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.

Ahimsā - non-violence and non-harming - how are we getting on?

Yoga might be extremely popular these days, but very few appreciate its philosophical merits. Viewed merely as an exercise regime, many will never have heard of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, nor have any idea of the potential spiritual and personal transformation that Yoga offers.

Believed to be the most ancient text of classical Yoga, the Yoga Sūtras contain 195 sutras (threads) (sometimes argued to be 196), divided between four chapters, discussing the aims and practices of Yoga, the development of Yogic powers and finally, liberation. Like a guiding hand, the Yoga Sūtras detail the potential pitfalls on a spiritual journey and offer the means to overcome them.

 It is understood that Patañjali was not one man, but a group of scholars who were tasked with scripting the path to self-realisation. Like the Buddhist Eightfold Path, the Yoga Sūtras are made up of eight limbs (astanga) or steps, which offers a method of awakening; a path to higher consciousness and liberation. 

The eight limbs include:

• The yamas (codes of moral conduct);

• The niyamas (codes of social conduct);

• Asanas (postures);

• Pranayama (breathing exercises);

• Pratyahara (withdrawal of senses);

• Dharana (concentration);

• Dhyana (meditation);

• Samadhi (self-realisation).

 While most Western practitioners may be familiar with the third limb of asanas (postures), very few will be familiar with the yamas and niyamas, which form the foundation for this wonderful practice (that is more than just exercising the body). 

The five yamas constitute the ethical precepts, which provide us with basic guidelines for living a life of personal fulfilment that will benefit the whole of society. The yamas are therefore about our relationship with the world and about having an awareness of the inter-connected nature of it. They remind us that our every action has a consequence and they help to bring some order to an otherwise chaotic world.

The first of the five yamas is called ahimsā, which is often translated as non-violence or non-harming. In Yoga, ahimsā is believed to be the most important principle, and is mentioned first because the four other yamas are dependent upon it.

Over the years, my awareness of this yama has deepened. While some might argue that you should start first with the yamas and work your way through the other limbs, so that asana follows when you have spent time working with the yamas and niyamas, I have a sense that it doesn’t matter where you start.  You will, at some point, begin to incorporate all the eight limbs into your life in some way or another as your awareness shifts.

So while I may have initially started practising asana for it’s physical, mental and spiritual benefits, my interest and awareness of the other seven limbs has increased over the years and the yamas are very important to me and form a framework from which I attempt to live my life.

This hasn’t happened with any effort either may I add, it has naturally evolved the more I have practiced and the more I have deepened my practice. I don’t believe that you can force yourself to live a certain way, it has to arise naturally for it to be authentic and real. But we can have an awareness nonetheless and sometimes the awareness is what might help to create the positive shift. 

 For example, some argue that ahmisā implies the need to eat a vegetarian diet. Certainly Stewart Gilchrist, with whom I train, and with whom I attended a workshop recently where we discussed the yamas, will argue that ahimsā means veganism. I have been a vegetarian on and off since I was 13 and it is true, that over the years I have become increasingly passionate about the non-harming of all life and questioned the ethics of the meat and dairy industry, choosing a predominantly plant-based diet accordingly.

However, the Yoga Sūtras do not make specific reference to the need to be a vegetarian or vegan per se, it is based on interpretation of ahimsā and how this comes to play out in your life will be dependent on the individual. Vegetarianism or veganism cannot be forced because this forcing may create harm, and this will potentially override any benefit that might be otherwise gained. It needs to evolve naturally.  

For example, when I was younger I thought nothing of killing a fly that annoyed me or squashing a spider that might be in my room, let alone killing ants. Today I wouldn’t dream of killing an insect, I mean yes, it is tempting when the flies are relentless (as they are at the moment), but what right have I to kill? I’m curious how easily we justify the killing of animal and insect life to suit ourselves. 

I try and install in my children the need to help other living beings, and I admit I do struggle with the recent crabbing obsession of my eldest. It seems so cruel to in any way harm other living beings for our pleasure, whether we are learning about those species or not. 

Fortunately, I have managed to steer us to rock pools and merely looking and I’m pleased about that because recently we came across a mother crab literally hugging her baby crab. I didn’t have my camera to hand and I wish I had, because it was a very strong message to me that we shouldn’t be messing with nature, that even mother crabs have babies that they protect, what right have I to move them or separate them?  

 I also believe it is important that my children are aware of the source of their food, whether that be a dead animal or not, so that they can be more conscious of what they are putting into their bodies and the harm that may be taking place. They are too young to truly understand this, at least from my perspective. My eldest son loves pigs and loves sausages, and he is fine with this, despite understanding the connection.

There are many ways that we harm other human beings too. Physically hurting someone is one such way, but we shouldn’t overlook the emotional and mental harm that we can cause to others by the words we use -  harsh words uttered in moments of rage and anger, words used to manipulate and control, words used to put down and disempower, and words that add to insecurity and shame, for example. 

We can hurt by the tone of our voice, or by the volume of it, raising our voice and shouting at both other adults and children unnecessarily. We can harm with our moods and our behaviour patterns, ignoring family members, turning our backs on children because they’ve annoyed us, or even worse, ignoring their crying and neglecting to attend to their needs (children often cry because their needs are not being met, even if that need might just be a moment of our time and sole attention). 

