The three days of classes, workshop, shopping, and fun are open to new tryers and expert yogis. This year, the show is bigger and better than ever before, with over 200 free yoga sessions taking place in nine areas. All open classes are suitable for all levels, giving the perfect opportunity to try something new.

Over the last fifteen years, the OM Yoga Show has grown ever more popular, becoming the biggest yoga gathering in Europe, and one of the largest events in the world.

A ticket to the OM Yoga Show also includes free entry into the Mind Body Soul Experience, taking place in an adjoining hall. Two shows for the price of one! Tickets are available here.

In The No Need To Diet Book: Become a Diet Rebel and Make Friends with Food, nutritionist Pixie Turner, aka Plant Based Pixie, debunks the diet myths and tries to unravel the rubbish that has built up around health.

An advocate of intuitive eating and the Health At Every Size movement, she sets out arguments as to why the good/bad moralisation of food is detrimental, the importance of eating a balanced diet, why we need to take weight out of the equation, disparages the dumb idea that we need to detox, and explores the importance of the socio-economic determinants of health. There are chapters on orthorexia and wellness, the media landscape, exercise, and fearmongering around food.

The book is accessible, but backed up with science and research, and written with the average confused self help reader in mind. Turner explains why food is about so much more than nutrition, and the importance of having fun with it. It’s a book about living.

Eve Simmons and Laura Dennison set up Not Plant Based to help debunk some of the myths around healthy eating. Both of them have had eating disorders in the past, and they saw the danger of some of the misleading messages that the wellness brigade and healthy eating police were putting out there. Not Plant Based’s mission to help you love food again. The principle is very simple: eat what you like and don’t worry about it.

And that’s also the premise behind their new book How to Feel the Fear and Eat It Anyway. Each chapter focuses on an area of food and health where myths prevail and common sense needs to be brought to the fore, such as sugar, exercise, and fat. Alongside the no nonsense presentation of the evidence and personal stories are recipes thrown from the likes of Ruby Tandoh, The Angry Chef, The Hairy Bikers, and Angela Hartnett.

It’s a joy to read, especially when we’re faced with so much sadness and shame around food. Taking as its standpoint the enjoyment of food, it offers a bright and radical (it shouldn’t be radical, but it feels it) approach to fuelling our bodies and feeling great about it. Letting go of the hangups around food won’t be easy, but if it lets you live life to the full, it’s totally worth it.

Published on 17 Jan 2019 by Mitchell Beazley.

A collection of 52 ways to bring more compassion, courage and kindness into your world, it’s part workbook, part journal, part self help book – and very accessible. Each week there’s a new chapter to read, and a new activity to do, titled things such as Life Does Not Have To Be Perfect, Always Be A Little Kinder Than Necessary, The Magic of Acceptance and You’re Too Important. The book begins with the foundation of Self Kindness, before moving to the Courage To Be Imperfect, tips for Kind Living, before finishing with 19 Life Lessons.

It’s an intense, but fun programme to work through. The whole essence is that you can’t beat yourself up for not doing something, or judge yourself too harshly for the outcome. That makes the process far more therapeutic and valuable.

Lara believes that self-kindness and self-care are essential to success, and has made it her mission to help others on the path. Her website, Kind Over Matter, is devoted to sharing practical tips and inspiring exercises that help people live a more compassionate lifestyle.

Whitstable Yoga Festival challenges both of those stereotypes. Taking place in the beautiful Kent coastal town from Friday 15^th to Sunday 17^th June, it features workshops and classes, a market, and discussions, all aiming to allow people to experience yoga in whatever way works for them.

There’s intensive Iyengar and Ashtanga, relaxing Pranayama and Nidra, some partner yoga and children’s yoga, and accessible yoga. Classes are taught by teachers from across the country, with a particular focus on Kent based practitioners. The varied line up really celebrates all that is good about yoga, and aims to both challenge and support people in their practice.

I caught up with Monica Marini of Yoga Morphic to find out more about the festival.

Whitstable is a lovely location for the festival. Why did you choose it?

I have lived in Whitstable for the past 14 years and watched it go from a quirky, slow coastal town to a thriving community of artists and Yoga teachers! It is simply the right place for it and weather permitting one can practice yoga everywhere anytime: on the grass at sunrise, in the water at sunset!

