Gentle Practices for Natural Calm
The gentle, nurturing & supportive program with effective, nature-inspired practices that suit your mind & body for calm and ease in every day life. With personalised, friendly & knowledgeable support from an experienced teacher.
Enrolments are currently closed. Please click here to join the waiting list
Slow down and find your innate calm with nature-inspired gentle yoga, meditation and guided rest so you can breathe better, move easier, & find peace in the chaos of modern life.
You love the idea of being more at ease in body & mind, with less exhaustion & overwhelm.
And you know that regular yoga & meditation practices can help you stay mobile & strong, give you more energy to spend with the people & activities you love, and give you more peace of mind.
But there are some big challenges, and you’re not alone…
Even if you can find the time to travel to a class once a week, not every class suits every body. A general class isn’t suited to your unique mind-body system, your particular time of life, or your current needs.
If we’re honest, one huge practice a week might make you feel better once a week, but it doesn’t offer the lasting change of small, consistent practices woven into your every day life.
It can be really tricky to practice at home on your own; knowing what to practice, whether the practice is the right one, and worrying about "doing it right".
Look up “gentle yoga” on YouTube and often the first pose is sitting in crossed legs position. But if you’re a 40 or 50+ year old woman who’s just spent decades working and running around caring for everybody else, you may not find sitting in crossed legs at all “gentle” on your knees or your back!
Online memberships and programs are usually impersonal “self-serve” apps where you can’t directly communicate with a teacher to ask questions, or get customised practice recommendations. You end up being lost in a crowd.
It's hard to know what the best practice is and whether it's going to work, and it's time consuming searching on the internet, so it can be frustrating before you even begin.
If you’re like most of the women I’ve taught, you may even have ended up blaming yourself for being “lazy” or “unmotivated” when nothing could be further from the truth!
It’s just that without realistic, familiar & effective practices, you can end up just putting everyone else’s immediate needs first, or assume your body is “too stiff” or “too old”, or that you don’t have time.
After over 2 decades of working with women who come to yoga feeling burnt out & stressed, I’d like to reassure you that there is an easier way…
A way to weave short, easy, and very effective practices through daily life to feel calmer, breathe better, & move more easily.
A way to know that the practices you love are also the most effective ones for your unique mind and body.
A way to replenish & restore your nervous system even when your life (& your mind!) is busy and times are stressful.
A way to have the guidance of a qualified teacher and the convenience of an online, on-demand program.
Imagine what it would feel like to:
Feel more at home in your body, breathe better and move more easily with gentle 20 minute breath-based mindful movement practices.
Keep your joints healthy with safe practices designed by an experienced, qualified teacher for real women with real bodies.
Feel as if you have more time, and more mental clarity with simple short meditations that meet you where you are.
Sleep better, feel calm before a meeting, or start your day feeling expansive with easy 10 to 20 minute practices for different times of the day.
Prevent stress from accumulating and leading to burnout or exhaustion by nurturing your nervous system regularly.
Rediscover clarity, ease, calm and creativity with practices that are easy to fit into your life and perfectly matched to your unique mind-body nature.
Feel attuned and aligned with nature, with enjoyable, nature-inspired practices that celebrate the seasons and the lunar cycles.
Benefit from the support of an experienced teacher and a community of like-minded women on your own terms, with opportunities to enjoy both live & recorded practices and ask questions.
Enjoy effective, easy practices that fit you and your life without spending hours trying out YouTube videos that don’t suit you, doing it all alone without a teacher, or getting lost in a crowd.
Gentle Practices for Natural Calm is the nurturing, supportive, and effective way to customise short, do-able yoga, meditation & deep rest practices to feel calmer, breathe better, move easier, and find peace in the chaos of modern life.
… all in a small community with the full support of a qualified, experienced teacher.
Monthly subscription
$80
Or save with annual subscription discount:
$800
Enrolments are currently closed. Please click here to join the waiting list
“Alison has the intuitive ability to make yoga accessible to everyone”
“Alison’s classes taught me how to breathe again, how to release tension and be aware of what was going on with my mind and body”
“As I am not naturally flexible and with my previous negative yoga experiences I was doubtful that it would provide relief but with numerous practitioners advising Yoga would be very helpful for my situation, what I needed to do was find the right instructor. My search lead me to try out Alison’s approach. One session dispelled my concerns. I feel empowered to tailor the practice for myself to provide an overall benefit specifically for me, all the time knowing Alison will be monitoring my progress.”
Welcome!
