FlowMotion with Amy Slevin

Check out my blog post https://wix.to/DGySyUz

From Osteopathy to Epiphany: Embracing Pain, Passion, and Purpose When I qualified as an osteopath back in 2012, like many a graduate, I felt completely ill-equipped to be serving the public, add to that a torn hamstring from 3 years prior and I was a right bloody mess. Rarely did I have the vaguest idea what was wrong with someone and the challenge of figuring it...

What Trees Teach Us About Stress

There is a research facility in Oracle, Arizona called Biosphere 2, where scientists conduct ecological research on what are essentially indoor forests. Scientists there observed that the trees grew faster than they did outside the biosphere, but would fall over before they reached maturity.

The cause of this was a mystery for a number of years until they realised that the lack of wind in the biosphere meant that the trees didn’t develop “stress wood,” and a strong enough root system to keep themselves upright against the weight of their canopies. They’d essentially skipped leg day their entire lives and it caught up with them.

In some respects, humans are like trees - we need stress in order to thrive, yes, I said thrive. Obviously there is a balance - not enough, and we get bored, fall over and die (sounds a little extreme, but think of retirees with not a lot to do); too much of the wrong stress (distress) and we experience overwhelm and burnout, or get blown over and die.

But the goldilocks amount of stress (eustress) helps us develop resilience, solutions, learn and grow, develop support structures, build empires, conquer foreign lands and look fabulous while doing it.

Furthermore, when we don’t give ourselves challenges that excite and inspire us, life throws us challenges that don’t. Ever felt like you’re spending too much time on excessive, irrelevant admin, irritating nonsense or meaningless chores?

That’s the result of not filling your time with enough stuff that gets your juices flowing. It’s simple feedback to let you know you need to occupy your time with more meaningful challenges. But how do you do that when you have all this other crap to deal with? Simple answer: make a plan.

We’re going to discuss how to do this at my upcoming workshop this Saturday 4th May, so if any of this sounds scarily familiar and you’d like to know what you can do about it, click the link and book your space now.

Day Retreat | Amy Slevin Turn on, tune in & cop out at this Day Retreat to help you shake off the cobwebs, unwind, restore and regenerate for less than the cost of a trip to Bora Bora.

How well do you understand pain? Join me in October to learn more! 🧘🏽‍♀️

If you’re a body worker, osteo, chiro, physio, or just a curious mind - this is a unique opportunity to expand your understanding of the theory and practical application of pain science🧬

The best bit? You can join me from the comfort of your home, office or studio - it’s online! 💻

Check out my website for more information, or send me a message!

When I was at peak pissed-offness with my knee pain, said ‘instead of sending your knee anger and hatred, try sending it some love’. I was like ‘alright hippy, I’m dubious but I’ll give it a go’. Lo and behold I tried it and it helped 😳. Later I learned that our perceptions and therefore our emotions influence our hormones and neurotransmitters, and when we change our perceptions, we change our biochemistry. So while injuries are obviously frustrating when they stop us doing what we love, when we change how we feel about them, they can change for us.

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast! 🥐

👉🏻Pain and damage aren’t always related

👉🏼Joints dont get ‘worn out’

👉🏽All pain involves the brain

👉🏾Performing s movement incorrectly won’t necessarily cause injury

👉🏿We can influence pain with the power of our minds

👉🏼Injuries & illness can be our greatest teachers.

Are you tired of not being able to move how you want? Are you frustrated by endless attempts at healing? Are you willing to believe that you can get better?

It's time to heal your low back pain through movement and mindset. Together we can take back control of your life!

Are you ready to...

- Get back to moving how you love
- Move beyond fear of never getting better
- Fundamentally shift your response to pain
- Understand why you have this pain
- Make your pain work FOR you rather than against you
- Then enrol now and start taking the steps to get yourself better.

Our online course has been expertly created to work around any lifestyle and schedule. The self-guided modules allow you to understand how and why you are healing - providing a more long-term approach than traditional physiotherapy appointments or massage.

