The thing that screws us up the most in life

I stumbled across a quote a few years ago now, which I was reminded of as the dust settled after the new moon blast of insight.

It goes something like, ‘the thing that screws us up the most in life, is our idea of how it is meant to be’.

This is so true!

And of course inherent within this is the idea of how we have been conditioned to believe it is meant to be so.

This because our conditioned and therefore fixed - and often rigid - mind is often at the crux of our suffering. The ancient yogis knew this, the whole premise of yoga is about reducing our suffering and unlinking our link with pain. More often than not, our pain arises because of our state of mind and its tendency to want to control through fear of the unknown and the uncertain and the patterns that arise because of this.

I stumbled up against another strand of this in my own life just recently. An event happened that was completely out of my control. Eben managed to rack up - and we still don’t quite know how - a substantial amount of credit on the dreaded Roblox, bypassing all security measures so the amount was deducted from my bank account. Panic ensued. Fortunately, my bank and Apple were helpful; this is clearly something that happens regularly and eventually Apple did refund me the majority of the charges, but it took me on quite a journey.

In fact it was a much needed experience, because it gave me the opportunity to witness my own patterning around not being in control. First I went into shock; shock that this had happened and I had been none the wiser - shock then that I hadn’t managed to be in control of this. Then I went into self-criticism and made it all my fault because I hadn’t been ‘on it’ whatever that means. I also criticised myself for my apparent lack of attentive parenting skills.

This giving myself a hard time of course dampened my spirit. It also kicked into being an old pattern of then trying to control everything I could control, as if to find some safety in a world which clearly wasn’t safe because otherwise the whole Apple thing wouldn't have happened in the first place - or so my mind told me, because it had at that moment labelled the experience bad and I must surely then be a bad person for having attracted it in. Of course this is negative and limited thinking, but in that moment I had overlooked that there is always a different side to the coin and that every challenge brings with it a blessing - more on that later.

Furthermore, as with every challenging situation, I was overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety, doubt and fear. It’s like all our fears get triggered just by hitting up against one of them - in this case a fear of losing money, which brought up a fear of being unsafe. This also brought with it doubt about the power of spirit to resolve the situation favourably, even though on some level I sort of knew that the situation would resolve itself, but I was looking for signs to validate this.

I am conscious that when we act on these feelings - let the fear get the better of us and lose our faith in the higher power - that we can split apart from the our spiritual path and start to doubt it or doubt ourselves. My tendency is to doubt myself - shouldn’t I have known better, was my intuition wrong? For many this is when imposter syndrome can kick in, and anxiety which then prevents people from making changes in their lives and living more of their dream. For me, I got stuck in a pattern of anxiety, which caused me to want to control whatever I could control because of the uncomfortable feeling of not being in control.

And yet this is counter productive because then the mind creates even more rigidity and gets stuck in its limited patterning. It is easy to forget the wisdom of patient non-action. In some way I was conscious of this and was grateful to be able to observe my mind as it followed a well trodden path rather than being stuck in it - this is what yoga is teaching us in many ways, the ability to observe, rather than being a victim of our mind, not realising we are not our mind and that we have choice in our thoughts and feelings and therefore our experience of reality.

Not that this made it any an easier process - the path to greater consciousness is anything but easy in fact. This because we have to break through our conditioning which is causing the unhelpful patterns and the fixed mind and the resulting pain and suffering. And this demands that we let go. We have to let go of all we thought and believed to be true, to allow something deeper to come in stead. But we don’t like letting go because the unknown is scary.

Yet our suffering can become so painful that we realise there is little choice in holding on. This is when we expand consciously. When we give it up. We stop trying to think our way through something and allow the benevolent and grace of the universe to enter our lives instead - I might argue this is just the higher self being finally allowed expression. This is a metamorphic process, like the butterfly exiting the cocoon, like the breaking of the casing of the seed, nature has many examples. Essentially, the breaking down needs us to be still and quiet, accepting our reality rather than fighting against it and instead weathering the storm patiently.

I was trying to explain this process to a client the other day. Because once we have caught our patterns, then we need to do something about them. I tend to dig deeper into spiritual practice, prioritising time on my mat, engaging in breathing exercises, going for long walks, being outside, getting in the sea, baking, doing things with my hands, and settling into the physical discomfort of the feelings as they arise.

I was feeling anxious. I knew it was part of the process, but it is still a horrible feeling. However, rather than turn away from it, I knew I needed to turn deeper into it. I could feel it deep in my stomach, an unsettling feeling that makes me want to get busy or run, anything to distract myself from it. But it is important that we don’t turn from it, that we sit into it instead, really feel it and allow it its expression.

It is also helpful to talk to it, to the mind which is creating it. So in this instance I kept repeating to myself “thank you mind for trying to keep me safe. I know you are trying to help, but it isn’t helpful anymore, I can just be with my experiences as they arise without having to feel anxious”. After all anxiety is just a form of fear manifesting, when the mind is challenged because it doesn’t feel in control and therefore safe.

Ideally we are trying to train the mind to be OK with the unknown and the uncertain. Then we can just be with our experiences as they arise, without labelling them good/bad, right/wrong, for example, or in any way allowing the mind to have power over us.

Eventually, working with the mind in this way, of noticing the feeling, of challenging the thoughts and any limited beliefs which arise, we can get to a point where we can actually laugh compassionately at the mind for it’s attempts to keep us safe - in this way we can befriend it rather than judge it, berate it or in any way limit our experience.

Thus, the more I worked with it, and challenged whatever thoughts and limiting beliefs were arising such as “Am I really unsafe? No”, “Am I really going to lose all my money? No”. “Is there any evidence to suggest that I am unsafe? No”, “Is there any evidence that I will lose all my money? No”, the more the mind lets go of its grip.

Of course we (the mind) is not in control, how can it be. The universe will always send challenges and curved balls to remind us of this. Not to say we don’t do all we can to try to control things, but ultimately we squander copious amounts of energy in trying to make things the ‘right’ way whatever that is. This because you're ‘right’ and my ‘right’ are no doubt totally different, so it is ALL an illusion anyway, which keeps us trapped. At some point we have top break free, especially if we are keen to evolve in this lifetime.

In many ways we are up against our indoctrination, our false belief that there is a right way to live our lives. I am convinced part of this arises because of our fear of getting it wrong and being bad and therefore needing punishment and if we are not careful ending up in hell, because this notion lives in our psyche whether we are religious or not. But really this is a benevolent universe, it knows only kindness, it is just our mind that labels things good or bad, right or wrong, as my previous blog post touched upon.

I came to realise that the Apple situation actually brought a huge gift because life had to change - it was a wake up call on many levels, the universe intervened and life has not been the same ever since. The iPad went in the drawer and is still there now. Eben hasn’t asked for it once, instead he has found other activities to entertain himself that do not dumb him down. I have made more effort to be offline and this has created a much needed re-prioritisation in how I live my life.

