michaelbartelle-blog

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This might be the most important thing I’ve ever shared on my website. If you know anyone who teaches yoga, or is a man, or who struggles with depression sometimes; I would be honoured if you watched this and shared it with them. 

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Hi Michael do you have a space left in a twin room for the retreat? Belinda

Hello Belinda! Best to contact me on email if possible - michael dot bartelle at gmail dot com :)

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Lots of people ask me to make recordings of the mantras I chant at the end of my classes. Here’s one called the Maha Mantra. Get your earphones and your brainwaves ready!

(I swear I didn’t do drugs y’all, I’m just that weird.)

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Yoga & Meditation Retreat with Michael Bartelle at Areias do Seixo, Portugal 

7-12 April, 2016

’Let yourself be transported back to an almost forgotten time when “to feel” was activity enough.’

See more!

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I've got some spiritual advice for you: If you ever have to do something challenging, just make sure you go directly from that into a very long nap. Afterwards, you might just forget it ever happened. And hopefully things will get easier from there!

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Anxiety & Me

Last week I had an immense anxiety attack. I felt the aftershocks for days.

A couple of relatively harmless work-related events triggered this particular episode, but the insecure thoughts that came as a result somehow crescendoed into a disproportionate state of panic. Alone at home, I found myself pacing in circles, terrified that everyone in my life was about to abandon me, all of my work would disappear, and that I would end up bankrupt and homeless. And left for dead. In the rain.

Though these days I usually manage to remain relatively calm in some relatively difficult situations, certain periods of my life have been marked with debilitating panic. And even when my anxiety did not present itself in full-on attacks, it certainly lived in the background through many of my days. Thankfully, my daily yoga and meditation practice has all but eliminated such fearful states from my existence…

However, occasional instances occur when the authentic self that I have put forth so much effort to embody feels like an illusive spectre. The “peace-love-joy” essence from which I normally live and teach begins to seem like a self-created myth. I start to believe that everyone will find out about my fear and think I’m a total fraud.

Luckily, I do know deep down that the work I have done on myself throughout the years has served a purpose. The svadhyaya (self-study) of my yoga practice has become a such a habit that it remains at play even while my mind is worrying.

Over the trepidatious weekend, I realised that my newfound daily coffee habit was the only significant variable in my life that could produce such strong nerviness in me. I cut the coffee, and after two of days of headaches I returned to feeling like my peaceful-loving-joyful self again. How frightfully simple!

I realise that for others with longer-term issues, the solution may not be so simple. I certainly can’t blame coffee, or any one specific thing, for all of the panic attacks I’ve had in the past.

But I do know that every one of them did come to an end at some point. And that the more time I have spent deliberately connecting to myself, the less frequently they have come, and the less time they have lasted.

When I’m in the thick of it I worry that my anxiety makes me weak, or somehow less of a yogi. But every time I go through such a challenge, I emerge with an even greater passion to reach out to others (as my friends do for me) by offering the peace that comes from knowing this:

Whatever you are going through will pass. Even if it doesn’t feel like it ever will. The one thing that will never pass is your essence. The more you connect with the truth within you, the more gracefully you can sail through any sea of troubles and come ashore feeling more peaceful and more powerful than ever before.

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The Meaning of Strength

I’m not sure what type of reputation I have as a yoga teacher, but I doubt people tend to think of me as tough or strict. Those who come to my classes know that I like to focus on creating space, finding stillness, and connecting to energy. I don’t often discuss the virtues of connecting to strength in yoga, but I do feel that it forms an important aspect of my own daily practice and my philosophy in life.

The temptation to use physical strength as a substitute for its subtler forms can present itself in any yoga pose which requires muscular engagement. Arm balances like this, for example, require strength not only in the arms and chest, but also in the back muscles, the core, and the thighs. When it comes to discerning between deliberate engagement and habitual tension, these poses can begin to show you your habits.

Whether in a yoga pose or in life, using habitual tension as a substitute for strength merely cuts off the flow of energy through your system and creates more stress. An outward “show” of strength will give you a very different experience from connecting to the strength that comes from the quiet centre of your being. The former involves unnecessary strain as well as tension in places like the throat and the jaw. The latter entails only the effort that the task requires; nothing more, nothing less.

