Enjoying this lockdown

I don’t know if it just me, but I am really enjoying lockdown this time around, and I make no apologies for it. Last time it was awful because of my reaction to it; rather than flowing with it, I fought against it, and struggled to let go into it, holding on tightly to my old way of being, resistant to the possibility of a more positive and less limited way of being, of a new world that lockdown may have been ushering in. In the process I made myself extremely stressed to the extent that my dad was concerned I was heading for breakdown. 

While it was a messy and uncomfortable period of my life (and no doubt for many others too), turning life on its head, and throwing me/us into the unknown, it was also a very rich time for growth, because it encouraged me to look more honestly at my life and my unhelpful patterns, and this process revealed some fundamental mis-identifications regarding self-worth, security and loss of safety, which, until that point, I had been able to overlook and ignore.

I hadn’t realised, for example, how much my self-worth and feelings of security were tied up in factors external to me; in my yoga classes and my earning potential, to say nothing of feedback from others whether that be ‘likes’ on Facebook or otherwise. Lockdown came in and I felt a huge loss as everything I had built up around me to give me a sense of purpose  and a sense of safety and security, were taken away. I completely and utterly lost my grounding, as if the rug had been pulled from under my feet. 

Lockdown also highlighted my inherent stress and as I looked more honestly at this, and what underpinned it, I began to realise how much we create our own stress, through the thoughts we think and our interpretation of the world we live in and our relationship to this. In many respects, stress can become a coping mechanism, healthy if used in small doses but unhelpful and harmful if it continues for too long.

There was absolutely nothing helpful about my stress levels during that first lockdown; every time I attempted an online class my stress levels increased simply because the internet connection was so temperamental that I couldn’t be certain I could teach the class all the way to the end. On the occasions when the internet dropped out, I would be beside myself with the frustration of it, feeling as if I was letting everyone down, despite it being beyond my control.

I also noticed my tendency towards taking too much responsibility for the wellbeing of the world, as if it was my job, and my job alone, to save everyone from the suffering that lockdown brought with it. This ironic because in the process I was creating so much of my own suffering! I was also struggling to focus on my children, because until that point, I placed greater focus on everyone else, almost feeling that they were more in need of my time and energy than my own family.

In my attempts to save the world (!)I attempted to teach multiple classes, many for free, on a combination of Zoom and Facebook Live, and exhausting myself in the process. It wasn’t just that though, if the internet didn’t challenge me, then the dwindling numbers did instead. I wasn’t used to that, and I felt unsupported, feeding my unresolved feelings around rejection and criticism, as if people were rejecting me – I needed to feel needed because of my inherent insecurity that I had tried to pretend was no longer a part of me. 

I took it all very personally,  forgetting that everyone was trying to find their way in a world that didn’t feel quite right. Many were weary of being on the internet after a busy day juggling work and home learning, other’s couldn’t work out how to use Zoom, many didn’t like practicing from home and there were some who just didn’t feel they needed their yoga practice, because the great outdoors (and wine!) were offering support instead. It wasn’t personal, but this just merely shows how I was well and truly triggered by lockdown! 

Life has changed significantly since then. It was a wake-up call for so many of us and I realised after lockdown that I now needed to do the deeper work, to look more honestly at my fears and unhelpful core beliefs around security and rejection especially, and the way in which these continued to inform my present moment experience, despite them being based on past experience and therefore completely unhelpful to my current reality. 

I took ownership of my inherent insecurity, fear of rejection and perceived loss of safety and enquired into them. I attempted to break down my escape routes and establish myself more firmly within my ‘self’, not on factors outside of myself. This meant stepping back and essentially putting myself through the mill, finding another way. I also started looking more honestly at my perspective and my tendency towards the negative. 

Dropping deeper into my practice really helped, especially embracing more of the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga which helps to highlight our unhelpful patterns of movement and thinking and the many ways we harm ourselves and create our own suffering.  Studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with my philosophy teacher, Helen, made a huge difference too. In the Sutras, Patanjali defines yoga and the activities and obstacles of the mind and gives us the tools to help us navigate the difficulties of life and explains how we might cultivate positive thinking. 

The second of the Yoga Sutras, ‘Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodha’ can be translated as ‘Yoga is the containment of the mind’.  ‘Vrtti’ can be translated as thought waves or modifications of the mind, but when the Sanskrit root is used in asana names (such as Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana) it means revolve or turn around. I’ve no doubt that each of us has experienced how the vrttis – the five activities of the mind which can be positive or negative and include correct perception, wrong understanding/mistaken knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory – spin around inside the mind, especially when we try to sit in meditation. 

 The idea is that we don’t banish thoughts or repress memories/emotions, but that we free ourselves from the turmoil that they (the vrttis) cause by training the mind towards greater discernment and detachment through the eight limbs – yama (external constraints, relationship to world around us), niyama (relationship to self), asana (mastery of body, postures), pranayama (extension of energy), pratyahara (withdrawal of senses), dharana (focus on one thing), dhyana (deeper, more consistent and sustained) and samadhi (self- realisation).

As for cultivating a positive perspective, we have to ask ourselves, whether we can do this regardless of the circumstances? Establishing a positive or calmer state of mind can be challenging for all of us, especially if we feel our families, our health and/or livelihoods are being threatened. It requires us being able to step back from the emotional situation to try to see things more clearly. In yoga then, we attempt to calm our thought waves (relentless as they can be)  that create the various fluctuations (monkey mind) using the many techniques available to us. 

Some of you already know from previous blog posts, but it was coming across sutra 2.33, “Vitarka-badhane pratipaksha-bhavanam”, which really made a difference to me. This means when disturbed by negative thoughts, cultivate the opposite mental attitude - easier said than done, but still entirely possible with awareness. Thus when we find ourselves spinning around with some old negative pattern (feelings of anger, loss of self-worth, resentment, disappointment, fear of loss of safety, anxiety over an imagined event, reacting from a memory) then we try and think something more positive and peaceful instead. 