Ultimately, there is now space. And space of course is needed to make change and for the us to create a new way of living. And I can tell you one thing - when we have managed to cultivate more space in our lives we absolutely don’t want to give it up. We no longer want to over plan or over commit, we no longer want to fill our diary, we no longer want to waste our precious time here on earth doing things that our mind tells us to do but our soul is not the slightest bit interested in.

Ultimately though, this whole process helped me to see very clearly that our idea of how we think it should be is one of the greatest obstacles to our inner peace. Not only because we then try to control our reality to make it what we think it should be, opposed to just accepting it as it is, which inevitably creates stress, but because we also play roles, behaving in ways we think we should behave rather than just being ourselves regardless of the situation. Furthermore role playing becomes exhausting, and creates greater stress, as we mask to the world.

The minute we give this ALL up and accept reality as it is, and ourselves as we are, warts and all, is the minute that things change for us, and our stress starts dropping away. This involves honesty, being very honest with ourselves about the way we are living, the choices we are making, and the stories we are telling ourselves that create our reality. At some point we have to let go of the many boxes we have created, to make our life neat and orderly, at least in our mind.

I knew my boxes needed to change because I was getting bored, but I didn’t know how to change them. So I am grateful to the universe for ushering in the the opportunity for change, to break down any fixed ideas about how it should be. It wasn’t in the way I might have liked, but in a way that has been extremely helpful. I have had to let go of my idea how I thought it should be, to allow something else to come in - and that something else is freedom - freedom to let life unfold as a continous experience and freedom to be myself regardless of the situation.

Thus, I am grateful to Eben and Elijah for continuously showing me another way, for unsticking me from more of my limited thinking and unconscious and unhelpful behaviours. I am also grateful to the universe for showing me that I am not in control as much as I might like to think that I am. And I am indebted to the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga which encourages me to let go of my fixed mind, and especially as it applies to my yoga practice - there is no one way or right way, just moments constantly unfolding and dancing in my body.

I hope that my honest sharing might help you if you are up against your fixed mind and idea of how life should be - how your children should present themselves, how your partner should behave, how your home should look, what role you should play to earn money, how you should ‘be’ in this world, what masks you wear and just let go and flow, remembering that we are not in control, there is always wiggle room and this wiggle room allows greater consciousness and the beautiful gift of freedom.

Love Emma x

Addressing the self-critical voice

That was one very intense new moon on Friday highlighting our tendency to self-criticism and self-blame. I was aware that my clients and students were being encouraged to find a kinder voice to talk to themselves, to shift the internal narrative to something much more positive.

In my own healing too, I was aware that we were being asked to question the various roles we have taken on and the way these limit us, so too to consider the stories we tell ourselves and the narrative and thoughts running through our mind.

I was essentially reminded that we are our own jailor and punisher. That we create our own suffering by our limited beliefs (as mentioned in the previous blog post) and our limited perception of reality.

We also create our suffering when we try to control our reality. Sometimes in life things just happen that are quite beyond our control and to blame ourselves for not having seen it coming or managing it better only services to diminish our energy levels and depress our spirit and soul. Life is as it is. There will always be challenges, always be curved balls, always be something that gets our attention and asks us to go deeper still.

We are being asked to let go and flow. Let go of how we think it should be, and allow something more aligned to come in.

We are being asked to let go of our various roles and the way we define ourselves to the world so we can show up as the soul that we are, regardless of the titles and what ‘we do’ in this world. Because we can always do it differently.

But as for the self-criticism, this needs working with. We have to become conscious of the self-derogatory words as they arise, catch them, and shift them into something more positive instead. After all, why so negative?

Here is some info I share with my spiritual life coaching clients to help them navigate all this, and I feel to share here so that you may benefit too, after all, you making these shifts and having a more positive relationship with yourself, positively affects the collective - we’re in this together whether we like it or not!

What is self-criticism?

Self-criticism is the tendency to evaluate oneself harshly. When we are self-critical we are always scrutinising ourselves and our performance in most areas of our life.

Self-criticism is sometimes considered a personality trait, which means that some people tend to be very hard on themselves whereas others are less so. But, we all fall somewhere along the continuum.

If we are being self-critical then we are generally deeply afraid of failure and rejection, and can feel a lot of guilt. We may also prioritise achievement over social connection.

Furthermore, being self-critical can make it difficult for us to form close relationships.

What is the psychology behind self-criticising behaviour

Self-criticising behaviour arises from a complex interplay of psychological, social, and environmental factors. At its core, self-criticism often stems from internalised beliefs about our worthiness, competence, or likability, which can be influenced by early experiences, cultural norms, and societal pressures. 

 Those who exhibit self-criticism or tend to be hard on themselves may have grown up in environments where perfectionism was encouraged or where criticism was prevalent, leading them to adopt harsh standards for themselves.

Comparing oneself unfavourably to others—whether in terms of achievements, appearance, or abilities—can fuel feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy.

Experiences of trauma or abuse can also increase the likelihood of internalising negative messages about oneself, resulting in a persistent pattern of self-blame and self-condemnation. 

Additionally, societal ideals of success and beauty, for example, often promote unrealistic standards, causing us to constantly judge ourselves against unattainable benchmarks. 

Furthermore, we may think self-criticising will help to undo whatever bad thing(s) we have done, even though in reality, we can’t change the past as it has now passed – the past is passed and the future is just an imagining, so live in the present and forgive, let go and move on.

Also, maybe we were criticised a lot as a child, and we may (unconsciously or consciously) believe we deserve criticism. When we’re told we’re stupid or fat or lazy repeatedly, we start to believe it. And then, even after our parents, teachers or other critics from childhood no longer have our ear, we may find that we’ve taken over their job and repeat these criticisms to ourself to the extent that we normalise them.

It is important to note that these thoughts are not objective truth, even though they can feel that way. In order to push back against internalised negativity and criticism, we might try to assess the truth of critical thought as we have them. What did we do wrong? What specific standards were we trying to achieve? How would we feel if someone else made the same mistake? Will punishing ourself do anything to fix the situation?

What are the consequences of being self-critical?

Increased stress and anxiety: Constantly criticising ourselves can lead to heightened levels of stress and anxiety. Furthermore, ongoing internal pressure to meet unrealistic standards can create a perpetual cycle of worry and tension.

Physical health issues: The knock on effect of chronic stress and anxiety resulting from self-criticism can have negative effects on physical health as well, including increased risk of cardiovascular problems, weakened immune system, and other stress-related ailments.

 Low self-esteem: Continuous self-criticism often erodes self-esteem. When we focus solely on our flaws and mistakes, we begin to see ourselves in a negative light. This can lead to feelings of worthlessness or inadequacy.

 Depression: Persistent self-criticism is closely linked to depression. The constant barrage of negative self-talk can contribute to feelings of hopelessness, sadness, and a general lack of motivation or interest in activities.

Perfectionism: Self-criticism can fuel perfectionistic tendencies, where we feel we must meet impossibly high standards to feel worthy or accepted. Perfectionism can lead to a fear of failure and avoidance of challenges.