Plenty of wonderful exercises like weightlifting and Pilates create physical strength at least as effectively as yoga poses can. But yoga also offers you a feeling of mental calm and spiritual depth. This calm creates the foundation for the strength to remember the qualities of love, peace, and joy that live within you. The dimension of depth gives you the strength to reach inside yourself and bring these positive qualities out when things seem like they are not going so well.

It might feel more “normal” to obey the mental pattern (often accompanied by physical tension) that tells you that you do not need to give love to someone who you perceive as unloving. Or to let yourself wallow in despair and curse the world when you experience a loss. Or to choose what seems convenient over what you know deep down inside to be right.

But what happens if you become strong enough to override that habit? If you can dig down deep into your own essence and continue to spread peace and love even if you don’t expect you’ll receive it back? If you can remain lovingly true to yourself even if you know tougher times may lie ahead?

However you elect to respond to any given situation, remain open. Release tension. When you do, you will free up the energy necessary to stay strong enough to put a loving energy behind everything you do. It will absolutely amaze you how fully other people, your own energy, or even life itself can transform as a result.

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The Virtues of Self-Indulgence

Taking time out for yourself may seem rather selfish on the surface. We’ve trained our own minds to believe that unless we are doing something that can benefit someone else in every moment, we are being unproductive and therefore useless. Still, no matter how hard we work and how much time we spend taking care of others, we may feel as though we don’t quite deserve to indulge in a bit of extra rest or self-care.

I have learned from personal experience just how counter-productive that mindset can prove.

I have come to a place in my life were I can look at someone—just about anyone I truly take in—and see some form of beauty, some spark of talent, some kind of goodness that is unique to that person. I love working with people for this very reason. People inspire me. I am in constant amazement at the wonderful things each and every human being I meet can afford the world. Even though many people do not see these things in themselves, I see it my job as a teacher to help bring each person’s basic goodness to his or her attention.

But if I haven’t given myself enough rest, enough quiet time, or enough self-care, I begin to find other people obnoxious, trying, or scary, even if their behaviour has not changed at all. In fact, I start to find myself annoying, and grow impatient with my own company. This does not provide a very conducive vibe for the work that I do, to say the least.

If any of us want to give of ourselves fully and with the presence and caring that any other human being deserves - be it a family member, a friend, a client, or a random passer-by - we first need to value the time and the caring we give to ourselves. If I haven’t been generous with myself, it will be very difficult for my consciousness to understand why I should be generous with others. If I do not have enough rest, the rest of the world will quickly tire of me as well.

Of course it feels like a treat, but if you make it a priority to go to a yoga or meditation class regularly, you’ll learn in that class how good it can feel and how productive it can make you to give yourself the time you truly need. It would be even better if you could learn how to incorporate moments of extra rest and self-care throughout your day and your life. Perhaps by giving yourself a bit more sleep, booking yourself a massage, taking an extra day (month?? year???) off work from time to time, or even just giving yourself five minutes a day to sit in your chair with your eyes closed and pause.

You’ll feel better for it. Those around you will benefit from it. And you’ll be able to savour your own presence more and more, in every moment.

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Alright Men. Time To Stop Hiding From Yoga.

Teaching yoga can be a rather lonely business, particularly for teachers of the male persuasion.

For much of my day, I carry the lonesome Y chromosome in a sea of Xs and oestrogen. Quite frequently I find myself pausing in my lessons to ask, out loud, “Where are the men?!”

I can partly understand why so few men are willing to give yoga a go. Both mainstream and social media tend to promote yoga as the image of a flexible woman in a pose that most men assume that they will never be able to attempt, let alone achieve. They are intimidated by the notion that women could be “better” than them at something, and the more competitive men in particular fear that they will lose their sense of masculinity if they somehow fail at it.

But here’s the truth: competition actually has no place in yoga. The word Yoga means “union,” and the brilliance of the process lies in the fact that it brings together equal yet opposite forces. In the state of yoga, the mind becomes one with the heart; strength yokes itself to surrender; the masculine and the feminine empower each other. (And if none of these noble distinctions appeals to you, would it help if I told you that most men agree that their yoga practice has made them better in bed?)

