If you´d have come to one of my yoga retreats a few years ago you would have found a more naive Me teaching, as a hardcore yoga philosophy girl who clung to her battered copy of the Yoga Sutras like a clutch, that yoga was all about the mind, that yoga was all about service sacrifice and ethics, that yoga was all about this and all about that and it literally took years of practice, study and working on myself to realise that fulfilment/happiness/joy/ spirituality/peace isn't a one-stop-shop for all. It doesn't look the same, it doesn't feel the same and if it's truly fulfilling, it should be beneficial for every aspect of your life, not just one sector of it. But why is that? Why is the definition of true fulfilment, not the way we all traditionally see it and experience it? Surely those strict, judging and extreme yogic attitudes never garnered much success? After all, isn´t that why the Buddha coined the term The Middle Path. So here's why fulfilment shouldn't and can't look the same for all of us…

I guess for the majority of us, at least at one time or another, our first instinct in defining fulfilment, likely would have been the classic working in a job you love, finding true love, balancing your work with your home, owning a beautiful house, maybe having a few cute children or pets - all while being surrounded by a supportive circle of friends and being able to find time to focus on your healthset too. I know as a mama, business owner, wife, teacher, house owner, friend, daughter, dog mummy and wellness lover I did just that and I struggled when I thought I should then have been totally fulfilled... and yet I wasn´t. It's an experience that has defined how and what I now teach as a yoga teacher, retreat host and woman, it´s clear that the classic model of fulfilment is starting to feel outdated in our society, especially one that has endured a certain level of suffering over the past year. Not only are the effects of the last year shaping our ideals in lasting positive ways but as the opportunity to take on far different concepts has expanded - the definition of fulfilment has had to change accordingly with It and the word SOUL is on the tip of everyone's tongue.

I can only assume the first thing that would come to mind when many people hear the word soul, would be what an enlightened being embodies/nurtures and probably a far-out concept we can´t get to grips with. One thing you certainly wouldn't hear often is people exclaiming is how their soul feels - but for me now, it is almost as productive and balanced as life can get. What makes your soul sing? What makes your soul cry? What makes your soul grow? Have you ever really sat down and asked yourself these questions. Your soul is the real part of you, it´s not your body or your mind or your ego or stories, it´s YOU. A soul needs to be filled with purposeful work, it fundamentally needs to serve and give generously to others, creates good actions and kind words, fun in the sun, fun in the rain, organic friendships, great food and drink, time to recharge and cuddles with your sweethearts, hobbies, creativity, dance, music, laughter, tears, pain, transformation and ultimately love galore. If your soul likes shopping for pretty dresses or the latest technological gadget, fine, if your soul wants to live in a camper van - great, if your soul wants to live in a big house by the sea, great… do you get where I am going here. I learned a long while ago now that fulfilment looks, and feels so very different for every single one of us. I also realised it's so very easy to see how one person lives and in turn decimate our own interpretation of fulfilment. Yet what could be fulfilling for one person could be wildly unproductive for another, but that's something we have to learn, accept and act on.

During my hardcore yoga days when I thought suffering was the fast track to get my yogini brownie points, I lost my sparkle and now I've found that with the emergence of my truth, it's become very easy to feel that sense of inner joy if I honour all parts of myself. It´s so easy for people to insinuate that fulfilment comes before hard work or that it is something to be achieved in the future when you have acquired this/that/things and yet with that comes a certain amount of intrusive thoughts and yet what I have discovered is that fulfilment is a labour of love, a day to day journey that should be unapologetically unique to you and your soul, as well as benefitting all the facets of you that exist. Fulfilment can look as different as you'd like it to look and don't let anyone else sway that for you - you do you.

Maybe you´d like to take a few days this summer to touch in deeply with your Soul and REMEMBER who you truly are, if so I would love to invite you on my unique Soul Rememberance retreat this August in Spain from the 22nd-29th. You can read more HERE.

PS: I´d love to know: What things make your soul sing?

Love Kat xx

Summer Yoga Retreat with Kat Webster Yoga — L

I guess the alternative and ironic title of this post could perhaps be ´The Importance of Just Doing You´ and yet I've sometimes found it seems so contradictory to share such an easy-going approach to this kind of teaching. If you're anything like me and you struggled in the past with the invisible yet tangible expectations placed on you by both yourself and all the people who have entered your life as the years rolled by, you'll know it feels hard to take a step back, notice and admit that you may have lost your True Self in the midst of trying to get it right.

I recently shared about my personal experience of remembering who I am via my online accounts, if you follow along you maybe have seen I seem to have diverted from a super calm and understated yogi back into my old Self in pink hot pants, dancing on the beach, asking my students to scream ´YES´up into the ether and turning up my productivity rate from about 5 on a good day to an easy 8 every day. There are so many things that I simply can't put into words about how I gradually began to abandon myself, in fact - did I ever really know myself is a question that sits heavy on my heart at the possible truth behind the inquiry and yet the penny has finally dropped quite loudly and suddenly for me.
My transformation into the RIGHT kinda girl started when I had left London and moved to a very beautiful and prestigious (for want of a better word!) area in northern Spain (I honestly say all this with the greatest level of respect, gratitude and love for the town I live and for the various places where everyone lives, I honestly love ALL places, I´m simply laying down my personal facts) and so I unconsciously shaped myself into a person that I believed would be more suitable, a girl that would find it a little easier to fit in. It almost feels like the equivalent of when you're a teenager and you feel like you need to blend into every social situation offered to you, it´s both a survival mechanism, there is definitely a level of maturity and sensibility to this approach, I mean it´s a desirable quality to be able to adapt to a variety of social situations and be considered as at least likeable; the problem is after the show most of us go home from said social jaunt and slip back into our Soul coat and be ourselves - yet I never did, I kept on the mask I was wearing and forgot to take it off.
Of course, there are so many ways the same type of self-abandonment can happen, you name it, you´ve probably heard about it: from people losing themselves to their job, to a messy divorce, new relationship, a new group of friends, an old group of friends that they forgot to upgrade, grief, depression, disappointment, miscarriage, cancer - the list really is endless but the cure is actually quite simple. The only problem is: we don´t often seem to like simple.

But one day suddenly you realise that in fact there are only so many years in a lifetime. And you know what? There are still only so many days in a week and still only so many hours in a day - making it completely our choice and privilege as to how we spend them. And the more I purposefully shine my authentic light every day, ensuring that when do I still show respect and love for the benefit of myself and anyone who chooses to be a part of this community, the more I start to find the joy in life again. The new voice I´ve found, the opinions I´ve been dying to share, the very loud laughter I have, the days I dance and breathe, scream and chant in my bedroom, the chats with new soul friends, standing barefoot in the garden with my coffee, hugging my magic tree and not caring who sees, even remembering how I love fashion, beauty and clothes - things that always bring me some bursts of joy but they bring me more joy that is in connection with the very truth with who I am at a soul level, without also feeling like I have to filter myself to fit in.

One of the traits I have that's seemingly very common as a Capricorn (I'm a Christmas day baby if you believe in the star signs which I always suggest is a good thing to at least look over) is being very ambitious, quite extremely and finally, I feel I can take a deep breath, relax my shoulders and not let my ambitious nature overwhelm me and instead say: “OK, this is who I am, how can I honour my nature?”
We always say with a deep sigh that it's the small things that mean the most, well who knew it was actually your soul that really mattered the most? The importance of remembering who you are will never be lost, even if those small things don't always coincide with a massive revelation, it´s a small day by day process of coming back home to your true self - but it´s a journey I highly urge you take.

Love you community, hope you feel the flutter of your truth, even if it's in a small thing x