Impaired relationships: Excessive self-criticism can affect our relationships with others. People who are overly critical of themselves may become irritable, or may also be overly critical of others, leading to strained interpersonal dynamics.

Procrastination and avoidance behaviours: Fear of failure resulting from self-criticism can lead to avoidance behaviours and procrastination. We may avoid taking risks or pursuing goals because we fear we won’t meet tour own high standards.

 Difficulty accepting feedback: When we are overly self-critical, we may have difficulty accepting constructive criticism from others. We may interpret feedback as further evidence of our inadequacy, leading to defensiveness or withdrawal.

Addressing self-criticism

Addressing self-criticism often requires cultivating self-compassion and self-acceptance, challenging negative thoughts, setting realistic expectations, and seeking support from friends, family, or mental health professionals. Learning to treat ourself with kindness and understanding can help break the cycle of self-criticism and improve our overall mental well-being. 

What can we do if we want to become less self-critical?

We can begin by acknowledging that our self-criticism came about for a reason and has likely had some purpose in our life. So, we should refrain from criticising ourselves for being self-critical, which only makes the situation worse.

We can try to be curious about the feelings behind our self-criticism. Is there a part of us that is feeling scared, angry, ashamed, and/or sad? We can try to have compassion for those feelings.

We can do our best to pay attention to our inner dialogue and notice when it becomes harsh and critical. Sometimes, when we’re feeling angry and anxious, it’s partly because the voice in our head has become attacking, so it helps to be mindful and not react.

We can challenge our critical self-talk. For example, “It’s not true that my performance/presentation/class was terrible. I could tell that some people were enjoying it”.

We can try to be more compassionate with ourselves and talk to ourselves as we might a friend. For example, “It’s really difficult to feel that I worked so hard on something and it still didn’t go as well as I’d have liked. It’s understandable to be feeling upset about this.”

Try and transform self-criticism into self-acceptance.

However, the road from self-criticism to self-acceptance can be a tough one. It requires us to challenge our negative thoughts and consider that we’ve been relying on distorted thoughts, inaccurate beliefs, and unrealistic expectations for years. It requires us to discard the notions that self-criticism is helpful and deserved.

Here some ways to get started:

Look for positives and cultivate a more balanced view of yourself: Intentionally notice your strengths, the things you do right, your progress, and effort – take time to congratulate yourself. This exercise works best when you take a few minutes daily to write down the positives, reflect on them, and let them sink in.

Challenge your inner-critic. Not all of our thoughts are accurate and you can weed out the inaccurate ones by being inquisitive and questioning whether they are true. When you have a self-critical thought, ask yourself these questions in an effort to create more accurate thoughts:

·      How do I know this thought is true? 

·      What evidence do I have to support it? / What evidence do I have to refute it?

·      Is my thought/belief based on facts or opinions?

·      Is this thought helpful?

·      Am I overgeneralising or jumping to conclusions?

·      Is this what I want to think about myself?

·      What would I say to myself if I was more accepting and self-compassionate?

Practice using helpful self-talk. Below are some examples, which might be useful. Please do feel they can be changed to meet your needs:

·      I don’t need to be perfect.

·      Everyone makes mistakes. That’s how we learn and grow. If we never made mistakes, we would never try anything new.

·      This is stressful. What do I need right now?

·      I’m not stupid (or any negative adjective), I am just stressed.

With lots of practice, you will be able to replace self-criticism with compassionate self-talk. But in the beginning, you may not notice a self-critical thought until after you’re had it. Over time being more mindful will help you to notice when you are being negative and criticising yourself.

When you notice that you are criticising yourself, practice self-compassion as a way to teach yourself how you want to think. You might gently say to yourself, “What I meant to say/think is that it’s OK to make a mistake and/or say what I said. I am not stupid; everyone has forgotten something important at home, everyone has said something they wish they hadn’t. I don’t’ need to make it harder by beating myself up about it.” Or “It doesn’t matter that I look different to other people, my body is unique and special and does amazing things for me, it is a special vehicle I have been gifted for this lifetime and I am happy living in it and taking care of it, even if it doesn’t look like how society tells me it should look, but then nor does anyone else’s really, not naturally”.

Tell yourself what you needed to hear as a child. Another variation of the exercise above is to talk to your inner-child. Think about a younger version of yourself — the little girl or boy who suffered through criticism from others. What did s/he long to hear? What words would have given her/him comfort and reassurance? What would have built her/him up rather than tear her/him down? Here are some examples:

·      You deserve to be treated with kindness.

·      You are lovable just the way you are.

·      Your body is beautiful and strong.

·      You can count on me. I’ll always have your back.

·      You are not lazy, you have your own pace and it is your right to live your life as you choose.

·      You are absolutely not a failure as there is no perfect so nothing to fail against.

·      I love you.

·      You don’t have to accept other people’s opinions as facts. 

·      There is no perfect.

·      It’s OK to make a mistake otherwise how can we learn and grow

·      Embrace your differences, they make you the wonderful soul you are.

Focus on self-acceptance rather than self-improvement. There is definitely a place for self-improvement, but when we focus on self-improvement exclusively, we set ourselves up for self-criticism and never feeling good enough. Although it may seem backward, we actually need to accept ourselves first and then we can improve. In other words, self-acceptance isn’t the result of self-improvement. Self-acceptance makes self-improvement possible.

Self-acceptance doesn’t mean that I don’t want or need to change. It means that I accept myself as I am in this moment; I accept that I have perceived limitations and flaws. I still want to learn and grow and improve, but I also accept who I am right now.

When you start accepting yourself, you become less self-critical and can start to create a more loving relationship with yourself. And when you start accepting rather than criticising yourself, you can change. You will become calmer and feel safer. You will likely becomes  less defensive, and be more open to learning and accepting feedback.

Accept your humanness and that you can only ever make choices based on your level of consciousness in any one moment given your psychology, mental, emotional and mental states in that moment too. There are no mistakes, just opportunities to learn and begin anew. Let go of regret, forgive, move on, love and follow your joy.

So to end, if you have found this helpful and want to explore further then book yourself a Reiki treatment with me, or perhaps explore the Spiritual Life Coaching as this can help enormously in shifting old patterns and finding a kinder voice and inner narrative - and therefore gifting freedom. Be gentle on this wax!

Love Emma x 

There are always two sides to every coin

These are interesting times as cosmic forces usher in more change. We are being asked to go deeper still, to seek out the wounding and harm done, to heal and set ourselves free so that our future is not based on what has happened previously and all the various conditioning and limited beliefs, which arose because of this.

I have been deep diving with Brandon Bay’s The Journey, a technique I used many, many years ago now to heal ovarian cysts, which turned out to be the result of internal angst towards another pupil in my year at school who ended up with the boy of my dreams. Or so I thought at the tender age of 15. It was heart breaking, truly, because I have always had a tendency to fantasise about life, one of those dreamers, which inevitably leads to repeated heartache because reality and my fantastic dream world rarely match up!

