Journal Entries

Is Success our Best?

By  Vanessa Webb | 

Always remember your humanity…for good or for bad…you will fall, you will blunder, you will do things splendidly, and you will rock the boat…but to love and be kind is the best we can do with it all.  Our best is really all that things ever come back to…and our best is better on some days than it is on others. But our intent behind what we do is what makes it all count. From our intent we bring our heart, and from our heart we acknowledge our humanity...


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Thoughts From a Yoga Practitioner (who doesn't fit the scene)

By  Vanessa Webb | 

Upon seeing a yoga class from a view at the door, my eyes wide, my mouth gaping, a foreign world of thought tumbled forward:  
Look at all those people! How do all those people fit in one room arms in the air, front knee bent? What is that teacher offering them that they want to crowd into a room like that? How does this happen?...


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To Discover You're Okay

By  Vanessa Webb | 

“I just want to be ok”…we can often think this about ourselves when we practice Yoga.  It’s a harsh thought, no matter how quietly we might hear it. Yoga is about greater self awareness and the acceptance that comes from that; but sadly, we naturally apply our culturally developed thinking as a framework around it.  Almost like we try to catch it in a net that is already familiar to us...


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Cocktail Umbrellas and Their 3 Steps to Your Dreams

By  Vanessa Webb | 

Cocktail Umbrellas are more important than we realize.  Usually accompanied by a maraschino cherry and a slim slice of orange, those bright little, paper decorations are always found in a cheery coloured cocktail drink in yellow or pink. Innocently, and unbeknownst to them, these umbrellas hold a lot of power...


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To Give is to Be Happy

By  Vanessa Webb | 

Racism, sexism, sexual orientation, and world religions are the most heated topics globally as fuel for disagreement; all of them relating to something “different” from our own self.  This difference seems to be about a lack of understanding of “the other”, and not so much about anything based on truth.  We’re uncomfortable when we don’t understand...


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Reflections from Guru Purnima

By  Vanessa Webb | 

Out of the mouths of babes, there it was: “YOGA WORKOUT”…words spoken innocently by one of my Yoga students but which, hit me like a roll of thunder. Everything about me felt like it morphed into Van Gogh’s “The Scream”.  How had I failed her as her teacher?...


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Is it Sangha or is it Not?

By  Vanessa Webb | 

I have often felt betrayed by the Yoga “community”. What I had thought would be a true Sangha, a community of wise souls, has often turned out to be a group of popular “yogis” who hang out with each other and socialize.  I’ve learned that it is rare to find a loyal community of supportive people, who are willing to connect deeply and in a mature way…a Sangha that is non-competitive and non-exclusive...


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A Lasting Impact

By  Vanessa Webb | 

My plane was to be in Bangalore, but I was standing at the baggage carousel in the partially constructed airport in Chennai.  Three days to go and an email had landed in my Inbox from Air India, notifying me that I would be flying from Bali to Chennai instead of my expected Bali-Bangalore...


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Out On A Limb

By  Vanessa Webb | 

One of my great teachers once said “If you want to reach for the stars, it is essential that the Soul learns through experience”. The richness that is brought to our experiences through Yoga, is so deep and so true and so vast, it is a universe unto itself. Sounds a bit dramatic, even as I write it. But how can it be anything other?...


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Ahimsa, Practicing the First of the First

By  Vanessa Webb | 

The wonderfulness of the First Limb of Yoga, comes from its capacity to be life changing as it unfolds through us. Its very structure (known as the Yamas and Niyamas) offers us freedom.  The anchor that this structure provides means we have the space to be Ourselves, through gaining the trust in knowing our frame of reference...


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