“Happiness is true only when shared”, goes a famous quote, and I truly believe that.
Ok, love yourself, be at peace with yourself, that’s all good stuff I agree with. But we all need a community; people to share interests and passions with, to feel welcomed, seen, understood…LOVED.
We need that much more in a place like London, where the feeling of being lost and alone is always just around the corner, even when surrounded by millions of people. The city is so noisy that the risk of going unheard is real, and the danger of falling down the slippery slope is high. I’ve heard too many stories.
And that’s why I decided to start my own community. Community Yoga Project is an east London-based wellbeing initiative which has become the centre of my life – and that of many others, too.
This journey began with rejection. Numerous yoga studios wouldn’t accept me as a teacher, endlessly telling me: ‘you don’t have enough experience’. I had also noticed how incredibly hard it is, even for an extremely extrovert person like me, to make friends connected to a yoga space. I’d been practicing for three consecutive years in the same studio in Hackney, and after a while I realised that by the time I’d go to the changing room after class, everyone would already be gone.
I was impressed by how people run-run-run without caring too much about making connections. I didn’t want to believe another thing I heard: ‘But you know mate, this is UK, this is not Sicily! People are cold”, I didn’t want to accept that was so. “if you take an hour a day to work on something you love, and stay consistent, you can launch a company without quitting your job. and anyone can do it.
Hence, out of both the rejection and curiosity of creating a safe affordable and loving space for everyone, I decided to gather people in Victoria Park for free to teach yoga. And guess what? People loved it.
Week after week the community kept growing, reaching picks of 140 people per class in the park, with an average of 100 people per week. The community now counts around 15K members and runs classes every week in Hackney Wick at Bobby Moore Academy primary school.
We’re donation-based, with the vision that allowing access to a regular yoga practice should be accessible to everyone. In a place like London, where an average yoga class is £20 per hour, with peaks of up to £35, having the possibility to connect on a pay-what-you-can basis is a dream.
Despite its size, this remains an actual community because we really connect, we get to know each other, ask each other questions, and we are not afraid of being together. It’s family. A sense of shared community is something people crave – you’ve just gotta give them the opportunity to realise it – and join in.
As an interesting fact, it has been scientifically proven that social isolation increases mortality risk by 29% and can be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Communities allow us to increase our oxytocin level, that’s the ‘bonding hormone’, reducing our stress levels and improving our immune functions. It also allows to increase self-efficacy, lowering anxiety and depression, another thing far to many people in London suffer from.
The psychological benefits of belonging to a supportive community are immense, improving longevity, stress release and overall wellbeing. And all of this I have personally been able to assist through feedback from my community members.
People express feeling grateful for being part of all this, for how belonging to this community is changing their life and way of interacting with London’s challenges. They love the way people are able to express who they are without feeling judged. Feeling seen is something priceless.
Community Yoga Project is not the biggest or the only group to regularly meet up in London. Despite the atomisation of today’s society, communities still exist everywhere, and it’s what I now seek out when I travel.
I just came back from a work trip to North Carolina, where I randomly joined in a Men’s Circle that was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. These guys had never seen me before but welcomed me as if I’d always been part of that group. And that is all we ultimately need, no? To feel seen, feel loved, and feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves. So, why not start with a yoga class or a park meetup? Your new best friends could be a few downward dogs away.
Join the community for yoga in Victoria Park every Saturday morning (and at The Bath House when weather is cold). Find out more at communityyogaproject.com
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