Letting go with a burning bowl ceremony.

Today we held the yoga class to let go of 2019, followed by a burning bowl ceremony.

I was introduced to the burning bowl ceremony back in 2005 when I was in the middle of my Reiki training and I was part of a lovely group of Reiki students who met once a week with our teacher, Dr Alyssa Burns-Hill, for meditation and angel cards. I loved this hour, each Thursday evening, 6-7pm, on the way home for work. Not least because we got to sit and meditate together, Ally often leading us through guided meditations, and enjoying angel cards and the insight they provided, but because, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged.

I was relatively new to this world back then, the holistic one, with angels and chakras and crystals, but there was something about the energy of all this, the way it felt then, that just, well, felt right. The people were friendly and welcoming, and despite my naivety, I never felt judged or out of place. We’ve all gone in our own direction since Ally left the Island and I wouldn’t probably recognise many of them now, but I’ve always been extremely grateful for this very light fuelled time of my life.

One of the ladies was an American who has since moved back to America, and it was her who suggested one night that we do a burning bowl ceremony. i don’t remember the ceremony itself, but I do remember feeling a huge sense of relief that there was this opportunity to let go of things. Until that point in my life - I was approximately 29 years old then - I had no idea that we could let go of things that were no longer serving us. Mind you, there was lots I didn’t realise we could do back then, I was only just beginning to recognise that we create our own reality and that our thoughts create this. I was only just awakening.

So the burning bowl ceremony had quite a profound effect on me and I have done one every year since. Often these were with one of my best friend’s Hayley, with whom I spent a number fo new year’s eves. I’ll never forget on new year where we burned our letters in a saucepan and the whole thing was in flames and there as a complete panic that we ere abut to set the house on fire! How we laughed! Clearly we had a lot to let go of that year, but actually we did every year, and I’m never sure that back in those days the cava helped much!

One year, maybe when I was 34 though, my cousin, Yolande, and I were joined by my friend Samata, and we conducted our burning bowl ceremony at the fairy ring here in Guernsey, one wild afternoon when we were all sober! It was a blustery day and it was a challenge, it has to be said, to get the flame going, but Yo got it going and with that up into the air went all the things we wanted to let go of - I have a feeling that smoking was high on my list of priorities back then, to give up that is. That year, 2010 I did. I recognised that sober burning bowl ceremonies were best!

Burning bowl ceremonies are powerful. Potentially. I should caveat that. As I said to students this morning, you have to really feel it. No point writing down that you are going to let go of things that you know that you have no intention of truly letting go of from your life. Or after too much cava so that it becomes more of a wish list with ‘not drinking so much cava’ top of it, ha ha. You have to feel ready, as if there may be some possibility, with a little help from the angels and the universe generally.

Letting go is an interesting concept. I’ve worked a lot with it over the years, and this year I have been working with it a lot. What I’ve noticed is how difficult it is to let go! Even though we might think we want to let go of some childhood trauma, or some hurt that happened to us with maybe an ex-boyfriend, or whatever it may be, when we truly look at it, we realise that we’re holding onto it because on some conscious, some crazy level, we want to be pained! I know it makes no sense when you read that, but think about it. We’re all holding onto something. Some hurt, some pain something that stops us being totally free of suffering. I’ll be surprised if I’m wrong about that.

So what stops us letting go then? I suppose in many respects we form our current reality based on what’s happened to us in then past, so if we let go of some aspect of our past, well then that has the potential to change our current reality, and as much as we might want that, well it can be scary because it’s new and unwritten and we don’t know what it might feel or look like. Better to keep things under control, the way they’ve always been…only that deep down we know that hat isn’t serving us either. It’s a dilemma.

It’s like smoking. What good comes from continuing to smoke? And yet when we’re a smoker, so much of our identity is tied up in being a smoker. What will happen if we want a time out? What about our friends who smoke and our relationship with them if we don’t go fo sneaky fags together? And all that sneaking around? What happens when we just start being a ‘normal’ non-smoking human being, you know one who doesn’t feel crappy for smoking, who isn’t rebelling against parents, society, whatever it might be. Or if we’re smoking the wacky backy, what happens when we stop numbing out!

For so many years I kept smoking mainly because I liked to smoke the wacky backy. It was such a part of my identity and yet I hated smoking generally. But how to give up one and not the other. Impossible. I had to really look at that very honestly and come - in my own slow time - to recognise that while I may have thought I was having these wonderful spiritual experiences smoking cannabis, and somehow becoming more ‘spiritual’ (whatever the hell that means), I was actually just numbing out from life. I was self-medicating, in the same way that some might take anti-depressants or other ‘acceptable’ drugs.

It was difficult to let that go. You know what I mean? Who are we when we let go of whatever we are holding onto?

How about that childhood trauma (we’ve ALL got childhood trauma, it comes with being human), what happens if we just let that go? Gosh all of a sudden we get to take responsibility for our lives and our experience of it. Maybe we finally get to stand on our own two feet. Scary.

That hurt from those who took advantage of our kindness or who rejected us? Gosh, well then we have to accept the fact that actually it was us who put ourselves in that position and it is us, only us, who can really do any self-loving and who do a huge amount of the abandoning. We can’t keep blaming such and such for messing us up (even if he/she did…but we chose he/she in the first place). so all of a sudden we have to stop being the victim. Ouch.

I’ve been through all this. It’s the breath that really made me take note. A full breath in? Receiving all life can give? Am I worthy of that? The exhalation, letting go, truly…am I prepared to do that, who will I become?

I’ve been hauling my past around with me, like a heavy bag hung over my shoulders, weighing me down, making me play out unhelpful behaviour patterns all the time, attracting much of the same (crap) into my life despite the intentions and the affirmations and all the stuff I hope might change things.

You have to be ready. You have to get to a point where you’re done. I’m done. I no longer want to be defined by my past. There is only this moment and this moment can be whatever you want it to be. But for it to be unhindered by the past, tossed around, you need to let it go. It is not you. Just like the thoughts that run through your mind, day in and day out, are not you either. They’re thoughts. Your past is your past. In the past.

All the great spiritual teachers and masters teach one thing. Live in the present. You can’t live in the present when you’re carrying your past around with you, anymore than you can live in the present when you’re obsessed with the future.

But how do you let go? You just do. Like a hot potato. You just let it go. No need to analyse, to question, to write about it (ha!), justify it. None of that. Like forgiveness, you just feel it and you just do it.

A burning bowl ceremony helps enormously. Burn, burn, burn!

Today, lots of beautiful students wrote down the stuff they want to let go of from their lives and this evening E built a fire and burned the notes. I stood and watched, with a sliver of a new moon behind me, the sun having set and creating the most beautiful light on this unusually still and magical winter day, and I thought how wonderful, this letting go. In the flames. Fire to smoke and up into the air, transformed as we too, with our letting go are transformed (and eventually transformed from this body to spirit). Magic.

If there’s one thing I wish for all of you it is to transform, again and again and again, and I’m pretty certain that letting go of our past, of beginning anew and anew and anew is a fairly powerful way of doing this. Live in the present. Set the past down. Aside. Look back at it with LOVE.

That’s the key. My friend, Michelle Johansen reminded me of this recently. Look back at your past for the blessings it gave. That hurt, that betrayal, that trauma, that crappy thing that happened to you, look back with love. Say thank you, feel gratitude, know that helped to make you the most amazing human being that you are, helped you to awaken and heal, to take steps to heal, time and time again. It made you YOU. That’s worth celebrating huh?

So here’s to a new decade, a lighter one too, without that haul of the past weighing us down and continuously limiting our future.

Let go!

This is a most powerful power (in my humble opinion) about letting go, shared by my doula, Anita Davies, which has been really impactful on my life, through birth and beyond…

She Let Go

by Safire Rose

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

Love Emma xxx

Dark Night of the Soul

I can’t help noticing that this is a big year for many people. Like 2003 and 2008, there is significant change and the turmoil that comes with this.