The real reason many men find female yogis intimidating might be that these women are reclaiming the power of their own primal male energy, without losing an ounce of femininity. Yoga helps women embody the power of Shakti: the divine, electric, Mother Nature principle which makes life possible. However, Shakti is incomplete without Shiva: the equally divine, present, Father Wisdom principle which comprises true masculinity.

We find Shakti in the movement of the body and the energy which enlivens it. We find Shiva in the stillness of the mind, and the conscious presence beyond it.

While yoga enables many women and a few men to connect with the dynamic love of Shakti and the intelligent stillness of Shiva within, the planet will continue to feel tragically imbalanced until more men begin to take responsibility for their consciousness and access these archetypes for themselves. Only when men can begin to recognise the power of the feminine will we become truly masculine. As long as we avoid recognising and revering one, we drain power from the other.

Perhaps, on some level, men recognise that yoga will increase their awareness of all this. And perhaps learning how to embrace their own inner feminine, feel their own feelings, and be kind to themselves scares them more than anything else.

If so, they really just need to get over it. Because until every man realises that his attitude toward women, his attitude toward the planet, and his attitude toward himself are one and the same, his unconscious actions will perpetuate the energetic imbalance that continues to cause the vast majority of the suffering that has, sadly, become the norm.

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Don’t Just Do Everything Your Yoga Teacher Says!

“Is this class going to be hard?”

This is one of my favourite questions to answer before I teach.

Although I usually have an idea of what I want to teach before I walk into any lesson, the difficulty level depends entirely on the decisions the students make. I encourage people in my classes to make their own conscious choices about how much they want to challenge themselves, and which poses they find appropriate in each moment.

For me, yoga works best when you use it as a means to get to know yourself better. I offer my sequences as lessons about the poses I think might be interesting and helpful for the group, but if you are truly paying attention to your body, your mind, and your energy, there is nearly no way you’ll do everything I say.

Sure, if you are new to yoga, you’ll have to follow along more to learn what it’s all about. Just be careful if you notice that mastering the poses or pleasing the teacher becomes your habit. Far more important is to understand the effects of the practice on your system.

Essentially, we want to find the balance between boredom and torture.

There will be moments where a pose I am teaching would be overwhelming or painful for you, so you can choose to take a simpler version of it. If nothing simpler occurs to you, ask me for an alternative. Or do something else entirely, like mountain pose or child’s pose.

There will be other moments where the version of the pose I am offering does not feel engaging or opening enough for you, in which case you will need to choose a version of it that will give your practice the extra oomph you need. (NB - Oomph is an ancient Sanskrit term that is synonymous with tapas.)

Your yoga teacher may not be as enthusiastic as I am about offering various options. Even so, please remember that it remains your prerogative to make your own decisions. You can hold downward dog or rest in child’s pose occasionally instead of doing every chatturanga. And if a teacher has a real problem with your doing so, ask yourself whose best interests that teacher has in mind.

After all, you have spent your own money and taken the time out of your own busy day to attend that lesson. As I see it, if you are in my class, I have the privilege of helping you learn how to practise for yourself. Not for me. As Mona Anand says “If you are just doing everything I say, you’re not doing your own practice, you’re doing mine.”

Although it can be easy to lose yourself in the momentum of a sequence, remember that being human gives us the power to take responsibility for our own actions and consciousness. If we practise this on the mat, it becomes easier to remember that every moment gives us an opportunity to make choices that shape the flow of our lives.

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If Not For Kindness...?

If you are like most people, you can probably reach some degree of relaxation and calm by the end of a yoga lesson. However, a challenging situation can present itself as soon as you step off your mat and you may find your newfound inner peace overruled by old patterns of negativity. ’Tis a pain I know all too well; many a time in the past I have found it necessary to beg forgiveness with the famous words “I’m sorry for what I said when I was hungry.”

As my relationship with my yoga practice continues to blossom, however, I have realised that there are a couple of different ways to approach my time on the mat. I can do the same exact yoga poses, the same exact breath work, and the same exact meditation technique in the same amount of time, with two rather divergent mindsets.

If I take myself too seriously and practise with an attitude of competitiveness and perfectionism, I will likely create more tension in my body and in my mind. If I carry this tension out into the world, I will react to any stimulus with shortness and impatience. In this essentially defensive state, I am prone to interpret even objectively neutral situations, gestures, and words as threats. My behaviour will take on an aggressive, or even passive-aggressive flavour.

