That annoying thing called imposter syndrome

I have many talented clients who are keen to offer Reiki or other holistic and trauma-based therapies, teach yoga and/or write books, but let the imposter syndrome get in the way.

This is a syndrome which essentially tells you that you are not good enough to offer whatever it is that you are wanting to offer, that you don’t know enough, aren’t clever enough, expert enough, knowledgeable enough, that you don’t have the right qualifications, that you won’t be able to do a good job, that compares you to others and concludes that there’s too much competition anyway and that you will never be able to make a go of it etc.

But really when it boils down to it, it shows that you just care too much what others think of you and that you don’t recognise your own magnificence.

It also shows that you don’t trust spirit and/or have faith in whatever it was that gifted the idea in the first place.

And that you are Ok about selling out on your heart.

It might also indicate that you have forgotten that we co-create in this life and it is about so much more than you.

We let our ego get involved.

This is the self-depreciating ego which tells us that we are not loveable, or good enough, or enough of this and that, or too much, or whatever other negative self-depreciating inner narrative we repeat over and over again and make manifest in our lives simply because we are always seeking validation of this negativity and embedding it deeper into our psyche and belief system.

If we look for trouble, we will see only trouble.

If we look for love, we will see only love.

If we look for validation of our uselessness, we will see it everywhere.

It is all about perspective.

And we have a choice.

We can keep limiting ourselves with all this negative crap, or we can choose to shift our mentality to something far more positive and expansive and live our best life.

It’s not our fault. We have been conditioned since birth to question ourselves, to doubt ourselves and to be down on ourselves.

We are constantly criticised for not being intelligent enough, or quick enough on the sports field, or arty enough, or musical, or thoughtful enough, or kind enough or polite enough, or not wearing the right clothes, or saying the right thing, or walking down the corridor correctly, or sitting still, or any of the other many, many ways that we are told how to be and judged for behaving differently.

No wonder so many are so tired.

This trying to be what others want us to be and this caring what others think and the hyper vigilance this requires, is really rather exhausting. It creates so much insecurity, anxiety and depression. It causes us to lose our centre, close our hearts and, at times, think we are negatively losing our mind.

Consumerism thrives on this insecurity. It thrives on our externalising of our worth. Of caring too much what others think. People make millions selling products that we are told will help us feel better about ourselves. Even in yoga, it has become all about the building or the mat or the clothes we wear, and this when yoga is absolutely an internal practice.

But that aside, it is crazy isn’t it, to base our self-esteem and sense of self on other people’s fleeting thoughts. Watch your own mind and ask yourself, “what thought will I think next?”, and watch the constant stream of thoughts that appear from the ether in all their randomness. Thoughts come and go. The trouble is we give them far too much energy and believe that they are a concrete representation of reality. They aren’t. So why on earth we care what other people are thinking about us or the opinions they hold one us (which are just thoughts) is quite beyond me.

If we don’t care about our own thoughts - and we really shouldn’t, especially those self depreciating ones, then why on earth should we care about other people’s thoughts? And this to the detriment of our experience and quality of life.

Because when we care too much, it stops us fulfilling our potential, it limits us and it keeps us stuck. And slowly a part of us begins to die, to give up, to feel hopeless, to accept our miserable lot. We close down to excitement and joy, we let our head drop, we drink more wine, eat more junk food, watch more TV, spend more time meaninglessly scrolling through social media, we might manifest illness and we tell ourselves all sorts of stories to justify why we won’t bother trying to move our life forwards and step into our power, share our gifts with the world, just yet.

Sometimes we are scared of failing. Or scared of our potential success.

Somewhere though, we have forgotten that there is a bigger picture.

You see spirit works through us. It wants to co-create with us. It needs us to be the channel and vehicle to bring more heart and soul onto this planet. The trouble is we block this flow by getting in our own way.

We make it all about us, rather than the people who may benefit.

We forget our place in the cosmos.

Maybe I am lucky. I didn’t intend to teach yoga or Reiki or offer Ayurveda. I only signed up for my yoga teacher training course because I wanted to immerse myself in yoga. Together with Reiki it had quite literally saved my life and I wanted to learn all I could about it. I also wanted everyone else on the planet to practice yoga because I knew how much it might help to ease our individual and collective suffering.

It was the same with Reiki. My Reiki Master had to really encourage me along to the first attunement session as I didn’t feel good enough. I was quite sure that the Reiki wouldn't work for me and when I was the only one in the room who didn’t feel a thing during the attunement itself and certainly didn’t see colours or have a sense of energy beings, i concluded that I definitely wasn’t good enough.

But alas a seed was sown and I found myself attending the Level Two training. It was the pendulum dowsing that got me really. I just couldn't believe that it actually worked for me. It was life changing. I slowly started to connect with, and trust, my intuition. It helped that I had by then started receiving spiritual life coaching using Reiki and the Reiki had been working its magic in my life, this to the extent that I wanted everyone else on this planet to benefit.