It feels to me that with all these eclipses we are in a washing machine spinning around and around. I can’t be sure when the washing cycle is going to end but I do know that we have an annular solar eclipse** on 26 December, followed by a penumbral lunar eclipse*** on 10 January 2020 so perhaps things might settle then.

This, after a year that found us experiencing a partial lunar eclipse* on 6 January 2019 followed by a total lunar eclipse* on 21 January 2019, and then a total solar eclipse on 2 July 2019 followed by a partial lunar eclipse on 16 July 2019. 

I’m certainly no expert on the effect of these things, I can only share from my own experience but I have to admit that life has been a touch challenging this year and while I like to blame the moon, I’m going to blame all these eclipses too!

There was the Ayurvedic and Sanskrit studying and then discovering the Scaravelli-approach to yoga, which turned everything on it’s head, this before July. My Ayurvedic exams took place a few days after the July partial eclipse and this was followed by a virus that left me sick and feeling very sorry for myself all summer. 

I finally recovered from the virus in time for our retreat in Glastonbury on the full moon in mid-September, and I felt so much better for this, but it was short lived. In came the super new moon on 28 September 2019 and things felt decidedly sticky again with more illness and more disorientation. 

For others too, there is a sense of being shaken, as if we are being collectively shaken awake (this is exactly what is happening!) and with it there has been illness, bereavements, life-changing diagnoses, relationship break-ups, and/or job changes, and some of these changes happening suddenly, pulling the rug from under our feet, leaving us feeling confused and ungrounded.  

To me it feels like we’re going through a collective dark night of the soul. This is when life feels desperately uncomfortable, with a sense of despair and sometimes a total disinterest in living or in life itself – the darkness descends. Sometimes this feeling may only last a matter of hours, and other times it can last for days on end, and we might wonder if we will ever see the light ever again. 

Life doesn’t fit. Nothing feels right. There is a complete lack of clarity about how life may unfold and a panic that it might stay life this forever more. Life is full of uncertainty, and yet the uncertainty becomes more pronounced, and this brings with it a feeling of disorientation and not having a clue which way is up, or how life might look, or even who you are anymore as who you thought you were starts to dissolve and yet you’re still living the life of the person dissolving. 

There are tears, lots of tears and some anger, frustration, irritation, rage and an overwhelming sense of tiredness and exhaustion. Chaos reigns, we feel helpless and very alone, cast adrift without a map or a paddle to find our way home. And even if we know deep down that we just have to keep going, that it is just a process with a potentially positive outcome, it’s still extremely challenging!

I take some comfort in Simon Haas’ words, “A dark night of the soul is a period of purification and transformation. Like the process of refining gold or making ghee, parts of us that have remained concealed from others, and even from ourselves, rise to the surface during a dark night experience. During a dark night, we may become increasingly irritable, angry, impatient or resentful. We may fall into guilt, self-pity and even self-loathing. This is often our experience to the suffering we’re experiencing. We may even feel hatred towards those who we believe have contributed to our crisis”.

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to all of this! It’s both embarrassing and humbling! I am a cliché!

He continues, “We all have a dark side, an “ungodly” side, which only those closest to us may know. Sometimes the dissolution of our world can reveal things about us that surprise even ourselves. We suffer the death of who we thought we were, whilst encountering those parts of us we have kept hidden – qualities, behaviours and motivations that may be difficult for us to acknowledge. In a dark night, we come face to face with what we can no longer hide.

Some for instance, become aware of how much anger that carry. Others must face the unbearable truth that ultimately, they don’t really care about others. These inner revelations can be difficult to acknowledge or bear…[there is] a strong impulse to retreat from life. This impulse is partly the result of acute suffering and partly due to a loss of personal direction, leading to paralysis. When the ego is being destroyed, there is often intense angst and a strong desire to disengage from life. It can extinguish even the desire to remain alive…when our inner world collapses, we’re entirely powerless, like a shell tossed about in the waves of the ocean. It’s an inner helplessness.”

Sadly, I can’t offer you much advice in what you might do if you’re stuck in a dark night of the soul. It’s a process that we have to work our way through in our own way. Personally, I take comfort in getting out in nature, walking the cliffs and sea swimming, spending time alone (when I can) in silence, practicing yoga, repeating the Bija mantra, daily Yoga Nidra (grounded one’s mind), rose quartz, lots of rose quartz, and playing with the children, running around the beach, getting some fresh air together. Sleep helps enormously too, slightly tricky if you have children who don’t value sleep so much though!

 I am very well aware that as uncomfortable as it all is, it is part of the bigger picture and if I can remember this (and not get caught up in the intense emotions) then I feel some comfort in knowing it’s not just me! In fact, it’s the “me” that’s the problem, because essentially what is happening is part of “me”, is dissolving and the ego isn’t particularly happy about this, but it is necessary, because it leaves more space for the heart and the light to come in, instead.

This is all about the heart, it can only ever be about the heart. Love not fear. And as much as everyone says they love unconditionally, it is actually really difficult. There is huge vulnerability in truly loving, without conditions, of putting our hearts on a line and opening ourselves up for being hurt, betrayed or disappointed. Yet we are being asked to step more fully into the heart and out of the small mind. The situations in our life will ask us to step more fully into the heart.

 It is in this way that we may positively impact on the state of the planet. Where there is love, there is fear, and we see this clearly now with the fear being created by the media about the state of Mother Earth and the climatic disaster awaiting us. The fear will not create the change that is needed though, the only way things will change, at least positively and in the long term, is if we keep embracing love, and overcoming the fear (not ignoring it or turning away from it, but acknowledging it).

It feels to me that the whole universe is being upgraded, if only we can step up into it. We are experiencing perhaps a collective dark night of the soul, Mother Earth too. Only that Mother Earth will always be OK, she knows how to look after herself, it’s us, us humans, who will ultimately suffer. Which is why it is our duty to keep stepping into the love, not to just talk about it, but to embody it, to find it within ourselves to weed out anything which stops us from truly loving and truly living.

We are asked to turn towards those who have hurt us or harmed us or who just irritate us, with love.  We are being asked to be clear about our boundaries and what is acceptable in our life – we are being asked to love ourselves too, to keep stepping into the heart. Love conquers all. It is love that underpins absolutely everything (another reason to bring Reiki into your life, the energy of love!).

 I’ll leave you with this marvellous quote from Jack Kornfield in his marvellous book, “A Path with Heart”, which sums it all up rather nicely for me and reminds me of the spiritual and heart in all life:

“Whether in a monastery, in our place of business, or in our family life, we need to listen to what each cycle requires for our heart’s development and accept its spiritual tasks. The natural cycles of growth – developing right livelihood, moving to a new home, the birth of a child, entering a spiritual community – all bring spiritual tasks that require our heart to grow in commitment, fearlessness, patience, and attention. The cycles of endings – our children leaving home, the aging and death of our parents, loss in business, leaving a marriage or community – bring our heart to the spiritual tasks of grieving, of letting go gracefully, of releasing control, of finding equanimity and openhearted compassion in the face of loss.

Occasionally we get to choose the cycles we work with, such as choosing to get married or beginning a career. At these times it is helpful to meditate, to reflect on which direction will bring us closer to our path with heart, which will offer the spiritual lesson that it is time for in our life.

More often we don’t get to choose. The great cycles of our life wash over us, presenting us with challenges and difficult rites of passage much bigger than our ideas of where we are going. Midlife crisis, threats of divorce, personal illness, sickness of our children, money problems, or just running yet again into our own insecurity or unfulfilled ambition can seem like difficult yet mundane parts of life to get over with so we can become peaceful and do our spiritual practice. But when we bring to them attention and respect, each of those tasks has a spiritual lesson in them. It may be a lesson of staying centred through great confusion, on a lesson of forbearance, developing a forgiving heart with someone who has caused us pain. It may be a lesson of acceptance or a lesson of courage, finding the strength of heart to stand our ground and live from our deepest values”. 