The recent ‘journeys’ with a Brandon Bay’s facilitator have been intense; the first one caused me to have a healing crisis which found me in bed for 24 hours as all my cells went through a significant releasing. The second was kinder. But both served to remind me that the body keeps score and that we are our own worst enemy in the narrative and stories we tell ourselves and the limiting beliefs that we make so in our lives, limiting our potential for love, truth, peace and trust.

The first journey with its significant healing crisis, took me back to university days and the intense homesickness and loneliness I felt. It is so easy to dismiss these experiences, but I missed my family enormously and felt anxious for a lot of it with a deep lingering fear of not getting a degree at the end of it. I have no doubt that the anxiety and fear promoted the eating disorder which I had developed during Sixth Form as a way of coping with the pressure of A-Levels and the fear of going to university in the first place, which you can read more about in my book From Darkness Comes Light.

I knew something was amiss as I kept getting the same repeated dream and waking up in a minor panic that I had failed my degree. I never did of course, I got a 2.1, but the fear was still there, all these years on. It never ceases to amaze me how much our dreaming points the direction to whatever lays unresolved within us.

Furthermore, it was helpful healing this wounding in my body, which had settled into my stomach with this increasingly frequent feeling of emptiness, and the pain in my heart around any form of separation, since gone. The emotions which needed processing were intense; sadness, grief, rage, confusion, and enmeshed within all of this were unhelpful limiting beliefs and fear around separation in its many guises and it was such a relief to finally get to the root, which has made life infinitely easier since as the previous triggers are no longer triggering.

The second journey also took me back to university, which had quite a profound effect on me in so many ways, not least the intensity of eating disorder but using alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis to overcome my shyness, which was so not me, but became so simply to cope and feel as if I fitted in. The wounding this time though was around unrequited love and the deep heart pain this caused, as I watched my best male friend since age 4 (who had also chosen Swansea for his degree, albeit at the college rather than the university), fall in love with a beautiful Spanish student who later became his wife.

My dreaming of our life together was shattered, and I internalised this in unhealthy ways around my lack of lovability and my non-deserving of joy, because clearly I wasn’t worthy, given that he had chosen another woman. Inherent within all this was a confusion around the nature of our friendship and a feeling of betrayal.

To uncover all of this was uncomfortable, the heart pain felt very real, like a literal stabbing (or how I imagine a stabbing to feel), let alone the range of emotions which accompanied it, from sadness to anger, to frustration, to rage, to more sadness, to betrayal, to grief, and finally to recognition of our innocence and from there to forgiveness and release. There is a lightness that has arisen since.

Again, I am amazed how much the body remembers all that has happened and lays unresolved inside us, pushing to be heard and seen, so that it can let go of its unnecessary carrying. I am also amazed how we have these life experiences and depending on our nature, we either process them or we don’t. More often than not we don’t give ourselves the space, or we simply don’t know how to go about it so they lay unprocessed. I wrote about this in my book From Darkness Comes Light, but I prided myself back then in never showing emotion, because I thought that was the way.

With a sun in Cancer and a moon in Pisces, I am primarily water, a pool of emotion at times, so to hold onto it all and pretend I was OK was a huge wounding, which of course led to intense bouts of depression, suicidal at times, let alone the PMS, which plagued me for years. I can see so clearly now that my whole being was saturated in unprocessed negative emotions and negative self talk - it was quite inevitable that my heart armoured up and my spirit flagged.

It’s not just the holding of emotions that is the problem, albeit it is, because emotions are energy in motion and if we don’t allow them their movement and expression then they create energetic blocks in the body which can lead to dis-ease if not released. And this to the extent that stuck emotions cause more disease that any virus or bacteria, simply because of the negative impact on our energy field (which leads to tiredness and lack of vitality) and weakens our immune system, which then makes us more susceptible to foreign bodies.

The other problem is that every emotional holding also brings with it a negative thought and unhelpful limiting belief. It is this which often blows my mind simply because we really do create our reality by the thoughts we think. Not that we can necessarily change these thoughts. Those who meditate and try and watch their thoughts will know how they arise spontaneously, endlessly and randomly so that we have little choice but to think them. The difference comes though, when we notice them and stop giving them energy. So if our thought is “I am not good enough”, then we start to cultivate the awareness (become conscious) of this thought as it arises and challenge it, so that over time it stops arising, or if it does arise, we merely laugh at it without buying into it as a truth and making it so.

This isn’t easy of course, because many of these thoughts and the limiting beliefs that have arisen are deep in our psyche, unconscious then, and our behaviours surrounding them are normalised. I was having this conversation with a client yesterday, about how our lack of kindness to self is often very subtle, to the extent that we don’t even realise that we are being unkind to ourselves, not least in terms of the internal voice and the way we might criticise ourselves for our perceived imperfections (because of our false belief that there is a perfect), but also in the decisions and choices we make in our life.

I had thought my internal voice was kind, until this latest journey, when I realised the subtly of the negativity and the unhealthy limiting beliefs that had been laid down almost thirty years ago now still, on some level, play out in my life. These are not uncommon beliefs, most of us have them embedded in our psyche from our religious indoctrination let alone societal conditioning and our educational and cultural systems. We have been fed the idea that there is a good/bad, right/wrong, worth/worthless, perfect/imperfect, pass/fail without appreciating that there are always two sides to every coin, which means we are no more good than we are bad.

Yet it has been helpful for society to allow us to believe that there is a good and a bad, for example, because then we self-police, which makes it easier for us to be controlled. Furthermore, it keeps us trapped in this idea that there is something wrong with us, that we are never enough, that we are somehow flawed and all these beliefs therefore keep us disempowered and more controllable, it’s a clever and vicious cycle.

At the end of the day an experience is just an experience, life is as it is, some of it wonderful, some of it funny, some of it sad, some of it challenging and some of it just plain boring. It is how we relate to it, how we define it, how we narrate it and make it into a story, how we create beliefs based on it, which creates the harm. This is where we have choice. Always we have choice about how we respond and judge a certain situation and how we then experience our life.

We have to be mindful of our judgement system too as we often only hear one side of a story and we forget that there are various ways of looking at a situation - there are always two sides to every coin. To be OK with whatever is arising knowing that there is always more to it than we realise can help enormously.

This was highlighted to me in a book I was reading recently, where a man was caught sexually assaulting a child. Everyone thought he was very bad and reacted very negatively towards him, full of judgement. Then they learned that he had been sexually assaulted as a child and they saw another side to him, they felt sorry for him and had more compassion. this story is a helpful reminder that we have to be careful how we judge our experiences and the experiences of others because without doubt the universe will draw in opportunities for us to opinion differently.

There is this wonderful parable which highlights beautifully the benefit of holding the middle ground:

There once was an old farmer. Every day, the farmer used his horse to help work his fields and keep his farm healthy.

But one day, the horse ran away. All the villagers came by and said, “We're so sorry to hear this. This is such bad luck.”

But the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”

The villagers were confused, but decided to ignore him. A few weeks went by and then one afternoon, while the farmer was working outside, he looked up and saw his horse running toward him. But the horse was not alone. The horse was returning to him with a whole herd of horses. So now the farmer had 10 horses to help work his fields.

