The Busy Person’s Guide To EveryDay Enlightenment
Janey Bowyer
Author Bio
Janey Bowyer is Hatha and Kundalini yoga teacher, fiction author and self-help, yoga and holistic blogger. She runs the www.Wordsprite.com blog where she offers holistic solutions to modern living. Her new book, Busy Person’s Guide to Modern Living is based on her blog which is the place for inspiring articles, yoga and holistic solutions to modern living.
About me
If you are wondering where the title The Word Sprite sprung from, well a sprite is a kind of fairy, and some say I remind them of one!
“A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins.” William Shakespeare
I grew up on a hill in the north of England. From a young age, I wanted to live in London. As a child, during the depths of night, I’d often listen to the hum of passing trains. Sometimes I’d run to my bedroom window hoping to catch a glimpse so that I could pretend that I too was travelling on one, speeding along, London bound, like the rest of the world was sleeping.
So one day in my late teens, I bought a one-way ticket and travelled to London with just £30.00 in my pocket and a bit of blind faith.
In my novel The Last Days of Lisa, (that I’m still writing), the main character Lisa mirrors how overwhelming it was for me to see London for the first time through the eyes of a teenager travelling alone….
‘London never rests, she thinks. It’s on speed. A vortex, absorbing everything. Running from its own stench but also basking in it. Seemingly superficial and plastic to those not enchanted by its ambivalent charms. London has a soul; a ravenous appetite that feeds on the egos of the thousands that flock here each day to get closer to their dreams. ‘
Not long after moving to London, yoga and writing graced my life. I think they both saved me. On the writing front the spark came after reading the book, Catcher in the Rye. I’d not had the opportunity to study much as a child but that didn’t matter now as this book blew me away.
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of c—p, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” J.D Salinger
Detail of a golden flowering field.
As for yoga, another book in the form of a second-hand yoga book written back in the 1960’s made its way into my mitts via a second-hand bookstore.
As I’d said earlier, to start with I wasn’t very good at either. Dyslexia and lack of flexibility and poor posture were my obstacles. I could see beyond that though as both yoga and writing offered me hope and possibilities that before this I hadn’t ever thought possible. Before yoga and writing I believed I was useless and had nothing to offer the world.
So I worked hard at studying for more than a decade. The author John Harding was the first teacher to believe in me. After studying writing under his inspiring tuition, I even managed to get a few novels published along the way.
On the yoga side, I studied both Hatha and later Kundalini yoga and despite not being naturally flexible nor a person who liked to sit still. It was in India back in 2004 that I had my first awakening experience.
During all this time, I also managed over the years to work my way up from an office junior job to a finally a supervisor position, having worked for most of my life in a string of unfulfilling office jobs. The good news that in October 2015 I left office work to become The Word Sprite full time!
The silver lining in all of this is through my personal experience of having to be creative with my time I came up with the concept of yoga and holistic solutions for modern day living. Hence, this is how The Word Sprite was born!
Finally, I’d like to share some of the lessons I have learnt
Do one thing at a time
Let courage be your sail in the ship of life
Kindness is taking time to rest and nurture yourself
You can’t change someone else; you can only work on yourself
To be real is to be one’s authentic self
Don’t try to be anyone else
To have faith and feel gratitude can be challenging but worth the effort
Life is about self-responsibility; there’s only for so long that you can keep blaming others, for your life
Our greatest enemy is our fear
Love is real and fear is an illusion
Description
The Busy Person’s Guide to Everyday Enlightenment is the perfect antidote to the strains of modern living.
Featuring easy-to-follow meditations, yoga sequences, techniques and holistic advice that you can apply to even the busiest of lifestyles.
What makes this book different is that it is tailored to recognise in this time of hectic living that we all have the need to nurture, care and centre ourselves, yet we don’t always have the time for long practices to achieve this. Ironically, the very thing we have convinced ourselves we don’t have time to do – looking after ourselves – is what can lead to better health and a sense of inner calm.
Within these pages, you will find easy-to-follow sequences.
This book is a helping hand to those who wish to fit in some me-time self-care even into the most time-starved of lifestyles.
You can learn to…
• Develop techniques in as little as 5 minutes a day that can help you deal with stress
• Turn everyday stressful situations into meditation just by shifting your perspective
• Nourish your body with simple yoga schedules that can help target specific areas or states of mind, no matter how busy you are
• Bring the holistic into the hectic and learn to Zen out when the rest of the world is rushing
• Improve and progress with the help of handy tips
• Enjoy guilt-free self-nurturing
Book excerpt
NTRODUCTION
Congratulations: by buying this book you have made a commitment to your well-being. You are off to a great start.
Busy is the norm these days, but often we can parade it around like it is something to be proud of and a way of social status as we stray into misthinking that being busy equals self-worth. Whilst there are some things we can’t change overnight, like the need to go to work to pay the bills tomorrow, we can make little changes starting from today, which over time will enable us to find presence and harmony in even the most hectic of worlds, leading us to contentment.
Perhaps you have to get your child to the nursery before dashing off to a busy office job, your lunch break doesn’t exist and you have to go food shopping after work, pick up your child, cook and by the time it is time to sit down again it is time to sleep? Or maybe you are studying, running a home, caring for a parent, or are retired and wanting to find some meaning. Some of you may have too much spare time but find yourself wasting it by watching TV programmes that you don’t even really like. The list is endless. The good news is that, no matter what your story, this book can help you to feel more connected, contented and able to enjoy life more.
This book is the first in a series and features a yoga section, a meditation section to suit common scenarios, and a section where you can learn to transform everyday, mundane actions into surprisingly holistic living.
If you want a five-minute sleep aid practice, for example, you can do the yoga sequence followed by the meditation, or just do one. You can also do more or less, depending on how much time you have.
One of the most powerful ways to transform yourself is to replace unhealthy habits with positive life changes.
Habits, I believe, are usually formed as a response to our needs, or rather needs that aren’t being met: staying in bed when your favourite exercise class is on and instead having a fried breakfast when trying to get into those skinny jeans. Eating sugar after having an organic lunch is sabotaging behaviour. Not writing that book when you have a deadline, but instead surfing the net (my old favourite). We all find various ways to hinder ourselves… For example, eating unhealthily may be a mask for the fact that you lack love and comfort; the food gives a temporary fix but not the solution. Once aware of this, it would be easier to have those needs met in a healthier way.
Introduction
This book can’t stop time or the hustle and bustle of life, but it can help us connect to our own inner calm. When we pause in life it’s easier to navigate, amazing things can happen, contentment can set in, and our path and life’s purpose can become clearer.
Yoga is an amazing tool to help with this. So my suggestion is to begin by setting your alarm ten minutes earlier each day, or allowing yourself ten minutes before bed. For it to work, please do this every day. If you can’t do ten, then try five to start with. Also, if you miss a day or so, don’t take the all-or-nothing attitude and chuck in your towel: instead recommence.
Things to remember:
◆ Always seek medical advice before undertaking any fitness
◆ Try to do at least five minutes of meditation daily. That is a must. Try and do it at the same time each day. If you can do five minutes in the morning and five minutes before bed, even better
◆ This book has been set out in a way that, depending on your needs for that day, you can choose a yoga practice to suit you
◆ Feel free to do longer or to link more than one yoga sequence together, but always warm up and always rest afterwards
◆ Remember yoga poses really support meditation
◆ Meditation is a way of blowing the cobwebs out of your system. If you never cleaned your teeth they would fall out, so give your mind the same TLC
◆ Enjoy it! Don’t take yourself too seriously!
Author Website
http://www.thewordspite.com