*A solar eclipse happens when the moon moves between the Earth and the Sun while a lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth casts a shadow on the full Moon.

**An annular solar eclipse happens when the Moon covers the Sun’s centre leaving the Sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” or annulus around the Moon.

***A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and the Moon are imperfectly aligned. When this happens, the Earth blocks some of the Sun’s light from directly reaching the moon’s surface and covers all or part of the Moon with the outer part of its shadow, also known as penumbra.

Overwhelm

Today I had a moment of overwhelm.

I felt the rage rising inside me and I heard a scream, it came from my mouth, but I didn’t recognise it as mine.

Not once, not twice, but three times. I felt like I was screaming for me and for all of humanity. This was a raw scream from a deep place that I didn’t even know existed and it surprised me.

I have been feeling this scream building the last few weeks, and as much as I’ve tried to scream, to clear my throat chakra, it felt forced and insincere. I tried the lion breath and some Vedic chanting too, hoping that this might clear the block, but alas, the feeling remained. 

But yesterday, there was a trigger, something small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things that happened, and all of a sudden I was filled with this overwhelming sense of frustration and anger at the pointlessness of it all. 

In that moment of madness, I felt done. Done with life. The fury was all consuming and hot, fury at the world, at humanity and at Planet Earth. How have we managed to create this collective disaster that is our current society all out of balance? Why is there so much pain and suffering? What is the point to it all?

The tears followed. Big and warm angry tears running down my cheeks and dropping onto the floor beneath me. I was so angry that I didn’t know what to do with myself, almost shaking with it. 

I remembered my breath and took big angry gulps of air. I roared.

Anyone would have thought me utterly mad. I felt mad! It was a release, that’s for sure, a healing crisis. It was very real, very present moment and very much a part of what has been building since the last eclipse.

We are awakening, as a collective. And there has to be significant letting go of the way that we think life should be lived, of what it looks like. We need to step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown, and establish a new way of living that better serves our future generations. My children and their children!

Of course the collective is influenced by the individual and so it is us, each of us, that actually needs to do the letting go, so that we positively impact the collective and all of society.

But letting go is difficult, and painful, because we have to let go of our pains and our traumas and all the stuff that we hold on to, which falsely defines who we are, and which prevents us from moving our lives forward. The letting go, sometimes means that we feel into our pain, and this discomfort is what prevents us letting go in the first place.

It’s been a fascinating and yet incredibly exhausting process, all this letting go these last few weeks. I mentioned this in my previous posting, but it’s like things have been popping up rather quickly, one layer after another, of stuff that I thought I had already worked through, and resolved, at least in my mind if not in my body. But clearly there’s more depth to this current healing process than I had recognised and the moon has been encouraging greater release.

So old stuff has come up from nowhere, like an old energy entering my life again, which has felt uncomfortable, because the resonance is all wrong, but there it is nonetheless, reminding me of a time gone by, a depression here, a disappointment there, a frustration here, an old behaviour pattern there, I even reached for my childhood teddy bear the other day, because inner child stuff has certainly been a part of the process.

When I stand back (if I can manage to stand back) then it’s really rather amazing, that we are being given this opportunity to clear out, on the autumn clear out, for the greater good of all humanity as humanity herself, with climate change concern ringing in our ears, giving us the perfect opportunity to make the collective shift that needs to be made.

Today seemed to bring all those old feelings together in one big surge, and threw in, just for good measure, that feeling of utter despair that comes with overwhelm. It’s a scary feeling, because while it is one of great potency for change, it can push people over the other edge, into a void from which you may never recover, numbing out on life as a result. 

I am aware that it is part of a process, of the breaking down of all that’s been, so that life can be recreated all over again. This is life, if we allow it. It moves through cycles. The opportunity to destroy and re-create are constants. We just need to learn to ride it, to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness of it all, of not knowing what it is that we need to destroy, and what might come into its place instead. 

I comfort myself by thinking about a river. How its course will often change, but how it just keeps flowing, sometimes turbulent, sometimes gentle, but one way or another, it does its thing, weaving its way to the sea, its journey’s end, and with that, a letting go of what it has once been. 

I know that I’m not alone, because whatever I am feeling, is felt within the collective, we are one, and because I have asked friends, and many are sharing this healing crisis and feelings of overwhelm.

Please be very gentle at this time and keep close to the land. Get in the sea if you can and keep clearing your energy.

There is an awful lot of fear out there. 

Climate change is now everywhere. Lots of people talking…let’s see how many do the walking. We’re very good at making excuses for maintaining our own status quo, and yet finding fault with how other people are adjusting to the need for a more sustainable way of living.

Fear separates communities, and it separates aspects of ourselves, so we must be careful not to buy into it. 

The antidote to fear is love. The world has only ever needed love, yet how many of us truly love? How many truly love themselves, let alone others? That is, without applying conditions, making it conditional.

I’m humoured by all the ‘sustainable business’ chatter that we’re also now hearing. I can’t help thinking that it is business that got us into this mess in the first place. Investopedia reads, “the term business also refers to the organised efforts and activities of individuals to produce and sell goods and services for a profit”. Business is ultimately about making profit and I can’t help thinking that until we reframe and re-define business, then nothing is going to change.

Sure there’s lots of people talking about sustainable business, but are they going to give up their bonuses and profit margin so that greater consideration can be given to the climate and to Mother Earth? Unlikely. Many will actually use the whole idea of ‘sustainability’ and ‘going green’ to profiteer even further, using it as a marketing tool to attract people to their business. Sorry, I’m feeling a bit cynical about it all!

No one really knows what we should be doing, or how we might positively shift the way that we are living. Not yet. But we will know. It’s just a matter of raising consciousness so that we have the awareness. And the only way we will do that collectively, is if we do the work on ourselves to raise our own consciousness, to love more, and let go of anything that prevents us from doing so. 

This happens in many different ways, sometimes life circumstances present opportunities to grow, through illness and trauma, and sometimes we just need to grasp the ball by the horns, so to speak, and do the inner work that is required of us, the universe and the moon will always support us.

 The calmness has returned now, and I have a strong sense that what is trying to breakthrough is the children; my children, your children, everyone’s children. They are our future and we need to become increasingly conscious of how we are treating them and the ‘food’ we are feeding them, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too. I shall ponder anon and see what else materialises, as my children try to get my attention (the irony of it!).

If you feel a scream coming on, then go for it. It’s not as mad as it may seem, because it can really clear the energy. I’m not mad, honest, just sharing and opening myself to vulnerability, in the hope that this may help you too. 

Spilling your guts - the solar plexus and boundaries

Following on from my previous blog posting, the connection between ‘boundaries’ and the gut fascinates me. The gut, and our digestive health (agni – digestive fire), has been the focus of much of my Ayurvedic training thus far, but I am by no means an expert and I’m quite sure my Ayurvedic doctor would not consider me, at this stage in my studies, well placed to write about Ayurveda from an academic perspective, but I can certainly share from my personal experience. 

 You see, our gut is not only the place where we digest our foodstuffs on a physical level, but it is also the place where we digest our thoughts, emotions and feelings on a mental level too. Both, the digestion of foodstuff and the digestion of thoughts, emotions and feelings, will impact on our physical and mental wellbeing. 

Thus our gut health is not simply about eating healthily, and it’s certainly not about just consuming gut enhancing pills and potions, and as much probiotic as you can get into it. It’s also about our mental health and the ability to digest and process our life experiences and integrate all parts of ourselves, especially our emotions and feelings. 

I was made incredibly aware of this last year when I undertook a Panchakarma session at the Ayurvedic Clinic. I’ve always been a fan of Ayurveda because, like yoga, it works! Both are based on ancient knowledge that has been tried and tested over thousands of years. Ayurveda is the science of life, and is a holistic health care system that considers the root cause of any imbalance.

