body: overcoming anxiety with yoga with kat pither of yogi bare
Whether it forms part of your daily stretch at the end of a heavy work out or used as a way to kick start your day, Yoga is now understood and recognised from the board room to the sports field. Helping not only to align the body but to strengthen compound muscle groups whilst increasing mobility and focusing the mind, its benefits are far reaching. With so much going on in the world right now, anxiety levels are high. This is where uncovering tools to tap in to when things get tough and finding ways to unplug from the endless stream of emails and phone notifications can help us to build new foundations.
Step forward Yogi Bare. Born in 2016, founder Kat Pither envisioned a way of channelling her creativity to find her own way of managing acute anxiety and PTSD through Yoga and wellbeing. Building a eco-conscious Yoga lifestyle brand for rebels and misfits with the concept of Yoga being for everybody and every body. However, after all of the training, Kat found that ‘Yoga land’ could sometimes be alien and hard to connect with so set out create a brand that could inspire all and began creating an accessible range of eco-centric products that are designed to galvanise creativity, movement and play.
2020 has been a remarkable year for change and transformation. What have been some of the positive things that you have witnessed?
Maybe the isolation actually happened a long time ago? Our minds were just confined birds in gilded cages, wings clipped by a society that demanded everything and more. Work, social, media pressure tattooed us with expectant labels. I sure know I felt trapped. We were getting high off the rush of the rush. Can’t stop, can’t stop, won’t stop, won’t stop. But now we have. Along with the whole planet. Taken back to the same starting line. I’m not denying it’s tough. Tougher than tough. But partly that’s because we have to sit amongst all the things we’ve been trying to avoid. But perhaps, just maybe, the isolation had already happened. And maybe this is freedom. Stripping back, undefined by where we are going and our successes and taking note of what or who comes up for us right now. Because that is what really matters to us. There is such power in human connection. A human connection that has completely transcended physical boundaries. It’s flipped the vacuous society we’ve been hurtling towards, where we valued stuff and image over soul things. You know like deep ingrained kindness and selfless sacrifices to help others.
How do you believe that Yoga can help with our overall wellbeing, both physically and mentally?
Well firstly I think the best thing is to ditch everything you see on social media about Yoga. Yoga is a feeling, not a pose. Sure the poses are beautiful, like art and I know its allowed some incredible Yogi's to bloom in confidence as they explore their creativity, their art, their photography. But you can’t actually take a picture of Yoga, Yoga is the sweet surrender as you feel yourself let go in the bliss of savassana. Yoga is the girl who hides in the toilets having panic attacks remembering slow inhales and exhales and being able to feel like she’s got herself when she needs to be her own hero. Yoga is the flicker of unguarded emotion across the face of man who bottles up his feelings, Yoga is lightness and weightlessness. Yoga is feeling safe in a room full of strangers, Yoga is clarity in a whirlwind. Yoga is walking and being walked home. It’s connection, with yourself and in turn with others. You’ll never be able to trap its magic in a lens and I don’t think I’d want to be able to. Appreciate the art but don’t fall for the art, instead dip your hands in paint and revel in creating your own canvas.
For anyone who is yet to try Yoga either online or in a class, where is a good place for them to start?
If you have kind and compassionate thoughts, you do Yoga. If you move, you already do Yoga. If you breathe, you already do Yoga. If you feel your heart lift in nature, you are great at Yoga. So I guess we were all natural Yogis when we were children. Children innately don’t have judgements or the strange stresses we create for ourselves. They just see lightness and joy. They are playful and curious. What happens is we start to forget a lot of that as we get older, we become preoccupied with what society is trying to sell us and what it says matters. And in doing so we lose ourselves under stress, pressure and anxiety. So if we all start as natural Yogis, then I guess the practice part begins when we begin to unlearn and rediscover our playful side.
Bringing the mind, body and soul in to alignment can hugely benefit our lives day to day. What methods do you use to stay balanced?
Getting outside and surrounding myself with real things. Real nature, real food, real friends, real laughter and real dogs. Not the dogs on Youtube videos. Sometimes all you need is to breathe in real fresh air and realise that most of our stressors and problems are associated with a pretend world on our phones, in our inboxes, on TV or in magazines. As soon as you step away from it and the hold it has on you, you feel free. I’m also really into Ayurveda. In discovering my Dosha and working with my body, with the seasons, with my personality – rather than trying to fit into prescribed societal boxes – everything fell into place.
Yoga has been known to help with anxiety, how has it influenced your journey?
For me that was about eight years ago when after a battle with anxiety and addiction, I found myself very disconnected. Yoga taught me to connect – both physically through appreciating how cool our bodies are and how much they love us and try their best for us – to spiritually when I felt able to soak and savour life fully.
The foundations of Yogi Bare are built upon conscious sustainability. How can our mental health impact our consumeristic choices?
To me sustainability means to be connected to the real. We’ve plonked a very strange, very fake “world" on top of Mother Earth. A world, which invented a single use substance that can’t break down. A world, which values “new new new” and “now now now”. Everything seems disposable and to serve an instant gratification. It's not our fault, we were born into these norms but I feel like it's all too fast. When we slow down, we see things for what they are, we connect with them and see the nature underneath it all. And once we see it again, it can’t be unseen and we don’t want to hurt it. Slowing down also helps us make better choices in all aspects of our lives, including remembering our keep cups and realising that the weird neon dress that the internet is telling us we need isn’t really us and we don’t need it to be more. Better choices build into a kind rebellion.
For any one that may be finding this current time difficult to navigate, what advice can you offer?
It’s tough I know. The way the hysteria is a constant gnaw, bubbling under the surface, hanging out in the left corner of my minds eye. That’s what living with anxiety feels like. As a founding member of the ‘what if’ club, I’m really terrified of pending social distancing and being home bound. I feel bad even saying that aloud because I know it’s the least important thing right now. It’s just I use being busy and distracted out in the world as an avoidance technique so I don’t have to sit and take a stock count of my ghosts. I recently made a huge mistake and the thought of being with that regret. Man that’s scary to me. But just as I’m on edge I know lots of others will find this season a test on their mental health too.
So here’s some important, nice and worthy things you can do:
Make a list of things that you always wish you had time to do but never seem to: all the unread books, all the un watched movies that you pretended you’d seen (The Godfather anyone?), painting, making, DIY, baking.
Get the ingredients/materials you need for your list and anything else that’s going to make this time easier for you. Bubbles for your bath.
Rearrange your space. Wash your bedding. Mix it up. Change your room around. Make it feel fresh and new like you’re staying in a fancy Parisian Air Bnb and your name is now Audrey.
Buy some plants. Bring the outside in. Plants to nurture, plants to love on.
As someone who works from home anyway, it can feel like a mental marathon. Days are super long. Plan a little routine, a little structure. Take breaks. Move. Make an epic playlist.
Set up Skype dates. Make your dinner. Set your besties up on your laptop and eat together. Eat as much garlic as you like. No one’s judging.
When you train a dog to walk by your side you stop and heel regularly. Do the same with your thoughts. Catch and notice when they are spinning off. Heeellllll boy. Pause. Take a step back and remind yourself it’s not helpful or real. Heel as many times as you need. Treat your anxiety like a naughty puppy and love on it instead of letting it pounce and lick you to death.
connect with kat and find out more…
visit her website: https://www.yogi-bare.co.uk
follow yogi bare on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yogi.bare
follow kat on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatsgoodkat
