Ayesha Ali Yoga & Massage - Banbury

I've been thinking a lot lately...

..about what it means to walk this path with integrity.

The reality is that our studio is struggling. Like many small independent businesses, we're working incredibly hard to keep the doors open. And when people hear that, the advice often comes quickly.

"You need to advertise more."

"You need to make it more fitness focused."

"You need better social media."

And inevitably someone sends me the Instagram account of a beautiful young woman practising yoga in very little clothing.

Because s*x sells.

It always has.

You can sell almost anything when wrapped in beauty, youth and aspiration.

But yoga is too precious to me to reduce it to that.

For more than twenty years I've watched yoga become increasingly commercialised in the West. A practice designed to turn us inward has become something we often perform outwardly. The teachers with the largest audiences are not always the most experienced, knowledgeable or wise. Often they are simply the most visible.

And I understand why.

Beauty attracts attention.

Aesthetic attracts attention.

A perfectly curated feed attracts attention.

But I find myself asking different questions.

What about wisdom?

What about knowledge?

What about the teacher who has spent decades quietly studying, practising, serving and learning?

What about experience?

The irony is that I'm not standing outside this system pointing fingers.

I'm in it too.

I've run the ads.

I've learned how to use AI.

I've spent hours creating content.

I've offered promotions and introductory offers.

I've tried to understand what works online.

Because I want this little studio to survive.

I want it to be here for the people who need it.

I want there to be spaces left where yoga can be more than a workout.

The challenge is not whether to market yoga. The challenge is how to market it without losing its soul.

Many of the teachers I respect most have never mastered social media. They write newsletters. They send thoughtful emails. They teach the same small group of students year after year. They devote themselves to practice rather than performance.

And yet, increasingly, it feels as though the digital world rewards the opposite.

I'm not writing this because I have the answer.

In truth, I'm wrestling with the question myself.

How do we share something sacred in a world that rewards spectacle?

How do we make yoga accessible without turning it into a commodity?

How do we survive financially without compromising the values that brought us to the practice in the first place?

Perhaps every generation of practitioners faces this question in one form or another.

For now, all I know is this:

I want to keep walking the path with integrity.

To teach what I believe in.

To honour the lineage and teachers who shaped me.

To resist the temptation to become something I'm not simply because it might sell better.

To trust that depth still matters.

And to hope that somewhere beneath the algorithms, the aesthetics and the noise, there are still people looking for something real.

A new kind of love.

A love that asks for everything and gives everything at once. A love that is not transactional, not convenient, not dependent on how you feel in the moment. In caring for this tiny being, something in me has softened and expanded beyond anything I’ve known before. It is a selflessness that isn’t forced, but revealed—again and again, in the quiet, unseen moments. A love that strips you bare and rebuilds you, wider, deeper, more open.

I thought I understood devotion before. I didn’t.

Because now I see—this is Her too. This relentless, tender, all-consuming love. In learning to give myself so completely here, my relationship to Ma has shifted. Devotion is no longer something I do in ritual or practice alone—it is something I live, moment by moment, in the giving, the holding, the surrender.

To love like this is to know Her more intimately. And in that knowing, my devotion is no longer something I reach for—it is something that is continuously being made through me.

This is what initiation feels like.

Not separate from life—but through it.

**ra divinemother pathofawakening innerwork selfrealisation surrender embodiedspirituality sacredtransformation

Dear Coco, my sweet pea ❤

I'm so sorry. The past 6 months I have been so busy. Busy with Maya. Busy complaining about your barking. Busy telling you off for sitting on Maya's play rugs or picking up her toys.

I've been so distant and cross. Cross because of how sad I've been. How hard it's been having Maya. And how alone I've felt at times. Even though you were right there to comfort me.

I didn't cuddle you as much as I used to, or tell you how much I love you. I kept saying, in a few weeks it will be easier. In a few weeks I will be able to spend time with you again. In a few weeks Maya will be sitting up or walking or more settled. And I will be your mummy again too. Just give me a few more weeks.

But there are no more weeks. You are gone. I can't remember if I gave you a cuddle this morning. I stroked you whilst I held Maya. I remember that. You looked at me. You wagged your tail.

There are no more weeks and I can't make it up to you. I can't let you come into the bed for a snuggle or give you a comfy rug to lie on to replace Maya's blanket I took away from you. There is no more time to stroke you or hug you or kiss you. There is no more time to get you ready for our walk or to take you to the studio for class.

My heart. My heart is broken. I knew one day it would come. That I would have to say goodbye to you. My first baby. But I thought we had more time. I saw you and Maya together playing. I saw you getting old. And just like that the light is gone. Your little light has gone out. And all I can do is sob. And then fold some clothes. Kala. Kali. Time swallows everything.

And suddenly I'm back in Spain buying you a doggie ice cream, or back in the studio chanting Om Shanti and hearing your little paws as you run across the studio to give everyone licks at the end of class. I keep hearing your paws on the stairs and expecting you to jump up onto the bed.

You were the sweetest being. The best teacher and the best friend. You touched so many people. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't save you.

I know somewhere you are with Duchess, Faye and Humbug already and that I will see you again. Rest now my love. I will throw the ball again for you soon.