I presented with an imbalance in my solar plexus, following umbilical hernia surgery, and I knew that there was some healing work to be done. I attended the Ayurvedic Clinic in Purley Oaks, near Gatwick, last March, for the Panchakarma, this following a skype consultation with my Ayurvedic doctor.

Panchakarma means five actions, and is a cleansing and rejuvenating program for the body, mind and consciousness - basically put, a sublime three-hours of various massages and oil treatments. My Panchakarma was centred on helping to address and heal my solar plexus, and the treatment was followed up with herbs, which I took for a good few months afterwards.   

The Panchakarma was as wonderful as ever, but it wasn’t until May, two months later, that I really felt the effect, and even then it wasn’t until the end of the summer, that I realised that what took place in May was in any way related to the Panchakarma. That’s the thing with Ayurveda, it’s powerful, and yet gentle in its unfolding, so it’s not until you look back that you notice the transformation. 

Basically, during May, I felt an overwhelming need to write. Writing is my preferred and natural way of processing, and at that time I was involved in editing Namaste(my book about my trek to Everest Base Camp), so it caught me by surprise this need to write, in addition to the editing. The need was so strong that I would spend a couple of hours each evening and/or early morning writing. I just had to get what was in my head (or gut, as I later realised) onto paper; I had to get it out!

I was consumed for the entire month, and ended up writing a 90,000-word manuscript. I had no idea that I was still holding on to so much of my past, and that it was held in my gut, right in my solar plexus! This holding comprised years and years of thoughts, feelings and emotions, right back to childhood, that I had not processed or made sense of at the time. 

All these feelings and emotions had sat there in my gut all those years, undigested and festering, much like foodstuff that isn’t digested. It is perhaps no surprise I had ended up with a hernia, right there, in the very centre of my solar plexus as I tried to keep everything tightly in!  It didn’t help that I’d had my belly button pierced in my early twenties, disrupting the flow of subtle energy in this sensitive area of the body (my Ayurvedic doctor strongly discourages piercings here!). 

While the writing gave me the opportunity to process and digest all the undigested stuff, I still found myself holding onto it.  I didn’t realise I was doing this, but I had it in mind that I might turn my writings into something that others may read. It seemed that I wasn’t prepared to just let it go without giving it yet more energy. I felt that maybe my life experiences, or the sharing of my life experiences, may help others who may find themselves in similar life situations.

However, after setting my ‘manuscript’ aside from a few months, I started to have a few doubts. Was the solar plexus outpouring, poured out to be shared.  Did I need to spill my guts to the world? And to what end anyway, did people need to know my every life experience, did I need to share to prove that healing had taken place? Did I need to give so much of myself away? And did I need to continue to inform my present by continuously talking about my past? 

Fast forward another few months and I happened upon a yoga video on Yoga International, where the teacher talked about students having an awareness of drawing the tummy in during asana practice, to prevent the guts spilling out. This made me laugh, because I had been trying to teach this notion in class, and yet, I had been missing the point in my own life.

Rather than repeat my, “try not to stick your tummy out and give your power away” approach, I replaced this in class recently, with the “draw your tummy in so you don’t spill your guts” approach instead. Needless to say, this was met with much groaning and laughter.  Those are powerful words!

 ‘Spilling our guts’ means to tell everything secret or private about our lives - one may ‘spill their guts’ and offload whatever is bothering them about their job or their relationship with their partner, for example. Essentially it means giving more of ourselves than we would ordinarily do, giving our power away and potentially leading to increased feelings of vulnerability and disempowering ourselves in the process – think poor boundaries. 

I’m sure many have had the experience of drinking too much alcohol and offloading our inner-most truth to others, sometimes complete strangers, only to wake up the next day and almost cringe, wondering what we said and to whom, and questioning why we said it in the first place!  There can follow an extremely uncomfortable few hours, or indeed day, and our solar plexus may feel decidedly unhappy, our gut filled with increased anxiety and paranoia - it’s those kind of feelings that may arise when we ‘spill our guts’. 

However, for others, ‘spilling our guts’ can be a cathartic release, an opportunity to let go of what has been held onto, lightening the load so to speak.  It can be an opportunity to let go of shame and any of those other horrible feelings that in themselves, eat away at us on the inside. But there is a fine line between healthy releasing and the sharing of our feelings, and unhealthy releasing which can lead to feelings of intense and gut-wrenching insecurity and vulnerability. 

This leads me to the solar plexus, which is the energy centre that comprises the gut. Centred around the navel, the solar plexus, is an extremely complex chakra, and one that people often overlook in their quest to open their hearts and ground their feet, let alone those seeking spiritual expansion who focus solely on their crown chakra. It is my experience that to expand, we need to have an awareness of all our chakras, and we absolutely need to work with the solar plexus – it’s at our very core.

The Sanskrit name for the solar plexus means, ‘jewel in the city’ and the jewel it refers to is the mind.  When the solar plexus is in balance, the mind is also in balance.  We are in control of ourselves and the challenges and decisions that we face in life.   Furthermore, a balanced solar plexus means that we are discerning, disciplined and assertive, and we face life’s challenges with courage and integrity.  

Furthermore, our ego will no longer need continual gratification.  We will discover a moderation in thought and action; we are able to listen to people without being overwhelmed by them. We instinctively find a comfortable relationship with the world.  Our character becomes gemlike: solid, multifaceted, filed with life. I like to think of a ball of crystal clear quartz; clear about who it is and the qualities that it brings to the world, potentially like us. 

As a comparison, an overly dominant solar plexus leads to bullying, egotistical and aggressive behaviour.  These people believe they are always right and get angry easily, and seek to control others through their anger. A weak solar plexus, on the other hand, results in depression, guilt and lack of confidence; it becomes hard for us to see our life clearly, leading to feelings of heightened vulnerability.

I can certainly relate to all this from my own life experience and also from working with people through both Reiki and yoga. My mind – the jewel – was depressed for much of my twenties until I found yoga. As I shared in my previous blog posting, my boundaries were poor and my solar plexus weak. I lacked discernment and discipline – I had zero willpower, especially when it came to addictions (smoking!), and making positive life changes.

Furthermore, my gut was constantly challenged. I was often bloated and constipated, not digesting food properly. This was heightened due to poor diet choices as a result of an eating disorder which had plagued me since I was 17 years old - but I’ve no doubt it was also due to all the unprocessed ‘stuff’ I was carrying in my gut. It is only as I look back, I see so clearly the correlations between my mental state and my solar plexus. The fact I suffered with gallstones and had to have my gallbladder removed at the age of 21 only further illustrates this (the liver and gallbladder form part of the ‘solar plexus’).

I have worked with a number of people with Reiki, who have suffered with depression and anxiety and they shared a commonality – a big black hole in their solar plexus.  It felt to me that they had had the life force sucked out of them, and their mind was suffering as a result of this. I see it showing up in yoga too; you can tell so much about someone’s mental state and the manner in which they are living their lives, by watching their bodies and how they move on their mats.  

I have learned the hard way, that because the solar plexus is the centre of the intellect and decision-making, it is important for the health and development of this chakra that we make our own choices, rather than have them made for us. The development of the solar plexus is hindered if we have a feeling of powerlessness in life – and yet, the lack of development of the solar plexus will create a feeling of powerlessness, so it is tricky to make the changes!

One way we can work with the solar plexus is through our yoga practice. Even just noticing the solar plexus and the manner in which we relate to this area of our body during an asana practice can make a difference.  Do we have an awareness of our centre, or do we allow it to almost flop out into the world? Or perhaps we hold onto it so tightly, that there’s no room for release and movement? Do we try to ignore our tummy, or do we embrace it, fat and all?

Can we breathe diaphragmatically, with awareness of the expansion of the tummy on each inhalation, and the release on each exhalation; can we both give and receive? We can take the awareness from our practice out into our day to day life. What people and situations are we attracting? Are our relationships healthy and nourishing? Can we say no when we don’t want to do something, and how does this make us feel? Do we feel guilty without any specific reason?