Find out more information and register on my website!

Got your weekly dose of and ready to take on the world? Keep reading...

One thing I love about my job is the human connections I make. The real conversations, positive energies and watching people make genuine changes to their lives is what gets me up in the morning.

The best thing? I don’t have to be in the same room as my clients anymore. Through pre-recorded FlowMotion classes and 1:1 sessions held online, I’ve had the pleasure of helping people from around the world.

If you’re interested in getting together for a chat and discussing my services, just drop me a message. I’d LOVE to hear about the journey you’re on.

There’s a time to work and there’s a time to rest.

If you’re self employed, do you feel guilty to rest? Yeah me too. When I was employed, I found the separation of work/life (rest) much easier to manage. If you’re employed, do you find it easy or difficult to rest?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my boyfriend , it’s to let myself rest when I feel tired. I’m still learning because I often feel like I must keep creating, keep beavering away, so I often try to push through tired moments then get frustrated that I’m not being productive. But other times I let myself guiltlessly rest, then I’m much more productive afterwards. Sound familiar?!

Yet we know that expecting ourselves to be productive all the time is stressful and ironically counter-productive.

So this is a reminder to all of us that it’s normal to feel tired, and ok to rest when you do. There are some delicious chill out classes on my website if you feel like a structured stretchy rest. Or free health meditation to lie down with and listen to, also available on my website.

The latest episode of my podcast Get A Move On discusses this in more depth. Go check it out on Spotify, Apple podcasts and all good podcast places! (The link in my bio will take you there).

Monday morning means a fresh start to a new week! For all you new followers, I thought it might be time for a reintroduction...👇🏼

Hi, I'm Amy!

I am a movement and mindset coach, here to connect your mind and body in ways you never thought possible. Whether you’re an avid movement-lover, an apprehensive movement-obliger, or recovering from pain or illness, I will help you enjoy moving and teach you how to feel strong and capable in your body.

I created my company, FlowMotion, to bring stimulating moves from different disciplines into one space, to help you feel strong & sexy whilst expanding your movement possibilities and keeping you agile and active for all eternity.

Through a mixture of group classes, 1:1 coaching, online courses and my popular retreats - I'm excited to continue working with more clients from around the UK!

Find out more about all my services using the link in my bio! I’m excited to start working with you soon👋🏻

Escape London this August and join me in the New Forest for our UK retreat!

No matter what your level of experience, this three-night retreat is the perfect place to hone your FlowMo skills, shake off the lockdown cobwebs, enjoy gorgeous walks, and clear out some baggage.

What can you expect?

2-3 Daily FlowMo sessions plus optional workshops

3 nights accommodation

Breakfast & lunch - nutritious vegetarian or vegan meals

Optional digital detox - let me confiscate your phone!

Life skills to take home with you

View the full schedule, pricing packages and more information on the website. Feel free to comment below or send me a DM with your questions!

Want to be your authentic self and live the life you're genuinely inspired by? Don't we all.

In our mindset classes, we'll work together to transform any form of stress or conflict, revolutionise your relationships with people or challenging events in your life, dissolve stories in your mind you can’t let go of, and basically just deal with the s**t that’s weighing you down and holding you back from living a life you love.

This coaching can help with any kind of mental turmoil you are experiencing, including:
​
🔺Trauma
🔺Career "stuckness"
🔺Loss or breakups
🔺Sexual issues
🔺Health crises or pain
🔺Resentment or anger towards a person or situation
🔺Anxiety and depression
🔺Exorcising your demons!

Drop me a DM or visit the website for more information!

Have you listened yet?🎧

If you didn't know... I have a podcast! In the latest episode, we discuss the sometimes controversial topic of student-teacher dynamics. We cover ‘morality complexes’, repression and the politics of sleeping with your guru👀

We may or may not, also indulges in a spot of (the new national pastime) Matt Hancock bashing😂

Available on all the major podcasting platforms, just follow the link in my bio! Let me know what you think!