All the villagers came by to congratulate the farmer and said, “Wow! This is such good luck!”

But the farmer responded, “Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?

A few weeks later, the farmer's son came over to visit and help his father work on the farm. While trying to tame one of the horses, the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg.

The villagers came by to commiserate and said, “How awful. This is such bad luck.”

Just as he did the first time, the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”

A month later, the farmer’s son was still recovering. He wasn’t able to walk or do any manual labor to help his father around the farm.

A regiment of the army came marching through town conscripting every able-bodied young man to join them. When the regiment came to the farmer’s house and saw the young boy's broken leg, they marched past and left him where he lay.

Of course, all the villagers came by and said, “Amazing! This is such good luck. You're so fortunate.”

And you know the farmer’s response by now…

"Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?"

One of my beautifully wise students, who wishes to remain nameless, sent me this poem that she had written for her children, which further highlights the idea that there are two sides to everything:

When darkness falls and your light has dimmed

Remember life requires darkness and light

Remember good things grow in the dark, just as you did

Without distractions you have time to focus and reflect

Know darkness as your friend and not your enemy

Don’t fear it, as it is necessary to grow your heart and soul

Know the greatest compassion is fashioned in the darkest of corners.

Your life is rich with different hues, shades and colours and by making friends with the dark your truest self will become known to you.

Rest easy in the dark and know this too shall pass and a life worth living is yours…!

Personally, I have found that the dark times are actually the most fruitful. Those times where we feel lost and empty, those times when we don’t know which way to turn, when the world we knew is dropping away and we haven’t yet found a hand hold for the new life to be lived, when the stepping stones have disappeared, these are often the most fruitful times of our life.

Many are being asked to let go as we flow into spring. The moon and cosmic forces are really encouraging change as we move towards the major lunar standstill in June. We can expect the unexpected. Currently we are being cleared out, made empty, so that there is space for the new to enter into our lives. This is uncomfortable for reasons explained in the previous paragraph but essentially because we have a really hard time setting into the unknown and the uncertain.

But there is no going back! If you are reading this then you are in process and on this path, knowing that life cannot continue as it has been, with negative self-relating and limited core beliefs leading to much of the same - I am reminded of that marvellous quote from Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Our soul seeks freedom and our heart seeks greater expression. Joy is our birthright, if only we could open to it and get beyond our guilt and shame and other lower vibrational emotions that prevent us being all of who we are in this lifetime.

It is worth remembering that we have choice - we always have choice. But sometimes we don’t realise we have choice and this is where spiritual practice is so helpful as it often shines a light into the shadows, helping us to become conscious of that which lays unconscious, to realise the many ways that we restrict our choice and buy into the illusion, and to do something about it - to set ourselves free so that we can truly realise our potential.

It is this - this drive for greater consciousness and the freedom it gifts, to truly know my own truth and the truth of this universe, which inspires me in my sharing of yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda. If it wasn’t for these practices then I am sure I would be dead by now, or living a mundane life. Instead, as I heard towards my 50th birthday in June, I feel truly grateful for my life, for all the dark and challenging times and the lessons learned. I hope that I get to enjoy many more years of living life to its fullest and diving deeper into love and truth with all the various obstacles and challenges this presents.

I am eternally grateful to all of you who trust in this process and show up time and time again, courageously delving deeper into your shadows so that you can live a truer and more heart-felt and soul led life, shinning increasingly brightly and lightening up those around you too.

This is how we will create positive change in the world. Not by changing the outer, but by going deeper inwards. All spiritual philosophies acknowledge this. It is only be changing the inner that we affect and therefore change the outer. And the moon and the cosmic forces are supporting this - asking us to go deeper still, heal, forgive, let go, and show that there is always another way.

We are also being asked to heal our relationship with the universe to - to appreciate and embody, to rest into the fact that it is a kind and fair universe if only we could let go of our conditioning which tells us otherwise. Most of us have been taught to distrust it, to confuse it with humanity’s idea of right/wrong and good/bad, which keeps us trapped in the cycle of judgement and fear. Remember, on this too we have choice.

It is safe to trust in the universe. It never lets us down. We can never get it wrong or fail. All of our challenging experiences offer a lesson and a blessing, to give ourselves a hard time is pointless, and yet we do it, because of our conditioning. We have a choice of the beliefs we believe, of the words we use to communicate to ourselves and others, of the actions we take and the manner in which the effect of this ripples through the universe. It is a benevolent universe, it is only your mind that judges and makes it one way or the other, good or bad.

For those of you between worlds, stay centred in the not knowing and the uncertain. This is not a time to try to force things to happen. It might feel uncomfortable but it will pass. My advice is to dig deeper to practice, hug a tree, get on your mat, enjoy some Reiki, eat well, sleep well and get outside as much as you can.

Until next time, enjoy the wane.

Love Emma x

Scaravelli yoga

I discovered the Scaravelli-inspired approach to practice quite by chance back in 2019. I had felt called to the Isle of Lewis to visit the Callanish stones and while there attended a yoga class at the Uig village hall where the teacher suggested I might like the teachings of a Scaravelli-inspired teacher called Sophie down in Littlehampton.

So I went and visited Sophie and was blown away by this approach to practice which was so very different from the vinayasa practice that had shaped my life for many years. I couldn’t quite understand what had happened but I left that first session feeling a sense of mind-body connection, peace and aliveness that I had never experienced previously. I read and watched all I could of this approach to practice and in this way connected with Diane Long, who was primary student of Vanda Scaravelli herself. I saw that Diane was teaching a workshop in Findhorn with another teacher called Louise Simmons, so I made contact, knowing that I couldn’t afford the time away from my boys, but desperate to feed my immense curiosity in this practice. Fortunately Louise offered online lessons and was happy to teach me. 

In those earlier days I would practice with Louise and then do my real yoga practice afterwards, this because I was still very much caught up in the need to exercise and perform postures in a way that had been conditioned into me after years of attending trainings and workshops in the Vinyasa, dynamic, Anusara, Ashtanga and Iyengar traditions. 

It was during the pandemic that I finally let go of my need to practice in such a rigid,  masculine and disconnected way, and that I adopted the Scaravelli-approach to practice and started sharing this approach in my classes, which sent my students into quite a spin. Many of them dropped away as it was too big a shift, although fortunately many did stay and have benefitted by committing to the practice and others have been attracted back again, seeking deeper connection and freedom. 

It wasn’t until I visited Louise in Findhorn in early 2024 that I committed to her as my teacher – I’m inn this for the long run! I have visited her many times since and always return to Guernsey inspired and passionate to deepen into this practice and become a better teacher because of it. What appeals to me the most about this approach to practice is that it has gifted me increased freedom, not only in the body but in my mind too. There is a feeling of aliveness, quietness and calmness that arises and abides for some time after the practice. I love its complexity and yet its simplicity, its demand for attention and yet its softness, its sacred connections between resting and lightness and that it is always changing – there are no rules, no training, no authority outside the practice.