Of course it is very easy to try to overlook any imbalance, to drift off in a yoga class, for example, when reference is made to the tummy and our solar plexus.  Sometimes it is easier to pretend that there isn’t any imbalance, than to begin the process of unravelling, of opening the can of worms, so to speak, and looking into the shadows in our gut, more honestly.

However, the more we ignore the solar plexus, the more we will continue to experience the symptoms of the imbalance, not only physically (think dodgy digestion, bloating, constipation, candida etc.) but also mentally (think unsettled mind, depression, sense of vulnerability, anxiety etc.), and thus the more the imbalance will impact on the quality of our relationships and the manner in which we interact with the world.  

I’m biased but in addition to yoga, Reiki offers a marvellous way to release what might be unnecessarily held in this chakra. Ki massage (energetic shifting) too, can encourage us to look into the shadows and bring to light any denial (buried stuff), and the manner in which this is unconsciously impacting on our day to day life. It almost goes without saying that Ayurveda can be hugely helpful too. 

The healing work I have undertaken on the solar plexus has certainly lightened the load and helped me to establish healthier boundaries. This has been key and I have become much more discerning as a consequence, which in itself has been liberating, and priorities have changed. 

It’s not easy though. Working with the solar plexus demands courage. But then it can give us so much courage in the process of working with it. It’s a potentially life changing process, which positively impacts on all levels, giving us a greater sense of what is healthy, and the manner in which people may try to manipulate us and take our power away. Essentially, it helps us to learn not to take on anyone else’s crap leaving them deal with that, and just look after our own crap instead (quite literally, but that’s a whole other story!).

Boundaries

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about personal boundaries and the manner in which our ability to create healthy boundaries has the potential to improve the quality of our lives, our relationships and general wellbeing. 

Then I bumped into a friend the other day who shared with me that she was having boundary issues with a colleague, and that she needed to tighten these.  This didn’t come as a surprise to me, as I had watched from afar and was curious to see where their working relationship was headed as there was an imbalance in the energy. 

I had a sense that my friend was giving away some part of herself, without necessarily realising that she was doing it, and disempowering herself in the process. So in many respects it was heartening to hear that my friend had recognised this, and further highlighted the tricky nature of boundaries in any relationship, personal or otherwise.

For as long as I can remember I have always had a tendency towards poor boundaries and a weak solar plexus (the seat of our ability to create healthy boundaries). Before yoga came into my life, I used to suffer with depression and my solar plexus was like a dark and deep empty hole; the life force had been sucked from it. I was insecure, anxious, vulnerable, disempowered and I lacked the ability to say no. 

As a result, I ended up getting into relationships I didn’t want to be in, I took jobs I didn’t want to take, I attended social events I didn’t want to attend, I studied for exams I had no interest in taking, I spent my spare time doing things that I didn’t want to do like umpiring netball matches, playing softball, making up numbers in charity sports events, and meeting people for coffee who held little interest to me, just because my solar plexus was weak and my boundaries poor – I couldn’t speak my truth and say no!

Unfortunately, each time I did something that I didn’t want to do, not only did I get angry and frustrated at myself, sinking my spirit even further, but it felt like a part of soul withered too.  The combination of irritation at myself and the fact I was spending my time doing things that I didn’t want to do, just served to further disempower me, and my solar plexus became weaker and weaker as a result.

 It wasn’t only my inability to say no that was damaging; my boundaries were poor. I constantly gave too much of myself to others. I have always had this strong sense of truth, but I didn’t understand that being truthful didn’t mean that you had to share your secrets and innermost private thoughts with the world. I felt this rather ridiculous need to tell everyone everything, including the ins and outs of my relationships and the dramas that accompanied this. 

Furthermore, because my solar plexus was so wide open (or that’s how I imagine it in my head, like this bit gaping hole) that it attracted lots of energy vampires, eager for a piece of me. There were many toxic friends in my life back then. People who thrived on my insecurity and the fact that they could so easily manipulate and control me. 

 I was a lost soul adrift. Unconsciously I had given all my power away. There was nothing left.

 Fortunately, yoga came into my life and saved me and I am grateful to the yogic teachings for this. I am passionate about yoga for this very reason - because it actually works! It changes lives and makes life worth living, and that counts for everything when you once considered that perhaps there was no point to any of it. 

The journey that yoga has taken me on, coupled with the magic of Reiki, has helped me in so many different ways, but it has especially helped to strengthen my solar plexus, enabling me to establish healthier boundaries and find the strength to say no. The practices also helped me to recognise the manner in which I was giving my power away.  This didn’t happen overnight and it is an ongoing process of learning and discovery!

When I first started teaching yoga and practicing Reiki, I didn’t even know what boundaries were. It wasn’t a subject, or a concept that was discussed or taught on my various trainings. Perhaps it was assumed, I don’t know, but when I look back I laugh at my naivety and the manner in which I so easily exhausted myself by not having effective boundaries in place.

I have always been so keen to help people, that I didn’t consider the impact that my ‘trying to help people’ may have on me. An hour’s Reiki treatment would turn into 2 hours or maybe 3 hours as I sat there listening to clients offload onto me.  I wasn’t even aware at the time of the ‘hands on, hands off’ approach that I have since learned, in so much as once the session has finished, then its time to switch off, you don’t then ‘carry’ the client with you. 

Instead, I would ‘carry’ them, weighing myself down, thinking about them and their issues and doing what I could to help support them, long after the session had finished. The often thin line between client and practitioner would blur, and I would end up in the dangerous territory of creating some form of dependence, and confusing the client/practitioner relationship with one of friendship – only that it was never true friendship, as it was never two-way.

 It was the same with yoga. I was a classic caretaker I later discovered, trying to care take people’s problems, do the healing for them, ease their pain. It’s not healthy, and I did finally crash and burn. We only have the capacity to hold so much, and the more we do for others, the more we might question what we are avoiding in ourselves. Why do we need to feel needed? What unfulfilled needs are we ignoring in ourselves?

 Over the years I have learned (and continue to learn) that we need to take care of ourselves first and foremost and in particular, ensure a healthy solar plexus. We can do this in many ways, but from my perspective, yoga, Reiki, ki massage (shadow work) and Ayurveda have all been extremely helpful.  We also need to be mindful of our boundaries and the manner in which we give ourselves away to others (including our children and other family members, let alone colleagues).

We need to find the courage to say no. We also need to find the strength to stand up for what we believe in, and to honour our truth and our inner knowing. We need to walk away from relationships that don’t nourish us, and have no qualms in leaving jobs that deplete us. It’s about discernment and taking ourselves seriously, and it’s about connecting to our gut too, and listening to it - more on this next time…

Healing and responsibility

I’ve been questioning a lot of different things recently as my life shifts from one way of being to another, and so my perspective has had to shift accordingly.

Amongst other things I have been questioning the quest for healing, and whether we ever reach a conclusion, and to what end anyway. This has tied in a little with my questioning of addictions and the manner in which these show up in our lives and indeed influence our lives and the lives of those with whom we interact regularly (more on that another time).

 It has crossed my mind that healing can become an addiction all in itself. I wondered whether maybe this isn’t a bad thing, because it’s perhaps better than being addicted to cocaine or some other drug (illegal or legal for that matter), but then I considered that perhaps it comes back to intention. 

Is the intention truly to heal, to address our pain and suffering directly, in the quest to improve our relationship with self, with others and our life generally?  Or is it to go through the motions, but never truly do the work, that can be both rewarding but also deeply challenging, uncomfortable and blinking painful? 

Are we being honest with yourselves, or are we clinging on to our denial? Are we doing the talk, but not the walk? Are we kind of going there, but then not really feeling into it on any level, just reading the books, attending the classes and yet avoiding the actual work? Do we have our feet on the Earth, or are we floating in the ether, neither here not there, in our spiritual bubble of love, light and peace? Are we truly practicing or spiritually bypassing?