We can hurt people on social media too, by the comments we make, and the judging that we undertake. We can also harm people by publishing stuff that might upset them. For example, I don’t appreciate seeing any images of violence, whether that be to animals, children or adults. I know it exists and I try to do what I can to help to make a positive difference, seeing a distressing image does not achieve anything positive, it just creates more anger and negativity and the world has enough of that already. 

The written word can also harm, not only in the way in which text messages and emails can be misinterpreted, but also in the way that we can be captive audiences. We don’t get to choose what people write to us when they contact us and before we know it they have offloaded on us and involved us in their dramas. It can be ever so draining, and can lead us onto another of the yamas called asteya, which means non-stealing, and the manner in which people steal time and energy from us, but that’s a whole other blog posting!

Of course Gandhi’s views and practices revolved around ahimsa and non-violence. He successfully implemented the rule of non-violence in the struggle for independence in India. He wrote, “non-violence is a power which can be wielded equally by all – children, young men and women or grown up people, provided that they have a living faith in the God of Love and have therefore equal love for all mankind. When non-violence is accepted as the law of life, it must pervade the whole being and not be applied to isolated acts”.

 I would love nothing more than for non-violence to be accepted as the law of life but I have a feeling that until we are non-violent and non-harming to the ourselves, then it is unlikely we will be able to non-violent or non-harming to the whole of society. 

For many years, I associated self-harm with intentionally damaging or injuring the body, usually as a way of coping with, or expressing, emotional distress. I tried it once, in my twenties when I was full of self-loathing, and it just made me feel worse, not better, but I have known others who experienced some comfort in it. It’s a pretty drastic thing to do and certainly indicates that life is very much out of balance.

I have since come to recognise that there are many other ways that we self-harm, some more acceptable by society, and some so subtle that we don’t recognise them as self-harming until someone points them out to us.

Self-harming can mean eating more than you need, for example, and being greedy, taking an extra helping of cake or chocolate or curry, or whatever it might be that stresses our digestive systems and body generally. Cancer Research UK advises that in 2018, 62% of the adults in the UK were overweight or obese, and that being overweight and obese is the UK’s biggest cause of cancer after smoking. This is most definitely self-harm manifest!

 However, self-harm can also mean not eating enough. Those who read this blog post regularly and have read my books will know that I used to have an eating disorder. Eating disorders are definitely a form of self-harm. I also carried a lot of repressed anger and bitterness, and the combination of the eating disorder and the negative emotions resulted in me having to have my gallbladder removed when I was 21 years old -the gallbladder holds bitterness in the body, closely related to the liver which holds anger.

Anger was a theme throughout much of my earlier life, both inherited but also in reaction to life events and the manner in which my life was unfolding, especially in my twenties. This was a form of self harm as I directed my anger towards myself, my inner critique giving me a hard time so that I loathed myself – I didn’t need anyone else harming me because I was doing a good job of that myself with my negative thinking. 

For many years of my life I always adopted a negative mind-set and negative thinking. I didn’t even realise that I was doing it, or that I had a choice about it – glass half full, glass half empty. I just thought that that was me. My negativity towards myself and my life led me to contemplate suicide and one evening I did get more desperate than at any other time in my life and I know that this was – thankfully – a cry for help rather than a genuine attempt at suicide. I had hit rock bottom and this was some serious harming.  

 It was a necessary moment for me though, to wake up to the harm I was causing myself and to ask for help to heal. Soon after this, a wave of help rushed in, through Yoga, Reiki and the love of many Earth angels, which you can read about in my book, Namaste. All of this helped me to realise that I didn’t have to be stuck in negativity, that I had a choice, and I took it upon myself to focus on love, and self-love and positivity instead, trying to shift my mind-set in the process. 

It is difficult to name one thing that made a difference, because all the various healing practices that I engaged had a cumulative positive effect on me. Although I do think that connecting with the angels and inviting the divine and indeed the Goddess into my life have all helped to make a huge difference. At their heart they brought in faith and love, and this made a huge difference in transforming my life in a positive direction. It was then, and much like Gandhi says, that I began to have greater love and respect for the whole of mankind.

However, it is worth noting that we can harm ourselves in the quest to heal ourselves too. In the earlier days of my Yoga practice I practised excessively, triggering the return of the eating disorder, which found me losing a lot of weight in the quest to be the ‘ideal’ yogini, or at least the notion in my head of what I thought was the ideal yogini. This was a journey all in itself, and helped me to see through the illusion that is ever present even in the Yoga world. My periods stopped during this time soon, which is always a sign that something is out of balance. 

We can harm ourselves by pushing ourselves too hard in our yoga practice, causing ourselves injuries. As yoga teachers we have to be mindful of not causing harm to our students in the words we use and the physical adjustments we make. As holistic therapists too, helping others to heal, we have to be mindful of not creating more harm and sharing only what is absolutely necessary and helpful, not dwelling on the negative. 