I was awoken the other night by a stabbing pain in my b**b. I was like ‘cancer, is that you..?
And if it is, I must prioritise my time better.’
It was a literal wake up call: do more of what I love and less of what I don’t. So I’m changing a few things…

Pre-yoga I used to go on holidays. If I wanted to go somewhere, I pretty much just went, like that time I invited myself to meet a friend in Canada and took this picture.

But then I became self (un)employed and the quest to ‘get established’ and make money made me too anxious to take time off.

Until now. I have decided to go places (governments permitting), and I want to go with YOU.

I am going to be hosting 1-2 exceptional retreats annually - one in the UK and one somewhere outrageously mind-blowingly spectacular, like the Norwegian fjords, Switzerland, Costa Rica, South Africa, Canada, Croatia, St Lucia, Greece and more.
And I want to hear from YOU what you want - where, when, how jzujz, what kind of food, activities. I want us to have epic experiences.
FlowMotion movement classes and mindset sessions will be offered as standard (but not obligatory to attend).

Have a scroll through the pics and vote for your favourite. And look out for the polls I’ll be asking in my stories over the next few weeks so I can shape our experiences accordingly…

The next one is this August bank holiday weekend 27-30th in The New Forest. There’s still time to book via the link in my bio.

Have you ever wished someone would change according to how you want them to be? I think we all have! 🤦🏽‍♀️

But if you think how hard it can be to change yourself when you WANT to change, how hard do you think it is to get someone else to change, and whether they even want to change at all?

We cannot make or expect other people to change. I know because I’ve tried & failed. I’m also someone who often wants to change herself and struggles.

What we CAN change is our reactions and responses to other people. Sometimes when we do that, they change… 🤯

If you want to learn more about how to become immune to other people’s actions, send me a DM.

Looking for something fun and relaxing to do on the August Bank Holiday weekend?

I got you.

Have a quarantine-free escape before the September lockdown with me in the gorgeous New Forest.

3 nights & days of FlowMo classes, both dynamic and relaxed, delicious organic, healthy vegetarian & vegan food, plus optional workshops & emotional baggage clearance.

27-30th August. It’s going to be delightfully fun and chilled.

Book via link in my bio or head to www.amyslevin.com/retreat for all the details.

Spines! Robust and fragile all at the same time.

So many moving parts, so many things that can go wrong, yet with more & more research, we’re discovering that fewer of the things we used to believe cause pain actually do. It’s a paradigm shift.

Fear causes pain, and when you’re afraid to move it affects your whole life.

Learning to move without pain comes from knowing that you’re not doing yourself any damage, and then doing the movement and experiencing it for yourself.

Movement is liberating. As are mindset shifts.

Injuries can heal, and pain can be healed. A lot of it is about belief.

There’s an article I wrote about this on my website, where you can find more articles about healing disc herniations and other injuries. Go check ‘em out. Link is in my bio.

If chakras aren’t aligned, where do they go?🤔
................

Handstand course is coming sooooon!

It *might* help you align your chakras. (But probably not.)

Darling darlings, things are a-changing around here. I’m taking some time off posting to recalibrate, rebrand and rewire my own brain and return with more fun and useful tidbits for you.

I’ll still be on the stories and scrolling through to see what you’re up to so we shall still have contact in some form. Remember - there are still messenger owls if things get desperate.

In the meantime you can find various interesting articles about movement, injuries and pain & the mind-body connection on my website www.flowmotionyoga.co.uk/blog (link in bio)

Plus! The all singing, all dancing podcast Get A Move On is now available for your ears on Spotify and all good podcast places. Link for that in my bio, too.

If you or anyone you know has long term pain or illness
-are fed up of being in pain
-know you want to change your situation but don't know how
- have tried loads of doctors or therapies and not had any success THIS IS FOR YOU

If you're sick of taking pain killers and want to take control of your situation, hit the link below and book in.

I will give you tools to help you
- unlearn your pain
- reset your body
- set you up for healing
- reframe your illness or pain to take out the suffering
- turn your body from enemy to ally.