However, if I approach my yoga with an attitude of play, of compassion, and kindness toward myself, my consciousness will be able to centre itself in its own strength, and my body and heart will open and soften. My mind will remain strong, but rather than aggression or defensiveness, I can respond to whatever happens with awareness and kindness.

Our attitudes toward ourselves on the yoga mat nourish the habits we bring out into the world. What good does it do ourselves or the world if we can achieve perfection in our physical shapes, or even if we can attain euphoric and transcendent states in meditation, if we are unable to be kind?

Next time you are on your mat, notice how often you compare yourself to others. Notice how often you push yourself into poses even though they create pain and tension in your body. Notice how often you berate yourself for not staying focused when you meditate.

If and when you notice such things, stop and remember that anything you achieve in your lesson will be essentially meaningless if you are unable to be kind to yourself. And if you are unwilling to make a habit of being kind to yourself, it is highly unlikely that you will behave kindly toward others, whose thoughts you cannot read and whose emotions you cannot feel.

In the end, you’ll know that you have truly progressed in your yoga practice when kindness becomes such a habit that it remains with you even when you are tired or hungry. And as temporarily satisfying as it might be to imagine smacking someone who is frustrating you, the kindness you can bring into their life will have a far more powerful and transformational effect.

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Yoga Poses Like This Don’t Really Matter

But now that I’ve got your attention...

The two greatest compliments I have ever received as a teacher came after lessons in restorative yoga.

The first instance involved two high-powered City women. After the class, one of the women turned to her friend and observed, in what seemed like a state somewhere between relief and disbelief, “I don’t even feel like firing anybody right now!”

More recently, an athletic American woman in my restorative class for the first time confessed to me, “I’m so glad I tried this. For a long time I’ve really wanted to be able to put my leg behind my head, but now I think what I really need is a practice like this.”

Funnily enough, I can put my leg behind my head. I can put both of my legs behind my head at once. In fact, although I may sound like an ass in saying so, I can do just about any yoga pose you ask me to do. Just about.

The reason for all my bragging is that I can say without qualification that these circus freak-show stunts have added absolutely nothing of value to my life. Doing a handstand has not made me wealthier. Doing king pigeon has not earned me any friends. Doing the splits has not benefited my health in any way. (Quite the contrary; I injured my hamstrings multiple times on my journey toward the splits. It’s an injury that still occasionally flares up, nearly a decade later.)

A practice of primarily simple yoga poses is essential for keeping your muscles both strong and open. These poses allow both breath and vital energy to circulate through your system and keep your mind alert and clear. Within the same context, more complex poses have a place as well. I teach them sometimes, but not because I’m interested in seeing whether people actually get there. I am much more fascinated with the idea that challenging yoga poses can help people learn how to handle themselves in the much more challenging situations in life.

“Advanced” yoga poses and techniques can teach you how to do your best while respecting your physical, emotional, and energetic boundaries. Beyond that, when you fall or when you falter, try to maintain a playful attitude and a sense of compassion for yourself. That is the meaning of a truly advanced practice. And, paradoxically, without all the tension that comes along with taking yourself too seriously, you’ll be far more likely to “progress” within the poses without hurting yourself.

Furthermore, balancing out your active yoga sessions with regular meditation and restorative yoga will help you connect to a sense of deep, sustainable peace that you can keep with you at all times. You can then bring more presence into your relationships, more consciousness into your workplace, and more kindness into the midst of any challenge. As a student of mine recently expressed, rather brilliantly, “I think this is where we should all be focusing our shit, not just on making lovely shapes.”

Word.

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Every Moment Of Your Living

This is how I end every single yoga lesson I teach:

“Allow your head to bow to your heart, so you can recognise the love, the joy, and the peace that are your essence. When you can feel these qualities within you in your yoga practice, it’s much easier to remember that you can bring them into each and every moment of your living.”

I began saying this almost unconsciously because, for the first several years of my career as a teacher, I was merely parroting the words of my teacher. I’d put my own poetic spin on them, but without really being aware of their meaning. After a while, I started considering the content of these words a lovely thing to strive for, but still did not really believe in what I was saying.