I harmed myself when I used to smoke cannabis, believing that it would assist with my spiritual development. I was travelling and practicing Yoga, and I convinced myself that it was OK as it was mentioned in the Vedas and there is an association between cannabis and Shiva, plus I hoped it would enhance my creativity and expand my mind. 

 When I look back I see that it was just another smoke screen, another way of distancing myself from the reality of my life and the issues that I still needed to address. I was neither more creative nor more spiritual as a result of the smoking, I just ended up with a nicotine addiction and polluted lungs and liver. Furthermore, I was desperately ungrounded and unable to make anything happen in my life as I floated around in the ethers of denial. 

There is no doubt in my mind that smoking is a form of self-harm. Fortunately smoking has become unfashionable and with good reason, with it being the number one cause of cancer in the UK. The fact that people are still allowed to smoke in their cars in Guernsey with children in the car too astounds me. Surely this is a form of harm too?

Drinking alcohol is also a form of self-harm despite the fact that it is considered socially acceptable. It amazes me how much alcohol underpins the British culture despite the fact that drinking alcohol is known to cause seven types of cancer, including breast and bowel cancer (per Cancer Research UK). Furthermore, studies indicate that those who drink alcohol (regardless of the amount) are more likely to end up with cancer than those who don’t. 

There are many other ways we self-harm too, often as a result of our addictions. One of my yoga teachers always said that we all have addictions, some more harmful than others. Some may be addicted to love and the drama that often accompanies this, others to technology and the need to be online, yet others to sex and to porn, and yet more to pharmaceutical drugs, and those who choose illegal drugs instead. 

We can harm others in the process of harming ourselves too; spending too much time on technology and ignoring our children in the process, in any way buying into the porn industry, uncontrollable and unrestrained sexual indulgences and manipulations, the love drama that destroys marriages and harms children, and promoting the illegal drug trade with its links to sex trafficking and the underworld. 

Buying into Big Pharma is a big deal too. To have children we had to have IVF. This meant that I consciously ingested and injected pharmaceutical drugs into my body, some of which came with warnings of the potential cancerous side effects. Some of these drugs are aimed at, and used by, menopausal women to reduce their menopausal symptoms. I had a choice about whether I take these drugs, and had it not been for my overwhelming desire for children, there is no way I would have put that stuff into my body. 

I tried to do what I could to reduce the negative effects of the drugs, certainly energetically, with holistic means. I was still concerned however about what I was doing to my body and to the embryos created through the use of these drugs in my body, and what might be the effect in utero. Fortunately, both boys arrived safely, not without some drama though, and whether this was as a result of the IVF and use of pharmaceutical drugs or not who will ever know. You can read more about this journey in my book Dancing with the Moon. 

Going back to the menopausal medication, it saddens me that menopausal women feel they have little choice but to take synthetic drugs to lessen the symptoms of the menopause which, we should remember, is a transition from one way or being to another, rather like menarche for teenage girls, rather than a condition that somehow needs to be fixed (or delayed!). 

That women are prepared to risk cancer, shows how desperate they must feel and it is a shame that holistic means are not promoted as another option. Certainly from an Ayurvedic perspective a change to diet and lifestyle, and the use of some natural medicine can work wonders in supporting this transition, without the unwanted side effects such as cancer. Still we must each feel that we have a right to choose, without judgment, the path we should take, medical or otherwise. 

The fact that so many women still choose to take synthetic contraceptive drugs despite the researched links between the long term use of these drugs and various cancers surprises me. This link is recognised to the extent that doctors will encourage women to stop taking the pill at some stage, when they consider that they have been on it for long enough - this happened to two of my friends, who had never questioned, nor appreciated the risk they were taking by using the pill in the first place. These are subtle ways in which we might harm ourselves, 

[For anyone keen to explore menopause or menstruation further, I recommend reading any of Dr Christiane Northrup’s books on women’s wisdom and women’s bodies, she also has a book devoted to natural approaches to the menopause available through Amazon. For those who have been questioning the use of the contraceptive pill then I highly recommend reading Code Redby Lisa Lister and exploring alternative methods that might allow you to connect with your cycle again and all it will reveal to you in the process.]

I haven’t even started on vaccinations and harm because that is a whole divisive and potentially harming discussion point for all involved. My best friend once told me that we might fall out if we discuss vaccinations so I learned early on that even those nearest and dearest will risk a long-term friendship over this subject. I’m not pro or anti vaccine per se, but I am pro choice, and that people should have the right and freedom to make the choice whether to vaccinate themselves or their children without being judged or in any way harmed by others.

Whether you are harming yourself or others in choosing to vaccinate, is as valid a research point, as the decision not to vaccinate and the impact this is believed to have on the wider population. All I would suggest that in forming your opinion one way or another you undertake detailed and unbiased research, and even then, respect the choice of others. Certainly from an Ayurvedic perspective, it is fundamental to support natural immunity whether you vaccinate or not and cause as little harm as possible whichever route you take. 

We self-harm when we establish poor boundaries be that in relationships or in the work place and when we give too much of ourselves and our energy away. Further, we self-harm when we spend time with people who deplete us or in any way disempower or drain us. We self-harm when we subject ourselves to violent media or to the news, or to anything that in any way has a negative impact on our emotional and mental wellbeing and creates feelings of fear and anxiety in us. 