It was the same with Ayurveda. It felt like magic. I couldn’t quite believe how changing my diet in such an ancient way and taking some medicinal herbs could create such a profound difference in my energy levels and my relationship with myself. The pre-menstrual symptoms which had plagued me for years dissipated. The cysts on my ovaries healed. My disordered eating eased. The overwhelm and accompanying depressive moments abated. I was sleeping better. My digestive system was consistent. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I wanted everyone to try Ayurveda.

And so I ended up teaching yoga and Reiki and becoming an Ayurvedic lifestyle and nutrition consultant simply because I wanted others to experience the benefits for themselves.

I felt as if I had been given these incredibly sacred gifts and the only way I can truly thank the powers that be, is to share these gifts with others. My teachings and sharing then come from a place of deep gratitude.

Not only that, but I realise spirit is just moving through me. I don’t own any of it. Even Beinspired is not mine. It came in at just the right time and it has shaped itself.

The moments when I take myself too seriously, make it all about me, or try in some way to control things, especially Beinspired, is the time it all goes to pot. That I have learned the hard way.

And yes of course, I too have suffered imposter syndrome. Every time I offer something new, I can feel a creeping of anxiety and start questioning my ability and hear myself saying something like, “who do you think you are offering spiritual life coaching, do you really feel you have the qualifications/training/knowledge to help coach others spiritually, and can you honestly charge people for what you are offering?”

I hear those thoughts.

But then I also know that the idea to offer spiritual life coaching was not about me, it was about the people who may benefit from my sharing my passion for yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda, and all the many spiritual practices I have explored these last 20 off years. That is not supposed to sound arrogant, as if I am better than anyone else, I am not. But with all that I offer, it just suddenly comes in as a possibility, I haven’t gone searching for it.

The yoga teacher training course was the first of its kind and arrived on my penultimate day in Byron Bay when I was wondering what to do next with my life, but knowing that I wanted to continue immersing myself in yoga (you can read more about this in Namaste and From Darkness Comes Light). The Reiki came in by encouragement from my Reiki Master. The Ayurvedic training was encouraged by my Ayurvedic doctor. A part of me was cynical - they just want my money. But I know now, as I do this to others, that it is never about the money, it's an intuitive nudge, because you know that other person will benefit - if I have been badgering you to come to class, or do a Reiki attunement or consult with me for Ayurveda, this is the reason, something is telling me that you will benefit!

In many respects I have felt that I have had little choice. My yoga teacher told me to go back to Guernsey and start teaching yoga. My Reiki Master encouraged me to establish Beinspired and start offering Reiki. My Ayurvedic doctor was super keen for me to offer Ayurveda and did all she could to help me. These people are conscious, they have benefitted themselves from these spiritual practices and they also see the bigger picture - that we are co-creating with the divine, we are playing our role in positively shifting the vibration on this planet. We have incarnated at this time in history for this very reason.

So each time I come up against imposter syndrome, I acknowledge it and sit with it. Where is it coming from? What is the fear? And how is my heart feeling?

And as long as it still feels aligned, my heart sings, my intuition is nodding, then I’ll go for it anyway.

I’ll put on my big girl leggings and I’ll face my inner demon.

I’ll trust in whatever it was that gifted me the idea or the nudge in the first place.

I have learned a ton of lessons along the way.

At my first yoga class no one turned up. I went home and cried on my Dad’s shoulder. But I didn’t give up because something was telling me that I just needed to be patient, that Rome was not built in a day, that we all have to start somewhere, that it takes time for people to find their way to you.

And they do.

I have learned to trust in that.

That the right people will find you. That the universe will connect you.

Sure, it helps to advertise, to make people aware you exist. But people will come when the time is right - and for both of you, because it’s a two way process - I learn something from every single client and students who has entered my life.

I have also learned that you can advertise as much as you like, but if you have some resistance within you because you are letting imposter syndrome get in the way then people will not find you because on some level you are blocking them, you are also manifesting the validation you need that you are not good enough so let’s back out now while you can. I have sene this happen lots of times, people make it all about them again.

We have to be careful with our thoughts as they do create our reality. So shift your thoughts. And pray. Pray for assistance. For the most perfect situation for all parties.

I have also learned that we are not in control.

And that we should never base our self worth on external validation such as the number of students in our class or our busy schedule.

Just like we should never look to someone else to make us feel whole.

Or look to love to save us.

Or someone else to make us feel safe.

Or assume we need a community or tribe to feel as if we belong.

Our primary relationship in this lifetime is with ourselves. That much I have learned.

We come in on our own and we will leave on our own. This is the journey of OUR soul.

I know this with absolute certainty.

We can hear the powers that be if we are still enough, quiet enough, gentle enough.

We just need to learn to trust in what we hear, and cultivate greater faith in ourselves and in spirit in the process.

We need to cultivate self-belief. We have to learn to love and accept ourselves. This takes hard work. No one else can do it for us. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, you cannot buy this. Sure others can help you, but only you can really make the inner changes.

We need to switch off and switch in. People love eating energy. Protect your energy. Don’t give it away or let others steal it.

Faith is our protection.

Discernment is our weapon.

I have also learned that we should never have an attachment to outcome. If we do, we will never write that book, or run that course, or offer that treatment.

We do what we do for the love of it, for the sheer joy of the creative process.