I’m Alison
I teach women how to slow down and find their innate calm with nature-inspired gentle yoga, meditation and guided rest so that they can breathe better, move easier, and find peace in the chaos of modern life.
I’m a Level 3 (Senior) teacher registered with Yoga Australia, and a Mental Health Aware Yoga Teacher. I’m in my 50’s, and I’ve been sharing yoga and meditation for just over 20 years. What I love most is sharing practical, useful yoga, meditation & deep rest (yoga nidra) practices for women’s self-care & replenishment.
I came to yoga with back injuries and chronic pain, so I never take for granted the ability my practice has given me to lift my grandchildren, tend my farm, roam up a mountain, or even just get up easily out of a chair - all things I’d have found nearly impossible when I was in my early 20s.
That’s why I now enjoy designing practices that are gentle & easy-paced, within a natural range of movement, and practical for easing the physical & mental stresses of every day life.
Over the years teaching hundreds of women of all ages, I’ve discovered that practices don’t need to be complicated, difficult or long to be enormously helpful. It just needs to be the right practice for the person, for where they are in their mobility, energy levels, state of mind, and season of life. The power of the practice comes from mindfulness of the breath and in cultivating kind, non-judgemental attention.
I love sharing these practices and seeing women feel more at ease in their bodies & minds and recover their natural calm & resilience.
I’m deeply inspired by the melurkedee country I live on in beautiful Southern lutruwita/Tasmania, so the practices I design for my students are often rich with the natural imagery of forests, plants, oceans and mountains. I find that connecting with nature in our practice can give us an amazing sense of belonging and peace.
I created Gentle Practices for Natural Calm because I wanted to offer really useful, gentle and beautiful practices that are easy to fit into everyday life
When I asked the busy women I teach what they needed, their answer was …
Gentle, simple, short practices you can choose for your unique constitution, do regularly and know that they’re really good for you.
Advice on hand for when your practice needs to change because your life, or the season changes.
Short Zoom sessions you can join if you love a sense of community.
And my usual way of offering beautiful nature & seasonal imagery to make the practices blissful, enjoyable and rewarding.
There’s a misconception that decades of yoga practice means you’re aiming to become more accomplished at poses. But the aim is really to harvest more mental peace, steadiness & ease out of your practice.
After decades of teaching women of all ages (all the way up to 90 years old) and with all kinds of differing mobility, I’ve taken on board what they’ve told me: that what really helps is carefully curated breath-based moving meditations that provide physical mobility & stability and relief from stress.
With a little guidance you can have a curated practice of asana, breath and meditation together that balances your unique constitution, and 20 minutes of this kind of curated practice is more effective than hours of random fancy poses!
Gentle Practices for Natural Calm is your haven for the support & resources you need to find more calm and ease in body & mind in a way that suits you.
It’s a friendly, non-judgemental and welcoming online space with guidance, support and encouragement available alongside on-demand practices that I’ve specifically tailored for real women, with real bodies, leading busy lives.
Inside Gentle Practices for Natural Calm …
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Discover the best practices for you personally
Drawing on Ayurvedic wisdom, we explore how the best practices for your individual mind-body nature, your life and the season of your life.
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Enjoy breath-based gentle & effective yoga practices
Easy 20-minute breath-based gentle yoga videos mean that you can you can easily fit in a practice that maintains good mobility, joint health and strength while feeling more at ease mentally as well as physically
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Find calm with short nature-inspired meditations
Listen to easy 5 to 15 minute nature-themed meditations that meet you where you are, whether you want to feel grounded, clear, centered, peaceful or focused.
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Soothe & replenish your nervous system
Enjoy relaxing with 20 minute nature-themed Guided Deep Rest (yoga nidra) practices to replenish and restore your nervous system, improve sleep and increase your stress resilience
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Nourish yourself with practices that fit you & your day
Easily find practices that you need, whether that’s something gently energising for your morning, or some love for your shoulders in a chair during a break, or a deeply calming practice before you hop into bed.
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Be part of a community
Join me for the Zoom practice & chat sessions as and when you’d like to - there’s never any pressure, just friendly live teaching, support and company if you’d like it.
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Reconnect with the cycles & seasons of nature
Join me for special seasonal and lunar sessions over Zoom, or enjoy the session recordings to reconnect and feel in harmony with the cycles and seasons of nature.
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Ask questions & request special practices
Seek guidance or ask questions either during our optional Zoom chats or privately via email, and request special video or audio practices. Need a practice tweaked or adapted? This is the kind of thing I love to do!