Then lastly let us not forget the manner in which we harm the planet. Those of us who drive cars, travel by aeroplane, waste water, fuel and food, and buy more than we need are harming the planet on some level. We live in a consumer society where it is all about buying and accumulating stuff. We don’t actually need very much. It’s important we recognise the difference between needing and wanting and consider what it is that we are actually buying. Are we buying into an illusion? And what about the source of what we are buying? Did it cause harm to people or to the planet? Ethical shopping has to be the way forward.  

I can even take this to the buying of crystals. I love crystals and like having them in the cottage, but I have started questioning the harm that was caused, not only to the planet but to the people involved in their mining, to bring them into my life. I went through a phase of returning all the pebbles and shells that we had collected over the year to the beach, considering that these are not mine, and that they should be returned to Mother Earth. I’ve eased up on that a little bit but it’s an interesting point – how are we harming Mother Earth through our actions?

The truth is, once we bring ahimsā into our life we do start questioning things. What once worked for us might not work anymore and that can be a difficult process to go through, not only for us but for our friends and family. There is often a period of adjustment because its implications are far wider than simply giving up meat or ditching the car for the bike

It is more than not being violent or not harming, it is more than an attitude, it is a whole way of life. It extends to all living things, to you, to me, to those we don’t get along with, to animals, to Planet Earth, it is all and everything. Ultimately it comes down to love and respect, and it comes down to being conscious of the decisions we make, and taking responsibility. It’s pretty cool, though, as a framework for living one’s life - ahimsā, being non-violent and doing no harm. 

Be the change you'd like to see in the world

The moon has been up to her tricks again. With the rare second full moon in Libra last week, a major rebalancing has been taking place, which has been building for months now. 

Change has been in the air and after Friday’s full moon, a couple of my friends remarked on how they were finally feeling more like themselves again. I can relate to this. 

It’s like the balance has been reset, the pendulum has stopped its swinging and has found its new balance, having had its foundation shaken by the the shifting energy of the eclipses, ushering in change. 

 The idea of ‘being the change you’d like to see in the world’, that Gandhi is quoted as saying (although there is some question as to whether he actually said this) is something that I have been working with for 9 months or so now and this certainly been supported by the moon energy. 

It became clear to me back then, that the way I was living my life was not sustainable, nor bringing me the peace of mind and joy that I sought. This is not to say that there was anything massively wrong with my life per se, I am grateful because I have a very blessed life. But nonetheless I was aware that there were imbalances and that these imbalances were affecting my health and wellbeing and having a knock on effect on the family.

In short, I was stressed. It seems ironic to think that a yoga teacher can be stressed, but I wasn’t just a yoga teacher at that time. I was also working as a part-time company secretary for a wealth management company in the Guernsey offshore finance industry, on a self-employed basis. I had also just started my Ayurvedic and Sanskrit studies and I was in the process of publishing my book, Namaste.

Furthermore, I had a sense that my own stresses were just a reflections of the stresses in the bigger world out there – after all, we are a microcosm of the macrocosm, so what is happening outside of us will be happening within each of us in some way. The world had become a stressful place in which to live! 

But how to ease the stress? How to make the changes?

Well it has to start with us doesn’t it. We can’t just look to others to make the changes to society, or to make the changes within us, we have to take responsibility for making those changes ourselves.

This is the tricky bit. After all, for me, it had taken 43 years to cultivate my life to that point, with all those ingrained habits and conditioning. Sure, I’ve spent a good few years trying to unravel some of this, but in the process I have no doubt I’ve laid down new pathways, new behaviour patterns and thought processes that were no longer serving me either - us yoga teachers are human too, more fool anyone who puts us up on a pedestal!

It was probably visiting the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides that was the tipping point for me. I was a little bit stressed before going, making sure that I was on top of the finance job and the studying, and all the other balls that I was juggling at the time. There were far too many when I think back, but sometimes we don’t recognise when we’ve taken on too much until it’s too late. 

We arrived at our cottage out on the Uig peninsular far away from civilisation (or so it felt), to find that Wi-Fi was intermittent and offered poor connection. Initially irritating, this turned out to be a blessing because it gave me the chance to truly switch off and retreat from the rest of the world. I couldn’t answer work emails, check Facebook or do any of the online studying as I had intended - I felt liberated, as if I could breathe more fully again. 

 It was then that I recognised how much my phone and the internet were the cause of much of my underlying stress – I could never switch off. 

But it was more than that. I started to question the need for all the working, this being an ingrained behaviour pattern all of its own. What was my motivation? Why did I always have to be achieving? And to what gain?

These were awkward questions to answer. I had to stop lying to myself and making excuses for maintaining the status quo. I needed to be honest if I ever stood a chance of making the changes I knew needed to be made.

The pace of life on Lewis was much slower than in Guernsey, and we could go a whole day with only seeing a handful of people, which I relished. I am a loner at heart and thrive on anonymity, peace and solitude, and with Elijah now at school, the school run is a stressor in itself! The landscape in the Outer Hebrides is raw and wild and my soul was nourished by the visit. 

