Hayley Tillard

Sometimes the lowest effort yields the best results.

Restorative yoga is so deeply relaxing - allowing props to support our body to open, lengthen, and release - that we’re doing it all month at Lift HQ Sandgate | Group Fitness Classes

Book your class in the Lift HQ app - it’s free for everyone 🤍

One day, my boys will get to decide if they spend their Sunday with me. It’s not all easy, but I don’t take for granted having family days 🩵

For a family adventure near Brisbane:

- Head to the Imperial Hotel Eumundi for lunch with stunning decor, live music, and a hectic indoor kids’ playground. And cob loaf!

- Walk down the Main Street to explore the shops. Stop to mosey the book store.

- Continue on to Matso's Sunshine Coast brewery for an afternoon drink with a play area, lawn games, and live music

- Optional: Head home when one kid is limping after jumping from the top of the water tower

Come to my yoga classes at .sandgate (class timetable on the last slide). Here’s what to expect in July 👉🏾

This month our sequences will develop our balance - demanding deep presence from you.

Balance is a nervous system skill before it is a strength skill. It depends on three inputs working simultaneously:

👂🏽the vestibular system (inner ear, detects head movement)

👁️ vision

👣 proprioception (the body’s ability to sense its own position in space)

Part of our peripheral nervous system includes receptors in our joints, muscles, and connective tissue, which manage proprioception - especially in our ankles, knees, hips.

When these receptors are well-trained, they can fire micro-adjustments without conscious effort, enabling balance.

We’ll train this in class in single-leg poses, like Tree and Half Moon 🪾🌓

We’ll meditate on Anahata, the energy centre that governs the upper torso; heart, lungs, thoracic spine, shoulders 🫀🫁

Through quiet stillness, we’ll reflect on how Anahata energy is flowing and manifesting in ourselves.

Feeling isolated or tense in the upper back? Let’s work on that.

Balance demands presence — you cannot balance while mentally somewhere else. Every wobble returns your awareness to the body, to now.

It’s okay to wobble, to flail. Let’s have fun with our bodies.

In yoga, we’ll practice contentment with what is, and accept our abilities.

To book into class, download the Lift HQ app ‘Fit by Wix’. If it asks for a code, enter ‘LIFTHQ’.

On the HOME tab, scroll through Upcoming Classes to Yoga and tap ‘Book’. You won’t be charged 🤑

🌈 Family motto of the day: “It’s cold but we can do hard things. We’re scared but we’re strong.”

Personal motto of the day: “We paid a lot to be here so we’d better fkn get in the water.”

I completed .org.au’s Basic Skills in Perinatal Mental Health, a training program built on the 2023 National Perinatal Mental Health Guideline.

Here’s what that means for the mothers I work with in consultations.

I’m a perinatal practitioner with a Motherhood Studies qualification. I’m not a clinician: I don’t diagnose, treat, or prescribe. But within my scope, I now have a thorough grounding in:

— What perinatal mental health conditions look like, including depression, anxiety, birth trauma, and postpartum psychosis
— How screening and psychosocial assessment works, and what good practice looks like
— Psychosocial risk factors and protective factors
— Psychoeducation: giving mothers real information about what’s happening and why
— Referral pathways and management plans
— Responding to suicidal ideation
— What best-practice perinatal care looks like, so I can support mothers in knowing what to expect, and advocate alongside them when they’re not getting it

This doesn’t replace clinical care. It means I can work more competently alongside it - recognising what’s showing up, naming it clearly, and knowing when and where to refer.

To take that work deeper, I offer 1:1 yoga coaching and programming as a clinically evidence-based complementary therapy for reducing symptoms of perinatal depression and anxiety, through:

— Activating the parasympathetic nervous system
— Restructuring the brain to improve cognition and stress resilience
— Lowering cortisol
— Releasing mood-elevating neurotransmitters

The evidence here is strong enough that private health funds now insure for it.

Mothers need support and I’m proud to now be able to offer more.

What a treat to be at my big boy’s first athletics carnival 🏃🏾

I’m very much in a season where mum life takes precedent over career.

While I second guess myself every week and it comes with sacrifice, I know not every mother who wants to can be at school events, so I feel very fortunate and, for me, seeing my son’s face when he spots me at school activities melts my lil’ heart 💕