WELL-BEING FOR THE WORLD
JUNE 21 is International Day of Yoga and imagine the sort of world we’d have if all our political decisions were agreed upon by wellness practitioners, advocates and educators!
According to the United Nations, the organisation that proclaimed the theme for the world-wide day of recognition:
“The message of Yoga in promoting both the physical and mental well-being of humanity has never been more relevant. A growing trend of people around the world embracing Yoga to stay healthy and rejuvenated and to fight social isolation and depression has been witnessed during the pandemic. Yoga is also playing a significant role in the psycho-social care and rehabilitation of COVID-19 patients in quarantine and isolation. It is particularly helpful in allaying their fears and anxiety.”
This week local Yoga guru Kate Astill spoke to us about the importance of a balanced life through the prism of the yoga ethos.
BY day, Kate Astill is a scientist – working at projects beyond the intellectual grasp of most mere mortals.
At the end of the day, the towering blonde sheds the figurative white lab coat, slips into something more comfortable, literally, and stretches both her body and her work day. After hours, Kate is a yoga teacher.
As a university qualified medical scientist, she progressed up the scientific food chain to project management and now works – in her own words – “with a team of development engineers to build a precision support tool for clinicians in virtual hospitals and in emergency departments to practically manage sepsis”.
Alrighty then, I mumble, admitting I don’t profess to understand, but it sounds like an important field of medical endeavour.
Kate has the grace to laugh.
“It is,” she says, bending her six-and-a-bit-foot frame to light a semi-circle of candles around what she tells me are “sound bowls” which she uses in the mid-week evening class at her yoga studio.
I comment on the seemingly unusual combination of gigs – from clinical scientific work to the undeniably softer field of the ancient physical practice of yoga – but when Kate explains it, the blend makes perfect sense, and there’s an obviously happy synergy between the two.
“They absolutely relate,” she says. “My journey to teaching yoga was very much encouraged by the self-development I could do through my work in medical science, with leadership opportunities, discovering mindfulness, emotional intelligence.
“Having an interest in physiology and the body definitely helped with my yoga teaching – doing physiology at university certainly made the teacher training a much easier course to do and understand because I already knew how the body works.
“My partner is a personal trainer, so through helping with his classes I also learned about the different terms for extension, flexion and the way the body moves.”
That Kate chose to call her yoga business Raw Impact, gives a nod to the holistic approach that has seen such a harmonious marriage between her two fields of practice.
“My mission is to impact the lives of people through empowerment, through self-care and to provide them with opportunities to discover the raw and authentic version of themselves.”
Hers is a holistic approach to overall health, she explains, and says her yoga practice draws on other aspects of health science.
“We approach mind, body and spirit here and we do that through yoga classes and additional workshops. We’ve run self-care retreats, incorporating other local small businesses in town to have things that are about self-care for the body – facials, energy healing, acupuncture, sound bowls – stuff for the mind, the body and the soul.”
Kate derives great fulfilment from both her fields of endeavour, but there’s a particular satisfaction she derives from seeing the direct result of her yoga practice. “It’s such a lovely way to build a community. When I first opened, everyone would come in and sit silently on their mats but now they’re chatting, getting to know one another, they’re networking outside the studio hours.
“It’s also nice to see people’s progression with some of the physical poses we do – they’re challenging themselves more, building confidence, self-awareness, balance,” she says, stressing that it’s not so much about a “work-life” balance.
“They’re working on their life balance.
“The biggest thing is to teach people about mindfulness – about clearing the mind of all thoughts and just being present in the moment, not thinking about what you did today, or what’s for dinner or having to go home and do laundry.”
Kate agrees mindfulness is now more important than ever, given the year the world has just endured.
“Looking after our mental health has become a huge necessity since Covid, and there’s also that need for a sense of community because of people feeling isolated and not having their own tribe to go to and network with.
“Just speaking about things and how you’re feeling is important and with yoga, you’re tuning in to how you’re feeling and what your body is saying. You’re listening and adapting.”