Returning home, I couldn’t let go of the idea of returning, and there followed days of checking and pricing flights and accommodation. However, the Isle of Lewis is not the easiest place to access and the air travel costs a small fortune. Could we really justify a return trip, and would it live up to our first experience?

It then crossed my mind, that it wasn’t necessarily the Isle of Lewis that I most craved, although it is a truly beautiful place, but it was the lifestyle that we had enjoyed while we were there and the quality family time without me being distracted by my phone. Which made me reflect on how I was living and what was wrong with this to cause me to want to be somewhere else in the first place. 

It’s so easy to just accept that this is how we are and this is our life, forgetting that we have a choice in how we live, and that how we live, or might want to live, changes over time. It is easy to get stuck. Why had my life become the way it has become, filled with rushing and doing and achieving? Was it about parental expectation (no), or the expectation I had put on myself (maybe), or was it because this has just become the way (partly)?

These are also difficult questions to answer because we are so caught up in the busyness of our lives that we can’t always see what motivates us to live the way that we do. But I can guarantee that there will be other people in our lives who are our our mirrors, reflecting back to us that which we most need to look at it in ourselves. I was aware of this, and I began to notice other friends in a similar situation to me and I noticed the manner in which their work had become of a priority to them than spending time with their children, and the manner in which they tried to justified this. 

This bothered me. Not that they made that choice to constantly work – that is theirs to make. But that I too was always putting work before my children and that my life was frenetic as a result. The irony was, that I had spent so many years desperately wanting children and had gone through so much heartache (see my book Dancing with the Moon) to conceive and birth them and yet here I was, always working.

It wasn’t that it was even conscious. That’s the bit that threw me the most and sent me into a bit of a spin. Why was I working so much? What was my motivation? Why was I doing 3 different jobs? Was it for financial security (partly)? Was it for the love of it (yes to yoga and Reiki, no to finance), Was it to help others (yes for yoga and Reiki, no to finance), or was it just because that is what I’d always done (yes!)?

I realised that I hadn’t consciously chosen to be away from my children, I mean yes, they can be hard work all in themselves, but I really do enjoy my time with them, it was more so that I have always had a very strong work ethic and have always felt guilty not working. 

I started to pay more attention to how my ‘work’ was making me feel. 

I noticed that while teaching yoga and Reiki invigorated me, I felt heavy hearted cycling into the office to do the finance job each day and that I would frequently sigh with the sheer frustration of it. Why was I doing a job that was not making me feel joyous and that was taking me away from my children? There were many reasons – on some level I was emotionally attached having helped to set up the company, and there was the security it provided, it was my safety net.

But I quickly recognised that it had to go. I needed to make the change. I was lucky in many respects because this was only a part-time and very flexible job, and I was already teaching yoga and Reiki part-time too, so the transition was not perhaps as challenging as it might otherwise have been.

But nonetheless, there was a leap of faith involved in the process. While the heart may well guide us and make the path ahead clear, the mind and the ego like some assurance and certainty that all will be well. The mind likes to analyse and evaluate, running through various scenarios, considering the ‘what if’s’ and all the while the ego is trying to maintain the status quo, fearful of change and anything that might compromise its false sense of control.  

Even once the decision has been made, there is always that period of second questioning, of ‘the grass is always greener’ and the ‘well maybe it wasn’t so bad after all’ thinking. But that’s just fear and half the battle in making the change, is overcoming this.  

Needless to say leaving the finance world was liberating and it ushered in the potential for a new way of being. But I noticed that habits and tendencies die hard and still my stress levels needed reducing to restore my overall sense of wellbeing.

 Stress is a tricky one, it becomes such a part of us, that we don’t even realise that there can be any other way. I lost count of the number of times I caught myself saying, “I’m tired”, “I’m stressed”, until I suddenly thought, “oh my goodness, I go on and on about how tired and stressed I am that it has become a self-fulfilling prophesy and I have become so identified with it that it has become who I am, Emma = stressed and tired.

This acknowledgment was the push I needed to truly try to implement further change. I didn’t want to spend my life being stressed and tired and being defined by this. I didn’t want to keep repeating bad habits over and over again.  

I see and hear it frequently. The new year is a good example of this. People want to change. They’ve acknowledged that they drink too much alcohol, they eat too much of the wrong foods, they stay up too late at night, they spend too much time on Facebook and social media, their job stresses them out, they smoke too many cigarettes, they don’t exercise enough, they buy too much stuff they don’t really need, they don’t see as much of their children as they would like to see. 

They try to make changes. They come to yoga hoping that this will solve their problems. And it can, over time. But because the change is not instantaneous, because they don’t suddenly lose their craving for chocolate, alcohol, shopping,(xxx fill in the blank), then they stop coming. Give up. Head in sand. We’ll worry about the changes that need to be made another time. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. 

But when does tomorrow or the next day ever arrive? How much of our lives are lived on the thought of the life we might live in the future if only we can finally implement the changes?

My favourite all time quote is, “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get, what you always got”.

I knew without doubt that changes had to be made and they had to be made now. There is only now!