 Essentially we are asked to flip our perspective, see the other side of the coin. I’ve found this helpful, in catching myself and noticing my negative programming and trying to change it into something more positive. I’ve also found it helpful in noticing my prejudice and judgments, as I am reminded that there is always another side to every story and we would do well to remember this, to stand back, practice detachment and discernment and consider the other side before we jump to conclusions (it’s the same idea of walking in someone else’s shoes before judging them)

The more I have worked with this idea of cultivating a positive perspective, the more I have recognised the manner in which we create our own suffering through our negative thinking and our misidentification with things having to be negative in the first place. There are two sides to every thing and every perceived curse brings with it a blessing even if we cannot see it at the time. More often than not, it is our reaction to life and our interpretation of it as it unfolds that creates our loss of mental wellness, rather than the experience itself – our reaction often comes from a place of fear and our interpretation will be clouded by our conditioning.

Thus when lockdown arrived rather suddenly here in Guernsey two weeks ago now, whilst it took me a week to find my grounding and adjust, I was soon able to flow with it in a way that I hadn’t been able to do previously. I tried to see the positive and embrace it. I noticed my old tendency around fear of loss of income and shifted gear on this, recognising (finally) that there is more to life than money and the time spent together as a family is a gift, priceless.

I have become increasingly aware that we have all we need and that the more we have (that we don’t actually need), the more we flitter it away. We’re sold the illusion that having more will make us happier, whether this be financial gain or achievement, at the expense of everything else, but I don’t believe this to be true. What could be more valuable than living a simple and uncomplicated life, spending time with the people we love and hold dear in our hearts, and laughing? Money can’t buy us that; that’s the illusion I’m afraid. 

 The transition to Zoom was without drama, I decided I wouldn’t get stressed about the internet not working – if it worked it worked, if not no big deal, I needed to flow with it. As it happens we’ve not yet had a single internet glitch, and I have absolutely loved sharing my practice with those who find comfort in online real time learning and I have really enjoyed connecting with students new and old students through Guernsey Mind, as well as those dedicated students who attend all classes. I’m very grateful, thank you, the sense of community and opportunity to share is very welcomed.

My old feelings of insecurity, not being secure in myself or in the world I inhibit have been tested. The trouble with free classes is that people don’t always stay until the end. The Guernsey Mind classes are free and not everyone lasts until the end of the class, I can see that on the screen, but whereas previously I would have felt rejected by it, focusing only on the number who ‘left me’, now I see the positive – the majority of people stay with me until the end and regardless, I really enjoy the experience! 

I’ve embraced this opportunity to be together as a family, E also not able to work. We’ve engaged in home learning to a point, but we’ve also enjoyed lots of other ways of learning, mainly through play and outdoor adventures. It’s been liberating to explore another way to be together, as a family, that is not rushed or stressed, that has its own slow flow. Of course the boys still bicker and I am continuously challenged by the relentless requests for snacks, drinks and tissues, and have become little more than a glorified slave (thank god for the respite of teaching!) but there is service in this too! 

 We’ve tried to do things differently too. Get out as much as our two hours of daily exercise will allow, to new places, on adventures, breathing in the fresh air (sorry, no face masks for us in wide open aerated spaces, we like oxygen too much) and trying to spend time amongst trees and natural water, both helping to support our immune systems. We’ve changed the way we eat, eating our main meal at lunchtime and trying to take on as many vitamins and minerals as we can. There’s been some baking too, and quite a bit of chocolate thrown into the mix, food for the soul hey!

I honestly feel that cultivating a positive mind-set has been key. Any time I have noticed myself slipping into negativity, or becoming judgmental, I remind myself of this, of cultivating a different perspective, and I have attempted to shift my perspective and see the positive – E is very good at helping me to see this. I don’t always manage it and I am not perfect, far from it, I have my messy days like anyone, when my mind is in turmoil, spinning around, but it happens less, when I can pause and catch myself and notice what’s happening in that moment to set me off in a spin in the first place.

The Yoga Sutras are amazing. Each time I read them I learn something new, something helpful. It’s incredible to think that this wisdom, thousands of years old now, is as relevant to us in our modern life as it would have been to the ancient seers.  We have been gifted all that we need to cultivate a more peaceful state of mind, so that we do not create so much of our own suffering through our negative and restricted patterns of thinking. The key as always is to delve in deep and practice. I’m confident it’s worth it! 

I’ll leave you with a quote from the brilliant Diana Beresford-Kroeger, a botanist, keeper of the Irish Celtic wisdom and a bio-chemist who was asked the question, “how do we keep well during a pandemic?” The answer, she says is simple: “recalibrate your life, slow down and take advantage of nature’s bountiful remedies during a time of disquiet and unease”

Cultivating friendliness.

Here in Guernsey, we are in our second lockdown. It is different this time, more is known and certain. We know more about the virus and how to manage it, despite the new variants, and more about how life is lived in lockdown. We are also more certain that lockdown will last longer than we might have initially envisaged but that we will be free of it in the end.

Yet despite all this, lockdown and Covid, on some level, continue to highlight that we live in an uncertain world where all is not known. And despite knowing this and orientating myself more into the unknown and uncertain through my yoga practice, I have still been thrown off balance a little by the recent lockdown.

It’s not lockdown itself per se, although I do find spending 22 hours effectively indoors a touch challenging (and huge respect to those of you currently self-isolating and stuck inside for the best part of 24 hours a day), but just the fact that once again everything has been thrown on its head and there’s no way of knowing where it is all going…{I’m pretty sure they write about that in the children’s book, “I need a new bum”, fab book).

I noticed my tendencies when life free falls as it has done, my need to cling on to something certain, establish a routine, make life a little more known. I never appreciated the need for routine, yet now I see how it gives us a sense of security, of making us feel as if everything is OK, that we know what we are doing from moment to moment. Every day Eben wakes and asks me what we’re doing today, he needs to know, to make him feel OK about the day ahead.

