About Yoga
At Yoga Life Works we teach Svaroopa® Yoga. This is a dramatically different and powerful style of yoga – it’s gentle and easy but profoundly healing on all levels. Svaroopa® Yoga is not about intense stretching or about learning how to stand on your head – it’s about deep and core openings in your entire spine from your tailbone to your neck. By using simple movements, deep breathing and full support of your body with props like blankets and blocks, you are held in precise alignment and encouraged to become more open and flexible. Each class includes a guided awareness and relaxation, breathing and yoga poses. Svaroopa® Yoga is therapeutic and is suitable for ANY body and all levels of experience from the complete beginner to the long-term yoga practitioner.
When you practice yoga your breathing will be totally relaxed and there’s no sense of force, exertion or strain when holding the postures. Although the poses look easy, you’ll experience a deep release, opening in your joints and a lengthening of your spine. Svarupa (the original Sanskrit spelling) is a Sanskrit word that means knowing yourself at the deepest level of your being and because transformation is common when people practice this form of yoga, every class feels like a healing therapy.
The most common things people experience with regular Svaroopa® Yoga practice are:
ease of movement and breath
significant relief from pain
improved nervous system and immune function
enhanced body tone
profound relaxation, release of tension and emotional healing
normalises blood pressure
relief from anxiety and depression
improved sleep
We’ve been teaching gentle and easy yoga classes in Brisbane since 2007 and we’re doing something a bit different at our studio – we specialise in Yoga for older adults – generally, people over 50. We’ve recognised and seen clearly that as we mature, our bodies have different needs and different abilities and our exercise and movements need to reflect that. Our minds also change with age – we become more confident and sure of ourselves, more compassionate and aware and an increasing desire to look after our bodies grows. Yoga is the perfect compliment for the busy lives of older adults and can be modified to suit your timetable and unique needs. It will give your body greater health, wellness and flexibility and your mind, the inner world, greater peace and stillness.
About the Yoga Life Works Team
Lynne Somerville
Lynne was born in Calgary, Canada and spent years working in the television communications industry. Her travels brought her to to Australia over 35 years ago with her husband where she’s enjoyed successful businesses in the antiques industry, real estate and property investment. She has two grown up children, Kathy and Susan. Lynne has been teaching yoga in Brisbane for 7 years and travels annually to the United States for highly specialised ongoing training in remedial yoga therapies and teacher development. She has over 700 hours in yoga teaching training.
I first came to yoga after a car accident in which I injured my back about 7 years ago. I tried almost every modality available to try and rid myself of the pain I was in and nothing seemed to really help or things helped but only for a little while.
My journey eventually led me to my first hatha yoga class in the Svaroopa style and thought “Why am I lying here? Nothing seems to be happening! I can do this at home!” Much to my surprise, I got up after the class and felt very different. My back was softer somehow, tingling and there was a sense of lightness and length that I’d never felt before. My pain was less than half of what it was before the class. I went back to class again and my lower back pain continued to improve and in a matter of weeks, I was pain-free and feeling wonderful! Since then, yoga continues to help me in my daily life and grow as a person, a teacher, a wife and a mother. My posture has improved and my sway back is a thing of the past. I stand and walk taller and my thinking is more focused and I feel more balanced and centred. I love yoga and teaching yoga and I love playing a small part of the journey to better health and happiness for my students.
Susan Living
Susan is Lynne’s daughter and has been in the health and wellbeing industry for over 14 years. She is trained as an acupuncturist and remedial therapist and has studied nutrition, herbalism and meditation and has been a yoga student for many years. Susan is wildly passionate about sharing the message of health and wellbeing in any way she can and at Yoga Life Works she shares the beauty of living from the heart in song and meditation with others. She started in business out on her own 4 years ago on the Gold Coast and is now speaking regularly on health, running workshops, writing a book and coaching clients in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. When you call to book into your first class, Susan is the one you’ll be speaking to on the phone. She can answer any questions you may have about yoga and make sure you have everything you need to know about coming to class.
Over the past 15 years I’ve seen many changes in the health industry. Many of us are moving away from the magic pill solution and returning to simple lifestyle change and healthier habits and this can only be a good thing. More of us are becoming aware that true health encompasses not just the physical body but mental and emotional health as well. Yoga embraces all this and more and has shown me an increasingly compassionate way to live (both toward myself and others) and a more open and free way to be in my mind, emotions and body movements. My journey through Iyengar, Ashtanga and now Svaroopa® Yoga continues to grow ever deeper. For me, the best thing about yoga is that it feels REALLY good. Be careful though.. it’s contagious!
Megan Swanson
I have been a physical person since the age of 3 I reckon! From my days as a kid playing tennis, netball, cricket; touch football to joining the gym and experiencing personal training in my adult world. I have always viewed exercise as a tool to feel and look better about myself primarily taking on weight training and high level cardio routines to lose weight. I gained great results with personal training and undertook studies to enable me to personally train on the other side! I completed this study in 2007 and established Finding You Fitness, a holistic personal training and group training business.
In February I left my finance and administration world I’d been a part of for 17 years, with a goal to embark on building the business. About the same time I received an invite from a friend about coming along to a yoga class. I thought, “great timing, I’ll use this class to invest in some time out from business land. Little did I know it would change the way I looked at exercise forever!
From my very first class, Svaroopa® yoga took my body, mind and emotions to a deeper place I had never experienced within any form of exercise before. It still continues to create changes for me physically, mentally and emotionally. It provides me with a stillness, calmness and peacefulness I have not felt within any other exercise and an ability to remain a lot more present in each moment. It has helped me to see my life with a clearer mind, live in the world with healthier emotions, bringing better experiences for myself and my family and friends. I have a goal to be happy for no good reason, and I believe with continued studies and teaching Svaroopa® yoga to others this could soon become my reality! Thanks for reading! Megan x