But how to make the changes? Ayurveda encourages the ‘little by little approach’ so that you don’t become overwhelmed. This is not to say that BIG changes can’t be made, but sometimes the idea of this can freak us out before we’ve even gotten going.

Ayurveda and my study of it (not forgetting Sanskrit) has helped hugely in ushering in change simply because it is transformative by its very nature. The Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga came into my life at just the right time, creating changes in my yoga practice – this approach being all about resting into the spine and into the earth and allowing the undoing. Allowing the undoing! What a shift in perspective!  Yoga Nidra, Vedic chanting, Reiki and the ongoing shadow work that I do with Jo de Diepold continues to support the process (I call it CPD for the soul!).

So the truth is, I haven’t really had to do anything to create change. Instead, I have just had to allow the undoing. Of undoing the doing. Of noticing the aspects of my life, and life generally that are stressing me, and slowly letting them go.

For example, I deleted my personal Facebook account because I recognised that going on Facebook was making me feel stressed. I noticed that I was taking photos simply to share on Instagram and I questioned the purpose. Why did I feel the need to share my life with others? What was the motivator? Was it the ego? Was it to be someone? I couldn’t be sure, so out went Instagram. 

Initially it felt odd, but the there was a sense of relief. I had managed to retreat from the world, without having to leave it. I didn’t need to move to the Outer Hebrides to experience this, I just needed to come off social media and reduce the time that I spent on my phone! So simple!

There were other changes; the tightening of boundaries, not saying yes when I meant to say no, not care-taking as I had done previously, not having a glass of wine or two to relieve my stress, going to bed much earlier, being more discerning, shifting my perspective on work, questioning the underlying motivation for whatever it is I’m doing and being aware of whether it is stressing me, and of course prioritising my beautiful children, and E, so that we spend more quality family time out in the raw and wild landscape of Guernsey! Sadly, I can’t do much about the school run, at least not for now!

I know that there’s still some way to go to make the changes that need to be made. I am not perfect and nor do I ever want to give the impression that I am. 

I was putting the washing out at sunrise the other morning and I noticed four planes high in the sky overhead. I thought to myself that this too has to change. Then I read that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl climate activist, has not travelled by plane since 2015. She is being the change that she would like to see in the world and I admire her for this. Maybe planes will be next for me too, I’ve floated the idea past Ewan so let’s see!

The truth is, that since making some of the changes, my stress levels have reduced significantly. Furthermore, time has slowed down a little bit, so that it doesn’t feel as if there is so much rushing going on, life is no longer frenetic. We are the micro of the macro, as we change ourselves so the outer world changes too. 

This is what motivates me to continue to practice and teach yoga. At its core, yoga is about ceasing the fluctuations on the mind so that we may experience peace. The more we can cultivate a peaceful mind-set within ourselves, the more the outer world will be peaceful.  It has to start with us. We have to take responsibility. No one else can do it for us. Maybe it’s not the only way, but it’s a way that seems to works for me and for that I’m very grateful.   

Shifting perspectives; feminine energy

Something happened towards the end of last year (2018) that was very strange. I couldn’t for the life of me come up with my usual list of dreams and intentions for the new year (2019). 

This threw me into a bit of a spin because for as long as yoga and Reiki have been in my life, I have spent each new year writing out my list, before proceeding to put an enormous amount of effort into trying to make things happen, of trying to manifest my dreams. 

Admittedly the dreams have come true over the years – finally the boyfriend rocked up into my life, finally the children arrived and finally the books were written and published, but this had all taken a lot of effort and energy (and often masculine energy at that). 

But something felt different now. 

Initially, I also found myself questioning whether something was wrong with me.  Was I lacking clarity? Had I lost my direction? Was I no longer ambitious? Was I limiting myself on some level? Did I no longer have dreams? But the truth is, I still had dreams, but the idea of manifesting them simply wasn’t consuming me as they had done previously.

I decided to sit with it, just let it be. 

A couple of moon cycles passed and still I lacked the enthusiasm or interest in any new moon wishes or full moon magic and my old vision board looked on, now a couple of years out of date. It was a really uncomfortable feeling to wonder what had changed, but not yet being able to make sense of it.

Then the March equinox arrived and it suddenly became much clearer to me. On social media especially, there was this sense of urgency, of needing to tap into the equinox energy to make things happen, and yet all I saw was a lot of pushing and forcing. 

There were others going on and on about manifesting and taking their power back, and yet all I could see was them manifesting yet more ego and ego and ego (this is when someone pointed out to me that CEO might easily translate as Chief Ego Officer…).

At the same time, I could no longer ignore the fact that while many women are promoting the divine feminine and the need to honour the feminine energy, they are still living their own lives from a masculine perspective, yet more striving, pushing and yang energy.

 This coincided with me experiencing for the first time the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga, which those of you who have read my recent newsletter will know, has totally turned my world upside down. 

This approach to yoga has thrown all I have learned over the years on its head. Totally turned everything upside down and around again, which has been both confusing and enlightening – the paradox of the Scaravelli approach. 