I have also noticed my tendency around self-criticism, in contrast to my focus on cultivating friendliness to self! The home learning really brings this up. I have an idea in my head of what this should look like and of course the reality is very different. As much as I might try, formal learning is a bind to my eldest, he’s not interested, and while I have all these ideas about learning from play, the children end up fighting and I end up raising my voice more than I’d like. They also end up spending more time on electronics than I’d like.

There’s a quote I came across a few years ago that really says it all, “what screws us up the most in life is the picture in our heads of how life is supposed to be” (The Daily Guru)

It’s easy to have this idea in our heads of how lockdown should be, but the reality is that life lived 24/7 with family is at times beautiful and wonderful and at other times extremely fractious and tricky. I’m realising that we need to give ourselves a break. If ever there was a time for cultivating friendliness to self then it is now. The home learning will be what it will be, the yoga classes on Zoom will be what they will be, the moments of getting at the home, albeit in the rain, will be what they will be too.

Life goes on. We laugh and smile, we rage and cry. It’s all thrown there into the mix. There is nowhere to hide during lockdown, we have to face ourselves as we are, the escape routes are blocked unless we choose to drown our sorrows. So we have little choice really but to be compassionate, to know that we are doing our best, to forgive ourselves and let go of our notion of what it shouid look like, and just live it, every single chaotic, highly charged and joyful moment of it.

I realise that what i need most is purpose, to be in service to others. whatever that might look like, wearing a mask that you can’t breathe through properly, smiling even though others’s can’t see your smile because of said face mask, turning up to teach a yoga class online even if very few students join you, helping doing the shopping for friends and family in need, a text message here and there, and above all trying to stay positive.

I’ve also realised how careful we need to be about retaining our vibration and our positivity. It’s the silly things that can cause us to lose this, to diminish our light and out us on edge. For me it was watching too much TV! I don’t usually watch TV but this last month and certainly since lockdown there has been far too much TV. We’ve been watching Hinterland, which is dark and at times, traumatic and it doesn’t make me feel good, so I have had to stop watching it. It’s the silly things!

Yoga is essential for me, getting on my mat, moving, breathing, resting, chanting, reading the Sutras, talking with my teachers, keeping the energy high that way. There is hope when the light burns brightly, and comfort to be gained through spiritual community, able online.

This is a time of deep growth if we allow it. 2021 is about growing up, stepping up, taking greater responsibility, and lockdown is definitely encouraging us really pay attention, notice the ways that we get in our own way by the thoughts we keep and the escape routes we take to try to get away from what is happening in this exact moment. What could be more perfect than this exact moment? Perhaps its our relationship with the moment that also requires our friendliness, our acceptance rather than rejection.

Let’s see how week 2 of home learning goes, and more feral children desperate for their friends and a good run around! Good luck everyone, see you on the other side! Friendliness, let’s remember that! Friendliness to self, friendliness to others, and friendliness to this exact moment!

Love Emma x

Cultivating a positive perspective in the face of adversity

Love would still laugh, despite Covid. It is more important than ever that we stay positive. In Ayurveda we are encouraged to cultivate a positive mind-set. It’s not easy, especially if we have spent a lifetime focusing on the negative, but if we can catch ourselves and shift our perspective then it can be extremely helpful to our sense of wellbeing and experience of life..

Translated as ‘cultivating the opposite’, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 2.33 says, “when disturbed by negative thoughts, opposite ones should be thought of”. Thus when adverse notions take over the mind, Patanjali suggests that we look at it from the other side, so that we cultivate looking at things from a different viewpoint.

This is not always easy to do when we are in the midst of a very difficult time, but with practice even the most challenging and emotionally turbulent moments can become more peaceful and we can experience less mental suffering. If we are stuck in an attitude of fear or resentment then we can positively cultivate the opposite.

Of course when we ‘cultivate’ the opposite thought, it causes us to first notice and observe the fact that we are thinking a negative thought in the process and likely getting caught up in it. Thus we are required to take a step back and see ourselves being pulled in this negative direction by our mind, thereby creating, for the most part, our own suffering.

When we do this, we are more able to create space between ourselves and our minds, which can help us to see things more clearly and objectively. Then we can ask ourselves if we are overreacting and whether the situation really is as bad as it seems, and whether we need to step away from the situation altogether in order to stop myself reacting in a way that is unhelpful and causing our suffering.

This is a good reminder for those who are currently suffering with the speedy move into lockdown here in Guernsey, and are in feeling fear and anxiety about the ever evolving situation. We have to ask ourselves if us feeling fear and anxiety is positively changing things, or whether we are allowing more of our own suffering. Perhaps we need to come away from social media, or stop communicating with those who are feeding our fear and anxiety.

We need to remind ourselves that all is ultimately well, that the universe never gives us more than we can handle and that we are, all of us, ultimately held. This too, though, this notion of being ultimately well needs to be cultivated too, because it involves a deep trust, faith and belief that comes from the heart. In yoga this faith, śraddhā, isn’t a spiritually-based faith, or blind faith in something; it is a faith that we are going in the right direction, faith in our path, faith that our practice will lead to a life of ease. We may not know where we will end up, but we have certainty, conviction and courage in our journey.

In Reiki, one of the principles reads, “for today, do not worry”, This reminds people that there is a divine purpose to everything and that without this awareness further limitations may be created.  Energy used for worrying is, in essence, wasted as it brings no change to the situation.  Taoist sages declare that ‘any event in itself is neither good nor bad, it simply is’.  

Sometimes it is important to simply trust that things will work out for the best in the end.  What is beyond our control cannot be changed and squandering copious amounts of our energy on worrying may only serve to diminish our vitality and cloud our perception.

My mother in law always finds a way to see the positive in every situation, creating a silver lining in every cloud. It used to drive me mad because I was inherently negative in my outlook (depression thrives on it!), and struggled to accept her positive stance to the extent that I really didn’t understand how she could always be so positive, was she forcing it?

