Tag: Carolyn Cowan

Don't be a dick...

Be An Original (And Don’t Be A Dick…)

Published on by Sara-Jayne EdwardsLeave a comment

I’m feeling rebellious, inspired and incredibly energised by life right now.

I feel electric.

I love how creative I am. 

I am creative.

I can affirm that with absolute certainty, needing no reinforcement, praise or encouragement.

When you are creative (and you are, too, we all are). And when you have something original to show to the world (you do, we all do). It’s a pretty cool thing if you can find the courage inherent in ‘putting it out there’ in an effort to reach others. In service to others, to inspire others, or… hell, to earn yourself a living doing something you were born to do.

But it can have its downsides too. 

When you truly are in touch with your creativity, when you are stepping up to be YOU… what I notice is that other people don’t necessarily like it too much.

Some people…

*whispers* …Some people will want what you have…

And they want it so very much, so desperately,

that they will try and take it for themselves.

Sometimes they will take only a breadcrumb at a time. Barely noticeable, at first.

Others will swoop toward you and gather up great big greedy armfuls of you without a backward glance.

I know, I know, it’s shocking, right? But it is true.

It’s something that happens in my world more and more. And I am not alone. 

Sometimes it’s just plain old creepy…

Having invested hugely in myself in a variety of ways in recent years I am not too keen on hacking off huge parts of myself to hand to others on a silver platter to feast on in gay abandon… but what can you do… when you’re feeling inspired, energised, and electric, some people just really want a piece of you for themselves.

Some of this happens unconsciously, and it can be quite easy as the creator of something to let that slide on by.

Other times it’s more blatant. Huge chunks of text copied and pasted from your website to theirs. Uncredited. Classes copied, from the intention to the music to that thing you said about Tiger penises. Haircuts, clothing choices, the way you have chosen to present your ideas. Some feel it all is fair game. Artwork, born of your own very personal relationship to yourself and the world. Creations that huge money, time, creativity and love was poured into… just copied. Blatantly. Often badly. And passed off as someone else’s original idea.

It can feel exhausting.

I’ll be honest, sometimes it feels quite threatening.

Once or twice, for me, it’s been just plain old creepy.

But what can you do? I can’t build an electric fence around myself and hammer a sign on my head that says ‘Danger. High Voltage’. Or can I?

Well, until I decide on that, I will say it again.

I AM CREATIVE.

Hey, if you want to congratulate me on my art or my words or my dress sense that’s lovely. Thank you very much. And if you disagree and think I’m dull, uninspiring and flat then… excellent.

Your opinion will unroot my feet from solid ground no more than the feather from a baby sparrow floating from the heavens to land on my shoulder. How sweet. *Brushes feather off, picks it up, and sticks it on a canvas depicting neon sparrows exploring a supernova explosion*.

If you think that sounds arrogant. Well, it is, a bit! We all need a healthy amount of narcissism to feel pride, hold self-esteem and realise our own self worth. That I can hold my head up so high and say ‘I am creative’ is hugely important to where I am in my relationship to myself. I would not have been able to shout it loud and proud a year ago.

Through my adult life, what I do with my creativity has more regularly private than public. Be it playing, painting, building, photographing, decorating, writing or decapitating dolls.  None of you (unless you’re related to me, my neighbour or knew me well 20 years ago) have heard me play the flute. But I do it every day. Creating is not about the other. It is about exploring and expressing my feelings experiences and ideas, filtered through my own completely unique brain… 

To put some of what I create out into the world since becoming a yoga teacher has been rewarding. I am proud that what I have created is both authentic as a reflection of my inner and outer relationship to the universe and in being unlike what is most commonly seen in how yoga is presented… particularly online. 

I don’t strive for originality, I strive to be me. Originality is what comes from that…

Originality… It’s a terrific thing.

To be original, to hope to be… it can be a bitch. It can feel impossible, unreachable, when we’re out of whack with our own potency. Not sure who we are. What we want. What we think.

Who we are.
What we want.
What we think.

They sound like pretty basic elements in experiencing a human life.

But what we want,
what we think
who we are…

for many, they are lost. Lost in the noise. In the contractions in body and mind that they are not even aware exist, so familiar are they to their experience of what life can be. Comparing, despairing and searching for something, anything, to temporarily ease an uncomfortable sense that something is wrong.

All that is left is to spin around in a metaphorical blindfold with a shaky, pointing finger… a kind of  existential spin the bottle… and to land on someone who seems to own some semblance of what you perceive that you should want, think, and be and think ‘I’ll take that one. For me’.

Life is noisy.

We’re all continually taking in stimuli from our environments… how things look, what we hear, what lights us up, how people react, what turns us off… we take inspiration from nature and television and music videos and art and from other people we see who are cool and interesting, charismatic, funny, magical or strong …

Whether conscious or unconscious we take on aspects of what others say, think, do, create…

Last week, my own teacher, Carolyn, taught an incredible Kundalini Global class where we did a yoga series called ‘Be An Original’ and Carolyn explored the idea of what it means to be you. Your true, authentic, human self.

It struck a chord for me.

I realised how much that I do it too, unconsciously taking without doing the work to make it energetically elegant. And I’ve taken myself on in this. I would encourage you to do the same.

