yogawithgrainne | Gráinne Murphy

Namaste

I’m sure my students have noticed that around Christmas last year I stopped finishing my classes with ‘Namaste.’ I had come across some South Asian voices describing its use in Western yoga as cultural appropriation, so I decided to stop using it while I learned more. To be honest, when I first became a yoga…

Off The Booze Yogi

So it’s not the most important thing to have ever happened to humanity, but I haven’t drank any alcohol in over 5weeks. The longest I’ve ever gone (aside from pregnancy and early days of breastfeeding) without any since I was about 15. I didn’t really decide to give up for any length of time, just…

Vaccinated Yogi

I’ve decided to post about getting vaccinated because so many in the Yoga and “Wellness” industry are loudly proclaiming their opposition, without being challenged. Obviously, we have better things to do than get into online debates. But I actually read one yoga teacher belligerently comment that she wouldn’t want vaccinated people in her class in case they died in Savasanna. So I’m posting this to show that many of us are celebrating our vaccines!

Reunited at Last!

Being reunited with the sea after a long lockdown was glorious, and gave me an opportunity to practise the yoga philosophy of Ahimsa in my everyday life.

Positive Affirmations

Our emotional state can lead to negative thinking, and negative thinking affects our emotions. Just think of a negative thought you have quite often and notice how it makesyou feel, then do the same with a positive thought. When we feel anxious, negative thinking can take hold and feed this cycle. So part of my…

Shoulder Relief

“My shoulders are killing me!” It’s such a strange choice of words that so many of us say regularly. Are they hurting us? Or are we hurting them? Maybe they’re just letting us know it’s time to move…away from the desk. Or maybe they’re protecting us, by bracing in expectation, when we’re stressed. It might…

Coffee Lover Confession

Just to start, I love coffee. I don’t drink tonnes of it but I drink it religiously every morning (and the occasional afternoon) for nearly 20 years (Jaysus I sound old). This last week however, mostly due to too much work related screen time and social media, lambing and calving related lack of sleep, and…

How to Ground Yourself When You Can’t Get Away from Your Kids!

This morning I felt myself in a slightly elevated stress response and knew I needed a moment to ground myself. Too much coffee and too much on my mind. So taking some very good advice I decided that for a few minutes I would make my needs equal to that of my children’s, understanding that…

My Experience Teaching Yoga in a Pandemic

Since the start of the pandemic, how I teach has changed massively, but so too has, what I teach. It’s fair to say that yoga, like many other industries has been massively changed since the start of the pandemic. In the beginning of our lockdown, when we couldn’t stray from home or see anyone at…

My Gratitude Challenge: What I Learned

For the month of July I did a gratitude challenge on Instagram, a simple idea, every day I had to post something for which I was truly grateful. After months of lockdown and focussing on feeling the feelings, it was time to encourage a little positivity. So what did I learn from a month of…