Marie-A Bhika

Hi, my name is Marie-Amandine. 💚

My vision is to create a safe space for people to slow down, connect and grow. 🌱

I took the Yoga Teacher Training Course at the Sivananda center in DaLat, Vietnam, in 2018. Since then, I also trained in Ta**ra Hatha Yoga with The Practice in Canggu, Bali, and explored pregnancy yoga which I teach in private classes.

My hatha yoga classes will take you through a voyage of self-discovery, mindfulness and compassion. We will work with movement and breath to build your life energy and bring balance and calmness to your body and mind. ☺️

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”

Join me on Mondays and Thursdays at Pachamama Yoga for a morning hatha yoga class to start your day fresh and rejuvenated!

JANUARY SCHEDULE for Pachamama Yoga Edenvale 🌿

Come join us in heart space as we move, bend and flow 🍃 every Monday to Friday, same classes every week.

These classes are for every level. Every body. Every heart.

First Class is Free

Bring your mat, towel and water bottle. We do have extra mats in the studio if you don't have one. ❤

Keep an eye on our FB page for pop up themed yoga classes, chocolate yoga and beautiful workshops happening.

Join our yoga whatsapp group 😊
https://chat.whatsapp.com/IAg29gan78ZGH7o3iYC0yO

I used to think balance was about how well I could stand on one leg, but now I know there is much more to it under the surface.

How much time do I spend outdoors vs indoors? Online vs offline? Busy vs still? Time with family/friends vs time alone? Being active vs resting? And how much attention do I pay to the outer world vs my inner experience?

I wish I could say I'm perfectly balanced all the time, but that is not the truth. I am however more aware of getting off balance and what is needed to restore it. It's a continuous effort and not a final place you reach...

📸

This isn’t only true for children 😉

What do I mean when I say “all feelings are welcome, not all behaviours are welcome”?

One key skill for building emotional resilience is learning to get comfortable with emotions.

ALL of them.

But being comfortable with negative emotions doesn’t mean foregoing emotion regulation. Not all behaviour is appropriate, and sometimes, we need to sit in an emotion without “fixing” or taking it away. A part of allowing a negative emotion means not needing to change a boundary in order to contain it. But we can still have behavioural expectations.

On the weekend, we had a birthday party for my son (turning six). He was given a stack of coloured cups to hand out. At first, he sat and tried to work out which person would like which colour. Then he stopped, shuffled them, and walked around the table handing them out in their random order. He got to his brother and paused. He KNOWS that this brother’s favourite colour is blue. He looked at the pile of cups, and the top one was orange. He took it, passed it to his brother and said…

“You get what you get
and you don’t get upset.
If you scream and you shout
then you’ll just miss out.”

Curious, I asked where he had learned that rhyme. He told me they say it as school when handing out items, in order to stop whining over favoured colours, and prevent the chaos of haggling and swapping.

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but sometimes, if I don’t get what I want, I AM disappointed. I DO get upset. Don’t you?”

“Yes, but you’re not MEANT to!” my son replied.

“Hmmmm… actually, I think when something is upsetting, you’re allowed to be upset. Being disappointed when you miss out on something isn’t the WRONG feeling. Is it?”

I had all of their attention now.

The eldest chipped in, “Yeah, but if you whine about it, you’ll get in trouble and just miss out.”

“But you’re not in trouble for being disappointed – you’re in trouble for the whining, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

We talked about calm down strategies we can use when we are feeling upset, like deep breaths, and reminding ourselves about small problems vs big problems.

Then my three boys set about writing a better rhyme. It’s longer than the original, but I think they did a great job. (Note: they use “brave” as a simplification of dialectical thinking – the idea they can be both upset AND okay.)

“You get what you get
And you might get upset.
If you don’t get your fave
You can practice being brave.
Breathe in and breathe out
You don’t need to shout.
If you don’t get your way
You can still be okay.”