Take Carolyn, I’ve done pretty much all of her trainings.  And I would do them all again. She’s brilliant. Hilarious, exceptionally clever, unique in her thinking and extremely charismatic. She explains things in such a creative, distinctive and authoritative way…

It has been on a regular basis that I use words, idioms and ideas that I would NEVER have considered using before meeting Carolyn, because I have taken them from her… and it’s just not on.

I wouldn’t dream, ever, of stealing Carolyn’s written words, artwork or class plans. But both consciously and unconsciously I have been guilty of stepping beyond ‘inspired by’ into ‘taken from’ in how I teach.

It’s a shitty thing to do.

You could say it is hard to avoid copying. But it is not.

It is not hard to avoid copying. Just don’t do it.

Whilst it’s not hard to avoid copying other people, it’s really easy to not bother doing the work inherent in being yourself. Because it really is work.

It is so easy not to reflect on what someone has said, written, created … and consider how that can be translated into your own universe, for your people, through you, your lens, your lived experience.

But when you do that part, that’s when the magic happens.

Whilst we can be inspired by those we look up to or who hold positions we see as hierarchically above us in realms in which we walk, to be able to consolidate and percolate and really learn from them, to be able to make manifest what they have taught to us, to transform the ideas they shared, ideas that lit us up, into something that truly serves us and others, we have to run them through our own internal computer system and turn them into something new…

And that can take time, patience and real skill. Be patient with yourself. And don’t rush it. Focus on becoming you and the percolation will happen along the way.

Of course we are all influenced by things outside of ourselves, be they the moon or Harry Styles’ penchant for amazing trousers (something that inspires me, endlessly). But don’t be a dick.

If you buy some pastel flares, Harry Styles won’t care. Probably. Unless you’re Zayn Malik. But if you steal someone’s artwork, when the original was born of 15k of therapy, some very late nights and sixteen hours of introspection, it’s just not cool. Stop it. Be you.

It’s not always easy to stay ‘true to you’… but nothing truly magical and potent is easy.

You’re never going to find yourself the spaces between the ctl+c  and ctl+v commands on your keyboard. Try the whole qwerty spectrum instead.


Sara-Jayne Kundalini Global Yoga Blogpost On Longing Header Image

Swaying to stillness and the exquisite bliss of longing for…

Published on by Sara-Jayne EdwardsLeave a comment

Lovely humans,

I’ve been caught up in longing.

Longing – a “yearning, eager desire or craving,” It comes from the old English langung  a “…weariness, sadness, dejection…” but no definition gets it quite right, for me.

To sit in longing is an interesting space.

Longing for someone is entirely different to ‘missing’  them, in my awareness.

We ‘miss’ with our mind. Longing, it seems, is an experience that encompasses the entirety of our being.

I’ve been on a journey with being able to notice and name emotions. To name longing took time, “perhaps this is sadness?”  “feeling weak?”  “A curious and quite lovely type of pain?!” But knowing, in my reflection, it was something far more than my words managed to touch.

I like longing. Is that a strange statement to make? I believe that longing comes from an encounter with something magical enough that this (to me, peculiarly beautiful) emotion is evoked.

The universe we exist in places endless expectation on us to find and satisfy our hungers and desires as instantaneously as we possibly can. That the outcome is never, in the least bit, satisfying is what keeps us in a loop of consumption… be that of sugar, carbs, porn, fast-fashion or whatever lands on the doorstep in one of those too-familiar brown cardboard Amazon parcels.

Perhaps, I reflected, that is why to sit still, with longing, feels so unusual. So welcome. 

I find that sitting with longing, which can be considered a pretty melancholy emotion, is extremely lovely.

But why? Really? Can it be as simple as it being so at odds with a fast-paced, ever-scrolling, society that seeks reassurance from ‘buy now’ buttons and navigating Porn Hub with a well-trained thumb?

My love of longing feels like more than that. It feels like connecting to an entire new universe.

Swaying to stillness…

To long for something is to feel its lack. And to exist with longing is not easy.

In the world of yoga it seems that many who come to the mat have an awareness of a certain, dark, untouchable space… you could call it a void… that exists in us. Perhaps the awareness comes from some experience of sensing that space and becoming curious about what it is, and where it could lead us. Down the rabbit hole…

I mention this as, for me, there is a connection between that space and the feeling of longing.

We have a certain posture that we work with in Kundalini Global yoga classes… to my knowledge the posture has no name… born of ‘neck rolls’… it involves a gentle swaying from side to side. I believe it is the brain-child of Carolyn Cowan. If it is not, then that is certainly where my experience with the posture began. And where I fell head over heals in love with it. I share it here because it is what truly awoke this longing in me… and what I turn to when I want to sit with it once more.

You could try it if you haven’t… we sit cross legged, spine straight, hands on the knees.

The breath is gentle. Quiet. We inhale in the centre and exhale as we begin to sway. Move to the left first. Ear moving down toward the shoulder, swaying gently to the left, coming back up to gently inhale, then exhaling and gently swaying, ear toward shoulder, to the right.

Gradually, with each breath, each exhale, moving a tiny bit lower.  As we slowly descend the arms can come to the side, on the floor either side of us, to offer support. Rocking slowly, slowly, lower and lower. We take just as much time to descend as to slowly come back. I’d start with 3 minutes… so 90 seconds to descend as you sway, and 90 to come back slowly to tall and straight.