Having worked with this for a number of years now, through yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda, I have finally started to experience for myself the benefits of cultivating a positive mind-set. It is tricky, old habit die hard, and if you are inherently negative as I have been, then it does require conscious effort to catch yourself before you fall into a negative spin. When you start trying to see things from a different perspective, however, looking at things from all perspectives (almost like the notion of not judging until you’ve spent a day in someone else’s shoes) it can be extremely helpful; liberating for the mind.

Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we try to stay positive. Falling into a negative spin serves no one, especially not us and our families, let alone the wider community. For some, the spiritual practice goes out the window when faced with adversity, further allowing people to drop into their fear, anxiety, victimhood and negativity; feeding a well trodden path, deepening an unhelpful pattern. Each moment gives us the opportunity to begin again, to change how we react and to cultivate a more positive mindset in the face of adversity.

This is the time to deepen a spiritual practice, in the midst of chaos, when we are thrown into unknown and reminded that life is one of uncertainty. We need to carer out the time and space to all out our mat, whether with children or on our own, whether joining an online class, or practicing quietly, linking breath with movement and positively changing how our future unfolds. For those Reiki attuned, self-Reiki is key for our healing and ongoing spiritual development, and sharing where we can with family and by distance with friends and the wider community.

Our spiritual practices, yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda for example, can teach us that there are infinite possibilities for us to grow, change and develop, and more often than not, it is our suffering that is the catalyst for positive change. We cannot change what has already happened, but we can change how our future unfolds, by the thoughts we keep and our potentially positive perspective. We have a choice. Our practice can help us enormously in moving from a place of suffering to a place of greater freedom.

This is a time to cultivate greater friendliness and compassion towards ourselves and towards others, to remember that we are part of a whole and that many are in mental torment. We do what we can, looking after ourselves and our own mental wellbeing, cultivating a positive perspective, and turning away from anything which dampens our spirits or allows us to buy into fear and anxiety.

I shall leave you with one of my favourite quotes from Ven. Ajahn Sumedho:

“If we are really allowing that which is most upsetting to be there, or that which is most boring, or most frightening, concentrating on it, welcoming it even, then we shall be taking an opportunity to be patient, gentle and wise…I look back over my life as a monk. I really resented some of the most difficult situations at the time, but now I view them with affection; I realise now that they were strengthening experiences. At the time I thought: ‘I wish this wasn’t happening, I wish I could get rid of this’. But now I look back with enormous gratitude because they were beneficial experiences.

Anguish, despair, sorrow can be transmuted into patient endurance, into wise reflection. Life is as it is. Some of it is going to be very nice, some of it awful. A lot of it is going to be neither nice nor awful, just boring. Life is like that. We observe: ‘This is how our lives have to be’. Then we wisely use what we have, learn from it, and free ourselves from the narrow limits of self and mortality”.

Love Emma

Love would laugh a lot

It follows on a little from my previous blog post, still this inherent fear around safety and security keeps coming up, there are many layers to it and it is deeply embedded so it is inevitable that it will take time to truly get to the root of it. I have a feeling I am not alone here though, that it is an inherent fear for many of us, passed down from generation to generation.

I’ve noticed that the more I try and free my centre, my ‘core’, the more I go into free-fall. This is a scary feeling because it is unknown and uncertain, so I find myself grasping for anything concrete to bring certainty back again. A few days ago, when my teacher guided me to a place where I was not gripping in my core, I felt an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety, and accompanying nausea. I honestly felt as if I was free falling and I wondered if I might have to stop the practice, such was my fear.

The feeling didn’t last, and it made me very curious because the practice was taking me deeper into my feet and hips, so that I would also lessen the grip of my thighs, part of the fight, flight and fear musculature, and free more of my knees, which hold a lot of fear (you’ve only got to think of the saying, “my knees buckled from under me”). I began to realise how much my thighs hang on, and my knees and core tighten as a kind of defensive “I will not get harmed and I can run away” position. 

That’s all very well and good, but this pattern has become unhelpful. It’s not so much that I need to change my thighs, it’s more so that I want to feel more of life, not be so restricted and limited by patterns that I have developed over my lifetime in reaction to fear. I know that I am safe and secure, that we are lovingly held by the creator, but on some level, I still struggle to rest easily into this.

So when the practice did reveal more of the free fall feeling and the fear and nausea that accompanied this, I paid attention. I began to notice what I did in response to this feeling, not in that moment during the session but later, in my life lived off the mat. 

I noticed how I tried to grasp for something concrete, for a sense of security, questioning whether it was about time I got a sensible, stable and secure job, with a guaranteed monthly salary and a pension - this in contrast to the insecure job of teaching yoga and Reiki, when you’re never quite sure how much you might earn week to week, let alone month to month.

I noticed how I begin to lose perspective of the bigger picture, my world becoming smaller as I focus on my perceived threat to survival rather than re-membering oneness and being in service. I drop into ‘thinking’ brain, trying to ‘work it out’ and I start running to give me much needed (or so I feel) headspace, and although it is unconscious, I use it as a way of strengthening myself.

I become increasingly rigid in my mind, as the running makes me more rigid in body, the two a reflection, and it is this rigidity that restricts my consciousness. In these moments of perceived loss of safety, I also cling to my opinions as if they alone will make me safe. I struggle to find the middle ground and will become more argumentative. I also withdraw into myself, become increasingly serious. 

I fall out of alignment with soul, feeling separate and vulnerable. But really what happens is I get more controlling, as if this, on some level, gives me a false sense of security, as if I really am able to control the outcome, which is of course impossible, at least impossible without getting extremely stressed!

Initially I attempt to control my immediate environment, and in the past, this would have meant obsessively and compulsively tidying and cleaning. Now it’s not quite so obsessive or compulsive but the tendency is still there! 

