Charlotte Douglas Yoga

03/12/2025

Maybe it’s not boredom, it’s overwhelm.

Overthinking, overcomplicating, burning out.

And what if your nervous system is just asking for space?

If so, what could happen if you simplified, stripped back, and made room again?

What do you think? I’d love to know.

01/12/2025

THE PAUSE BETWEEN

This December feels different.
It’s my first true winter in 16 years, and my whole self is learning how to meet it.

There’s a slowing happening, something deep and instinctive.

A soft exhale after so many years of tropical Decembers, of humidity, bright skies, and endless summer days.

Now it’s woolly jumpers, a different coat for every day of the week, and a kind of inwardness I haven’t felt in a long time.

I wish to let myself land in the pause.
In the spaciousness.
In the restorative, nurturing edges of this season.

I wish to notice what winter draws out of me:
the desire to move gently, to curl inwards, to listen more closely to the quiet spaces inside.

And so instead of rushing to wrap up the year or plan the next chapter, I’m sitting with these questions:
How do I want to winter?
What do I want to nurture in myself right now?
What needs rest?
What wants tending?

I think there maybe a new kind of wisdom here, the kind that arrives when I stop pushing and allow myself to feel the slower rhythms of the season, the way they ripple through my body.

Maybe this is the offering of winter:
a moment to soften, to sense, to be held by the stillness before everything begins again.

26/11/2025

Thank you Subtle Yoga with Kristine Weber for this excellent piece on breathing and I wholeheartedly agree. Your lungs are not like a suitcase that you can keep on filling, so stop trying to inhale more - instead focus on a breath that is adaptable and responsive to your needs.

Why I don’t teach three-part breath (Dīrgha Prāṇāyāma): a look at breathing mechanics, overbreathing risks, and a skill-building with “Structural Breath” - an alternative for yoga practice

24/11/2025

"......it might just mean taking the time to move more naturally. “Think about how a cat or dog stretches – or even how we naturally yawn and move when we’re relaxed on holiday, stretching our arms out,” says Kilian. “The body instinctively knows which directions it needs to move in to release tension and free up restricted fascia. Even something as simple as a long, slow, diaphragmatic inhale during a stretch can help lengthen the fascia and encourage the whole system to move more freely.”

Love seeing articles in the mainstream media about fascia, there is so much that we do not know about the fascial network - but what we do know is that moving mindfully with attention to your breath, does something to it.

Our muscles, bones and organs are held together by a network of tissue that influences our every move. Is there a way we can use it to our advantage?

20/11/2025

"Where do we go from here? Can we break the patterns that demand conformity and scorn those that don’t feed the empire? Nonconforming divergents are known to steward innovation and seed regeneration. If previous cultures have welcomed the ones we ‘other’, those ‘divergent ants’ who take different paths and discover new food to feed the colony. Why don’t we?

A disregulated nervous system lives within a human being who is suffering, but they are also canaries in the coal mine. They wander off the beaten path because they are showing us how to survive, thrive, and evolve. They are the ones carrying the future."

Happy to be a non conformist, to wander off the path most travelled and let it take me where it takes me.

You can also do that, you can step out of the habitual, it may be radical, it may be counter cultural, but it certainly is more interesting.

Let me know your thoughts folks
C x

And Why Your Nervous System Needs Her Mother

18/11/2025

This is the quiet work

Opening the blinkers, widening the window, finding your way back to yourself with every breath.

Each slow movement, each gentle shift, is a practice in staying.

It’s letting your nervous system learn: I can be here. I can hold this. I can stay.

Not pushing, not forcing, just allowing more of yourself in, softly, steadily, with choice.

Every breath, every pause, every curious movement is a reminder:
I am more than I think I can hold, & I can learn to stay with it.