And then, not lying back as we commonly do after a posture, just sit in stillness. Really soft in the body. And notice…

What Carolyn brought my awareness to is a pulse. A pulse in the spinal fluid. It is called the lumbar cerebrospinal fluid pulse. And the rhythmic, swaying, motion of the posture allows us quickly, gently, to being able to tune into it. I find my body still sways a little with the pulse. So gently it is like being rocked in the weightless arms of an angel.

Cerebrospinal fluid is a clear, colourless body fluid found within the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord of all vertebrates. When we are entirely present and still and when we are landed in our bodies, we may be able to become aware of this pulse. When we do, when we can, it is, or has been for me, an experience of myself that is otherworldly in its gentleness, in its perfection. I do not use the word perfect often but it really is. Perfect bliss.

Yet. Yet. In this perfect bliss I seem always to find a paradoxical longing. An ache.

How is this possible? To be entirely accepting of the moment, blissful, and yet the experience is one where longing is the word… Before gentle. Before calm. Before present. The only word I may place before longing is this one… Divine.

Carolyn teaches that the lumbar cerebrospinal fluid pulse is the Divine within the body.

How beautiful is that?

To me it feels exactly right.

Utter Perfection

The stillness that comes from the posture I describe above leaves me sitting with an emotion that feels so much more than ‘happy’. It is an aching, longing, blissful pull that feels like … a calling?!? Words. Words. Sometimes they fail.

Whatever the words are, I’ve felt this bliss before. Along with its accompanying, paradoxical, ache. One instance in-particular springs to mind, owing to how entirely unremarkable the moment was that it came. At least from the outside…

It was after my usual clockwise run around my local park on an Autumnal evening last year. It came as I walked home through an extremely ‘rough’ area of my city as the sun set. My trainers had rubbed my feet and my hair was wet with sweat. Cars passed. People shouted between windows in the flats lining the street and kids wove around me on scooters, giggling. The sky was beautiful. Purple, pink and orange. A huge flock of geese flew noisily overhead. Of course, after my run, I was flooded with endorphins. But nothing was unfamiliar. Nothing was noteworthy. Yet, all of a sudden, I had this sense come over me. I stopped still and looked up.

Utter perfection. Utter perfection in every cell of my body and… again, that deep deep longing.

It is so lovely when we can have such moments and consciously think ‘I will not forget this moment.’  And we don’t.

…something you cannot explain or know

When reflecting on this sense of present longing I, of course, needed to research, to dig into it and see what others may have taken such a feeling and experience to be or to mean.

In my reading I came across a word I like. It’s a German word: “Sehnsucht.’’

The dictionary tells us that ‘‘sehnsucht’’ is an “intense, mostly bittersweet longing for something remote or unattainable that would make life more complete”. Like a really intense yet infantile crush, then? Where you imagine complete perfection and bliss would come to all aspects of life with the first, passionate kiss? No. Not that. The translations of this word are tricky in English, but roughly it is, yes, a longing, but no, not like a crush, it is a deep yearning for something that you cannot ever explain or know.

I love to find a word that feels in alignment with the incommunicable. Not perfect. But close.

A yearning for something we cannot explain or know. Perhaps that is a definition not only of sehnsucht but of an aspect of devotion. Of a longing for the divine without. The external divine of our awareness. Whatever, whoever, that is. I think it is that. And I think it is a beautiful thing.

If I told 99% of the people in my real life that I was sitting in stillness with a yearning for God they would think I had lost the plot. . . but that is what I have come to.

I’ve been reading a lot about St. Augustine. I cannot go into his life here but do look him up. Quite a character. I have come to believe he was probably neurodivergent in some way. We share the same birthday. I did think once, ‘I hope we share little else…’ But of course we do. And not only this longing, this “Sehnsucht.” Although this is an aspect of human existence I am certain that we both have touched.

Holy longing?

In  Augustine’s sixth homily in his Homilies on 1, John states that a distinctive quality of Christian living is to learn to live into our longing:

“The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing. What you long for, as yet you do not see; but longing makes in you room that shall be filled, when that which you are to see shall come.”

It’s such a curious thing. I love seeing an empty room inside me. A space. In Augustine’s thinking it is as if we are to be trained by longing. Not an arbitrary longing for our fuck buddy or a pair of cheap trainers. But by a holy longing.

A holy longing that creates a space, a ‘room that shall be filled’. I do not know if I want it to be filled. But I like sitting in that room and waiting in stillness. I like that a lot.

Most of us never sit in it.

So often, through a vast array of means and methods – returning to the list above of fast-food, fast-sex, fast-fashion – we work to soothe ourselves with anything other than… other than what? Other than the Divine.

I do not think these things are ‘bad.’ If we can be present to any moment, any experience, even a show we consume on Netflix or a cheap glazed doughnut… they can all be Divine.

Perhaps some aspect of longing comes when we forget the giver. Whatever or whoever we imagine that to be.

I believe that I have no satisfying way of ending this post for you. Perhaps I want to leave you in longing for an answer that may never come.

That is where I find myself. Happily.

I still sit, and sit still, in longing. And yes, I move between the experience of presence in it and seeking understanding of what it is.