Why celebrate yoga?

My journey through Yoga started about 20 years ago. I have been teaching for about 8 years and I am never tire to practice, learn or share anything Yoga.

When Bernadette Fisher and I returned from a trip in Southern India we felt that we so many Yoga teachers in the area what was needed was a Shanga.  But with all of us running from venue to venue to teach it is almost impossible to sit and share.  So the festival became the opportunity to create a moment in time when not only teachers, but everyone who practice and loves yoga could be together.  The first Festival was a blessing in every sense.  We had one of the hottest weekend in history; the beach was heaving with people enjoy the gorgeous weather; people came from as far as Ashford and Bromley and the energy generated was so powerful and the response so great we felt we had met a need for more Yoga in the area.  Hence the second Whitsable Yoga Festival.

You have a real mix of things on offer – mindfulness, partner yoga, painting to music…how do you think yoga principles infuse various aspects of life?

Yoga is life and as Rod Stryker says ‘practice is about being prepared to make good decisions when we aren’t practicing.’  Yoga finds its fullest expression off the mat: in the ways we approach our daily activities, how we live in our communities, how we manage our relationships, and the many ways we interact with each other and our environment.  I come from and environmental background and for me the applications of the ethical principles of Yoga are a progressive way forward to restore balance in the world both socially and economically.  We are still a long way, but allowing people to experience Yoga in its many forms reinforces these messages as a transformative methodology to restore harmony within and around us.  So, in a partner yoga class we can remember how to support one another and children can practice finger knitting whilst establishing mindfulness.

For information and tickets head here.

If patience was the only qualification for sainthood my mum would have been canonized years ago. I on the other hand can’t bear to wait a nanosecond longer than I deem I need to. Mum is a chronic worrier, and I’ve learned this trait in some areas of my life. We could both do with a little more confidence and be a bit braver, and would benefit from turning off some of the nagging doubts and thoughts that trip us up.

So, Bach sent us some products to try out. Larch for confidence and balanced self esteem; Mimulus for the courage to face trials and difficulties with perspective; and White Chestnut for tranquillity and a release from those repetitive thoughts.

They certainly smell nice, but do they work? On either mum or me? A 2009 systematic literature review found that the use of Flower Remedies didn’t cause harm, which is hardly a resounding ‘yes.’ This 2012 study suggests that they may help reduce anxiety, whilst Bach have a lot of research supporting the use of the essences on their website.

The way the essences are meant to work is through energy. In the 1920s and 1930s, a British doctor and bacteriologist called Edward Bach developed a set of 38 flower remedies, one for each emotion. The flower remedies are highly diluted extracts from the flowers of wild plants, and are said to work by transmitting a vibrational energy through the memory of water. You can read Bach’s 1936 fascimile here, and there’s a lot of detail about the energy process here.

I’m not sure about the energy flow, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t help. I think a lot of the benefit is in the ritual. Taking the time to use a few drops shows that I care about myself. Deep breaths to inhale the scent automatically calm the parasympathetic nervous system, helping me focus and feel at ease. Bach believed that illness occurs when the mind and body aren’t in tune with each other. Our emotions strongly influence our health. That, I completely agree with. The more care we take of our emotions, the better our overall wellbeing. Bach’s tagline is ‘balance your emotions, fulfil your potential.’ When our emotions are off kilter it’s very difficult to be the brilliant people that we are. Anything that helps us to get there might be worth a shot.

I was lucky enough to receive trial samples from Bach. Head to their website for more.

If you’re interested in getting involved, get in touch!

Sharing their own stories of individual and collective turning points, the contributors explore how body image and yoga practice intersect with race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, dis-ability, class and socioeconomic status, age, size, and society.

Pia Guerrero writes about how yoga was her tool to accept her body when struggling with Lupus and fibromyalgia, and like many writers in the book cites a yoga practice as a crucial tool to deal with perfectionism tendencies. ‘There is no perfection, just happiness’ writes Robyn Baker in her essay on using yoga as a way to assist with recovery from an eating disorder.

Media comes under the lens of many writers in the book, particularly the way that marketing employs ‘sneaky attempts to create or validate insecurities as an attempt to sell the solution,’ as Lisa Diers describes it. Jessamyn Stanley writes about how she has used Instagram to challenge the rich, thin, white girl image that pervades the yoga world, and Cyndi Lee speaks about her #selfie@sixty practice.