I also try to control my behaviour, trying to live up to my extremely high and unrealistic ideals as if this alone will keep me safe. In reality, all that happens though, is the inner critic gets involved, and I berate myself with a whole heap of criticism for my various shortfalls to the extent that my spirit plummets and my toxicity levels increase. 

The inherent perfectionist does not let go easily. It was this pattern that fed the eating disorder, in an attempt to control the food I ate. It doesn’t get much more controlling than controlling your food intake and therefore your nourishment, it’s a very cruel form of self-harm, because you are never doing the job as well as you should and therefore the inner critic goes wild.

There is also the control of everyone else. Not easy for those around us, and yet we are all doing it to some extent, and if we’re not, then we’re numbing out instead. 

I notice how all of this sends me into a negative and downward spin - I’ve a sense that this embedded threat-based, negativity bias is the default programming of our consciousness.  In the past I would have popped straight into depression, but the patterns have shifted over time, I’m aware of them for a start, and depression doesn’t arrive so easily, if at all, now.

I know how awful it feels when it does though, because it is difficult to find your way out again and the negative voice is all consuming, fed by the anxiety you are feeling and that in turn feeds the anxiety, and thus it is a downward spiral where you give yourself an enormously hard time, and life can feel as if it has become pointless and hopeless, without purpose.

The spirit slumps even more and the soul is absolutely ignored as the ego has taken over complete control. All this because of that feeling, the free fall and the uncertainty that this brings. 

There is a way out though, I’m seeing it more clearly. There have been signs and I have been trying to pay attention, see more of the roots and how they might be gently eased, the soil changed, by a shift in perspective and energy. 

It’s helpful to notice the patterns and the way in which we react to what we are feeling and to our life as it then unfolds. Recognising our disappointments and giving voice to them, so that they are no longer sat inside us eating away at us. 

When the negative spiral begins, if we can catch it early enough, nip it in the bud, it’s helpful to try to do something that lifts the spirt and soothes the soul, like getting to the beach, watching the sunrise and sunset, walking on the cliffs with a friend, being out in the elements, taking a dog out, just getting outside somehow and being distracted from our thoughts by being with someone else or an animal, something that occupies our attention.

Recognising that fate sometimes takes over our life and unforeseen events happen and we feel you have no choice. We always have a choice, but this rests in how we deal with the situation that fate brings to us. It’s helpful to look for the positive outcome and where it is leading us. We might try to recognise the new direction or opportunity as it unfolds from the chaos.  If our perspective is positive then the outcome will be positive. 

The key is not to strive against the situation but to see beyond the negative. Every single thing that happens has positive repercussions, even if it is hard to see it at the time. Ayurveda supports a positive attitude as a path to healing, cultivating balance and wholeness. 

Cultivating gratitude changes things, brings in a perspective shift as an antidote to the negative. Seeing that the situation could be worse and remembering that there is always choice, always another way. 

Self-compassion is essential too. Witnessing the patterns of potential harm caused by self, and doing something about them, changing them, cultivating compassion, nurturing the spirit in the process. 

I’m finding self-compassion easier these days, and it has become clearer to me that the focus this year is about cultivating greater friendliness towards myself, more jovialness, the feeling I feel when I spend time with my closest friends, when there is humour and ease, a recognition of one’s perceived faults but in a friendly way, with laughter and compassion – a greater recognition of one’s humanness without judgement.

This is a whole other language than one of ego and the duality of being good or bad or this or that. There is only what is and a gentle recognition that the ‘what’ is marvellous and wonderful and all it that was ever needed or needs to be. There’s nothing then to berate or harm, nothing to correct or fix, nothing to put down or in any way criticise. It’s incredibly liberating.

Self-compassion is both an attitude and an action, we take on an attitude of compassion for self and we take steps to action this. I always had an issue about self-care and I think it’s because it was more of an action, another tick box opportunity, ‘massage taken, self-care done, tick box’, ‘yoga class attended, self-care done, tick box’. It doesn’t encourage us to change on the inside in quite the same way as self-compassion does. Self-care is very much doing, and self-compassion is more so about being; something has to soften within us.

When it comes to gratitude, I can hear societal voices asking me if I am really sure that all I have is enough? This, because we are always focused on wanting more; more badges, more qualifications, more money, more houses, more cars, more possessions, more stuff. As if looking outside of ourselves will bring us the inner contentment that we ultimately seek. We all want to be happy, peaceful and contented, but isn’t that something that has to come from within?

Thus the continuous looking outside ourselves is unhelpful and unnecessary. When is enough ever enough? In many respects, if we can simplify our outside world, then we will encourage a greater sense of simplicity within too – there will be less to distract us. But this does mean we have to find the courage to live our simple way, to let go of our educational, societal and capitalistic conditioning that tells us we should always be wanting more, achieving more and obtaining more than what we already have; no more striving or achieving for the sake of it!

It is all very well recognising these patterns and understanding them, but I wanted to touch them in my body too.  I have been taking regular SHEN sessions with Jo Henton, which have supported this process, it’s a good fit with my approach to yoga practice. Each week a new delight has revealed itself, more of the fundamental imbalance in the root, which has given rise to a hardness and holding in the solar plexus and the heart.

This week, the session took me to a feeling that I have been trying to uncover for a good while now, but didn’t know what it was until it revealed itself to me – it was a extremely deep yearning for my mum. I would have felt this when I was little, perhaps the drop off at play school, a temporary separation from her, and it brought with it intense sadness and grief for the loss of her in that moment.

I wondered if this might be the mother wound that people talk about; not a harm done by my mum but an intense love, so deep, so powerful, that I didn’t know what to do with it, as it brought with it the opposite pain of loss, this feeling that now revealed itself to me, like an old friend, there was a deep recognition and a relief to finally feel this again, after years of hiding from it, because of my deep love and longing for my mum and all the love she has for me, for all her attempts to keep me safe, I have never doubted my mum’s love or her devotion to me, and I know myself to be extremely lucky.