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Stay connected with the weekly practice recommendations
Weekly letters to inspire you and remind you of the best resources in the program for the current lunar cycle and season as well as hints for your specific mind-body nature.
Plus complimentary 30 minute individual consults with me.
I really want you to have a customised program that suits your mind-body system and fits with your life.
I also really love getting to know each woman who practices with me, and hearing what she needs.
For this reason, I love to offer my members a 30 minute chat over Zoom about the practices that would best suit you.
Perhaps you prefer meditations over movement. Or maybe your mind-body type is best balanced by grounding, calming practices rather than energising, uplifting practices. Maybe you have 15 minutes, 3 times a week. Or 20 minutes twice a week.
Maybe you’re not even sure yet what will work best for your unique constitution and your daily life? Well, I can help with that! Together we can map out a tailored program for you, based on what brings you balance.
I keep the community intentionally small, so that you can book follow-up chats to revise your practice every 3 to 6 months, or during times of change or extra stress.
This program is a beautiful collaboration - our members tell me what they need, and I tailor and film short, gentle practices to meet those needs. (This is why we have practices for things like better sleep, vagal tone, knee joints, and upper back tension!)
Monthly subscription
$80
Or save with an annual subscription discount:
$800
Enrolments are currently closed. Please click here to join the waiting list
Risk-free guarantee
I do understand that investing in a yoga, meditation and deep rest program is a big step.
I'm also fully confident that the value this program will bring to your mental and physical well-being, to your relationships, your creativity, your work and daily life far outweighs the investment you’ll make in this program.
This is why you are welcome to stop your subscription payments any time, any month. There’s no minimum time to stay enrolled.
For the annual saver subscribers, if you make good use of the program for 2 months, using some of the practices at least a couple of times a week, and you don't feel you're getting value or benefit from the program, then you can email me within the first 2 months and I’ll unsubscribe you, with no fuss, and refund your annual fee.
“Every body is different and Alison understands and appreciates that. When you are in a Yoga pose it won’t be the same as everyone else’s Yoga pose. When people ask me, “What kind of Yoga do you do?”, it is hard to explain because Alison has the ability to tailor the practice to the individual! Which is amazing, and one of the reasons why I love Yoga with Alison.
She will never make you feel like you are not doing enough”
“I am so encouraged and surprised at what a difference the short, gentle sessions make.
Short and effective adds up to improved motivation to actually do yoga :)
Thank you for all the expertise and finesse that you put into the practices.”
“Thanks for all your work Alison! Your kindness, thoughtfulness and compassion shines through each lesson and newsletter. I can’t remember if I mentioned that I use the anxiety toolkit hints regularly?! I’m finding each of them really helpful depending on my needs at the time.”
3 complimentary resources included for this year’s intake …
Gift 1: Gentle Yoga for Your Back
Value $95, with lifetime access - free with Gentle Practices for Natural Calm
Gentle Yoga for Your Back is the perfect compliment to Gentle Practices for Natural Calm, and it’s completely suitable for beginners.
We all need strong backs, whether it’s for enjoying our favourite activities, lifting grandchildren, or just keeping an effortlessly good posture for the rest of our lives.
Many women come to yoga because their health professional has recommended it for back pain, but not all yoga is great for your back.
The best yoga for your back is specifically tailored to:
Reduce pain and facilitate rest & recovery
Restore mobility to your hips and shoulders to take the pressure off your back
Improve posture
Strengthen your core, including your back muscles.
And it also needs to be gentle, easy, and simple to fit into every day life.
Short, easy to follow videos (between 5 & 20 minutes) are organised into easy-to-navigate chapters: Recover, Rebalance, Mobilise, and Strengthen, so you can choose what you need at any time.
I created this program for the people coming to me with back pain, and it’s the program I would have loved to have had when I came to yoga myself with chronic pain due to back injury many years ago.
This program is perfect for maintaining a healthy, happy back; simple practices you can return to again & again.
Gift 2: Yoga Class Video Library
Value $20 per week, with lifetime access - free with Gentle Practices for Natural Calm
Gentle Practices For Natural Calm is all about short practices you can weave through your busy week, but sometimes it’s nice to have a luxurious 75 to 90 minute class too!
The Yoga Class Video Library is a frequently updated collection of best-loved classes, recorded live: 30 + hours & growing!
From extra slow & gentle to more mobile & strengthening practices, and a wide variety of themes, there’s plenty to explore.
What makes this library really different from most online video subscriptions is that I’m available to answer your questions and mentor you through any challenges as part of your Gentle Practices for Natural Calm membership.
