KAREN Patterson, who has lived in Milverton for 17 years, is today launching an initiative she is funding herself to support people in becoming free to achieve their fuller individual potential.

The successful yoga teacher with hundreds of students over the years has launched a new website entitled 'Personal Freedom through self-governance'.

Funded by Karen personally, the website offers advice and thoughts on how to embrace greater freedom to be who and what we could be. It is selling nothing and looking for nothing from visitors.

Karen said: “We are all bombarded by external influences every day - messages, visuals, arguments, opinions, real news, fake news etc.

"Not only do these cause internal noise and confusion, they also unknowingly influence our thoughts, feelings and opinions.

"This means that we are not truly free to build our ideas and ideals based on a clear vision of reality.

"This initiative is about training our thinking, because if we can govern our thinking, we can govern our lives.

“Regular practice of specific exercises helps me to feel calm, centred and able to see things more clearly.

"I then have the mental space to set myself appropriate goals and to carry out each task in a clear and ordered way. I’m keen to support others in developing these skills.”

The new website - www.self-governance.co.uk - contains links to courses, articles and books where readers can learn exercises for training the thinking.

Self-governance means learning to form thoughts that are not chaotic but clear, not mechanical but creative, not emotionally biased but rational and logical. These thoughts can then form the basis for calmer, clearer and more creative actions.