Hello there my friends and how have you been? I hope the past month has treated you well and you haven’t missed me too much!

Before I say anything else I must extend a MASSIVE THANK YOU to Dede Nafi, Erin Harris, Natalie Enright, Kata Farrell, Bronwyn Winley, Matthew Butler, James Gough & Jo Roberts for sharing their brilliant stories and photography over the month – do yourself a favour and browse through the last few posts if you haven’t already, some true beauties there.

For those who don’t know, I’ve just returned from beautiful Bali where I spent the past month on a Santosha yoga retreat clocking up my 200+ hours to become a yoga teacher. Yep, I studied and stretched my butt off – learning much more than just yoga postures I can tell you now! It was an incredibly intense month of self discovery, increased awareness and realisations about things that if you had of asked me six months ago about I would have laughed in your face wondering what the hell you were talking about.

With the added bonus of being in the gorgeous location of Canggu, it was at times a challenging mental, spiritual and emotional journey that I was lucky enough to share with a bunch of the most beautifully brilliant people from all over the globe, including my husband and sister.

We laughed so much, cried sometimes too, ate more spirulina balls than I can count, swam, surfed and travelled around the island feeling like the luckiest souls on earth. We practiced yoga every morning, learned so much from our incredible teachers Sunny, Peter and Mark – everything from anatomy to Ayurvedic medicine, Thai massage to chanting and chakras, and on most days, meditated on the beach at sunset. Total hippy heaven!

I absolutely love and treasure the new friends I made there and fingers crossed over the next few months you’ll get to meet some of them too as they pen a story or two for Cohabitaire, so stay tuned for that excitement.

So, if you asked me what was the most important thing we learned I’d have to say it was ACCEPTANCE. Of others, yes, but most crucially of ourselves. When it comes down to it you can’t truly be a yoga teacher, or anything for that matter, until you accept yourself warts and all. Easier said than done and a confronting process at that, a process that certainly takes more than a month but for me the seed has been sewn and I’ve opened the door to a whole new world (cue Disney music).

The trip away also gave me time to reasses how I spend my time, making sure I have enough left to do the things I need to do to keep myself happy. Running a blog like Cohabitaire takes plenty of grunt work, though it’s a labour of love – sitting behind a computer screen for so many extra hours a week kind of keeps me from connecting with the outside world much more than I’d like. So I’ll be posting a little less to maintain a healthy balance of quality over quantity and to ensure Cohabitare continues to showcase the most inspiring stories out there.

With that in mind, I’m keen to open the doors to guest writers on a more regular basis – so if you have any tales of nature inspired life and want to share it with the world (once off or semi-regularly) please, do get in touch – I’d really love to hear from you and I’m sure everyone else here would too.

It’s so nice to be back and I look forward to hearing what you’ve been up to.

Namaste, Ingrid.
(translation: the light in me honours the light in you)

About Ingrid Schroder

A Sydney-side freelance graphic designer, photographer & yoga teacher - I find myself turning to nature for guaranteed revival from the crazy pace of city life - be it digging in my garden, capturing natural beauty through a lens, floating in the ocean, practicing yoga or out exploring this incredible planet we all call home. Follow me on twitter @Cohabitaire