This led me to question the point of it anyway. There’s a whole generation and more who don’t even question the need to heal.  Sure, something goes wrong and they get sick, but even then, they don’t actually take any responsibility. This is perhaps one of the main downsides to the Western approach to health (other than the manner in which doctors are increasingly becoming puppets for the pharmaceutical industry), the fact that people frequently put doctors on God-like pedestals and assume that they will be doing the healing for them…with drugs provided by the pharmaceutical industry.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have friends who are doctors and I think they’re great, but I certainly wouldn’t want their job. Imagine that level of responsibility weighing down on you daily.  You are the one who is meant to heal everyone! And you’re meant to achieve this in the ten minutes that you have allotted to you to spend with that ‘patient’ (patiently waiting to be healed!). Yet, as we in the holistic world know, only we can truly heal ourselves.  No one can do it for us.  Yet there are so many who overlook this.

Sure doctors can give you drugs, that’s often what they do right? It’s expected that they give drugs, and many patients will get very upset if drugs are not given to them following a doctor’s visit. Yet drugs don’t always get to the root cause of any imbalance or dis-ease. They might help address the symptoms, but does that mean that they actually heal?

 Studying Ayurveda is making me increasingly aware of the discrepancies between the various healing models and the need for responsibility. Do we truly take responsibility for our own health or are we always looking outside of ourselves to hand that responsibility to someone else?  Do we hold our doctor responsible for our health?  Or society?  Or the government? 

When we get sick, do we take responsibility even then? Do we question why we ended up with the dis-ease that we are now suffering? 

 I truly believe that mostly all ailments and dis-ease in the body have an emotional and/or mental and/or spiritual element to it.  I don’t believe you can separate to the physical alone. But the trouble is, the Western model tends to focus solely on the physical – although fortunately these days there is greater awareness of how, for example, stress may manifest in the body, let alone anxiety and other ‘mental’ disorders. Perhaps this is the reason so many have turned to yoga in the last few years.

E and I were discussing this earlier, because a member of my family has been diagnosed with an eye condition, which apparently, accordingly to my optician, puts me more at risk of developing this condition too. I don’t buy into this at all. I mean I get the fact that we have a genetic disposition towards certain characteristics – we might inherit hair and eye colour, let alone personality traits, so why wouldn’t we also inherit the ‘bad’ stuff like suppressed anger and alcoholism, or eye issues, for example.

But I don’t believe that because one family member has something then we will get it too. There is always a chance, but many of the conditions are created by that particular individual due to the manner in which they have been living their life, and the lack of healing work (ancestral and otherwise) to address this imbalance.  Thus if we live our life differently, if we do the ancestral healing too, then we have every right to choose a path free from dis-ease and suffering.

However, if a doctor or an optician tells us that we have a genetic disposition to something, then there is a high chance that we might create it, not only by the law of attraction and creating that to which we give energy (thought, notion or otherwise), but also because we might give away our responsibility top look after our own health – “because we’re going to get it (whatever ‘it’ is) anyway”. Who knows what might happen, but the odds may well be stacked more in favour of history repeating itself if we buy into what others are telling us and perpetuate the ancestral line.  

The idea of healing ancestral stuff fascinates me.  Many will think it completely crazy and every so slightly batty, but it was a notion introduced to me by a German yoga teacher and massage therapist and somatic healer many years ago now. She had a sense that the German people very much lived with the weight of two world wars in their genetic make up. They took on a seriousness, and their bodies very much told the story, and so it was passed from one generation down to the next and will continue until healing takes place.

I have a sense that there’s many a women carrying the trauma of the witch hunting’s. Lisa Lister might have talked about this in her book ‘Witches’ about the deep mistrust that women often have for one another still to this day, based on the fact that back in the day, they were often forced to tell on their fellow witchery friends to protect their own lives. I always remember a Guernsey wiccan lady who lives in Australia, telling me that she used to get shivers down her spine and feel desperately uncomfortable walking past certain areas in town and she was convinced this was from the witch hunts and hangings. 

 I’ve always questioned the reason my Mum and I always over cater.  It’s probably partly learned behaviour, but I’ve always wondered if it might be because my Grandmother lived in Guernsey during the Occupation when food was so scarce, and my Grandfather in the military police serving in Europe. For ever after my Grandparents would stockpile tins of food at their home, the cupboards were always overflowing, and they would both always over-eat and over-cater, as if to counter the scarcity they had previously experienced, and so that fear has transferred itself down the ancestral line. My Mum and I both have a fear of not having enough food in the house!

So ancestry aside, healing becomes key and leads me back to my original questioning. It is very easy to get caught up in the notion of healing for healing’s sake. There is also perhaps – dare I say – a narcissistic undertone sometimes, in that we can get so caught up in our need for healing and self-care (whatever that actually means) that we overlook the needs of others in our lives and put ourselves on our own little (or big!) healing pedestal. Furthermore, ‘healing’ work and ‘self-care’ (whatever that actually means, I’ll repeat that again) can just be an excuse to bypass from the world – to avoid taking responsibility.

Which leads me right back to sort of where I started, well sort of, in my questioning of healing and the point to it all really. The word that keeps coming up is responsibility. Healing has the potential to help us to take responsibility for our own health and wellbeing.  It means trying to understand the reason behind the dis-ease or the ailment. It means looking beyond the symptoms and trying to make changes that might support that underlying reason.

 It’s about trying to get to the root, and weeding that out. This might involve a change in the way that we’re living our life, whether that be the food that we put into our mouths, the job that we do, the thoughts that we think, the relationships we keep, or the trauma that we hold on to from our childhood, or from our ancestral line before you. I’m continuously reminded of my favourite quote, “if we always do what we do, then we’ll always get what we always got”.

However awful pain may be, it is often (but maybe not always) a messenger to show us that change is needed, at least if we want a different outcome in the future.  We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect change. It’s us who need to make the change.  Healing work can facilitate this.  It can shift the energy, that might shift the emotion, that might shift the behaviour pattern, that might shift the physical sensation or ailment.  Or perhaps you start with the physical, and this shifts things for you on every other level.  

It doesn’t matter how you approach it, but it does require responsibility. Responsibility for our own health and wellbeing and for getting to the bottom of things. It does require that we let go of blame and the victimhood mentality and stop making excuses, “but I can’t…because I don’t want to give up…”. The buck stops with us ultimately.  This realisation, and embodiment can often be the healing that is needed to make the change, and to begin experiencing greater health, wellbeing and an empowered way of living.

I am aware by the way, that healing doesn’t always mean getting better. But it does mean easing our pain and suffering, whether that is to continue living in this world as we know it, or to pass on more peacefully to another one.

I also don’t claim to be an expert incidentally, or right necessarily, I just started questioning. I’ve spoken to a few people in the healing field, but it wasn’t until tonight, when I noticed this quote staring out at me in the Earth Pathways diary that my Mum bought me from Chalice Wells, that I got the answer I had been seeking…

"To focus on healing in this climate is an act of powerful, political rebellion. It is an act of spiritual revolution. To heal is to be a conscientious objector to the culture of war we inhabit as normality. To heal is to bring more life force to our planet. To deepen your understanding of our connection to the earth and other people. To inhabit your body more fully. To look life and death squarely in the eye. To get out of the denial and silence and shame and invisibility that you have been taught makes you good. To embody the feminine more fully and reject the toxic masculinity to dominate. This is anything but selfish. To heal is to offer a profound act of service - one which will ripple up and down your family lineage, out into your community and into the world beyond you." Healing Revolution by Lucy Pearce.

Happy healing!

xx

Getting into nature - an antidote to anxiety?

I’m a big fan of retreating into the wild and just taking a bit of time out from the rest of the world, especially the online world.