I have come to realise that to sit in this longing is excellent for giving birth to artistic expression.

But I also reflect that, to go back to the ‘void’ inside that many in yoga, in ‘spiritual’ circles, seem to have become aware of in some way,  whatever the thing is that we believe to be a missing part of ourselves… perhaps is not a space that needs to be filled but one that is perfection as it is. If we can sit with it, in it. 

The longing for…

I don’t feel it needs to be named. 

Kundalini Global: A Growing Community

Exciting Times for Kundalini Global and The Power of Community

Published on by Sara-Jayne Edwards2 Comments

In a few weeks’ time it will be a year since I certified with Yoga Alliance as a Kundalini Global yoga teacher. That went by pretty fast. Wow. I was in the first cohort of graduates from the training. Soon another big group, full of fascinating and brilliant humans, will qualify and join us. It is an exciting time.

I am extremely proud to call myself a Kundalini Global teacher.

As a general rule I strongly reject names and labels. My pride is testament to both the quality of the training and the potency of the practise. I love it. I do. I love being in classes. I get to them as many as 5 times a week. I adore teaching. I am passionate about this incredible community growing.

Community is one of the first words that comes to mind when I think of Kundalini Global. The past year has been so weird. So hard for so many. Not least in the isolation. The community that Carolyn Cowan fostered over lockdown through her own Kundalini Global classes has been a magical thing to be a part of. It’s amazing, actually, to consider how we all managed to come together so often over zoom and how much solace we found in doing so. Not only solace. Magic. Transformation. Joy. It’s been unforgettable. And we continue.

As the first group of graduates stepped out in to this peculiar, but really quite wonderful, landscape of online teaching we took the spirit of community into our own classes and slowly but surely, we have built communities of our own. I feel the connection between them all. We are, together, such a force for positive change.

At the time of writing I believe there are around 16 certified teachers of Kundalini Global. Within the next few months that will likely treble. I hope it will treble (and more) many many more times over coming months and years. Another training starts in September. If you’re interested in joining us it’s an incredibly exciting time to do it.

You can find out more here:

Kundalini Global

Kundalini Global is pioneering, unique and, best of all, it works…

Works for what?

Most people come to a yoga class because they have heard through the grapevine, or via a super-skinny YouTube yoga celebrity, that it is relaxing, gentle, or good for stress.

Perhaps too, they seek some kind of a spiritual experience… whatever that means.

Some, like me, come because they are desperate to find respite from how unbearable life feels. How bored they are of their wily, unrelenting mind, and contracted, tense and agitated body. Respite that does not come from a hastily prescribed box of pills from the  GP or from the bottom of a bottle of wine.

Kundalini Global classes offer that respite. Quickly, magically, and through a growing, inclusive, community of teachers and practitioners who become experts in, a phrase you will hear us echo: changing how we feel.

We are a community that is new, yes, but growing quickly. And we have things to do. Big things.

What is Kundalini Global?

I do have a little page on my site about this question, a question I get asked regularly. I never manage to do it justice.

Kundalini Global is a new form of Kundalini Yoga. It is tricky to encapsulate in words, beyond saying that it is absolutely bloody amazing.

I find it to be an extraordinary, embodied, safe, kind, trauma-informed, form of yoga. A practise that creates a unique, still and gentle space within and outside of the self. The practise has a strong focus on the power of presence. And it is fun. I always add that. I have to. I have to tell you it is fun because as a statement it passes the test of being kind, necessary and also true.

Kundalini Global has opened up an entire new universe for me. One of connection, of community, one that feels powered by gratitude and intention and that allows for infinite space and freedom to be myself.

We probably aren’t what you expect…

Teachers of Kundalini Global are trained to consider aspects of creating safe, sacred spaces for classes that, I believe, opens up the possibility of exploring yoga to a much wider demographic. That is what we want. What we intend.

We probably don’t dress how you’d expect a yoga teacher to, we may not be as pretty, as flexible or as ‘love and light’… we may not play the music you have come to expect in a yoga class and we sometimes even say or do naughty things. But we are kind. We are open-minded. We practise self-reflection, daily, to notice where we may have yet unchallenged biases, attitudes or blindspots. We are supervised… we work to ensure we are well boundaried, that we are taking care of ourselves physically and mentally. We support each other.

We are human (and not, unfortunately, frogs… at least not always)

Kundalini Global teachers share a desire to use our individual manifestations of ‘humanness’ to offer those who come to classes an experience of what it can be like, what it can feel like, to be present, safe, still and gentle.

How we help you get there can require effort, don’t be entirely fooled by all this talk of ‘gentle, still, softness.’ That’s the reward.

We may have you using your arms as the world’s sharpest swords, working your core, squatting as a frog in stilettos or beaming 80 foot beams of light through your exhausted, extended arms up over your head (it’s not all barmy – but it’s fun when it is).  No matter what we invite you to explore,  though, all posture is presented with many equal variations to suit all body shapes and abilities, to allow for knowing that a posture is not a ‘can or can’t’ situation.

We show you how to make the postures work for your body. With no ‘ideal’, only equal variations that give the same, or a similar, desired effect.