We leave others to receive our offering in their own way. We are not responsible for this.

We have to let go of our idea of success or healing or whatever it may be.

We cannot control outcome.

We cannot make someone better if they don’t want to be better.

And we need to remember that we don’t all think and feel the same. So just because we might feel a certain way after say a yoga class or a Reiki treatment, doesn't mean that others will feel similarly. Some may like it, some may not.

And the other lesson I have learned is not to personalise everything. Someone doesn’t come back to yoga. Big deal. That’s their choice. Maybe that one session was all they needed to move them forwards in their life, maybe they can’t get a baby sitter, maybe they have to work late, maybe yoga is just not for them. We don’t need to make up stories that revolve around us, “oh I don’t think they like my style of teaching, oh I am such a rubbish yoga teacher blah blah blah.

Who cares!

Do what you do, offer what you offer, for the sheer love of it.

Stop caring what others think.

And put your energy to loving yourself more instead. Of being your greatest friend.

I have spent thousands of pounds on various trainings, workshops, courses and treatments over the years, but one of my best friend’s gave me the greatest advice for free. He told me to stop caring what others think. No one had ever told me that. Not one single person. or if they did, I didn’t hear them. I started putting this into practice and I couldn’t believe how deep the conditioning around caring what others think. Every time I was triggered, when I traced it back to source, I realised it was always about caring what others thought. I cannot tell you how liberating it has been to work with this and stop caring. It automatically tightens boundaries and helps you value yourself - and - it increases interestingly your compassion not least for self, but for others, because you see how much they suffer by caring too much what others think.

To the extent they don’t live their best life.

And this, to me, is a real tragedy.

So too the fact that they are denying others the benefit of their gifts by not sharing them - it’s like a form of stealing.

If you are reading this, then the chances are that you too have something to share. That you have a passion for yoga or writing or holistic therapies or whatever it may be and that your life has been touched positively to the extent that you would like others to benefit from what you have to share, be that your healing hands, your story or just your ability to listen.

So my advice is to share it. Notice the self-depreciating and limiting thoughts and do it anyway. Dig deep. Find the courage. Trust in whatever it was that gave you the idea. Cultivate faith. Pray for assistance along the way. Please don’t deny others the benefit of whatever gift you are here to share.

If it helps then I am happy to work with you to move you forwards, but remember that I cannot do it for you. You have to do it for yourself.

To help others.

To liberate yourself. Fly free.

To raise the vibration on this planet.

And boy do we need it!

Love Emma x

Navigating change

The winds of change are definitely here, we’re at the end of Autumn after all, the Vata time of the year, when the elements of air and ether are at their strongest, ushering greater movement in our lives.

People tell me that they love change but I beg to differ. Even the Yoga Sutras (sutra II.15) tells us that our greatest suffering (dukkha) occurs due to change (parinama).

Sure we love change once it has happened and we can be assured of a happy and positive outcome but the process of change, of moving from one state of being to another, of stepping into the unknown without any guarantee of what might happen next – will we enjoy the new job? Will it work out moving in with our partner? Will we love the new country ? – All of these things can be potentially positive but there is always a moment, always a doubt, a last minute questioning whether we have made the right decision and wouldn’t we be better to maintain the status quo?

This because change brings fear and fear can cause us to resist change.

The mind LOVES certainty. The mind LIKES to ensure safety. The mind will do ALL it can to protect us even if that protection keeps us stuck, scared to make changes and move forward in our lives.

The mind also seeks to find evidence from our PAST to validate its resistance to change, and it LOVES to IMAGINE a FUTURE, usually from a worst case scenario perspective. The mind flip flops frequently between the past and the future and forgets to focus on THIS moment, NOW, when everything is OK. You’re OK aren’t you, right now, reading this?

Our life actually is one of trying to be OK. 

Always we are making decisions based on our motivation to be OK. Sometimes the decisions don’t work out as intended, sometimes our judgment is clouded because we don’t see clearly (Per Yoga Sutra I.6, the first of five activities of the mind is correct perception - sometimes we don’t perceive correctly – the second activity is wrong understanding/mistaken knowledge – we don’t understand correctly). Furthermore we can easily delude ourselves (Avidya, ignorance, appears as a klesha, an affliction of the mind, see Sutra II.3), especially if we are confronted with something scary, like change.

However, life is one of constant change, we cannot avoid it; every day the planet is turning, every day the sun sets farther south or north than it did the day before, every day the moon is in a constant process of movement from full to new and new to full, every day In our own lives we move from morning to midday, wake to sleep, birth to death. Even one second turning into the next brings miniscule (or sometimes huge) changes - we are a different person to the one we were ten years ago and no doubt we will be different in ten years’ time from how we are now. 

The change of any season is a great way to observe ‘change’ at work but especially now in Autumn. Supported by the increase in air and ether (and the resulting wind), the trees drop their leaves and those leaves return to the earth, where they started the first signs of life in the first place. As the trees move from full-life to a state of dormancy and hibernation throughout the winter period, they are preparing to burst into life again in the Spring. If they didn’t do this, the trees would waste valuable energy and nutrients trying to survive in conditions which do not support them.