It has become popular these days, the whole re-wilding thing, and with good reason, because there is something deeply grounding, healing and uplifting about spending time in the great outdoors.

There is this sense that the more we connect with nature, the more we recognise our own true nature, and step more fully into the more authentic version of ourselves, into the more authentic version of what it means to be alive in this world, and to be a part of this world, not separate from it.

I’m become increasingly aware recently of the number of people, students especially, who suffer with anxiety.  I’ve experienced bouts of this over the years, less so since I’ve been practicing yoga, but there have been moments, often healing crises, when I’m reminded of how debilitating it is to feel anxious.

 Anxiety manifests in so many different ways.  For some it may be that awful uncomfortable and edgy feeling in the tummy, for others it might be a racing heart and heart pain, and yet for others it can create dizziness, and that overwhelming feeling of, well overwhelm.  There will be some physical sensation, but there will also be a racing mind, too many thoughts and a sense of not being able to cope with daily life. 

 I can only all from my own experience, but I do know that the last time I had a bad bout of anxiety, quite a few years now, the thing that finally helped to heal me was not only getting my hands in the earth but was getting in the sea – basically it was getting into nature.

Often anxiety comes from feeling separate, feeling very alone, and very disconnected from everyone else, and from the land.  It can be a very isolating experience, ironically based on the feeling of being isolated. 

 The answer is often to ground, ground, ground, and being in nature provides the opportunity to ado just this

There can be much more to it and I appreciate that everyone is different and I can only talk from my own experiences. Often anxiety is underpinned by FEAR, namely False Evidence Appearing Real, and the behaviour patterns and thought processes that accompany this.  It’s all an illusion but can feel very real when our mind has decided that there is a reason to feel fear and anxiety often results from this - fear of upsetting someone, fear of messing up, fear of something bad happening to us, fear of an imagined event, fear of so anything behind our control, and on the list goes…

 Re-wilding can certainly ease the anxious feelings. We’re spoilt here in Guernsey, in that the Island is wild!  The south coast provides an incredible opportunity to connect with, and experience the elements with the cliffs and the magnificent sea crashing onto the rocks below (well when there is a swell!).

 We’re also spoilt because we have Lihou on our doorstep.  Lihou is a tiny island that is connected to Guernsey by a causeway at high tide.  You can hire the house on the island, which is a hostel and offers 2 double rooms and 5 dormitories (I think).

E and I stayed there on our own, pre-children, when the snowy owl was visiting.  It was really special as we literally walked upon him on one of our walks and all the while there were keen bird watchers with their long lenses trying to get a shot of him from the coast on Guernsey!

We’ve stayed a number of times since then with friends and family, but last weekend we stayed just the 4 of us, E, me and the 2 boys. It was great, there is nothing quite as wonderful as the tide coming up and knowing that you are cut off from Guernsey for the night, on your own little island.

 We managed a swim in the Venus pool before the tide got to high – OK perhaps it was a dip in and out, I did go in twice though! The house was cold – there is certainly some sense in visiting in the summer, but we lit the log burning stove and wrapped up in blankets. The industrial size kitchen is a challenge when you’re cooking for so few, as the stove is powerful and the saucepans etc. are huge, but I managed, and the children even ate some of their meal!

 It was a joy to wake and have the Island still to ourselves, high tide and a swim in the sea certainly woke us up.  We walked around the island a few times collecting plastic and washed up crab pots from the beaches, and watched the birds and searched for the Lihou seal – we didn’t see him sadly!

 We watched the tide drop and the causeway clear, and felt like time itself had slowed down.  There is no TV on Lihou and no WIFI, so you’re encouraged to get outside or to sit in the sun lounge and watch the sea and the birds instead. There are plenty of books in the house and a few games if you get bored.

I can hugely recommend a night in Lihou to slow life down and help you reconnect with nature.  You can’t help but leave feeling more grounded, centred and in touch with the elements.  I have a sense that if you suffered with anxiety upon arrival then this would ease by the time you left. 

There are other ways too. Practising yoga can certainly help and I’m aware that a grounding practice and conscious and calming breathing can really make a difference. But truly, getting into the nature can make a huge difference - I’m biased but swimming the sea and getting your feet on the sand, well I do wonder if that’s the reason sea swimming has become so popular, it gets you in the elements and helps you to connect more fully with your own rue nature and feel very alive in the process!

The womb - is she calling you?

Probably because I have written a book about fertility, pregnancy and birth, I am often asked for insight into what might help women with their menstrual or fertility issues, or how to heal after suffering a miscarriage.

I’m certainly no expert, and while I am keen to share all I have learned, I am very aware that this is a result of listening to my body wisdom and honouring that inner guidance, and this may very well not work for other women who have their own body wisdom.

Plus, I am also very aware that menstrual and fertility issues, and the quest to conceive and give birth to new life, is a huge journey for us and often one of awakening, so there will be our own unique lessons to learn in the process.

Still, regardless of all our uniqueness, there is one commonality - something that I am keen to share with women, and it is this…honour your womb.

It wasn’t until I undertook our first round of IVF that I became aware of the significance of the womb in terms of growing new life and the need for this to be a super cosy and nourishing environment for a baby to grow.

I ended up with placenta previa during that first pregnancy, which means that the placenta (an organ attached to the lining of the womb, which keeps your unborn baby’s blood supply separate from your own and is connected to the baby by the umbilical cord) was totally covering the cervix (the narrow-neck like passage forming the lower end of the womb), which meant that I wouldn’t be able to birth vaginally.

I was very angry about this both during the pregnancy and beyond and it wasn’t until I met the wonderful Jo de Diepold Braham, that I realised the extent of the resentment that I was still carrying in my womb (let alone the scarring from the Caesarean Section) eighteen-months after the birth.

I’d gone to see Jo, an osteopath, to have my neck sorted, and instead ended up with her guiding me into my womb, which was dark and murky and most definitely not in a good state.  Given that E and I were thinking of going through another round of IVF, I had a sense that I needed to do some significant healing here.

I started seeing Jo regularly for Ki massage.  Jo is the most intuitive healer that I have had the pleasure to meet, and the way she works, by taking you into your body and helping to shift energy, resonates massively with my approach to healing. You can find Jo at the Natural Health Clinic twice a month in Guernsey and I strongly recommend you see her if you need any healing womb or otherwise.

Into my life at this time also arrived the wonderful Dr Uma Dinsmore-Tuli with her incredible book Yoni Shakti: A Woman’s Guide to Power and Freedom Through Yoga and Tantra, which all yoginis should have beside their mats. Also the inspiring Dr Christiane Northrup and her marvellous book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, which should be a reference book for all women at all stages of life.  A little later in came Lisa Lister too with Code Red, which absolutely every menstruating lady should be referring to for monthly menstrual insights.  

There was this whole new world that opened up to me and I started to see the womb in a whole different perspective.

The womb

The womb, or uterus as it is formally called, is a hollow muscular organ of the female reproductive system that is responsible for the development of the embryo and foetus during pregnancy.  It is approximately the shape and size of a pear and sits in an inverted position within the pelvis. 

An incredible distensible organ, the womb can expand during pregnancy from the size of a closed fist to become large enough to hold a full term baby. It is also incredibly strong, able to contract forcefully to propel a full term baby out of the body during childbirth. 

However, the womb is so much more than this!

It is also the seat of our creativity, not least in creating new life, but in helping us to create the life of our dreams, and connects us to our deepest knowing.

As Uma writes: “The very term yoni sakti locates the place of power [sakti] in our own bodies, in our yoni, a term that means both cunt or vulva, and womb or source. Yoni also means home, or place of rest. It is in and through the yoni that we encounter our connection to deeper knowledge, or blood wisdom. The term blood wisdom conveys a sense of the profound experience of ‘knowing already’, or recognising, sometimes not always so clearly, that this deep wisdom is present as a spirituality in our lifeblood. The understanding of blood wisdom is that in our very cells, in our wombs, this knowing has never really been absent, and all that has been denied is access to the living consciousness of the true wealth that this wisdom brings, not just for women but for the whole planet.  She is a deep and tender inner teacher. What she teaches is freedom.”