Kundalini Global is not the preserve of the bendy, the thin, the white, the cis, the straight, the able-bodied, the young, the rich. It is our intention that we do the work to create diverse and welcoming communities that feel safe, fun and, hopefully, sacred. For everyone.

Whilst we may teach on zoom from grey, post-industrial cities in the midlands rather than parading in leggings and bras on rocks in the Ganges, we are all in service to create magical spaces that allow for all manifestations of what it means to be human to be held safely.

Ever unfolding

The work that we began on ourselves during the teacher training with Carolyn Cowan has continued for me every single day since.

‘The work’ – it sounds like a chore, doesn’t it?

Perhaps, if you haven’t ever done a yoga teacher training, you could imagine we mainly practise postures and learn about bones and muscles. We do do that. Lots of it. But the experience of training to teach Kundalini Global goes far beyond that.

With Carolyn you are invited to take apart your entire self-and-societally-constructed sense of self and examine each aspect with open, present, eyes.

I mention presence again here because, in order to do the work, the ability to come to presence again and again is vital. As teachers we must ‘practise what we preach’ and do that.

On the training we become expert at knowing hundreds of ways to come out of the pain of the past and the fear of the future and to the present moment. The commitment is to do it. Believe me, this is easier said than done. It takes huge amounts of self-awareness. It takes an ability to step out of self-obsession. But we commit to it. Because we understand what it opens up.

Deconstruction to reconstruction

I had a point on the teacher training where my entire universe lay in a giant, messy, heap on the floor in front of me. 

But I was present to it. I could see the work that was needed.

Deconstruct, examine, look at it in different lights, through different lenses. Reflect. Keep? Upcycle? Discard? And repeat.

Repeat with each and every aspect of yourself. From the stories you feel are pivotal to your life to how you feel about veganism to your gender identity to your relationship to god. Eventually you are left with what is likely a smaller pile of ‘stuff’ of ‘parts’, from which you can begin to reconstruct YOU.

My reconstruction has been interesting. Bits fall off all the time. Usually for good reason. But I reflect on them as they tumble. On what they taught me. New things get added. I have to take them off and have a look at them every now and then too.

Big parts of my work have been about dealing with shame, on body issues, on landing back into my body after years of being incredibly disconnected. It truly has been about challenging all aspects of what I thought about life and what life could, or should be.

When I wrote earlier ‘it sounds like a chore?’ I was going to follow with ‘it hasn’t felt like one.’ But actually, on occasion, it really has.

I have done it anyway.

I made a commitment when I qualified. I wrote an agreement for myself about what being a Kundalini Global teacher meant to me, what my commitment was. 

I am really bloody proud of myself for sticking with my commitment to change, to challenge, to reflect and to remain, always, open-minded.

When I got to my teacher training in February 2020 I would NEVER have thought possible that I would be in a place so soon of having taught hundreds and hundreds of classes. Of having built a absolutely awesome community of lovely humans who I teach. To have made my own Instagram account full of artistic manifestations of the insides of my brain, made friends with an imaginary tiger that I was comfortable enough to share with the world… none of this would have felt possible.

It became possible because the Kundalini Global training is an incredible, incredible, way to kick-start huge transformation. A little spoiler: you may have to walk through hell on the way. It’s worth it.

My journey…

When I first came to Kundalini Yoga it was not, back then, Kundalini Global. My first exploration was in the ‘as taught by Yogi Bhajan’ school. I remember someone describing the practise at the time to me as ‘yoga, but more spiritual’. An interesting statement on a number of levels. Hilarious.

I could kind of see what they meant, though. It felt like a ‘spiritual thing’ in comparison to what you may find presented as yoga in a gym. To chant. To focus at the third eye. To meditate for hours on end. And it made me feel great. The endorphins alone were enough to see me leaving class as high as a kite, desperate for my next Kundalini fix.

When I first practised Kundalini Yoga, I went from a lycra-clad, scatter-brained, spiritually-skeptic accidental-class-attendee to a white-linen-wearing, spiritual-name-holding, daily sadhana practising, devotee within months. I also became vegan, stopped drinking, took daily cold showers and believed every problem that had ever existed in my life had miraculously vanished with the power of chanting with Snatam Kaur.

I lived for a few years as if I was floating in a cloud of sparkly fairy dust. It drove those around me mad.

This form of Kundalini did much for me at the time but I never wanted to commit to teaching it. Partly because:

a. Everyone around me thought I had joined a cult. 

b. Some part of my knew I had, indeed, joined a cult.

It’s a big topic. And by even discussing it I open myself up to scrutiny in a way I do not feel entirely comfortable with. But the context is important in my journey. Because part of what I love about what Carolyn has done with Kundalini Global also comes to how the practises we teach, just like my description of the work we are invited to do on ourselves, have been deconstructed and examined. The ‘why’ of how they work has been conceptualised within the frameworks of physiology… neuroscience, endocrinology…

We have equally looked at the esoteric thought of the practise. But broadened out that exploration to consider the whole spectrum of religious and spiritual belief systems.

We understand how the practises we work with work. And, yes, many teachers then choose to imbue their classes with all kinds of other concepts and ideas that resonate with them. But the key aspects remain: we can show you how to go from feeling left-out, stressed-out, overwhelmed, anxious, pissed off and offended to the present moment. A place where the ability to accept and allow is possible. And, often, welcome. You also, of course, have permission to stay exactly as you are. We’re only here to show you what you’re capable of if you make the choice to change.