This is an approach to yoga that is subtle and cannot be clearly described or delineated. There are no rules, no right or no wrong, only attention and sensitivity, honouring the body’s natural intelligence and resting into the earth with gravity, perhaps revealing the magical connections between lightness and rest. 

I had a sense that this is how life is perhaps best lived and that our dreams will come true regardless of the energy that we put into them. That it is about the feminine and flowing and intuition and listening, and continuously aligning with the heart and the soul, which is always guiding.

This is a whole new way of being that at first is confronting because it demands a lot of trust in self, and because the ego is not being asked to control anything and the ego likes to control. But this in itself becomes increasingly liberating. Not to say that it is easy, because the energy is very different and it takes some adjusting especially, if like me, you’ve settled more easily into the masculine previously. 

I might be off kilter, but I do feel that the soul has already written what it is here to live and experience in this lifetime, and it is our job, our work, to keep aligning with this truth.  It is in this way that the dreams will come true, because they are meant to be lived, if we can keep aligning to them. Listening. Flowing. Intuition. All those lively feminine qualities. 

It’s been difficult for me to put this into words so I was delighted when I came across this Forever Conscious posting about Friday’s new moon in Aries, because it helped to validate a little of how I feel.  It is this that has promoted me to write this blog, to share, in case you too have been feeling some shifting and stirrings. https://foreverconscious.com/intuitive-astrology-april-new-moon-2019

There’s certainly something going on and as boring as it gets to be reminded of that famous quote, “be the change you wish to see in the world”, it is true! If we truly do want to find a more aligned and more resourceful and peaceful way to live, then we must be the ones to live it. And if that means surrendering, then so be it.

 Happy new moon and yet more new beginnings!

xx

Shifting awareness

"In addition to creating new cultural establishments, we must enable our very mode of being to evolve. But I do not mean something implausible or fanciful. I mean what simply amounts to growing up. Rather than becoming something other-than-human or superhuman, we are summoned to become fully human. We must mature into people who are, first and foremost, citizens of Earth and residents of the universe, and our identity and core values must be recast accordingly. This kind of maturation entails a quantum leap beyond the stage of development in which the majority of people live today. And yet we must begin now to engender the future human". - Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Poltkin.

This quote fits really well with how I feel life is unfolding, at least, with the new year and the current spiritual paradigm shift.  I have a real sense that it is no longer about us.  Obviously we’re important, but it has to be about something much greater than ourselves, it has to be about the collective.  And this isn’t just in the sense of ‘airy-fairy-spiritual-fluffiness-oneness-in service-it’s all just about love and light-talk’, but about how we each impact on this world, and how we can all make a positive contribution by living a life on/of purpose.

It means setting aside our own ego-centric agendas for fame and fortune and the need to ‘be someone’, and to instead just ‘be’ our authentic selves, offering our gifts to the world for the greater good.  It also means setting aside the self-depreciating ego that says we have nothing to give and that we are not worthy.  It is also time to set aside the many stories, to exit the victimhood, the martyrdom and the various other roles we play (blaming others goes in there too) and to take absolute responsibility for our lives and the manner in which we react to, and/or perceive things to be.

It’s time to stop putting others on pedestals (especially spiritual ones) and to stop putting ourselves on them too.  It is also time to stop believing that anyone else is any worthier than us, and that we are any worthier than others.  We are all citizens of this wonderful Planet Earth and we all have a gift to share and we need to get on sharing it for the greater good of everyone else. 

It’s also of course about connecting more fully (perhaps for the first time) with nature.  To recognise that we are the microcosm of the macrocosm. It is time to notice the moon cycle and how this affects our own cycle, to notice the weather and the impact this has on our day to day lives, to notice the fruits and vegetables that are in season and when, to notice the changing seasons and the shifting light, and the manner in which both affect how we feel.  

It’s about becoming conscious really. About reducing separation. Not seeing ourselves as separate to the world we live in. We are very much a part of it, and what we do will impact on some level.

I have a strong sense that we are being propelled along in this direction anyway.  There’s going to be plenty of planetary shifts and eclipses this year to try and awaken us further from our slumber, and to help us to recognise that the current way of living is not sustainable and doesn’t work.  There does need to be a huge shift in the collective awareness, but of course this happens one person at a time. 

If ever there was a time to stand up for what we believe in, then it is now. Reducing our plastic usage is not enough, although it does help.  It has to be so much more than this. It has to be about doing the healing work, and bringing light to the shadows.  No more getting stuck in the spiritual ego or spiritually bypassing, but being truly honest and real.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound preachy as that’s not my intention.  But I must admit I have been getting a touch challenged by all the spiritual waffle that seemed to increase last year, as if being spiritually ‘awake’ Is now a badge of honour, and entitles you to join ‘awake’ groups on Facebook, creating yet more division and separation. 

 Wake up people! We are all one. And we live on the same Planet. And if we want the Planet to heal, we need to heal ourselves and reduce our sense of separation. That means going inwards. Joining a Facebook “conscious’ group or posting about being ‘awake’ isn’t going to make the difference (that my friends is the spiritual ego kicking in). Nor is merely talking about it. You need to do the work! Delve right in!