Gift 3: Gentle Yoga for your Pelvic Floor
Value $85, with lifetime access - free with Gentle Practices for Natural Calm
Reconnect with the natural suppleness & strength of your pelvic floor in simple, gentle ways that leave you feeling calm & grounded.
Short, easy videos with easy-to-learn gentle practices help you to deepen your understanding of your pelvic floor from a yogic perspective.
This nurturing program is suitable for women of any age, and no flexibility is required.
FAQ …
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Perfect! I love working with people of all ages who are brand new to yoga. All the physical practices I share are within a normal range of movement, and all my meditations are easy to follow (no special sitting positions required, just be comfortable!).
Of course, different people find different things easy or tricky, so if you need a little extra help at any time, please ask and I’ll make sure you have an accessible and enjoyable practice program.
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I hear these questions all the time and my answer is always, “No, never!” Your practice is meant to meet you where you are, right now.
Forget the all the silly pictures of acrobatic poses you see in popular media. That’s not what yoga is about! Yoga is about recovering your peace of mind, and there’s a practice for everyone.
Your practice doesn’t even have to be a physical one at all unless you want it to be! There are many meditative practices you can do in stillness and I'm happy to add more for you.
If you do choose to practice physically, then all my practices are within a natural range of movement.
I also provide chair yoga, and I frequently offer & record specifically knee friendly, or wrist friendly practices.
I can also tailor a practice in whatever way you need, on request.
You don’t have to “fit in” with yoga. Your yoga practice should fit you.
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Nurturing habits are built with patience, over a long time so we’re aiming to make this really easy and realistic so you can keep at it.
Doing small, easy things that you can easily fit into your life is much more effective, beneficial and sustainable than a big long practice every now and then.
Look at it this way…you’re more likely to build a habit of nourishing yourself with yoga and meditation if you’re subscribed to an encouraging and supportive program with a friendly teacher with weekly practice prompts, than if you aren’t.
And having a tailored plan that really fits with your life and your personality helps a lot!
But it doesn’t matter how many times you miss a practice you’d intended to do, it only matters that you keep coming back to it.
Guilt only gets in the way of that, so we don’t do guilt here! We do self-compassion, kindness and acceptance.
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I’m always a little shocked when I see what’s describes as “gentle” yoga on YouTube. Often the first pose you see is a sitting crossed-legs position!
But if you’re a 40 or 50+ year old woman who’s just spent decades working at a desk, or doing too much, or running around caring for everybody else, you may not find sitting in crossed-legs at all “gentle” for your knees or your back.
There’s an enormous difference between YouTube videos made to be popular with a big crowd, and practices that have been carefully planned and crafted by a registered Yoga Australia Senior Teacher with over 20 years of ongoing training and experience.
The practices in this program are hand picked from the best I’ve developed over the last 20 years working with busy women with real bodies and real lives.
They're designed by a qualified professional, for you.
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The live Zoom practices are recorded (without the participants being shown on camera, it’s just me) and saved for a week, so you can enjoy them whenever convenient.
Not everyone wants to Zoom! Some members prefer to use only the on-demand practices.
But if you love the idea of attending live and enjoying the community chat afterwards, there will be a range of flexible times available - sometimes evening, sometimes lunch-hour, and morning depending on demand from the community.
Currently our most popular times for Zoom are Tuesday & Thursday evenings or lunchtimes, so I rotate the sessions around those times. If you enrol and you have a preferred time, let me know and I’ll do my best to make it happen!
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I’m keen to have a small community that I can keep in touch with, rather than a large community where I lose touch with people, so I’ll only re-open registration next year if there are spaces available.
“I really like the moving meditations, and especially the balancing ones. I think because it forces me to concentrate on the here and now and I always feel much better after them! Much more centred and able to focus…it’s a great program!”
“I have been zooming with you for a long time and I had lots of flexibility problems, now I can reach down under my claw foot bath to get to the hairdryer end bit that flew off, needless to say I am not a small person and a little older……So grateful for your gentle guidance and certainly for your expertise and vast knowledge of body and mind!!!! ”
“Alison makes yoga accessible to everyone. I value her warm, generous, calm nature. Alison is a highly skilled yoga teacher that I have no hesitation in strongly recommending. She has an exceptional knowledge of yoga and the body that enables her to tailor yoga to different constitutions, different body types, different experience levels and to advise yogis how best to use yoga to manage themselves through injuries and other challenges. ”
“I feel deeply touched by your continual offerings to this course. It’s like a generous banquet feast for the body, mind, heart and soul.
With love and appreciation,
Rachel”