Taking up space isn’t something that we are encouraged to do in today’s world, yet that’s exactly what Gwen Soffer calls us to do. Kimber Simpkins calls on us to challenge the narratives of what constitutes a ‘good’ diet and exercise practice, and listen to the ‘expert within.’

Representation is something that the Yoga and Body Image Coalition are passionate about. In this book there are stories from people of all ages, body types and race, all of whom have found yoga as a way that they can change their own lives and the world they live in.

The aim of the coalition, and of this book, is to make the healing balm of yoga and meditation accessible to everybody, and every body. These essays are examples of how that path is beginning to be trod. It’s early days, but change is happening. We have to challenge the dominant narratives and rebel against the structures that keep us stuck, but through storytelling and practice, we can do so.

Yoga Rising: 30 Empowering Stories from Yoga Renegades for Every Body by Melanie Klein is published by Llewellyn Publications.

Moving Pieces‘ work is about finding the stories that reside in the body, and allowing them the space to breathe and be with freedom. Founder and director Charlie Blowers has a background in physical theatre and arts and somatic psychotherapy, and through her work explores the relationship between wellbeing and theatre. The goal of Charlie and co-director Jose is to support wellbeing and mental health as well as create theatre with a compelling narrative.

Their approach uses body based approaches emerging from neuroscience, many of which stabilise the nervous system and support self regulation. Through mask work, mindfulness, Feldenkrais method, storytelling and improvisation, participants are invited to bring their awareness to their experience, notice the subtle shifts in the body as it responds to its surroundings, and bring forth the stories that are held in the body. As Charlie explains, ‘sometimes our thoughts hold our body prisoner.’ Moving Pieces aim to liberate the body and the stories within. It’s an opportunity to process many of the feelings that often go unnoticed; or are pushed away so as not to notice them.

Through mask work I’m struck how much time we spend pretending to be someone else. Improvisation makes me reflect on the structures and ideas that stop us truly presenting ourselves to the world. Slow flowing movement is a welcome reprieve from the fast paced and frenetic pace of life.

Open to artists, mental health professionals, anyone with mental health challenges or those who simply want to explore personal story in a creative way, Moving Pieces offers a distinctive approach to exploring the body, building resilience and devising theatre.

The website was founded by Oliver Chittenden, who has had issues with his own mental health. Recognising that it can be hard to seek out help, and that people still face stigma when they do so, he wanted to create a digital platform that ‘gathered together content in an inspiring and accessible way for people to learn about the many practical things we can do to feel better about ourselves and be better version of ourselves. In fact the premise was that this was for everyone, not just for those that struggle.’

There’s a lot of variety in terms of content – talks, videos, podcasts, and things to read – which was important to Oliver. He recognises that the ‘one size fits all’ approach simply does not work. ‘We have to go on a journey, try things out, learn and be inspired to add resources for our wellbeing especially today with so many pressures’, he says. ‘We need to adapt with the times.’ The toolbox function at Head Talks allows you to create your own playlists tailored to your ‘Head Talk’ journey, and these can also be shared. You can also look at alternative therapies and ideas, allowing you to support your mental health in ways that work for you.

It’s an accessible space for people to come to share experiences and speak honestly. Oliver was keen to avoid an overly academic or medical tone, which can be overwhelming for people. One of the main benefits is feeling part of a community. ‘People feel like they are in a room with a therapist or someone talking honestly about a lived experience of mental health. Loneliness in our society is rife – with Head Talks you can feel less lonely especially if you are in crisis or struggling.’

Of course, sometimes more professional medical help is needed. Oliver doesn’t pretend to have all the the answers. ‘Head Talks is informative and hopefully will act as a springboard towards someone taking action based on having heard a podcast or watched a ‘Head Talk’. If in crisis, one should always go to their GP and share their problems, which, in 10 minutes is challenging, but it is a start.’ But with the challenges of mental health funding an overstretched NHS, there certainly is a place for sites such as HeadTalks. ‘These types of initiatives that are free of bureaucracy are vital,’ says Oliver. ‘It is a place to feel part of a wider community and feel less lonely when times are tough.’