BS Free Yoga

When it comes to Kundalini Global, in private I have said that it is ‘Kundalini Yoga without the bullshit’. A controversial statement? Definitely. And perhaps something of a judgmental one, too.

But, on a personal level, I believe that Yogi Bhajan was not only a despicable predator but that his teachings contained huge amounts of complete and utter, misogynistic, harmful, BS. Beyond that I believe, with every cell of my body, that we do not need anyone to be our guru. We only need to be given some tools and a safe enough space to practise them, to realise that we are powerful beyond measure ourselves.

Creating a new form of Kundalini Yoga is quite a thing. Fearless, fascinating and controversial in itself.

Carolyn Cowan, who founded Kundalini Global, spent decades teaching Kundalini Yoga
before making the incredibly brave decision to take this new, pioneering, path. Carolyn recognised, long before the controversy that hit the world of Kundalini Yoga at the start of 2020, that a new way was needed. A kinder way. A 21st century way. One that is radically inclusive.

Together, I believe the Kundalini Global community will do truly amazing things. I would so love some of those who have enjoyed my classes to train to teach this incredible practise themselves. If you want to read more about Carolyn and the training you can find information here:

Carolyn Cowan
Kundalini Global


Feel free to email me if you have questions.

With loads of love, as always

Sara-Jayne

xxx

Blossoms, Bones, Divine Life, Divine Trees, Christmas Heaven and a Gift From Me to You: What I Have Been Up To This Week

Published on by Sara-Jayne EdwardsLeave a comment

Happy Sunday lovely humans

Before I get to anything else, I would just like to mention that I am offering a free class on Wednesday 30th December at 2.00pm, UK time. A post Christmas gift. If you would like to come you simply need to make sure you have added yourself to my email newsletter. If you haven’t done that already you can do it here:

Free Class

I would really love to see lots of you there.

How are we all? I’m feeling extremely Christmassy today. I think it might be time to put on The Pogues and bake some mince pies. Before my morning practise I lit a fire in my yoga room and then went around switching on all of the Christmas lights on the trees. Yes, trees, I really am one of those people who has more than one Christmas tree. The year I moved in to the house I live in now, which was about 4 or 5 years ago, I took on a range of other people’s discarded fake trees and had, I think 8 huge Christmas trees in the house. It was absolutely magical. However, when it came to pack it all away in the New Year I decided it was, perhaps, a little excessive, even for someone who loves Christmas as much as I do.

This year’s offerings a much less abundant but fill me with equal amounts of joy.

I have this little tree in the living room that has ALL of my favourite decorations on.
In the kitchen I have this glorious monstrosoty.
This skeleton, hanging on the door to the cellar, jump scares my kids multiple times a day. I think they are glorious.
And in my children’s playroom this beast. 12 foot and absolutely magical. This is where Father Christmas leaves the gifts.

I planned to take something of a break this past week but, in fact, I have somehow let myself be as busy as ever. I have put myself on a contract for this coming week to actually let myself be still. I really do need it. It’s incredible how much we allow ourselves to keep going despite our bodies and minds screaming at us to slow down.

One thing I do always make space for is my practise. Both personal, in the early hours of the day, and also to attend classes whenever I can.

Tonight I am incredibly happy that I have the gift of the second of the Christmas Prayer Workshops with Carolyn Cowan. My second time doing this series of Sunday evening sessions which are truly magical. I believe Carolyn plans to run this again at Easter so if you would like to check it out do go over and join her mailing list. Last week we considered the practise of asking, in prayer. The stillness that comes from sitting in this space is pure bliss, to me. It does truly feel like being wrapped in a warm cosy blanket for two hours. Extremely soothing. And fascinating too.

Join us for This Life Divine

This Life Divine is coming up in the New Year. From the 2nd-4th January. This 3 day event has some amazing yoga and breath teachers as well as psychotherapists, all coming together at the start of a New Year to help anyone who is moving through anxious or addictive behaviours. It’s going to be wonderful. Any money raised from This Life Divine is being shared between 3 equally amazing charities that help those moving through addiction and if money is an obstacle to booking a place then you can book on the website for free. It’s an amazing offer. The opportunity to experience three fantastic workshops with Carolyn Cowan would be enough to get me there – with bells on! And beyond that we have so much on offer. Lots of it from my very fantastic Kundalini Global colleagues.

I’m really looking forward to this, both as someone who plans to attend the entire event, and as a teacher who is involved. You’ll find my class on day 3 of the schedule. And loads more information, as well as booking, can be found on the This Life Divine website.

Head over to This Life Divine to book your place.

Blossoms and Bones: What I Have Been Reading This Week

I’ve been a fan of Kim Krans for a few years now. I discovered her through a gift given to me 2 or 3 Christmases ago of her Wild Unknown Tarot Deck. But it was her Archetype cards (my goodness they’re incredible!) that I fell in love with. So when I saw she had a book, a memoir, that was hand drawn and written, and then when I saw the sub-title ‘Drawing a Life Back Together’ I had it in my hands almost immediately. 

In Blossoms and Bones, Kim Krans shows huge amounts of vulnerability and openness as she takes us on a journey through, what you could describe as, her complete evisceration of her relationship to herself. And then, with great joy, the reconstruction.