Certainly since honouring my womb with the greatest reverence for all she knows, and all she can reveal, my life has changed significantly. I started writing again, a passion which had lay dormant for many years, and I haven’t really stopped since, even managing to write a book (which you can purchase here).  I have also felt an incredible sense of freedom and have had a greater connection to my own wisdom and all that this needs to reveal. Of course there is always work to be done, but connecting with my womb has made a huge difference.

This is the reason, that when women are experiencing some issues with the womb space, in whatever way that may be, I am always keen to encourage them to begin their work here.

As Dr Northrup writes: “The uterus is related energetically to a woman’s innermost sense of self and her inner world. It is symbolic of her dreams and the selves to which she would like to give birth. Its state of health reflects her inner emotional reality and her belief in herself at the deepest level. The health of the uterus is at risk if a woman doesn’t believe in herself, is excessively self-critical or is putting too much of her energy into a dead-end job or relationship”.

So perhaps there is some change that occurs when we begin working with the womb, and perhaps this is confronting at times, but also a necessity.

As Dr Northrup further writes: “The health of the pelvic organs (ovaries, tubes and womb) depends upon a woman feeling able, competent, or powerful to create financial and emotional abundance and stability, and to express her creativity fully. She must be able to feel good about herself and about her relationships with other people in her life. Relationships that she finds stressful and limiting, and which she feels she has no control over, on the other hand, may adversely affect her internal pelvic organs. Thus, if a woman stays in an unhealthy relationship because she feels she cannot support herself economically, or emotionally, her internal pelvic organs may be at increased risk of disease”.

This is supported by Bri Maya Tiwari who writes in her wonderful book The Path of Practice: A Woman’s Book of Ayurvedic Healing: “Our Shakti-prana [the primordial feminine energies within) circulates through and around the womb, a woman’s area of greatest vulnerability…Too often, we do not recognise the sanctity of the womb, and the sacred prana that governs it. Herein lies the paradox of the Shakti-prana: this profound source of feminine power also makes us extremely susceptible to disease.  When you care for your womb, and thus honour your Shakti-prana, you heal your feminine life force and protect yourself from illness.”

Thus it is imperative that we do the work to heal the womb. We must celebrate her and all she can reveal to us. How do we do this? Well here are the ways that help me:

Womb yoga

In theory, all yoga should help us to heal and connect more fully with our body wisdom and increase our sense of wellbeing in the process, but womb yoga offers so much more than this. In practicing with deep reverence for the womb and womb space, and working with Shakti (the spirit of our primordial feminine energies within) and Shakti-prana (the body’s inherent life-force), we can effect significant transformation.

As Uma writes: “By greeting the womb with love we not only reconnect to the Sakti or life power in the womb or womb space, but also receive the loving energies of the heart by bringing them into conscious connection with the nourishment potential of the the womb space energies”.

There is a free yoni yoga video on our YouTube channel here, that focuses on bringing awareness and love into the womb space. You might also benefit from the free fertility video here and/or the free video for menstruation here. 

It could also be beneficial to you to join our Sunday morning yoga class (click here for our class timetable), which while not gender specific, does tend to attract just women and many of the practices are based around the heart and womb. You could also join one of our Yoni Yoga sessions that take place from time to time.

I would also highly recommend investing in Uma’s book, Yoni Shakti: A Woman’s Guide to Power and Freedom Through Yoga and Tantra, which you can purchase from Amazon here.  Please don’t be intimidated by the book – it is huge, but just follow the practices that are relevant to you at any stage on your cycle/life.

Yoga Nidra

I am a huge fan of Yoga Nidra.  It has supported me so much the last few years particularly.  I regularly practice Yoga Nidra as it helps me to rest and rejuvenate and can be incredibly healing too.

You can access our free Yoga Nidra for menstrual healing here.  You’ll find other Yoga Nidras on my website too. Otherwise I can highly recommend using the free ones that are available courtesy of Uma and her husband on the Yoga Nidra network at www.yoganidranetwork.org. I use these regularly – they were hugely supportive before, during and after the IVF process and for healing my womb post-natal too. I also accredit Yoga Nidra for helping to regulate my periods.

Ayurveda

I am a huge fan of Ayurveda because it is ancient, it works and it has roots in the Vedas like yoga! 

Ayurveda is the oldest authentically recorded health system in history, over 5,000 years old. It was created by yogis who spent their lives studying nature and the human condition.  

Meaning “the science of life” it is exactly that, viewing health in four dimensions of physical, sensory, mental and spiritual and is centred on preventative medicine and bringing a person back to balance.  It shows how an imbalance in one part of a person’s being will affect them in another, i.e. if a person isn’t being true to their life path (dharma) then physical and mental illnesses can arise which cannot be effectively treated with modern medicines but can be helped by Ayurveda.

Ayurveda has helped me lots in my life, not least to heal ovarian cysts and eliminate PMS, but also to support the IVF process (it is perhaps not surprising that I didn’t follow any Ayurvedic principles nor take any herbs prior to the failed IVF cycle, as I had done before the two successful cycles). Read more about this by reading my book Dancing with the Moon.

I follow Ayurvedic principles when I can and notice when I veer away, as I end up feeling depleted and out of balance. It really is amazing and I encourage any lady who is experiencing any sort of menstrual, hormonal, fertility or pelvic trauma to contact the Ayurvedic Clinic that I attend in Purley Oaks, not far from Gatwick Airport.

You can arrange a Skype appointment with one of the doctors and can be sent herbs and encouraged to follow an Ayurvedic diet plan for your type (diet in terms of what you should avoid eating for balance rather than weight loss). You might also attend the clinic itself if necessary for Panchakarma (treatments – these are amazing and I go whenever I feel depleted and completely out of balance and attended before IVF too). See http://www.theayurvedicclinic.com

Eating well

I know, I hear you, we all know about eating well these days, but it can be so important for the health of our womb.  If we eat really drying and acidic food then this may lead to a dry and acidic womb, which might lead to dis-ease and may also prevent an embryo growing. You need to nourish yourself with nourishing foods and those that are appropriate for your constitution and for what is going on for you. 

I’m absolutely not a fan of dieting in terms of losing weight.  I think it’s important that we follow a diet that supports our health and wellbeing and increases our vitality – this is the reason I try and follow an Ayurvedic diet that works for me and my constitution when I can, as it looks at the whole person. It’s so important that you nourish yourself and keep your digestive fire stoked.  Remember to drink plenty of water too.  

Reiki

I love Reiki! For me it has been truly life changing as it is so healing! If you are Reiki attuned then all the better as you can channel Reiki to your womb as often as you are able.  I channelled Reiki into my womb space a lot throughout IVF and pregnancy and was comforted by it (you can read all about this in my book Dancing with the Moon). 

If you aren’t Reiki attuned then you will need to arrange a treatment with a qualified Reiki practitioner (let me know if you need any recommendations). Reiki treatments are wonderful because not only do you get to relax, but you get to heal and have all your chakras balanced in the process! Definitely a great support for the womb.

So you see there are things that can be done. But you must trust in your own wisdom too.  What is your womb trying to tell you? Perhaps it’s trying to wake you up to your highest potential. 

As Bri Maya Tiwari writes: “The power of your Shakti goes beyond the space of the womb and its magic of bringing new life into the world.  Your womb also has a divine function, which is the cultivation of nurturing and healing powers of the Mother within. In working with your Shakti, you will discover profound physical and spiritual health. In so doing, you as a woman also affect and influence the well-being of all living things”.

If you find yourself reading this and something is resonating, then honour the calling. You are being called.  You’re being asked to do the work.  To heal the womb.  To come home to yourself. 

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