The yearning was primal, free-fall, nauseating, deep in my solar plexus and there was a very real aching, almost like a stabbing pain in my right upper arm bone.  As I felt all of this my shoulders moved without my apparent control, flicking, releasing deep tension that had been held there most of my life. 

I have always had over developed shoulders, not so noticeable now as they were when I carried more of the weight of the world upon them. I blamed surfing and netball, but as I have deepened my awareness of the manner in which our body keeps score, I have been increasingly aware of the emotional tightness and hardness that they have held. 

I suddenly realised the reason I have done all I can to avoid feeling this feeling of intense yearning, loss and sadness for my mum, because it is so very yucky and unpleasant. I suddenly realised why I had stopped letting my mum hug me or hold me; on some level I was protecting myself from having to feel this degree of loss again; the love was so strong, the loss would be strong too.

I rejected my mum in many ways as a late teenager, and caused her much harm, sorry mum, I didn’t know what to do with all the love, all her nourishment, perhaps on some level I never felt I deserved it. The trouble is, I couldn’t make any sense of it, we rarely can at the time. I know that I hardened my heart to her, and kept this all deep inside, and now I know it is because of her love, which is so strong, that the potential loss was too much, so I self-sabotaged, rejected it, as some strange way of protecting myself. 

I also suddenly realised the reason that my children suffer with separation anxiety. I’d had an inkling but it became crystal clear that I had been unconsciously transferring my anxiety around separation from my mum onto them. I knew how it felt and I didn’t want them to feel it. It wasn’t conscious. I can’t blame myself for it either, as that helps no one, not me and especially not my children – as mothers we really shouldn’t be promoting self-flagellation. 

It’s also possible, of course, that my children are really feeling the feeling of loss inside them too, of the grief that accompanies love. Love brings grief, because there is always the possibility of loss and of the intensity of the feeling deep in our centre and in our arms, as we realise that loss means never holding that person again or never being held by that person again. So we might turn away from love, for love brings pain; put up the closed sign at the heart, harden to our centre, make ours arms hard too, no holding or too much holding on.

I could see more clearly how I had closed my heart to love generally because of the fear of the feeling of loss. How I’d hardened to my brother when he emigrated to Australia, because of the intensity of the sadness and the grief of my perceived loss. How this caught me out at times, a tear slipping out as I remembered, and then turned away again. We make peace eventually, time is a healer, but we should remember that we grieve the living as much as we might grieve the dead. 

We’ll find grief in our upper arms. Like our lungs have tears that they cry, but we do not express them through our eyes, instead they collect in our arms, an extension of our hearts, like a river swollen with water, set to burst, but it doesn’t burst, it holds on tightly, the water stagnant now, there’s no room for it to move and it cannot burst its banks. Like a face swollen by excessive alcohol and sugar, how it looks like it needs to pop to give the person some release, their eyes hidden by the fullness of their cheeks, not healthy, the holding of grief.

In my yoga practice, it was the knees though that we were exploring and yet all this revealed itself to me, the knees! I was surprised how quickly the knees took me into my centre and back to the yucky feeling. Not of loss this time but of nausea. I felt sick and I asked my teacher why I was feeling like this. She said that the way we were relating to the knees, and the leg bones either side of this was likely causing me to access deeper parts of my centre, parts that are involved in the vomiting process, that help to remove toxicity from the body.

It was then I remembered how fearful I was of vomiting growing up, this to the extent that I developed a technique, involving the tapping of fingers and the repetition of some words that I had to perform each night before I went to sleep, to ensure that I wouldn’t be sick that evening. I realised how much my fear of vomiting caused me to keep everything held in. I was always in awe of my best friend who could put her fingers down her throat and vomit, I just couldn’t do this, I had trained myself not to do this, and in many respects, this was a blessing, because the eating disorder could have gotten very messy (it was messy enough, you’ll have to wait for the book to read more about that).

We found a depth to the knees that I didn’t know was there, a place in the pelvis for the skull, a spine that settled between the hands and arms and felt very alive. We found how the body might have felt propped on a mother’s hip, or wrapped around her leg, as my children do to me, and yet I find myself telling them not to. “He’s too big to be carried”, I’m told, and it’s annoying having someone hang off your leg as you cook, pulling your leggings down. But I felt that differently today, that this won’t last forever and it is to be embraced, not changed. 

I suddenly recognised the humour and joy in our thigh if we allow it, in that yuckiness, there is always the opposite of how we are feeling, excitement, joy, possibility. You cannot have one without the other, and so it becomes about perspective again and orientating away from something negative to something more helpful, more joyful, more loving. Wrap your legs around me I will tell my children, hang off my leg like it’s a tree trunk. I won’t berate you or tell you you’re too big, I’ll laugh instead, I’ll choose laughter and love instead. 

I felt into my liver too, and had a sense of the toxicity, not least from self-flagellation and the constant negative inner critic growing up, but the toxicity that comes from holding on, from resisting, from living in two extremes, the end of the inhalation, the end of the exhalation, rather than just sitting between the both, continuously orientating in the middle ground, neither here nor there, just being with what is present as it unfolds moment to moment and choosing how we are in relationship to that. 

Fear will show up in our body in different places, just as it will show up in our life in different ways. We don’t know until we start delving deeper, the many ways that it prevents us from living, truly living in this moment. I came across this wonderful quote that I think sums up this week and all this awareness gained:

“There is no escaping the uncertainty of life, nor its beautiful, ugly chaos. We must embrace its unexpected twists, dead ends and bridges, its red lights, surprises and blessings. Because without them, are we really living?” - Javaria Akbar.

So it is, the message on the new moon this week; self-compassion, cultivating gratitude, turning into love with all its potential for loss, rather than turning away from it, living our life, each moment, as if it is our last, truly living, with all the messiness, the chaos and the unknown. Letting go. Allowing ourselves to be loved and held by our mum. And laughing lots. “What would love do in this situation?”, we might continuously ask ourselves. Love would laugh a lot. 