I also love its artistic, poetic and paradoxical nature. I also love that it can free us from the rigidity of ingrained and often unconscious habits, conditionings and programming’s which limit our deeper connection and get in the way of our alignment to truth. I like that it is counter-cultural and encourages our vibrancy and ability to rest more easily into uncertainty let alone the manner in which is heals on a very deep level. Every day I am amazed by this practice and by the profound intelligence of my body and potentiality of my breath , which asks only that I keep getting out of my own way and let go of over and fixing and making myself right. 

Scaravelli-inspired practice

Scaravelli-inspired yoga is suitable for everybody from those new to yoga to those who are in their eighties and beyond. This radical practice works deeply with gravity, breath and awareness to re-awaken the potential of our spine and allow a new harmony, freedom, and fluidity in our body, mind and life generally. In time our body reveals a whole new language of movement, born from the spine, and expressing itself in a whole-body approach, healing and releasing deep tension and allowing us to truly be in each moment as it arises. 

Everyone can benefit, from those who experience physical discomfort and ailments, to those who wish to increase vitality and wellbeing, to those who need to heal, to those who wish to deepen their existing practices and experience of yoga. 

This is a hands-on session in which I work intuitively and compassionately to support and guide your body in discovering new ways of being, relating and connecting, working from the inside out

General classes, intimate classes and private sessions are available. Please contact Emma at emma@beinspiredby.co.uk for more information. 

“Is it possible to have a different attitude in which a new intelligence, not imposed by authority but born from interest, attentions and sensitivity, will emerge and in which body and mind, fused in one single action, are collaborating together? It is just this revolutionary attitude that we are going to discover through a new discipline in the practice of yoga”, 

Vanda Scaravelli

Happy Yule!

Well what a year it has been - so many changes for so many and so many more on their way. The moon is definitely shifting things for us as it nears towards its 18.6 year major lunar standstill in June/July.

I am so grateful to all of you who have supported Beinspired this year. Our community has grown in ways I could never have imagined with so many of you finding the courage to deep dive into the various spiritual practices and come to know yourself on a deeper level, letting go of unhelpful conditioning, habits, beliefs and thinking patterns (Samskaras) in the process. It has been an honour and a privilege to witness the transformation. 

We can expect more light flooding in now with Yule upon us (thankfully!). The sun has reached a standstill and won’t continue rising/setting any farther south, and will start swinging more northerly instead. It will rise higher in the sky too, bringing much needed light and warmth to the northern hemisphere, and energy to all those dormant seeds.

The annual solar movements along the horizon from one solstice to another describes a year. Thus the winter solstice, known in the olden times as Yule, celebrates the return of the light, from now onwards the hours of light lengthen each day.

This is a time for us to begin to tend to our seeds too, taking little steps in the direction of our hopes and dreams. The path ahead may not be clear and this can be scary - the unknown and the uncertain have a habit of bringing up fear - but we are asked to trust the light as it appears, just taking one step in front of the other, following the nudges and signs from the universe while balancing the heart and discernment. 

Ultimately this is a time to open to greater trust. We trust the sun will rise in the east and set in the west each day. We trust that the inhalation will be followed by the exhalation. And so we must trust in our intuition, inner guidance and inner knowing - we always know what to do, even if the self deprecating ego tells us otherwise or makes us doubt ourselves. 

If this does happen - if we get in our own way - then we can ask the question,

“If I keep doing this, how will things be in three months? … in six months? …in a year?”

Typically things will have come worse, sometimes much worse. Let this help to inform your choices and the decisions you make as you head increasingly towards the light, enlightening yourself in the process.

Happy Yule all of you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for the love and the energy which you each bring to Beinspired - even if it is simply reading these blogs!

As a gift, please find another video so that you may practice at home. This is for you Helen and all the rest of you who might explore the letting go that emphasis on the forearms brings. A huge thank you to my teacher, Louise, for helping me appreciate just how amazing the forearms are in helping us breathe. 

Thank you too to Helen for all the philosophical sharing and the pranayama practices too. 

I look forward to seeing some of you over the festive period and more of you during 2025.

Love Emma x

Stepping forward

Well that was another potent full moon asking us to let go and move forwards in our life. It wasn’t comfortable for many of us because of the courage needed to do the letting go an the faith needed to overcome the fear of stepping forward into the unknown. It reminded me a little of a quote from one of Rebecca Campbell’s books:

“In order for the new to arrive, we must first allow the old to shatter. Sometimes this happens on its own. And sometimes it requires that we do the smashing. To tear apart what we’ve built because things have changed, including you. To admit that while it was once aligned, now it no longer is. This smashing requires both courage and faith. Courage to let go and faith that the pieces will come back together again in a way that was more aligned than it was before”

I certainly seem to be going through a re-alignment in my own life as the moon follows its major lunar standstill pattern and I know many of my clients are in a similar position. What fascinates me is the manner in which my menstrual cycle has shifted, so like when trying to conceive, evaluation occurs around the creative potency of the full moon, as if allowing more energy to make the changes which need to be made, to allow the potential birthing of a new way…the menstrual cycle never ceases to amaze me with its moon connection and it’s inherent wisdom.

For those new to the idea of working with your menstrual cycle as a spiritual practice to greater levels of consciousness, then take a look at our resource section on this website and have a read of our free Menstruation and Moon Pack. I also highly recommend Lisa Lister’s book called Code Red. If you don’t have time then just remember that the moon is always communicating with us and our menstrual cycle too will allow you to understand where you are out of alignment with your truth - it literally helps you to navigate your life in a more conscious way. I wrote about this in my own books, available on Amazon, called Dancing with the Moon and From Darkness Comes Light.

On a completely different note, but talking of consciousness, I recently watched The Corporation, a documentary on, well, corporations, and their impact on consumerism and greed, and this at the exploitation of people and indeed this beautiful planet. I am sure you know much of it already, but it clearly hammers the message home - that if we want to see positive change on this planet, then we need to make those changes individually, this is where the true power comes. I am always reminded of Gandhi’s famous quote,

“Be the change you wish to see in the world”

Really though, this was the theme of the moon and will be as the lunar standstill unfolds; to step into our power individually and indeed collectively. I feel that we have a really good chance of changing things, lessening our grip, our greed then, on consumerism and making different choices, which are more aligned with heart and the needs of this planet, our real needs too, not the ones we have been conditioned towards, but the ones that truly make us thrive as a spiritual being having a human experience on Planet Earth.

The documentary will remind you to choose your products carefully, to be mindful of the impact of their production on this planet and indeed the many humans involved in the chain. It is very easy, especially at this time of year, to turn a blind eye and just buy for the sake of buying without considering the welfare of the workers who produced the product, or the implications on the planet, but we have to try to be conscious because everything has a vibration and you are bringing that vibration into your home or into another’s.