At the start she has taken refuge from herself in an ashram for 30 days and for those 30 days she takes on a practise of drawing her feelings.

Stepping through these 30 days with her is quite humbling as we truly witness a deeply personal unravelling.

With each day that passes it feels as if she comes closer to the parts of herself that she has been most avoiding. It was fascinating for me as it mirrored so closely my own story of this year as we were encouraged to embrace our story – to see it as our gold – on my Kundalini Global Teacher Training. In that work we begin to look at some very hard truths.

Then enter a skeleton (could this book be any more perfect for me) who offers its hand to be her guide through her subconscious. To follow the skeleton on a journey within herself – to the darkest parts of her internal relationship to herself. 

It was poignant to me that the memoir includes some really very beautiful prayers. Short, simple. But so touching, some of them made me cry.

It’s an extremely engaging book to read. You have to immerse yourself in it, turn it round, lean in closer, squint your eyes and figure out where to take your attention next. It’s just exquisite. I don’t want to give it all away here but I would truly recommend you check it out.

A tale of a human totally deconstructing themselves and the power and exquisite sense of self that comes when, having done that, they piece themselves back together. 

Blossom and Bones

That’s about it from me today, although I plan to check back in before Christmas Day.

Do let me know how you are in the comments, or by sending me a message. I love to hear from you.

Sending you all LOADs of love

Sara-Jayne xxx

I Am: Grateful! Why Training To Teach Kundalini Global, Is The Best Thing I Have Ever Done…

Published on by Sara-Jayne Edwards3 Comments

Hello lovely humans

So, this week, I finished teaching for the year. I decided I needed a little pause before Christmas, some time for some stillness and reflection before the chaos of having 3 very excited children in the run up to Christmas Day.

When I finished my final class on Friday I was taken aback to find myself feeling all kinds of emotion. It may sound mean but I will admit I felt some relief. I’ve been teaching online every week since February – even before lockdown. And whilst I have seriously loved every moment, from those early shaky, croaky-voiced classes that I spent days-on-end planning, to the insanity of zipping myself up in to giant inflatable Christmas Tree costume to dance with abandon to Wizard in the final classes of the year… I am tired. I need some stillness, now. But I am happy. Really, really bloody happy. My overriding feeling, as I stepped out of my elf costume and carefully rolled up my mat was not the relief at taking a break but gratitude. Overflowing with it. To so many people, to so many experiences, and to myself, too.

Instagram scrolling changed my life…

I spent a long time looking for a Kundalini yoga teacher training. A few years. I was completely dedicated to my practise from the first days of Kundalini yoga entering my life. It helped me. So much. And I knew from an unfamiliar part of myself that it was something that I was destined to take further. To share. But the trainings I explored, considered, sat with for months on end, wondering why, exactly, I felt uncomfortable about signing up when I so wanted to teach, was so certain it was what I was supposed to do… something held me back from them. I knew that, for some reasons I could identify and some I could not, that they weren’t for me. 

I remember the day I saw a post pop up on Instagram from Carolyn Cowan that announced she was going to be running a level one Kundalini Yoga teacher training the following year. I was scrolling through Instagram absentmindedly and, for some reason, it felt as if my world stopped. Just for a split second. I’d only been following Carolyn online for a little while… I was drawn to a photo she had shared of a naked woman with a dove strapped to her back and from there I became beguiled by how refreshing her voice was in the sea of Kundalini teachers I had started to listen to. Something about the news of Carolyn’s training made me feel as if I’d been plugged in to the mains… it lit me up entirely and I remember quickly adding myself to an email list and making a note down in my diary about checking in on news about what it would involve. I’d seen enough of what Carolyn shared to know this was going to be something different.

The more Carolyn shared about what she would be exploring on her training the more certain I became that the universe had been conspiring entirely for me to wait for this. I did some online classes with Carolyn and was completely taken aback by how powerful and calming her presence was. How enormous and yet safe the space she held could be – even over the Internet.

 I waited with some anxiety for news about where her teacher training would be and how much it would cost and, with a heart beating faster than anything I’d previously experienced, the evening she opened up the website to book, I signed up.

And then I got insanely nervous…

I lived and worked in London for a long time, and, since moving away, I’d convinced myself that I hated it now.  That I couldn’t cope with being there for extended periods of time. I was also terrified of Carolyn. I’d never met anyone like her before, I was sure of that, and I immediately got in to a mindset of how I ‘should’ be before I even attempted to take up space on a training that I wasn’t sure, in all honesty, I deserved.

I took on a Kriya called Strengthening the Aura because I thought it would protect me from my vulnerabilities, and train me up for being strong enough to cope with my feelings of inadequacy. I continued this until only a few months ago. It took me well over a year to realise the intention behind my daily practise had its roots in shame, in fear.

In February the time finally came to make my way down to London and join the first module.

It was mind blowing. It was intense and it was completely magical in every way. I will not write about the experience in detail (no spoilers) but it was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was also terrifying.


Kundalini Global training is an extremely powerful, intense and life changing experience.

The great pause and moving online

After that first module I will admit, that whilst I found it extremely powerful, extraordinary and very fascinating, I was on a different planet. I was so ungrounded.