After many years of living with yoga as the main focus of my life, I realised that I was no longer expressing something one might simply consider a nice thought, and nor was I attempting to convey something by way of metaphor. I realised that the words I repeated, without fail, 20 or 30 times a week, had become for me the very thing that makes yoga worth practising. I realised that yoga had unlocked in me a potential far more immense than I could ever have predicted or expected.

Like many others, I have gone through much of my life either expecting the world to give me the happiness I thought I deserved, or seeing the lack of happiness in my world as a confirmation that I must be undeserving of it. However, when I started to practise yoga on a regular basis, I had more and more moments where I could feel a sense of absolute, uncaused bliss within myself.

The more time I have spent practising, the more I have come to a place where that blissful quality is also what I see and feel in each and every other being I encounter. Under the fear, the pain, the stress that people carry, the same qualities of peace, love, and joy radiate with vitality and a longing to come out and play.

What makes me so passionate about yoga is the fact that it is a process that can uncover these qualities that all of us have deep down inside us. Life is always going to bring us situations that might be joyful or painful, exciting or tedious, peaceful or maddening. That part is not up to us. But, if we take responsibility for our own consciousness, we can connect with that divine, blissful spark within us and bring it forth into whatever situation we encounter. We can meet frustration with love; disaster with peace; loss with a luminous joy that is beyond happiness and sadness. And rather than expecting the world to bring goodness into our lives, we can bring the goodness of our own lives into the world. Then, of course, the world will have more goodness. And God knows, it can take all the goodness it can get!

This is the greatest gift of your yoga practice: Learning to let go of your expectations and stay connected to your essence, from which you genuinely can let your own magnificent radiance shine out and light up the world.

And not just sometimes. Not even just most of the time. The promise of yoga is that you can bring the sweetness of this bliss into every moment of your living.

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Stairway To Heaven: A Tantric Take on the Eight Limbs of Yoga

With Michael Bartelle 8 February 2015, 14:00–16:00

 The Life Centre, Notting Hill 15 Edge Street, London W8 7PN nottinghill@thelifecentre.com 020 7221 4602

£25

 Book Now

When practised as a whole, the eight limbs of yoga offer a truly remarkable way to bring your consciousness into a state of blissful stillness and powerful presence.

The word Tantra means “to weave,” referring to the rich tapestry of consciousness and energy that comprises all that exists. When we are born, our place in that tapestry feels natural and obvious. But as we move through life's challenges, our increasing sense of separateness and fear can tangle and tear the threads of life. The science of Tantra reweaves the fabric that unites us with the awesome power of the universe, enabling us to feel connected, creative, and conscious in each moment.

This workshop – which will include a philosophy discussion, yoga poses, breathing work, and meditation – provides an interactive and entertaining atmosphere in which to explore this ancient science in a modern context. The synergy of the various aspects of the practice provide not only a deeper sense of spiritual purpose, but also a sublime awareness of the gifts that yoga is capable of manifesting within all areas of your daily life.

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Word Mala :: Number Thirty Two :: Moment

Moment

You must try this moment on for size, it 

Is absolutely divine. It will fit perfectly every time, 

Like the gift from god that it is. It 

Is your prize; you have won it, even if 

You feel you have lost everything. You have lived 

It, even if it has left you with no 

Recollection. Wrap your arms around it and hug the 

Air out of its lungs. Take it for everything 

It is worth. Grab basketfuls of magic from its 

Giving hands, plant it into the willing earth in 

Untidy rows and watch it grow; watch your unimaginably 

Sweet future ripen in the brightness of the now. 

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Word Mala :: Number Thirty One :: Gift

Gift

We need not rush with all this gentleness. Let 

Each inhalation lift us up into its freshness. Let 

Each exhalation decelerate time. Let our hands be strong 

And soft. Our hearts are braver than we believe, 

And life is on our side. To the unappreciative, 

The sand may seem to speed through the glass. 

We ourselves can spend days embracing every grain, never 

Fearing when the last one shall fall. No need 

To hurry and no need to wait. This is 

The magnificence of the gift we share. Making magic 

Is as easy as breathing, as natural as bringing 

Love into every second we are blessed to receive.

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"Clam, Crab, Cockle Cowrie" (Joanna Newsom cover)

From a sound perspective, this is my favourite one I've done. It's also the final cover I'll be sharing for a while. I'm now going to download Logic, go into a secret hiding spot, and work on some original music.

Love till then xx