This isn’t just the big things, but the little things too. What toothpaste do you put in your mouth and what impact is that having on your health and energy field, let alone the planet? What about the deodorant you put on your armpits, is it full of chemicals? Where was that crystal mined? Did children manufacture that football kit? How was the cocoa for that box of chocolate’s grown and collected? What about that tree, where was it cultivated and at the expense of what land? How many chemicals were sprayed on the food you will eat? Were those prawns farmed in really crappy (literally) waters? And what about that turkey, how much did it suffer?

Of course there is no perfect. We have to weigh it all up depending on our economic position as much as our level of integrity and general awareness and access to information which might allow us to make a more informed decision. But we have to remember that it does all make a difference, not least to us individually, but to us collectively too. If we just go along with what we’re being sold by marketing companies and those who are trying to be ‘in control’, then we can just expect more of the same, we always have a choice…but we don’t always realise this.

So choose wisely. And yet know that your choices will change as your level of consciousness shifts too. We cannot regret, because decisions made in the past were made based on our level of consciousness at that time, and all changes, including us.

This is a time for taking a deep breath and stepping forwards. It does take courage and faith because we don’t always know where we are headed and that is when the fear comes in. But we have to dig deeper into trusting ourselves and the messages we might be receiving from the moon and the stars and the universe at large. We just have to take that first step and allow the light to unfold bit by bit, making the path ahead clearer as we embark into the unknown and the uncertain but knowing and being certain that we are held and protected in the process. It is in this way that we will reclaim our power and experience greater love.

Happy realigning and conscious buying as we head towards the solstice.

Love Emma x

Grounding ourselves in these shifting times

It would appear that we are being asked to release and let go whatever is holding us back and is unhealed from our past, at the exact same time as being asked to step into our future self. It is discombobulating and a little overwhelming as I know some of you are feeling too.

The energy is intense, we are being upgraded for want of a better word, our hearts are being cleared out and old patterns are being brought to the surfaces along with the related thoughts, emotions and conditioning. Forgiveness hangs in the air and a release of anger and frustration and indeed sadness and grief that underlays this.

Guilt and shame are in the ‘field’ too. We are beginning to see more clearly through our own stories and narratives and the ways we may have taken responsibility for others’ poor behaviour or inability to do the work on themselves and we are realising that we don’t need this additional weight in our life and on our shoulders.

We are beginning to feel our auric holes too. I stumbled up against my own around guilt, for example, and how we may have taken on such a detrimental emotion since childhood and because it is there - because we take on the blame (or whatever the emotion is) - we attract more of it, allowing others to dump their blame or shame or whatever it is on us. It’s funny really because during this revelation, I had a few missed calls from the police station and immediately felt guilty, even though I had done nothing wrong, proving my point to myself!

Shame is popping through too and I know I am not the only woman who has had to work through this. We can’t win in our society, we experience judgement whether we are a stay at home mum or one who works all hours she can, same with termination, there is still so much stigma so that many women suffer intense feelings of guilt and shame, even though it takes two to conceive, and the other option, of potential single parenting isn’t received well either.

We have to remember that our emotional states are often linked to a sub-conscious thought or thought pattern. Whenever we are pulled away from our natural state of being to a more contracted state of being then we can be sure that we are thinking about our reality in a way that allows a particular mood to arise. Disliking the mood or yourself for having the mood is pointless. This because the mood expresses our need for self-reflection (Kriya yoga).

As I have been reminded, nature never acts without reason. Therefore every form of disease, physical or mental, encourages reflection. There is a note of caution here - we must not fall into patterns of thinking that we deserve whatever is happening to us as this is nothing more than a form of self hatred. Nor does it mean that the universe has it in for us, and is trying to show us something, This follows on from my previous blog post in that we still subject ourselves to the Judeo-Christian god of judgment under a different name (be discerning about new age spiritualism as it encourages this judgement with its emphasis on only perceived positive emotions and states of being, we have to move away from this conditioning).

If we are honest with ourselves - and this current energy is helping us with this - we will find that our ‘bad day’ (or weeks, months etc!) was/were probably caused by a negative thought-pattern, which we may not have noticed at the time, but which we believed and spun into a story about our reality, which is actually untrue and merely disempowers us.

Nothing exhausts us more than our well-spun stories which are not in alignment with reality.

Do we really need to feel guilty or shamed about what happened? Is the story we have created around the emotion and/or the thought true?

The trouble is we don’t realise our stories because we are so immersed in them, which is why it is helpful having someone mirror them back to us or question us on them (spiritual life coaching is brilliant for this btw), or for us to take time for self-reflection through various yogic practices. This is the joy of yoga. It has been prod for thousands of years and understand ALL of this and the ways we create our suffering and certainly the ancient texts offer our grounded guidance in how to set ourselves free. This is another reminder not to fall victim to new age approaches which are not grounded in any ancient wisdom.

We also have to be very mindful of the patterns we have created to avoid the self-reflection. Say we have a bad day because we feel we did something wrong, perceived a criticism from a boss perhaps and even though the boss didn’t mean it that way, we internalise it so, and while the boss moves on with his/her day, letting go of the moment the caused us to enter a bad mood and begin our bad day, we take it home with us and reach for wine or TV or social media or tub of ice cream to buffer our mood rather than feel into it.

What really happened was the interaction with our boss reignited our persistent and incessant subconscious story that we “always screw things up”, or we “are not good enough”, or we “should have known better”, which creates deeper self loathing and hatred. This negativity, buried deep within us, creates our experience of reality. Especially as we will see evidence of it everywhere now in our reality. This like my experience with guilt - because I was so used to feeling it, I called more of it, from the police who never did call back btw, once the lesson was learned - a cosmic joke to highlight my unhelpful and outdated pattern.

All of this of course, removes us from our natural flow and presence.

So the energies currently are helpful in that they are helping to bring the sub-conscious to the conscious so that we can let go of unhealthy stories and move our lives forward in a more positive direction.

It’s an amazing opportunity really to be the change we wish to see in the world.

The more of us who can find the courage to dig deep and shift the stories, the more this will influence the whole and the more we will let go of our disdain for self and our fears and become increasingly self-loving and whole.

Generally people have had enough of the patriarchal crappiness, of world leaders behaving like boys in a playroom with their missiles and guns, playing our their unresolved inner child. So we must look at our unresolved inner child too.

The pace of life is too much for many, but the only way this will change is if we step off the treadmill and draw a line in the sand. Increasing numbers are choosing simplicity and shifting their understanding of abundance away from material gain at the expense of everything (including the planet and their fellow man) and realising the abundance in walking in nature, or being quiet at home with children, or watching the sun set, or any of the other gifts we experience in our lives which we don’t always value because they are not material (and we have been conditioned to the material).

Increasing numbers are questioning our education system and the confusion over gender identity that our children are having to navigate, let alone the damage caused by online living and social media, and the detrimental vibrational effect of holding mobile telephones and iPads endlessly (I see how jittery the later makes my boys, displacing their Vata), and the manner in which they cause a loss of ability to focus and concentrate.

More are seeing through the many ways that we are being harmed by the big companies, and the drive towards profit at whatever cost to us as an increasingly sick society.