So it is with us too. In this Autumnal time of year, by its very nature, Vata is all about movement and we are being asked to create movement in our own lives by letting go to create the space (remember Vata is space/ether and air) for the air to blow the new in - think of the heart chakra, represented by the element of air, sometimes we have a change of heart, sometimes something touches our heart and this changes everything. 

Our suffering arises when we resist this process, when we hold on to our leaves when they are ready to drop, when we listen to our head rather than our heart, when we stay stuck in unhealthy relationships, jobs and  friendships, when we keep feeding the same unhelpful and limiting mental patterning (habits, thought processes and behaviours), when we cling on and keep doing what we have always been doing because we THINK we know what’s best when all the time our body is screaming at us to let go and rest. 

How best then can we navigate change?

1. Acceptance is key 🗝

But acceptance can take time. We need to accept that we need to make changes in our lives. Spiritual Life Coaching is really helpful here.

More often than not we know we need to make changes, but we don’t always know what changes to make or how to make them. Often the change that needs to be made is internal, setting ourselves free from our conditioning and habitual thought processes and behaviours, healing old wounds and shifting core and limiting beliefs, letting go of outmoded ways of seeing the world and ourselves, changing perspective, as if awaking for the first time. 

Having someone help and hold space for us while we navigate all of this is incredibly helpful. Worksheets are provided between sessions for us to consider our limiting beliefs, our relationship with our body, our emotional state, our mental patterning, and the option of considering our diet and lifestyle from an Ayurvedic perspective too, as well as being supported by various spiritual practices including yoga and various breathing and relaxation techniques.

If this resonates, if you know you need to make changes but fear is getting in your way then do reach out and we can discuss how Spiritual Life Coaching may help you.

2. Cultivate greater faith 🙏🏽

Faith is the antidote to fear.

There is a wonderful Vedic chant from the Rig Veda called Shraddha Suktam, which is chanted to strengthen faith. The chant contains a verse, “Shraddha devanadhivaste” which translates as faith is our protection -  it really is!

Faith gives us the strength to make changes in our lives, to choose differently, even when there is no certainty of outcome, when we are asked to step into the unknown. 

3. Yoga practice 🧘🏻‍♂️

To cultivate greater faith we might delve deeper into our yoga practice, getting on our mat and taking conscious, comfortable, slow and steady breaths, lengthening into our exhalation, practicing asana (postures) in a steady and comfortable way, taking time to rest, engaging in a Yoga Nidra to work with a Sankalpa (intention) and take us deeper into the body. 

We might also enter into prayer - See Sutra I.23 where we are introduced to the concept of Isvara Pranidhanadva, an ultimate being, God, Universe and later, Sutra II.1 defines Kriya yoga as being the yoga of action with three key components, namely Tapah, which means heat/purification, doing something positive like getting on our mat, Svadhyaya, which means self-reflection, such as reading spiritual texts and seeing how they we can incorporate the teachings into our life and Isvara Pranidhanadva appears again as a reminder to surrender, appreciating the notion that we are not in control, that the world does not revolve around us, thus encouraging us to accept our place in things, that there is something higher.

The Yoga Sutras also reminds us in the first chapter (sutras I.13 and I.14) to develop a steady and balanced practice, which takes place over the long term, without interruptions, with a positive attitude, with enthusiasm and thoroughly if we can expect to see any positive changes.

We are basically reminded that there is no quick fix, that we are in this for the long run, NOT just when things are critical but all the time, so that the challenging times, like when we experience change, do not have to end up putting us into a critical state of mind – practicing regularly reduces our suffering. 

Explore the first three chapters of the Yoga Sutras with Emma, discussing various sutras and considering how they might be relevant to your life. Each session lasts 60 minutes and can be enhanced by a regular yoga and/or Reiki practice to help support general healing and personal and spiritual development. 

4. Spiritual practice 👁

We can expand our spiritual practice beyond our mat, to make all of life an opportunity to cultivate greater faith and help us manage change. We might visit sacred sites, spending time outside in nature, sitting against a tree, taking walks on our own by the sea, reading spiritual books, attending spiritual groups, studying spiritual subjects.

Spiritual Life Coaching can assist in helping you cultivate an authentic and consistent spiritual practice.

5. Reiki 👐🏼

Reiki not only supports our ongoing healing but also promotes our spiritual and personal development. Reiki helps to release energy blocks which will help to free us from the effect of previous trauma and the resulting mental, emotional, physical and energetic patterning that continues to inform our daily life.

In this way, Reiki helps to restore wholeness, positively changing the way we relate to ourselves and others, while increasing our energy and helping us to see our life more clearly. It is extremely helpful through periods of change, when we know something needs to shift, but we don’t quite know how to make it happen.

Becoming attuned to Reiki can also help as you can lay your hands on yourself.

6. Ayurveda 🌿

Staying grounded will help immensely too. Ayurveda offers us many options to help ease anxiety and fear when it arises, eating warming stews, curries and soups, using our hands to consciously prepare food or hands in the earth gardening, massaging our whole body with coconut oil and then lying in a warm bath (adding dead sea salts is really helpful too). 

