feature
Find your CENTRE For weeks, yoga and other fitness and wellbeing classes weren't possible. Even now, do you really need to 'go out' to attend them? Not with Nikki Ralston. Yoga teacher and manual therapist Nikki Ralston has been working with the human body for over 20 years. Combining her love of movement and yoga, she has developed her own method that focuses on making the practices of yoga, meditation and breath work safe, sustainable and accessible to all. Her clients range from high performance athletes and stressed out workers to those recovering from injury and trauma. “We’ve all heard about the health benefits of yoga, how it can improve balance, flexibility and muscle tone,” she says. “What a lot of people don’t know is that yoga can also play a great role in increasing self-esteem and confidence.” She is living testament to her belief that true confidence comes from an authentic and deep connection to yourself. Yoga is a systematised science that can provide the pathway towards this self-realisation. “Without self-confidence, we can tend to let fear take control of us and we can
34 FamilyCARE
end up in some pretty awful situations." "My self-esteem was at an all-time low in 2004, and this led me to be in, and stay in, an abusive relationship for two years." "I became physically ill, and I also felt the weakest I have ever felt in my life. Getting out of the house and going to yoga was the only time I had a glimpse of my true self, as my view of myself at that time had become clouded and overshadowed by fear and insecurity." "Practising yoga helped to remind me that I was strong. It helped me to become clearer in my mind and slowly rebuild my broken spirit." This is partly why Nikki loves sharing her knowledge and experience to help others build their own confidence and selfesteem. As she’s acutely aware that many people are unable to attend classes in person, a great selection of her Ralston Method Yoga tutorials are free to watch and follow along on her website.
“Self-confidence helps us to not view fear as an obstacle, it helps us to accept the things we cannot change and gives us the courage to create the changes that we can," Nikki says. "The truth of the matter is that we cannot do everything, but this doesn’t mean that we should feel bad about having limitations."
www.wecare.kiwi