At the end of the day we have to take responsibility for us and our healing and certainly the powers that be are encouraging this. We can do this! We can make the positive changes, to free ourselves of patriarchal, Judeo-Christianity and new age conditioning, so that we can increasingly see reality as it is and free ourselves from our false stories and narratives, and ease our self-inflicted suffering simply because we don’t see ourselves - our true Self -clearly.

Yoga helps, Reiki too, but any spiritual practice grounded in reality, will give us the support we need at this time. The word to really drop into is ‘grounded’. Our grounding, our base chakra, our being in the body, our attending to our basic needs for sleep, good food and healthy relationships, our hands ion the earth, salt baths, baking with love, walking in nature, sea swimming, all of this will help enormously.

Sending love xx

Interdependence in community

We’re deep diving people. Pluto has entered Aquarius (which appears to be a big deal) and Mercury is retrograde, but that aside the moon has also entered its major lunar standstill year and the last two weeks especially have been intense - well since the eclipses in September/October.

And you can expect more as the energy is really ramping up ahead of the peak of this 18.6 year major lunar standstill which takes place in June and July of 2025. This when the moon will rise its lowest in the sky, and up in the Outer Hebrides, for example, the full moon nearest the solstice will only be present for a few hours - the stones of Callanish have been aligned with this so that on the major lunar standstill it appears as if the full moon rolls along the hills.

The last time we experienced the major lunar standstill (which basically means the moon rises and sets the most extreme of the sun, and will be super high at full moon around the winter solstice rising and setting the opposite of the sun, so more northerly and then around the summer solstice it will be very low in the sky, rising and setting most southerly, again the opposite of the sun) was 2006, which funnily enough was the year I set up Beinspired.

In fact it was the year that yoga really exploded into the world. It moved away from being practised in church halls by ladies wearing leotards, into the huge billion dollar industry it is today where commercialism encourages us to invest in expensive mats and yogis clothing to realise our inner nirvana - or not, as the case may be.

In fairness here in Guernsey we are protected a little from what it has become elsewhere in the world, and the pandemic sorted some of it out in any event, because yoga started losing its widespread popularity and yet those committed went deeper - at least this was my experience and with my students too; my student base is vastly different now to how it was pre-pandemic, there is much greater commitment, students are in it for the long term, not just as a fad.

Anyway the point in sharing this, is to highlight that the year that the moon does her major thing, is a year where things are renowned for changing, like significantly, like we take a step forward in our individual and collective evolution, consciousness then. How this manifests remains to be seen, but I do have a sense that increasing numbers of us are called to play our role in making holistic therapies and alternative healing practices more available to the populace to allow greater opportunity for healing.

I am always reminded that we are not in control, that despite our best planning, sometimes things are just not meant for us. I am always reminded too that we don’t create alone - sometimes the universe’s plans for us are indeed very different to our own idea of where our life is going - a reminder not to plan too far ahead (but we do this because we want things known and certain). Ultimately decisions are often made for us if we give them the space, if we don’t restrict their freedom by over planning our life and making it rigid instead.

I have done my fair share of over planning and pushing and of using will power alone through ambition, desire and impatience, but it never quite turns out the way I had hoped, and I then have to unpick what was created, and allow something greater to enter in. Maybe it was always meant to be that way. There is no perfect either and the only way we learn is through our mistakes. This is where forgiveness is helpful. Forgiving ourselves, letting go and moving on.

I don’t feel we know yet where our lives are headed or what it is we should do. Instead our focus might be on knowing what not to do. .Thus we might start asking ourselves, what can we discard? What emotions are we holding onto which can be let go of now? What belief systems are we still buying into which limit us? Which negative thoughts still shape our reality? What are we carrying for others which is not ours to carry?

As I know only too well myself, a degree of honesty is required.

And being present to ourselves.

For me that means being very quiet on my mat and allowing my body’s intelligence to reveal more of the stuckness and holding. It means being in nature as much as I can be so that I can hear more clearly and recognise increasingly that I am part of the whole, not separate from it. It means communing with standing stones and the moon to elevate my perspective.

At times it is scary.

At other times I am filled with deep love and gratitude for this process.

But mainly I am grateful to receive the support of all the wonderful beings, Earthside and Ethereal, who support me, the people, the birds, the plants, the guides, all are there, communing with us, reminding us that we are not alone, that we are part of this whole wonderful dance of creation…and destruction…and creation again.

I have also become increasingly conscious of something that seemed important to me when I set up Beinspired, but without really knowing the reason: the idea of creating a Beinspired community where people could feel safe being themselves without fear of judgment, has always been one of Beinspired’s main intentions, but it is only now, all these years on, 18.6 in fact (ain’t that funny, a whole lunar standstill cycle) that I can see how that has finally manifested (reminding us of the need for patience!) into something rather magical.

I have never loved teaching and giving treatments more than I do now, with such a beautifully dedicated and committed community of clients and students who are truly committed (there’s that word again) to their healing and ongoing spiritual and personal transformation. We have a laugh. It’s fun. We care about each other. Being in community really does enhance each of our healing and transformation in ways I never imagined.

My Mum shared this beautiful quote by Ernest Hemingway this morning, which sums it up well, how a hand can help:

In our darkest moments, we don’t need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection—a quiet presence, a gentle touch. These small gestures are the anchors that hold us steady when life feels like too much.

Please don’t try to fix me. Don’t take on my pain or push away my shadows. Just sit beside me as I work through my own inner storms. Be the steady hand I can reach for as I find my way.

My pain is mine to carry, my battles mine to face. But your presence reminds me I’m not alone in this vast, sometimes frightening world. It’s a quiet reminder that I am worthy of love, even when I feel broken.

So, in those dark hours when I lose my way, will you just be here? Not as a rescuer, but as a companion. Hold my hand until the dawn arrives, helping me remember my strength.

Your silent support is the most precious gift you can give. It’s a love that helps me remember who I am, even when I forget.

Then I read the I Ching, and I loved what it said in the translation I use:

“It is the nature of being human that we are dependant in many ways; dependant on water, air and food for nourishment; dependent on shelter for warmth and protection; dependent on each other for family life and friendship. We are also spiritually dependent: when challenges arise, each of us must have some place to turn for guidance and support”.

This is what Beinspired is all about. We are deep diving. It is tough. Endings. For the new beginnings. Emotions are coming up, deeply buried ones too - anger, sadness, grief, the heart is releasing, lightning itself so that more love and compassion can enter instead, the centre is feeling the fear but encouraged to rest more easily into it, not numb or run from it - we are being asked to transform, to let go over and over again without falling into patterns of victimhood or revenge. We are being asked to take responsibility and compassionately find a new way forward, independent and yet dependent, on our own and yet together, interdependence perhaps. It is the paradox of life to be able to hold both sides of tension and allow something else.

Please do reach out if it all gets too much. Know that you are not alone, that we are here at Beinspired to help, that we can be interdependent within community.

And thank you to all of you for taking responsibility, allowing your vulnerability and being part of this magical little community by just being your beautiful selves with warts and all!

Love Emma x