Stopping Sea Swimming: How it was beginning to harm me

It might come as a surprise to some of you, but I have stopped regular sea swimming! After 11 years of year-round and virtually daily sea swimming, I have finally acknowledged that my body isn’t happy with it.  I have known for a while, but I kept ignoring my body, because in my head, sea swimming is good -  and it can be, and could be again, but right now, my body has had enough! 

It’s been an interesting journey for me though, to acknowledge that I needed to stop. Even two years ago I started noticing that I didn’t always feel so good after a swim; I mean I felt good because I always enjoy an opportunity to get to the beach and be around the sea, but being in the cold and often rough water in the middle of winter when it was wet and windy, was leaving me feeling cold for a good while afterwards, albeit it ticked a box, ‘swimming done’. 

It was a bout of depression that brought me to swimming in the sea and I found it especially helpful during IVF and two pregnancies, swimming right up until birth - it was actually one of the last things I did before both births, and it was one of the first things I did upon leaving hospital, this after two Caesarean sections. Not that I was able to swim having just had surgery, but I would stand in the water, in mid-November for my first born (with extremely deleted iron levels, more fool me) and October for my second, so that I could be healed by the water and the connection to nature. 

But the stress of the quest to conceive, plus the stress of complications during both pregnancies and birth, let alone the initial shock and stress of motherhood, now with seven years of sleep deprivation and attempting to be all things, has, without doubt,  taken its toll on my adrenal glands (to say nothing of life lived in the 21st century which, by its very nature, keeps many of us stuck in ‘fight or flight mode’). None of this helped by my gung ho attitude to life; I’m not one to sit on the sofa and watch TV, for example. 

A skin condition and aching kidneys – finally - got my attention and has taken me on an inner journey to – finally - recognise and accept the extent of my ‘running on empty’ and the effect of ‘shock’ and ‘stress’ on the body and the manner in which I still, despite years of daily yoga practice, deny my body wisdom. Albeit I had a niggling, it was only when I discovered the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga practice that I started to emerge from my denial and acknowledge more of my body wisdom and listen to it.

My vinyasa yoga practice had served me well. It helped me to connect with my body and my heart and soul again to the extent that I was changed and my life changed too. But I began to notice how it was also keeping me stuck in old patterns that I was keen to let go of and move on from. I was continuously moving my body in the same way, very much focused on achievement under the guise of ‘deepening my practice’. In reality I wasn’t deepening my practice, I was instead stuck in ‘strengthening the same over-strengthened superficial muscles’ that merely fed the ‘fight or flight’ mode and was no longer allowing me to be deeply changed at all. 

It was seeing a psychologist for an eating disorder that really changed things for me. She told me that eating disorder is something you learn to live with. I wasn’t sure about that. I knew that yoga had helped to change me over the years, there had been healing, I had let go of some old patterns and core beliefs that were no longer serving me, so I had a sense that it could – if I allowed it - also help me to heal from a deeply embedded pattern of disordered eating and harmful relationship to body, and underlying feelings of loss of safety and security. 

But I noticed that vinyasa yoga was only taking me so far, and was no longer helping to shift my fundamental and disharmonious relationship with my body. Sure, it had given me a more toned, flexible, strengthened and lighter body, but it had also made me dependent on this way of practising as if to maintain all these things and ultimately control my body, forcing my will upon it. In short, my ‘athletic’ yoga practice was merely fuelling all the bits that still needed healing, not only my harmful relationship to self, but also patterns of disordered eating - it still wasn’t easy for me to ‘rest’ into myself, for example. 

Such was my attachment to this style of practice though, that even when the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga found me (and which I knew immediately was touching me in ways vinyasa hadn’t, because it involved very gentle and slow movement, which was in such contrast to my ‘fast and strong’ vinyasa practice), it took me over a year of weekly practice with my teacher, before I finally let go of the need to also practice vinyasa. 

Until that point, I would practice with my teacher and then practice ‘yoga’ (vinyasa) as I knew it to be, because I didn’t feel that I had ‘exercised’ my body sufficiently in the session with my teacher, and I was concerned I would lose my ability to ‘perform’ postures, and my body would not be as toned or strong etc. (such was my fear). 

I am not alone. The Western world is obsessed about body image and it is no surprise that yoga attracts lots of women with body issues and patterns of disordered eating. Yoga has also become mainstream now, vinyasa yoga especially, like the Coca Cola of the yoga world, to the extent that Adrienne’s online day 3 January ‘challenge’ (is life not challenging enough without making yoga yet another daily challenge) had received 65k viewers in 6 hours of being published! 

On the one hand, this is amazing, because yoga can change our relationship with self so that we start loving and accepting more of ourselves, but has yoga too, become something we do, just because others are doing it and we’re told it’s good for us? Are people now practising yoga as a form of exercise rather than the spiritual practice that it is at heart, are people practicing in a way that is positively changing them, or is it keeping them stuck in their neurosis, mindlessly and mechanically performing postures for the sake of performing postures, without any heart, and fuelling even more of the superficial, yet ticking the box, ‘yoga done’?

A couple of days ago, I bumped into an ex-student who has recently recovered from major back surgery to the extent that she is now able to practice “hard core yoga” again, her words not mine. Hard core yoga! This, when your spine is already held rigid by the mind, such is the stress that has been placed upon it. I got what she meant, she was delighted to be recovered to the extent that she was back to her usual hard core yoga again, but I had to wonder whether it was the hard core yoga that had merely added to the stress on her spine in the first place – sometimes we need to move on. 

Regardless of approach to yoga, do we really want a hard core, do we really want to fix our spine in space and time, reduce its flexibility and ability to allow us to truly feel and move in the world? I wonder why it is that the ‘exercise’ world has become obsessed with this notion that we need a hard core to support our spine, as if we haven’t survived for all these thousands of years without a technique to harden our core.

