers and wines, apple juice and cider and massive jars of juicy olives, pickled eggs and sundried tomatoes.  There were homemade cards, knitted goods, hand painted canvas bags to replace the horrendous plastic tsunami which is engulfing our world and stunningly beautiful handcrafted pens and wooden gifts.

The photo above shows most of my haul, bar the Italian pastry I bought back for Joe as a lunchtime treat.  Who can resist freshly baked onion bread spread thickly with local butter?  It was so scrumptious I had two wedges – shared of course with Holly and Rosie (our fur babies).  I didn’t even wait to cut the local cheese I also purchased Ashmore Cheddar – I’ll save that for later with some of my cousin Amanda’s multi award winning  Captain’s Crackers .I did however sample the cheese in the market, as did Rosie.  Although I am currently on a low sugar kick (more about this another time), I couldn’t resist a lovely jar of Apricot Chutney from a lovely lady who had a good chat with me.  I should make a promise to Flo here, that I will resist opening it for another three weeks.  A fat wedge of goats cheese and asparagus quiche completed my purchases.

Just a simple lunch of fresh bread, real butter, cheese and chutney, with a freshly brewed pot of coffee is simply wonderful.  Who really needs ready made meals?  I am feeling a little smug today; I also have a large pot bubbling away as I make a batch of bone broth for the week’s meals.  So good for you, so cheap, and so yummy.

Apologies if I have made you hungry.  I suggest you get down to your local Farmer’s Market as soon as possible.  Simple really is best.  Enjoy the incredible aromas, colours, tastes and sounds of chatter.

Until we meet again

Don’t forget to check out my website sensingthesimplelife.com, and my book Sensing the City: An Autistic Perspective, where I discuss the sensory issues surrounding markets.

Family Life

At the age of 51 I don’t necessarily have the conventional family life. There is my lovely husband Joe, a karate instructor and Chair of a national martial arts governing body.  And then there are our two adorable fur babies: Yorkshire terrier Holly and Yorkiepoo Rosie, both 11. 

We have no children of our own. At home we have never had wet nappies, terrible twos or threes, stroppy teens, empty nest syndrome or having to save for weddings, university or help pay deposits on first homes.  We have lots of nieces and nephews (our siblings have been blessed with these ‘joys’), and have taught hundreds of other people’s children; a job we both love.

As a childhood cancer survivor, I wasn’t able to have my own children, and other avenues were explored and discounted for various reasons. We have been sad for much of our lives together about this, but now in our fifties, we appreciate and are so grateful for the life we have.  Mainly Mothers’ and Fathers’ days are sad for us.

We have a beautiful home, with a wonderful garden to explore and relax in. We love our fur babies so much; they give us love and comfort and in turn we give them everything they could need – basically food, water, exercise and love… oh, and regular grooming opportunities.

In the garden we have a clutch of hens with a loud and proud cockerel looking after their needs. They provide lovely rich eggs, and roam around their expansive pen digging in dirt, socialising, clucking and pooping.

The front garden sees a pond large enough to swim in (Joe proved this when he fell in one day) filled with beautiful Koi of all sizes and stunning colours.

We are both members of the RSPB and encourage a host of wildlife into the garden to admire and appreciate. Butterflies, bees, squirrels and hedgehogs are just a few of the creatures who inhabit our garden, and I love them all.

My parents and siblings live nearby and family barbecues are a regular feature in the summer; my dad cooking and ‘encouraging’ (he can be bossy and I have inherited this trait) us to play racket ball and hoola-hooping (he is a champion at this).

So, that’s us… now you have met us all, it’s soon time to appreciate all that is simple

Until we meet again…

Check out my website: https://sensingthesimplelife.com  where you will find links to my professional sites and books for purchase, should you choose to explore further.

 

 

Introducing Sensing the Simple Life

Welcome to my new blog ‘Sensing the Simple Life’. I shall begin by introducing myself and what I am all about.

But first, why ‘Sensing the Simple Life’? Simple (excuse the unintentional pun), my second book published last year was ‘Sensing the City: An Autistic Perspective’.  It made sense (sorry, another unintentional pun) and I liked the sound of it.

