Name: Erin Lanahan,
Age: 32 years old
Why I come to Essence of Living: Because from the minute a friend showed me the website online from Red Hill, Victoria, I knew in my gut it was where was suppose to go next. I moved to Australia from Los Angeles, CA on the 28th of July 2011. I have lived in Sydney, ,Red Hill, Moruya, Brisbane, and finally this adventure brought me to the Gold Coast to study at Essence. As it turns out I also have a good amount of family here on the Coast and in Queensland. My mother is an Aussie, so I came here to explore my Aussie roots and to embrace the amazing gift of having dual citizenship.
How long have you been practising: I am currently practicing as a yoga student at Essence, but I am also going into my 9th week of teachers training and have begun teaching yoga already. I began practicing yoga about 7 years ago, and kept a pretty consistent practice for the first couple of years. However, life took it’s course and yoga became a good friend I visited every now and then. I always knew it was a friend I wanted to spend more time with, and I trusted when the time was right, we would cross paths again. Little did I know my journey to Australia was going to be about Yoga. Yoga in every sense of the word I mean. Yoga from the inside out, as well as the outside in.
How often do you practise: I practice at least 3 times a week most weeks, with the intention of practicing 5 days a week. However, I come from a Fitness background, and I am a huge believer in balance of all things. Therefore each week I take my temperature in a way, and from the temperature I deicide what my body and my soul need me to do for them each day. Some weeks I am pulled to practice more, some weeks less. I try not to judge it either way.
The benefits of your practice: My yoga practice is sacred to me and it is my time to connect to my breath, the life force within me, which always reminds me of the life force that protects me, nurtures me, and carries me through life. Yoga is like a soul mate to me, and I turn to it for comfort, insight, healing, love, affection, fun, rest, and awakening. My practice not only feeds my soul, but it plants seeds of strength, wisdom, humility, patience, and trust into my heart and mind that nourishes my business as a Personal Growth Coach and Writer, and therefore helps me contribute so much to the world and to the clients and groups I get the opportunity to work with.
My life advice in a nutshell would be this:
Turn inward for guidance. When you feel as though you’ve lost your way, or perhaps forgotten who you really are, return to your breath and allow it’s life force to remind you of your infinite possibilities. The quality of life we experience is directly related to the amount of uncertainty and discomfort we can live with comfortably, so embrace that which you cannot know until it reveals more to you. Life is not about knowing, it is about being ok with not knowing. Things will always look and feel differently than you hoped or expected them to, but this DOES NOT mean it’s a bad thing. I have learned that more often than not, if we can release ourselves from expecting specific outcomes, we will open ourselves up to an experience and circumstances beyond our wildest imagination. Trust is something you must choose to practice every single day. Without trust, we live in fear. When we live in fear, we cut ourselves off from giving and receiving love. Without love, we die while we are still alive. Follow your heart and never look back.
If you’d like to see more about me and what I do, please visit me on my blog at www.erinlanahanmethod.com.
