Yoga With Tonya

20/12/2025

04/12/2025

Binding yoga poses enhance flexibility, strength, balance, and focus and opening the chest and shoulders releases physical and emotional tension. These poses deepen the mind-body connection by requiring more concentration and awareness to maintain proper alignment and to find stillness within the challenge of the stretch. You should always listen to your body and go with your breath, if you feel that you can’t maintain slow rhythmical breathing or it doesn’t feel right, come out of the pose and find a more comfortable position. Yoga is never about what it looks like, and alway about how it feels in your body.

Peace, purpose, and binds

16/11/2025

I was very lucky to attend a fabulous workshop on the history and philosophy of yoga with &
My take away from the afternoon is how the asanas (poses) are a small part of yoga. For us to feel a real purpose and connection in life, we need to live in a yogic way and do everything with ‘wholeness’ so as not to short change ourselves or others. And we need to do this in every part of our life, not just on our yoga mat. Meditating for only 3-12 minutes a day helps us to create the quiet and calm we need in order for us to find the answers to our questions. It can be hard to sit still but by practising the yoga poses we strengthen our body and this strength helps us to be able to sit still and hold the wisdom that we find.
Let’s do everything with ‘wholeness’ this month and be our true authentic selves, feeling energised, present and grateful for what we have.
If you want to read more, two books I recommend are Living the Sutras by Kelly Dinarfo and Amy Pearce Hayden and From the Vedas to Vinyasa by Amy Vaughn.
I hope to see you on the mat soon.

12/10/2025

Joy isn’t a destination; it’s a daily decision. It’s choosing to notice what’s good even when everything isn’t great. It’s sipping your morning coffee slowly, saying thank you for small wins, and finding something to laugh about even when life feels heavy. The truth is, there will always be unfinished business, unanswered questions, and unhealed parts but that doesn’t mean you can’t experience joy now. You don’t have to wait for the perfect version of your life to love your life. Happiness doesn’t live in someday. It lives in the moments you stop rushing through.
- Vex King

Have you ever noticed your mind spiralling, thinking of all the things that might happen and starting to feel exhausted 😅 It feels much lighter when we can slow down and appreciate what we have, noticing the small things that bring us joy into the day 🥰

06/10/2025

I think one of the best feelings ever is when you become your own best friend. Having that inner voice championing you, wishing you luck and being 100% supportive means you feel great and can achieve more than you ever thought possible

05/10/2025

Open your heart and let the love flood in.

This 5-10 minute meditation is perfect when you want to have a deeper connections with yourself and others, to feel self-love, empathy and emotional well-being ❤️❤️❤️

1. Find a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted.
2. Relax in comfortable position, either seated with your back straight and your hands on your lap or lying down.
3. Close your eyes and breathe in and out slowly and deeply.
4. Bring awareness to the area around your chest, your heart centre.
5. With every inhale, feel an expansion in all directions around your heart space, to the front, back, left, right, above and below.
6. With every exhale feel this centering back to the spot right at the centre of your heart.
7. Continue with this visualisation.
8. Now also see a colour. It’s glowing and this glow is expanding outwards filling your whole body, maybe even going further than your physical form on the inhale, and on the exhale coming back the spot right at the centre of your heart.
9. This extension, this glow starts to become an energy of love, kindness, compassion and acceptance radiating out far beyond yourself.
10. As you bring it back inwards to the spot in your chest you know you are truly worthy of these feelings as well.
11. Continue in this way, balancing between giving and receiving.
12. Stay in this mediation for as long as you like, maybe starting with 5-10 minutes and gradually increasing the duration as you become more comfortable with the practise.

Gratitude in every gesture

19/09/2025

I love a forward fold 🙏🏼
Remember to lengthen your spine, hinge from the hips and keep a soft bend in the knees and they will help you to feel stretched, relieve tension in your back and neck and help you to feel calm. They also promote introspection and a sense of peace.

A little yoga, a lot of clarity

10/09/2025

Do you ever find yourself worrying and fretting about things and the voice in your head getting louder and louder? Our stomach churns, our shoulders tighten, we clench our jaw and get headaches.
Yoga helps us to take time out to:
🙏🏼stop
🙏🏼 take a deep breath
🙏🏼 and reset our nervous system to help relax and restore our body.

By taking time to notice if our mind is spiralling we become able to observe our thoughts and distract ourselves with deep breathing and movement, helping us to feel so much better.

Stretch now, stress less later