Maybe this series should be titled “a somewhat IRREGULAR blog post”. Blogging has really fallen by the wayside recently, I always say this but I really do want to post more and also figure out how to create more of a synergy between my Instagram content and blog content? Let’s see…

I hope you are enjoying your September, this month is always one of my favourites. Seeing off the summer and feeling that “new school year” fresh start, despite it being many years now since I started an academic term. My birthday falling mid-month also makes September feel like a personal new year for me and I really love how this month creates that pause and reflection, as well as a chance to set intentions for the final quarter of the year. 

Here’s what I’ve been up to since my last post:

Turning 34

I celebrated turning 34 last week and it felt like the closure of a chapter. My year of being 33 was not the easiest and has felt like a huge reckoning and reframing in many ways. It makes me laugh that I used to “omg dread” turning 25/26/27 etc when getting older is indeed a privilege. It sounds cliched but I do feel that with each year I become more “myself” and less who I think I should be, that I become more confident in my options and boundaries and that I’m more able to own what I enjoy and not what I think I “should” enjoy.

As I have moved through my 30s I’ve not really felt a huge difference in how i feel day to day, and life has certainly not got any easier (aside from that month in Bali in 2019 which was actual heaven on earth) but I think that the highs and lows become somewhat smoothed out as we get older. Things that would have either been of utmost importance before or totally derailed my day/week no longer do so or feel so. I don’t think this is entirely attributed to the advancement of age, living through a global pandemic will do that too. My whole worldview prior to March 2020 now seems so quaint, so innocent and so concerned with the “small” things.

Before I turned 34 I did a “back to myself” read with Laila of Pink Moon Fortunes (highly recommend) and the cards were very much saying that there is no “back to myself” but the dawning of a new self. I am very much feeling this energy at the moment, that there’s no going back, a total paradigm shift in how I see myself and the world around me. 

A Wild Cat Chase

Away from the whimsical to the purely practical… One of my foster cats, Lydia, escaped her foster home via an open balcony door. She took up residence in a nearby construction site (no place for a young cat) and after looking for her day and night for two weeks to the day, I managed to trap her in a trapping cage and bring her home.

I had a lot of help from friends and neighbours who gave me a lot of good advice in how to trap a cat, helped me look for her, give out posters, post online and provided much-needed moral support and a fair degree of hilarity on the way. I will never forget scaling a wall at Fitness First after two cocktails at Zuma wearing a dress and sandals, my Dubai life is nothing if not varied. I ended up walking 10-12,000 steps per day in 40+ degrees and 80% humidity so by the time I found her I was feeling pretty wiped out!

Two trips to the vet later (a check-up and finally her last vaccine appointment), Lydia is safely back at home and has a flight to the UK booked on 8th October to start her new life as a British cat. 

Two Years of Yoga Teaching and A Studio Birthday

It’s over two years now since I graduated from my 200 Hours yoga teacher training. For those readers who are not yogis – a 200 Hours teacher training is the “foundational” yoga teacher training, and the minimum certification you need to be able to teach safely and effectively. I’m super proud of how I have progressed and evolved as a teacher in the last two years, I still remember how nervous I was before teaching my first public group class – these days I never feel nervous at all, and my hours teaching yoga are the highlight of my week.

I do feel sad that Covid hit just seven months into my yoga teaching career but I feel like things are starting to turn a corner with classes and participation and I’m also grateful to have been able to pace myself a little more so that my teaching can be a lifelong endeavour. I will always remember the Zoom classes and how these were so important both for me and my students in the early days of the pandemic. I feel so nostalgic towards that time, even though I still feel like I’m making sense of everything that has happened since 15th March 2020…

I teach at beautiful Barakah every Saturday morning and the studio recently celebrated turning one! I had so much fun teaching a blindfolded yoga class and 54 rounds of sun salutations to celebrate the milestone. Yes, my arms were still aching two days after the 54 rounds…

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I’m looking forward to cooler climes in Dubai, and maybe welcoming more visitors soon.. I had friends from the UK here for my birthday (who usually visit in February and got to experience a strong dose of humidity) and a friend from Oman (who I met over two years ago on my first yoga teacher training!). Also looking forward to resuming outdoor running – winter 2020 was the first time in nearly ten years that I didn’t run and I really missed it!