There are herbal medicines we can take too, albeit these need to be prescribed individually for our specific needs.

7. Positive thinking 🔋

As stipulated in Yoga Sutra II.33, when we find ourselves disturbed and not sure of the best way forward, we can look at it from the other side, so we cultivate looking at things from a different perspective to try to resolve doubt and the lack of clarity. This can be like thinking, ‘well what will happen is I don’t do it versus what will happen if I do’. Or put ourself in another person’s point of view.

Thus if we are stuck in an attitude of fear or resentment, we have to positively cultivate the opposite. This involves working with the mind to see things differently, especially when we are stuck.

At such times we are encouraged to divert attention, reflect on potential consequences, take a step back to ask for advice, practice yoga and in such times seeking help from a teacher is invaluable. Spiritual Life Coaching can help enormously as referenced above. 

8. Loosening the grip 🌏

We take on habits, or a habitual thought process, and at the very beginning it might serve us in some way, keep us safe for example. But after some time, this way of being and living no longer serves us and it is time to let go and change, make new healthier habits or thought processes. The trouble is we humans are very good at grasping and attaching ourselves to there being one way. It is this inflexibility that ends up causing our suffering. 

If we can loosen our grip – aparigraha, the fifth yama or ethical principle/relationship to the world around us as noted in Sutra 11.31 means non-grasping, non-possessiveness, non-attachment – then in theory we can flow more easily moment to moment, adapting to change as it arises, allowing our transformation, and actually arriving in the present moment, experiencing it exactly as it is without needing to react to it.

9. Going with the flow 🌊

Sutra II.3 refers to the ‘kleshas’, the afflictions including attachment/desire (ragas) and aversion/hatred (dvesa) and how we alternate between the two, wanting and rejecting, liking and disliking, and how this causes unsteadiness in the mind.

If we can just let go of our preferences, then we can find greater equanimity. This is particularly relevant if change is forced upon us, sometimes we just need to go with it, let go of our preferences, to be shown that there may be another way – more often than not, redundancy, for example, while a shock, can be a blessing in disguise, presenting new opportunities. 

10. Bach Floral Remedies 🌸

Taking Bach floral remedies, the one for fear (Mimulus) or shock (Star of Bethlehem), or overwhelm (Elm) or the Rescue Remedy to help support generally.

11. Spending time with positive people 🪷

When we are navigating change, it is very helpful to spend time with people who are supportive of this.

More often than not people come from a place of self-service and they can be threatened when we make changes in our life, not least because they fear losing us (and their grip over us), but also because we indirectly encourage them to come out of their potential denial about the state of their life.

Many people like to put their head in the sand and they prefer it is those around them to do the same, so they don’t have to face their reality. 

12. Feeling into it 🫀

It can be really helpful to feel our fear and anxiety as they arise. To understand its root – which is more often than not, around our safety.

Remember FEAR as False Evidence Appearing Real and challenge it – where is the evidence that we will end up homeless, unwell, dead etc?

For more help please do reach out. The more comfortable we can be with the change, the easier it is for us to weather it when it appears in our lives.

Warming, Ayurvedic, vata-balancing recipes:

Having a float!

I went for a float on Sunday. I’d been told about float rooms a few years ago from a friend who swore by floating, finding it both extremely relaxing and enlightening, so it’d been on my mind. I’d heard along the grapevine that one had opened on Guernsey but I hadn’t gotten as far as booking in.

Then a pregnant friend mentioned she’d been and knowing we share a mutual love of baths she suggested that I go along and give it a try. So I did! And I have to say it was a really enjoyable, relaxing and, to a certain extent, enlightening experience.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised to find a very welcoming Dave and a very clean room with a lovely energy, safe and protected from the outside world!

Dave explained the process, how he would leave me on my own in the secure space so I could undress (you can wear a bather if you choose), put in the ear plugs before showering using products provided (faith in nature) and applying Vaseline to any open cuts (as these would sting otherwise!). I was then to ease myself directly from the shower into the float tank, which is little more like a wide and shallow bath, not the tank I had in mind fortunately! It has an emergency button if you need help at any point!

The room was dimply lit and I chose ‘ocean wave’ music to be played gently in the background throughout the session. Dave had warned me that initially some of his friends had experienced a sore neck after floating as they had been unable to fully relax their neck and let their head be held by the extremely high salt content of the tank (dead sea salts from Israel), which enabled the body to float. 

I’m pleased he had warned me of this because I quickly noticed that I was unable to relax my neck, there was something within me stopping me doing it. I tried to talk myself into it, asking my neck to relax but for some reason, it was holding on tight. It made no sense because I could feel that the salt content was holding me afloat, my head was not dropping backwards into the water, but nonetheless my neck was holding on tightly to something that it wouldn’t let go.

 Fortunately there is a plastic pillow of sorts that you can use, to rest the back of your head, so I grabbed this and placed it behind my head. It made a huge difference for me, for some strange reason I was able to relax my neck knowing that there was something contacting the back of my head, even though it was the salt holding this, as it would have held my head too, if my neck had allowed it!