As a bonus you will leave the course with a new insight into yourself, less pain and tools you can apply to all future challenges in your life.

And if it doesn’t work, you get your money back.

4 week Pain & Illness Transformation course starts Sunday 11th April.

Hit the link below for more info or send me a message if you have any questions or hesitations.
Amy

www.flowmotionyoga.co.uk/pain-illness-course

If you want to get a good, solid handstand you might want to start by placing your hands directly under your shoulders, so your arms will be parallel and act like columns holding up the rest of your structure. Keep your elbows straight so you’re not over exerting your muscles which will get tired more quickly if your arms are bent.

This is not to say that having your hands wide is wrong or dangerous/more likely to result in injury as some people say. Capoeira practitioners place their hands wide and can do all sorts of cool s**t. Do they get more shoulder injuries from handstands than circus-style handstanders? I dunno (if you know, drop a comment below please).

I first learned to handstand with hands wide and elbows bent and I could do all sorts of funky stuff with my legs no problem. But I was muscling it and it often felt heavy and effortful. Then I met and I had to unlearn everything which was bloody hard but 8 years later 🤔my handstands feel lighter and more effortless.

There is more than one way to achieve the same thing, but if you want a straight up & down handstand I’d recommend having arms parallel 👊

Tips for dealing with pain.

1. Try not to stress about it (easier said than done of course) - worrying about pain makes pain worse.

2. Identify all the things that make it better or worse and act accordingly.

3. Move more or move differently. Exercise is an excellent pain killer.

4. Listen to what your body is trying to tell you. The pain is a message trying to get you to change something.

5. Learn about pain (stay tuned for more about this from me). Understanding how pain works (that it’s is not always associated with damage, for example) is a powerful pain reliever too.

6. Join my 4 week Pain & Illness Transformation Course (online) which is designed to take you from frustration, helplessness and despair to hope, doing the stuff you love again and control of your situation. We take the fear out of recurrences and set you up for healing. It will give you tools and a way of thinking that you can apply to all areas of your life.

If you are ready for change, hit the link in my bio, sign up and we will turn your body from enemy to ally.

Have you seen the Netflix documentary series about babies? Neither have I.

Jokes, I have. They discuss how baby growth isn’t the continuous process as we once thought, but happens in spurts, and correlates with mothers observing their babies being extra grumpy for a couple of days, perhaps because something about the growth spurt is uncomfortable - I don’t actually know (does anyone?) but let’s go with it for the sake of this message.

As adults, our growth obviously isn’t physical, it’s mostly mental/emotional/spiritual. And like babies, it often it comes periodically and is uncomfortable.

Drop a 🙋🏽‍♀️ below if you love grown-up growing!🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️

So when you’re going through a tough time, feeling challenged or uncomfortable, or maybe in a bit of pain, just remember that you’re growing, you big baby😉 and this is all ON the way to something bigger and better.

Is yoga is a cure-all? Injuries in yoga have been on the rise as yoga has increased in popularity.

Injuries get a bad rap in yoga in particular because we believe that yoga is here to help us. They can wreak havoc on the mind as well as the body.

Are we playing it too safe and trying to avoid injuries at all costs?
Why do people get injured despite teachers trying to instruct safely?
And can there be benefits to both teacher and student from injuries?
Is there a hidden lesson in getting injured and what is it?

Saturday 13th March 2.30-4pm

http://yogaloftlondon.com/workshops/yoga-injuries-and-how-to-deal-with-them-94h56-ltndt-8htlj

Yoga Injuries and How To Deal With Them - The Reality Behind The "Cure All" @Home Workshop with Amy Slevin — Yogaloft Yoga Injuries and How To Deal With Them - The Reality Behind The "Cure All" Workshop with Amy Slevin Saturday, March 13, 2021 2:30 PM 4:00 PM 14:30 16:00 Google Calendar ICS SIGN UP PRICE: £18 | EARLY BIRD £16  (until Sat 6th March)SATURDAY 13TH MARCH: 2.30 - 4.00pmSome say yoga is a cure-a...