For readers of my previous blog, ‘the autistic voice’, the literalism of an autistic writer is more obvious. To the uninitiated, I shall explain a little more about autism (in part taken from my aforementioned book).

You might have days when everything seems to go wrong? The alarm doesn’t go off, you are late for work, the train breaks down, your sandwich has gone soggy, it rains and your hair goes wild… well an autistic day can affect you in the same way but it might take just one thing to cause it.  It might be as small as the post being five minutes later than usual, or the teabags running out just as you need to make a cup of tea.  Just one small thing can turn the day into a complete disaster; a diversion on your normal route to work or someone arriving a few minutes late for an appointment.  These simple occurrences might spark the most disastrous and stressful day you could ever imagine.  There will possibly be one or likely most of the following: anger, tears, feelings of depression, anxiety, shouting, screaming, throwing things, overeating or not eating at all…  The list is endless and quite extreme but when you are caught up in one of these days, it just goes on forever and makes you feel like nothing will help.

The filters in our brains are filled with ‘holes’ which let far too much information in. This overload means that we are unable to select what we actually need or what is relevant and we progress quickly to sensory meltdown that is widespread panic causing diverse emotions and physical actions.  Meltdowns can be devastating both inwardly and in the way the individual lashes out.  Meltdowns can be angry, depressive, verbally or physically aggressive, and mostly distressing.  We often blank out what we do or say, it is not personal to anyone other than us, and we have usually been building up to it over hours, days, or even weeks.  Just one trigger can set it in motion and sensory overload is a substantial trigger.

Even though I may not always progress to full overload, often if there are too many sensory triggers around me, I may just ‘blank out’. This happens to me often when I am with other people; I can be chatting away one minute, and the next I just go completely silent and chatter or noise around me goes over my head and I lose all focus.  Outwardly it looks as though I am ignoring people, or look bored or am being rude.  I just switch out.  My internal system seems to just suddenly kick back in when my brain has caught up with everything it has digested.  Not every autistic individual will react like this; we are a heterogeneous community of people and all have our way of reacting or dealing with what goes on to or around us.

Sometimes the effects of an ‘autistic’ day can last for several days afterwards. Autistic individuals do not want sympathy though; we also have spectacular days when our sensory differences, unique characteristics and abilities are put to good use and light us up inside.

One of the diagnostic differences for autistic individuals is that we are likely to have sensory impairments in one or more of our senses. These impairments are more about perception than biological in nature such as blindness or deafness. An added complexity is that no two autistic individuals are likely to have the same sensory perceptual pattern.  While I might be affected by strong aromas, another might not even notice them at all.  Some individuals perceive visually in small fragments rather than looking at a whole picture.  My autistic husband often points out images in wallpaper, or on floor tiles for example (apparently we have a duck on our kitchen floor and Oliver Cromwell’s face in our living room), whereas I can only see the overall differences in the natural slate and flowers on the wall.

We can have other traits including social and communication differences: the need for literal language is common. I am also terrible at ‘getting’ jokes!

‘Sensing the Simple Life’ is not all about autism, although as an autistic writer and human being, my perspective is always bound to be flavoured with a little autistic spice. I have also discovered over the years that a more simple life is helpful in dealing with some of the more frustrating aspects of autism… for me and my family at least.

The last few years have been busy, emotional and exhausting; I will elaborate more as time goes on. I have been striving to simplify our lives to meet the needs of these challenges and since I love to write, the marriage of the two seemed rational.

For now I shall leave you with a quotation from one of my all-time favourite books ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. This has been pivotal in my writing and each of my doctoral papers including my final thesis included a quotation from the wonderful Harper Lee who co-incidentally published in 1960, the year my fabulous husband was born.  Another coincidence was that one of the characters Boo Radley has been said to be autistic.  I love co-incidences.

In the words of Atticus Finch (character in TKAM), ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it’.

Well readers, I hope you enjoy metaphorically ‘climbing into my skin and walking around in it’. I shall endeavour to inspire, entertain and journal my foray into a more simple life.

Until we meet again…

PS. Check out my website: https://sensingthesimplelife.com  where you will find links to my professional sites and books for purchase, should you choose to explore further.

‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it’. (Lee, 1960)