I can be a total imposter sometimes.

I know that I have talked about the benefits of staying focused a lot in this newsletter, but trust me, it's more often than not a reminder to myself.

I want to do everything. There is just so much coolness out there. This shows on our schedule too (anyone else wants to do YOGA and BARRE, and PILATES and AERIAL all within the same walls ?).

The same goes for books. I've just counted in my head that I am in the middle of reading four at the moment (two of them for a 2nd time which are both on business, another one on the holocaust, and then this one, which is the only one I have actually gone for this past week as I am enjoying it much more than I expected and have been actioning every chapter as I read them, sorry to anyone who lives with me).

I started teaching daytime yoga classes a couple of weeks ago, and the process of writing class plans usually comes from...

One thing we love doing is sharing them Nin Yoga vibezzzzzz (added "Zzzz" for extra coolness). 

We encapsulated a session from last week's Yoga & Wellness Festival for you, which was the 30-minute Intro to Meditation with Karen Gruber.

This was the only class I got to do on the day (the not-so-fun perk of putting together a festival is the very little festival-ing you actually do some show time) and it brought me back down to earth better than any turmeric and ginger latte ever could.

I hadn't done a group meditation in a while either.

I know right "but arnt you like a yoga teacher Annika and don't you get up at 3:45 am every day with the birds and crickets to wake up alongside them ?" (actual suggestion from Yoga Teacher Trainer Gaurav Malik when he was teaching pranayama to our teacher training group btw).

Sorry, but like you, and like what feels like every single person on this...

You know that feeling of discomfort in the comfort?

I put on my get shit done outfit while it was still dark out (Doc Martens and my bright orange Suk Workwear pants) and headed into the Western Sydney Conference Centre, for my first (but hopefully not last) Yoga & Wellness Festival. 

Disclaimer: I didn't organise the whole thing, gosh no way, massive collaborative effort from lots of people involved, and I was lucky enough to be co-organisers with Hayley from Embodied Breathwork who had already hosted it successfully for the first time the year before.

By 8:30am the vendors had bumped in and set up (thankful for those who showered me with kindness as I continued to realise that you can measure something 3 times and still be totally confused as why the table doesn't fit) and it was time for doors.

Now our guests rolled on in. A few hundred of them 

They breathed in deep,...

Hey There Lovely Friends,

Let's not so randomly chat about sitting with what would usually be considered less desirable emotions.

I remember many moons ago inspecting a house I had purchased a few years prior because I wanted to move back in.

• Of course, this house was purchased in 2008, when it was actually possible with six months of savings and a smile.

(finally, a reason to share this cartoon I adore ).

I saw the state of the bedroom. The whole room was FULL of beds. Literally, a queen bed, a single bed next to it and another single at the bottom placed longways.

I went straight into "Annika in her early twenties judgment mode. " How ridiculous for a family to put all the beds together in one room. You cannot physically open the door to the en suite.

I obviously didn't understand the concept of having dependants at the time.

Fast-forward over a decade, and here I am, moving another bed into the main bedroom so four humans can...

How's it hanging?

Over the weekend, I got a little bit unintentionally dramatic.

Many of the Nin Yoga teachers and I went out for dinner for Indian food (Masala Kitchen at Neapean River because we are fancy and sometimes we like gin). 

It was Saturday night, and if you had found some of us over a decade ago, we would probably have located some sort of a dance floor. Instead, we hunted down some hot chai at 8 p.m. (harder than you think) and found a solid spot to sit next to at the river.

For nine of us, that's the floor #standardyogateacherthings

After removing a massive splinter from the knee and spilling chai on my favorite skirt, we did what any gathering of yoga teachers would do.

A sharing circle.

Just speaking for myself, small talk can be tricky...

Talking about feelings, however? Bring it on.

It was simple. Share something you are grateful for from 2023 and your intention for 2024.

...

Hey hey Friends,

I sit here in the St Mary's studio reception, staring at the blinking cursor, wondering... oh gosh, what the freak am I going to write about this week?

I'll let you in on a little secret... this happens every week (also often happens before I write any class plan!)

I dwell on the subject over the weekend but seem always to be writing this thing at the last minute.

Looking around for inspiration, I start answering emails (not so inspiring), which then remind me to reply to our Google reviews.

We got a bunch last week (thank you, you know who you are!), even though I got the notification to reply immediately. I didn't.

So, I'll let you in on another little secret... I find compliments really uncomfortable.

My partner knows this too. He compliments me all the time cause he's lame and I guess cute like that, and I never know what to say back. I just look at him with a blank and awkward stare like he got some Nori stuck in...

Welcome to story telling time,

Six years ago, I put together a business plan, which was six lines long.

A few weeks back, I sought somewhere to take notes in my still-in-process conversion of the Art Studio at Penrith, which is also becoming the main Nin Yoga HQ.

When I first inspected the Penrith Studio almost three years ago, my intention was either to live there or set up my office there. Considering that the first option is technically "illegal", we purchased some Acacia Timer benchtops from Bunnings, screwed on some Ikea legs, and turned the massive room next to the yoga studio floor into an art studio slash collaborative workspace. A couple years in, I'm heavily pregnant with my 2nd, and the organized chaos needs to move back home for that WFH life.

But heck, she is one now, and enticing at-home distractions such as "What's making the floor sticky", "Why is my neighbor yelling" and "Did I spin that load? I'll just quickly do it again" will be...

Happy 3rd day of the year 

I adore the start of the new year. We can't deny it; it's epic reflection and implementation time.

In the thick of the days and months during the year, sometimes I feel like we are just dancing around in a repetitive circle, but after 365 days, it allows us to have something to measure and look back on and be like, wow, I got through that. Three hundred sixty-five days of learning and growing, moving slowly forward but never backward.

It's not for everyone, but I spent a handful of random moments reflecting on the past year at the start of this week (so if you are sick of the new year stuff, please skip ahead!)

It was initially triggered a few days earlier when my brother over Christmas asked me what my favorite moment of 2023 was.

This wasn't a serious question around the table; he just asked me randomly, probably when I was holding a very heavy baby and trying to figure out why she was yelling at me.

I...

Hey Hey, Friends!

Happy 13 days before the first public holiday of many kicks in Lacey 

Last week I felt like I unlocked the super secret hack that I was really excited about, but is just much too lame to just bring up in a general conversation.

It all started with the household not having any adult drink bottles left around to use (my guess now is that there are probably at least three under the back seat footwell of the car), which was quite a surprise considering that we kind of horde them, (this next part might gross you out) as I don't have the heart to throw away every single reusable drink bottle that gets left at the studio... and after up to 12 months with it sitting on the shelf in the lost property "kallax" square with no owner, they then somehow magically appear in our dishwater and then into our little world instead (look, I could say times are tough, but really, these are some pretty fancy drink...

Hello there friends! 

Last week, I asked a dear friend if she could permit me to flake.

I had been sitting with this feeling for a few days.

We had put together our Studio Christmas Party and had even gone to the lengths of organizing live music and celebratory sound healing at the end of the community potluck.

I locked out the date, which was already surrounded by a rainbow of Google calendar colours of other shindigs.

As I did this, I could already feel in my belly that it was going to be a lot, but at the time the feeling of what I felt inclined to do was stronger, so I stuck with the mindset of "it will figure itself out later" (which btw, very much works a lot of the time in family and business life).

As the days started to fold over, however, unlike other times, this feeling didn't go away.

I was excited to hang out with teachers and students without yoga clothes on for once. Keen to listen to live...