Yoga has taken the Western world by storm.

The Australian Sports Commission ranks the practice the 14th most popular physical activity with an estimated 273,000 Australian women engaging in some sort of yoga.

Devotees claim the practice is both healing and transformative and the perfect anecdote to modern life.

For some, Yoga is more an attitude than an activity, and to be truly ‘yogic’, you must incorporate lessons from the mat into your everyday life.

In traditional forms of yoga, these lessons take on a spiritual nature; encouraging compassion, love for one’s body, vulnerability and, at times, surrender to forces beyond your control.

Lucienne ‘Shanti’ (meaning peace in Sanskrit) is a yoga teacher and devotee.

This is her story.