With my neck finally relaxing, I felt as if the whole of me might now relax too, but all of a sudden there was a momentary panic as I questioned what exactly I might now do for the remaining 55 minutes of the session. I might well practice yoga and meditate a couple of times a day, plus practise some yoga nidra a few times each week, but I don’t often (never) lie down for a whole 60 minutes unless I am also reading in bed at the same time. 

I thought maybe I might think about a few things, process some stuff which has been playing on my mind, but amazingly the combination of the salted water and the sensation of lying, let alone the ocean sounds and the dim light meant that I was incapable of holding a stream of thought, and the effort to think became too effortful and with that I drifted into that beautiful liminal space where you are neither here nor there and time passes quickly, too quickly in this case! 

I felt my body move at times, as if I was jolted awake momentarily, perhaps a twitch or a release, and then I drifted back into that restful space where – I believe - healing takes place. It reminded me of Reiki, where you just drift off to this other place and before you know it the session is over.

Lo and behold before too long, the air con kicked in again and a waft of cooler air blew into the room, while the star-studded lights above the tank turned on once more, only gently, but enough for me to know that the session had ended. I scraped the salt off my skin and as much as I could off my hair, as requested by Dave, before stepping out of the tank and back into the shower to shower off once again.

After dressing and removing the ear plugs, I joined Dave in the reception area to pay him and to share my experiences. While he was probably keen for me to leave and let him get on with his day he didn’t show it and was extremely welcoming and giving of his time. I wondered if I might have been better driving, but fortunately the rain held off as I cycled back home, grateful in many respects for the fresh air and opportunity to wake myself a little before the boys joined me that afternoon.

When they did join me I became very aware how much my ears were tested by their noise. My boys are noisy and I do sometimes struggle with this, but I hadn’t realised the extent to which noise generally bothers my ears and how desperate a part of me was for peace and space. I didn’t get it of course, such is the reality of family life, and I felt on edge and aggravated by it to the extent that after dinner, and with my mother in law helping E, I was able to escape to our room where I promptly burst into tears.

I couldn’t stop once I had started, this endless stream of watery release, which I think was the result of something unearthed from my neck during the float. Perhaps it was also the release of something touched in a distance ki massage session with my shadow worker Jo just a few days previous to that, which had taken me to the criss-cross of a few layers beginning to reveal themselves from the shadows, as if this was all timed perfectly, the float facilitating the release.

It continued the next morning too, the tears just coming without any angst or emotion attached to them, just a release. My neck was a little achy and I was curious about this. In my yoga practice I really focused on my neck and I noticed, when I was lying on my mat at the beginning of the session, how I was unintentionally holding on in my neck. I had never noticed it previously because it was obviously my norm, but now I could see how there was just this subtle holding of my head and inability to totally surrender the weight of it to the floor. 

So I settled into that and noticed how my softening and letting go softened my throat and changed my breathing, so it was more relaxed somehow. I couldn’t quite believe how I had allowed that pattern to be there for all these years, this need to somehow protect the vulnerability of the neck and it’s place there between the head and the heart, not able to fully surrender the head and all this emotional holding, a lot of misguided guilt and an inability to allow the heart to flow up and out, to fully express itself in the world.

A few days on and the emotions have settled. It took me completely by surprise and I am grateful to the float for being a conduit for the release that it brought. I’m really keen to return again, they offer a three-session deal, which sounds great, albeit my one session did the trick. I’ve been feeling calmer since, and curious too, to learn more of the tension I’m holding and what underlies that, just as I’m curious to find out what will come of the additional freedom now in my neck!

It’s funny how the releases come in their way, how things can be divinely orchestrated, to an agenda that we’re created and yet has some magical input into it too. I always find this place a little uncomfortable though, the neither here nor there as things settle after any letting go, but I trust that it is for the greater good, that the change will come when the timing is right and that there is a bigger picture to all of this. My advice – go for a float! 

** It’s now six days after the float and a few days since writing that blog post and the whirlwind which it brought with the release has now settled, and I recognise the role it played in helping me to surrender and let go of a limiting belief that has been bothering me since March now. With that much needed clarity after months of not being able to ‘see’ clearly. It’s powerful stuff that floating!

 If you know you have something to release but you don’t know what it is, or you feel stuck in your life, not sure which way to go, lacking clarity and a little confused, then go for a float. If the body is holding on tightly, then go for a float. If you need some time out, some peace and some space to just be, then go for a float. I cannot tell you what an incredible conduit it is for letting go and just being…

Love Emma x

P.S. You’ll need to go look on Facebook, it’s called The Float Room, a friend sent me details, the email is info@thefloatroom.gg

Yoga Nidra!

With the Yoga Nidra session for Guernsey Mind soon approaching I thought maybe I might share an article I wrote that was published by a European yoga & health magazine about seven years ago now. This was before children so I do not reference the way in which my journey with IVF deepened my experience of yoga nidra and helped me recognise more than ever the transformative and supportive nature of this practice.