I remember walking my dog the morning after I got home from London, and having a sense I was observing myself from above. My physical body felt an unsafe place to be, for the first time since I’d discovered Kundalini Yoga.

When I look back now I realise a lot of ‘stuff’ I’d stuffed down, that I was
holding in the physical body, was beginning to make its way to the surface.

Whatever experience I had had to date with awakened Kundalini energy, which had all been so lovely with birdsong and beautiful leaves and heightened senses was being pushed to one side as the shit I had refused to deal with came bubbling up eagerly saying ‘now you’re safe enough to really transform.’

And then COVID hit.

It was upsetting, at the time, that our training had to move entirely online. But, in retrospect, in my view, it only went on to make the experience of the next 3 or 4 months one that took us all deeper in to the work we had to do than would ever have been possible had we not all been, as Carolyn so brilliantly put it, ‘sent to our rooms to think about what we’ve done’.

From there, it has been the most insane and flabbergasting experience of change. Not always, in fact rarely ever, comfortable. But always so incredibly valuable. I don’t even recognise myself in the recordings of the training from back in March. The triggers (and there have been many) and morning group practices and the amazing, amazing, modules online – every aspect of the experience of training has shaken me up and caused me to look at every aspect of my relationship to myself and to the outside world. The work is not yet done, it never will be, but Carolyn’s training is absolutely the best thing I have ever chosen to do for myself.

It’s empowered me in ways I did not ever imagine possible.

Falling in love with teaching, falling in love with yourself

My teaching is evolving. Always. But the magical thing is that I have learned how to step in to being allowed to hold space for others, to hold the power that comes with that, in a way that is hugely open-hearted, kind, inclusive and all whilst ENTIRELY being myself. I love it. I adore it. And I really cannot believe the transformation I have gone through when I think back to the absolute terror I felt on the first module when we were invited to form groups and teach each other. I was horrified. Nauseous. Shaking. Ashamed.

When I think about my total open-hearted joy as I taught this week it is gratitude that comes to me, that comes overflowing out of me. It really is the best thing I have ever done, to join the new Kundalini Global community. To share with others the practise that has allowed me, finally, to start being myself.

THIS WOMAN STARTED THE YEAR TOO NERVOUS TO SPEAK AT THE START OF A CLASS WITHOUT HER VOICE CRACKING WITH NERVES AND OVERWHELM

When the question first came in to the training of ‘how do you feel to step in to the power…’ of teaching, of holding space, I thought I understood. And that I felt ready. Like I said at the start, I spent so long knowing I wanted to teach Kundalini. And I’d been practising myself with such dedication.

But as I started to tip toe in to it I realised it made me feel vulnerable, childlike, pathetic… this was hard. So frustrating. How could sharing something I loved so much feel so difficult? Somehow, magically, the way the training was delivered and how it unfolded, the work on this was done bit by bit. And I can honestly say, now, that I teach my classes with my head held high, believing I deserve, and with no expectation of myself other than to be authentically me and to keep the integrity that the training has fostered.

I have changed this year because I am able to really accept my story, not hide from it. And not feel ashamed. I am able to embrace the lower triangle, the divine feminine, the left side, not only able, I WANT TO and it feels AMAZING. I am able to stand up for myself, to speak for myself in a way I never ever ever have in my entire life. The training has awakened every creative and passionate aspect of myself that has always been there, popping up to say hello throughout my life, but never all at once, and never with the sense of possibility I have now. I feel messier, somehow, but in the best way.

If you are reading this and you are thinking to yourself that you may, one day, like to teach too, please go and check out Carolyn. She helps people in ways I find completely awe inspiring and to be gifted a certificate at the end of my experience, that allows me to share on some of what I have learnt… I have never been prouder, happier and more ready to build on what I have done for myself and for others in 2020 for the rest of my life.

And, by the way, Carolyn did terrify me at the start, yes. Because she is powerful and funny and unashamedly herself. But more than that she inspired me. From the first moment I sat in a class with her. She is, in actual fact, one of the greatest, kindest and most wonderful people you could ever hope to meet. She gave me the best gifts ever, including but not limited to:

Teaching me how to really feel safe in my body.
Direction and help toward letting go of shame.
Wings.
Myself.

Goals plans and huge amounts of excitement, bring on 2021

I may have ended my classes for the year, but I have a lot I plan to do in coming weeks.

I have SO MANY exciting plans for 2021 and I really cannot wait to show you some of what I have planned. I have been brainstorming ideas of how to marry together the joy I get from writing this blog, from my Instagram account, and from teaching and sharing the practises of Kundalini Global. And I have something magic planned. Really really magic.

Beyond that I plan to start running workshops in the New Year, hopefully both online and in-person. I plan to train more. A lot more. I am only at the beginning of my journey. I am committed to this path now. Completely. And I can’t wait to see where the Sara-Jayne Kundalini community is at this time next year.

I’m so so grateful for every single one of you who reads my posts on this website, who comments on my Instagram posts and who come along to my classes. You’ve played a huge part in my transformative year and you gift me more joy than you would imagine. Thank you.

I will be blogging and posting throughout this festive period so no pause on the blog. Just a massive hug and an even bigger thank you.

Sending you all LOADS of love

Sara-Jayne
xxxxxx