It seems crazy to me when our core is our soft underbelly, the part of us that digests our life experiences, that feels life moving through us if we let it. The trouble is we have been told we shouldn’t feel, that feelings are not good, especially if they are feelings of anxiety and fear that can often be felt in our centre, so we turn away from them, numb ourselves to them and try to harden ourselves from them instead.

There will be various motivations for wanting a hard core, but I have noticed that the more I’ve softened into my vinyasa-hard core, and let it go, let it soften, the more at ease I have felt within myself and the more honest I have started to be with myself, the less I want to harm myself (by strengthening my core, for example), allowing more of the wisdom of the voice of my core, of my centre, my gut and root, and the wisdom of the voice of the body generally too.

This, for me, was key to my shift from vinyasa yoga to something much softer and compassionate, something that allows more of who we truly are, beyond the superficial, beyond the layers of denial. Vinyasa yoga, as much as I used to love it, hardened me, and I didn’t want to be hardened anymore. I wanted to feel life and I wanted to give yoga the opportunity to truly heal old patterns around eating disorder and my relationship with myself. I also wanted to be more compassionate to myself, less harmful, less imposing, less wilful, less controlling.  

Furthermore, I wanted to listen more deeply, be more honest, drop the act, let go of the denial, and see through more of the illusion. I needed to let yoga change me, but to do so, I finally realised that I needed to change my relationship to yoga; I needed to let go of seeing yoga as a way to control and exercise my body, I needed to step into my vulnerability and soften into all the hard defensive places I had created in my body and kept hardening through the vinyasa practice. In short, I needed to move on. 

The more I dropped into this, the messier it became, and there have been times where I have wanted to give up, but I also know that I can’t. There is no going back, and on the very few occasions that I have attempted a vinyasa practice, it felt mechanical and forced, as if I was trying to contort my body for the sake of contortion. Yes, I could still go into all the same old poses, but to do so in the old way felt soulless and without compassion and heart; I felt as if I was being disrespectful and harmful to my body.

Through this softer approach to practice, I started to see through more of my escape routes and defences. I began to notice the tendency of my mind towards perfection and over-achievement, to the extent that the self-critic was allowed free reign. I was continuously attached to outcome, feeding a pattern of self-inflicted suffering. We can never achieve perfection however much we might try, yet our society and education system continuously feed us this notion that we can so we are always comparing ourselves to something that doesn’t exist. 

Our yoga practice can feed this, the notion that there is a right and wrong, ‘principles’ that we must adhere to if we hope to progress along the path. The more I was asked to let go of all I knew, of all the conditioning from my yoga training, and as difficult as it was, such was my conditioning towards duality and the right/wrong approach, fed beautifully by our education system and emphasis on science, which always tries to dissect, separate, control and make sense of everything (to make certain things certain), the more I was drawn to yogic philosophy for guidance.

Here I was, yet to find anything that tells us that we must practice asana a particular way, with our foot portioned here and our knee positioned there. Yet our modern day yoga will have us thinking otherwise, that there is a right way and a wrong way, and yet this merely feeds our often-out-of-balance-logical-left-brain approach to life. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras suggest that the postures are practiced with a combination of steadiness and ease, and this with a foundation of ahimsa, non-harming. How many modern day yogis can honestly say they practice like this?

So this brings me to sea swimming. What happens on our mat is a reflection of what happens in our life too. The more I became increasingly compassionate to my body and listened, the more I started to notice the subtle ways in which I harm myself under the guise that what I am doing is helpful and healthy.  Furthermore I noticed that as with my yoga practice, sea swimming had become mechanical, rushed, a tick box exercise. 

I started noticing this with others too, which made me curious. Were we truly enjoying our swims in the sea or were we doing it because this is what we did, because we held on to the notion that it was good for us, based on past experience, and because we felt more comfortable in ourselves if we swam, box ticked? 

It doesn’t help that sea swimming has become trendy these days, with doctors even recommending it to depressed patients. But I’m aware that we have to be careful with trends. Look at the boot camp trend that people embraced in their masses until the number of injuries became so great that people began to realise that maybe it wasn’t so good for them after all – it was harming! 

Anything done to excess or anything that stresses our body is not healthy for us, how can it be? But we don’t always listen to our own wisdom because other people tell us that it is good for us and we believe them. Furthermore, in our quest to help ourselves, we have to be mindful that we aren’t doing more harm, creating greater suffering by allowing more of our tendency towards addiction and attachment, feeding our neuroses rather than healing them.  

I finally began to notice how the drive to ease suffering can cause us more suffering if we cling to it, hold onto it, to the extent that we don’t know when to let it go. This was my issue with vinyasa yoga; I knew that something needed to change, but I didn’t realise that it was my practice that needed to change until Scaravelli-inspired yoga appeared in my life and showed me another way.

It was the same too with sea swimming – my body made it clear to me that it was not enjoying swimming, the poor circulation and the fact it took me half a day to warm up after the briefest of dips, let alone the kidney ache in the early hours of each morning - and the more I noticed my resistance to stopping, the more honest I had to be with myself to the extent that I recognised that sea swimming had become yet another attachment, albeit one under the guise of being ‘healthy’. 

This doesn’t mean that I won’t return to swimming in the sea in the future, but for now it is not helpful. My body is happier, less cold, the kidney ache has gone, and my life is not quite so rushed without the need to get to the beach every day, albeit life is always full, such is the way I live it! It’s not been easy though, because of my attachment, but I could no longer ignore the signs that my body was giving me and I had to finally honour it as my patterns around harm have eased. 

Sometimes we need to accept that we’ve changed and what we need has changed too, so that we can let go and move on into something more aligned with where we are in any given moment. This takes courage because we have to be truly honest with ourselves and compassionate too. But we can be sure that there is always a way, a kinder and less harmful way if we allow it; we just have to pay attention and allow more of our deeper body wisdom.