I write about it in my book, Dancing with the Moon, but yoga nidra really helped me to maintain a positive mind set when it came to my journey to motherhood and I worked a lot with the Sankalpa, “I am pregnant with a healthy baby”. I practiced Yoga nidra a lot, perhaps daily at times, during the post natal period as I found it so incredibly healing and helpful when i was depleted from C-sections and sleep deprivation.

Only now are we beginning to get more sleep, almost seven years on from having our eldest and I still practice yoga nidra a few times a week. It was helpful earlier on this year when I was initially exploring sobriety, and throughout lockdown it helped enormously in managing my angst at not being able to physically teach yoga or give hands on Reiki. It has been extremely helpful in recent months as I work through some old patterns around boundaries and self-worth.

That’s the thing with yoga nidra. It not only makes me feel better, but it actually helps to completely change things, we are potentially transformed by the practice, if we can make the time. This is the reason I am so keen to share it, not simply as a deep guided relaxation, although it is this, but because it literally transforms our mind in a more positive direction if we allow it, almost re-programmes it then. It’s quite remarkable.

Anyhow here’s the article…

When I initially started practicing Yoga almost 10 years ago now, I simply could not relax.  It was impossible.  At the end of the Yoga class when the teacher announced Savasana, I would try and find any possible excuse to leave the class early so that I could avoid the last few minutes of relaxation.  

It was not so much that I was adverse to the idea of relaxation per se, it was more so that I found relaxing so mentally uncomfortable.  There were simply too many thoughts, too many tick lists, too many things I should be doing, rather than simply lying there on the floor trying to relax.

When I first ventured out to Byron Bay in Australia to immerse myself in Yoga a year into my practice, I shall never forget my first 2 hour Yoga session (the normal length of the classes out there at that time).  While I loved every single minute of the asana practice, the problem came, however, with a 20 whole minutes of quiet relaxation at the end of the class.  Proper quiet that is, with no music, no distraction, nothing.  Those were the longest 20 minutes of my life, or so it seemed in that moment! 

Still with me attending these 2 hour sessions once or twice a day every day for a month and unable to leave the class early (many teachers will understandably discourage you from doing so), I quickly developed my own way of dealing with the mental chatter.  I imagined in my mind a train line with open trucks in which I placed each of my thoughts and then watched them pass by, one after the other, until I was able, eventually, to experience some relief from the constant background mental chatter.

Over the next year I practiced a lot of Yoga as I developed my practice both on and off the mat, qualifying as a Yoga teacher in the process.  My ability to relax improved hugely, but it wasn’t until I assisted on a teacher training course at Govinda Valley, Sydney that I discovered the joy and indeed benefit of Yoga Nidra. The relaxation became something I enjoyed rather than something that I endured at the end of a Yoga class.

I can still remember the experience of that first Yoga Nidra clearly.  There we were, the whole class of students, lying comfortably in the corpse pose, a bolster under knees and a blanket covering each of us to keep us warm as the teacher’s gentle voice soothed us into a state of cosy bliss as we relaxed each part of our body part by part, experiencing sensations and bringing awareness to the natural breath; it was a journey like no other I had experienced previously.

Time lost all meaning, what was actually 30 minutes felt like 5, and before I knew it we were back in the room, on our mats, in our bodies, feeling much more centred and grounded than I had felt at the beginning of the class.  What was also noticeable was the fact the mental chatter had eased, I had managed to drift beyond it into that wonderful state of being between being awake and asleep, the hypnotic state, where real healing takes place.  I felt brighter, lighter, rested and renewed.  

Essentially Yoga Nidra is a powerful meditation technique inducing complete physical, emotional and mental relaxation.   During Yoga Nidra one appears to be asleep but the consciousness is functioning at a deeper level of awareness so that you are prompted throughout the practice to say to yourself mentally, “I shall not sleep, I shall remain awake”.

Before beginning Yoga Nidra you make a Sankalpa, or a resolution for the practice.  The Sankalpa is an important stage of Yoga Nidra as it plants a seed in the mind encouraging healing and transformation in a positive direction.  The Sankapla is a short positive mental statement established at the beginning of the practice and said mentally to yourself in the present tense, as if it had already happened, such as “I am happy, healthy and pure light”, or “I am whole and healed”.

A Sankalpa can also be used to encourage you to let go of something in your life like smoking or overeating, focusing on the underlying feeling that leads you to smoke or to overeat such as “I love and care for myself and my body”, or “I choose to eat foods that support my health and wellbeing” or “I am relaxed and contented”.    In fact simply having the opportunity to establish a Sankalpa is powerful in itself as it gives you a focus and enhances your awareness of self.

It is actually in connecting with yourself that you come to realise all the deep seated tensions that Yoga Nidra helps you to release.  These are all the unconscious and unresolved issues that are playing a role in some of the unwanted habits and behaviour patterns you are noticing consciously.  This is the stuff that goes through your mind time and time again, the stuff you resolve to change at the beginning of each year but that “will” alone will not change.  What you need to do is get to the root of the problem and Yoga Nidra provides you with a means to do this.

With all the letting go of this “stuff”, such as trapped emotions and feelings, you become lighter and there is more energy available to be used in a more positive manner.  Plus with the power of intention in the form of Sankalpa, that which we attract into our life also changes.  It is in this way that Yoga Nidra offers us so much potential for transforming our lives in an even more positive direction than we can ever imagine.

Of course let us not forget the physiological benefits too, such as lowering of the heart rate and blood pressure, the release of lactate from the muscles that can cause anxiety and fatigue, a more restful night’s sleep and, ultimately, a calming and unwinding of the nervous system, which is basically the foundation of the body’s wellbeing.  So you see our physical health and sense of wellbeing can improve too.

Over the years Yoga Nidra has helped me in so many ways.  At times of crisis, when I have been tired and exhausted, sick and stressed, it has helped to restore, renew and heal me.  At confused times in my life when I have been unclear of the way forward then it has provided me with much needed clarity.  At other times it has helped me to let go of unhealthy addictions and behaviour patterns, the most profound was changing my relationship to myself and therefore enabling me to effortlessly let go of the need to smoke tobacco after so many years of battling with this nicotine addiction.

These days relaxation comes easily to me and I positively seek out and embrace any opportunity for Yoga Nidra for it is just such an amazing practice. In this stressful and fast paced world we live, where we can feel so disorientated and fragmented, it really helps to bring us back together and connect with ourselves again. Needless to say, I cannot promote the benefits of Yoga Nidra to you enough.

But of course you cannot benefit from merely intellectualising these things, and reading about it will not necessarily change things.  What you really need to do is make a commitment to take the time out for yourself.  Lie comfortably, cover yourself with a blanket, close your eyes and allow yourself to be guided through a Yoga Nidra session.  I doubt you will regret it, in fact you may find it a life changing experience. 

Letting Go into the Darkness of Winter

I haven’t written a blog post for ages as life has been a bit full, catching up on office work and Ayurvedic study from when we were in the Outer Hebrides (and trying to land back to life here in Guernsey) and then finally publishing my book, Namaste! (You can buy it from Amazon here or Waterstones here).

It’s funny as the book publishing was a bit of an anti-climax having started it 11 years ago and giving up on it a number of times over the years, but always having it in the back of my mind that I really wanted to publish it, because it has been a dream and I like dreams to come true! I’d lived the thought of publishing my book many times in my mind, in my sankalpa repeated during yoga nidra, on healing mandalas, in my journal and in my prayers, so it was almost a relief to let it go, come what may. 

The planetary dancing the last few months has made it feel very full-on for people and I almost sighed of relief when I felt a shift a little while ago. While I don’t know much about it from an astronomical perspective, I can feel it; there’s been a slowing down. It’s more than that though, at least for me. It’s a gentle release into the darkness, into the unknown. A shifting from one way of being to another, and yet not really knowing what that is, but also not needing to know, because there’s a need to trust the process (as the caterpillar trusts in the process to become a butterfly perhaps). 

It’s happening in nature right now anyhow and I have noticed that the more I attempt to acknowledge the turning of the wheel and the changing seasons, let alone the moon cycle, then one can more easily see how our lives are a reflection of that (the micro and the macro). We’re moving further into the darkness as the winter solstice approaches in less than a month, and the trees continue to shed their leaves as all of nature lets go. 

Thus all around us is a closing in, a hibernation, and as a reflection I feel this within me too - a need to be even gentler in my yoga practice, with candlelight and eyes mainly closed, dropping forever inwards, deepening the breath and lying silently on my mat, resting. I’ve also been enjoying nurturing yoga nidra, thanks to Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and the free yoga nidras on the Yoga Nidra Network (thank you Uma!). There are also some yoga nidra audios on our website that we’ve recorded too - you can find them here.

It’s certainly a time of endings and letting things settle before the new beginnings, as Imbolc will approach on 1 February, bringing with it that spark that gives life to the first buds of spring. It can be uncomfortable, the not knowing how the new may enter in, but trust it we must, because forcing it will do us no favours in the long run (trust me, I’ve tried that many times previously).

Of course new year will bring with it the pressure to will it in, to force the new, what with new year’s resolutions (sigh) as many try to force themselves to be someone that they’re not and never will be. And so they’ll berate themselves for a while for not losing weight or stopping drinking or truly making the change that they’ve decided they must make. But actually all they need to do is stop the trying, and just step more fully into who they are to begin with, even if that means still drinking the wine and eating the milk chocolate.  

Perhaps it’s in the authenticity that we find the balance so the bad habits drop away naturally, without the need to force and be unkind to ourselves in the process. Much better if you ask me to begin the new year being even kinder and more loving to ourselves than we may have done previously. Maybe that’s where the true shift really needs to begin – in the positive, rather than the negative. I’ll be teaching a yoga class on new year’s day (click here for details) for this very reason. I’m reminded time and time again that there’s nothing wrong with us really, only in how we perceive ourselves in the first place.

Less is more I’m also reminded, so all I really wanted to say was that I hope you’re all well and navigating this autumnal fall with a smile on your face. It won’t be long until Christmas, and that will distract us enough to get us to the new year and then who knows what that will bring but I’m pretty excited about it, and the retreating between now and then. So enjoy the ambiguity and the letting go and the darkness and the insights this provides. And enjoy my book too, if you can find the time!