We also need to honour the soul. The soul is constantly trying to get our attention through the body. That ache or pain you’re feeling? That’s the soul trying to get you to listen. The soul doesn’t want you to opt out, it too wants you to dive right in. It wants expression! So do what you can to quieten the inner noise and distraction, and allow it some expression. 

 Needless to say I’m biased, but yoga is often exactly what is needed. Not only does yoga help to quieten the mind and allow the soul expression (a voice even) but each time we practice yoga, everyone benefits because our vibration increases and as we are part of the whole, the vibration of the whole planet increases.  This explains the reason that the more we heal, the more the Planet heals too.  We all become clearer and cleaner conduits for the greater whole.

Furthermore, as yoga helps us to connect more fully with our true nature, so it also helps us to connect more fully with nature. Yoga is about union - union of body, mind and soul, and union with nature and the Planet in which we inhibit. We are not separate and this is what we need to realise.

Other than yoga, I’m also going to suggest a sound bath, one of my favourite (after Reiki) healing modalities.  We are spoiled here on Guernsey to have Sabine and her amazing sound gongs and Ariana visiting who uses her voice and Tibetan singing bowls. Both are profound in their own way. Both give the mind a break. Both resonate with the soul in a very real way. Both have a deep resonance with nature.

Of course the healing list could go on. There are crystals and sea swimming and walks in nature, to say nothing of getting your hands in the earth and preparing a meal using fresh ingredients consciously for your family with love.

For now I shall leave you with an extract from Bill Plotkin’s book, Nature and the Soul, “ …how we might grow whole, one life stage at a time, by embracing nature and soul as our wisest and most trustworthy guides. This model for individual human development ultimately yields a strategy for cultural transformation, a way of progressing from our current egocentric societies (materialistic, anthropocentric, competition based, class stratified, violence prone, and unsustainable) to soul centric ones (imaginative, ecocentric, cooperation based, just, compassionate, and sustainable).”

Happy New Year!

Letting Go into the Darkness of Winter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Magic of the Outer Hebrides - a Place for Edge Dwellers

We have just returned from an incredible trip to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

It’s funny how things happen and how seeds are sown.  A good few year’s ago now a friend gave me a CD of Stornoway’s music and I was rather curious about the name.  What was this Stornoway? Well Stornoway happens to be the main town on the Isle of Lewis and that got me thinking, what would life be like living on an island so far North. 

Then a few years later I happened upon an episode of Island Parish, which was set on the tiny island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides and it just looked like one of the potentially amazing places on this Earth, what with the runway on the beach and there being so few people and beautiful beaches. I had a look into it, but it seemed rather complicated to access and Elijah was only little at the time.

So it followed that 18 months or so later, I came across Sharon Blackie’s amazing book If Women Rose Rootedand here she writes about the four years she spent living in a remote part of Lewis, and there was something about what she said, about living on an edge, that resonated with me and I thought to myself, I have to visit this place.

 So that’s what we did. I’m not sure E knew what to make of my decision to travel up to the Outer Hebrides with the boys being the age they are (2 and 4).  He half heartedly looked at some of the accommodation I showed him as I spent hours trawling through this over a year ago now. I’m sure he nodded at all the right times, and tried to show a little bit more interest in the hire car, given that it was a car and he likes those!

But truthfully both of us were a bit blind and it really was an intuitive thing.  I emailed about some accommodation but they never got back to me and instead the same cottage kept catching my attention.  I took it as a sign eventually, especially when the booking was made easily.  Sometimes you just have to flow and trust, even though you have no idea where you might end up. 

We ended up in the middle of nowhere, just under an hour’s drive from Stornoway, arriving in the dark, on a Sunday evening (when all shops are shut, the petrol station that is open that day closes at 4pm, al other shops observe Sunday closing), so that we had no real idea of where we were until the following morning.  It was a fitful night sleep for me as I was obsessed at that point in seeing the Northern Lights and kept getting up to look at out of the window, not really knowing which direction I was looking, and with no awareness that ahead of me was a huge hill, so I wouldn’t have seen them even if they had been shining that night!

The next morning dawned bright and very cold and windy and what a treat to find that we had a view of the sea from the kitchen window.  We wrapped up in our layers, laughing because days ago I’d been wearing flip-flops and swimming easily in the sea back home and now it was utterly freezing and I wasn’t sure that I was going to put a hand in the sea, let alone my entire body!

The pebbly beach below our homely croft, reminded me of Petit Bot, and I had this strange feeling as we arrived that a seal was going to pop up (as keeps happening this last year) and lo and behold a few minutes later and this is exactly what happened. It freaked me out a little because I had been talking to a friend about seals the day before we left Guernsey and she had reminded me of the Selkie story in If Women Rose Rooted, which I had re-read the night before our trip and here again the sign…queue reading up on the spiritual reason for seeing seals…always insightful!

Thus began a magical week of wonderfulness. This is most definitely a place that just keeps giving. We loved its raw and wild nature that had us awestruck time and time again with the changing light – there’s so much light here – and the skies that were utterly mesmerising. This is the land of rainbows and of stunning and empty beaches, of peat and bogs and hills in the distance, and of kind and generous people, and of community and freedom and this overwhelming sense of just letting things be.

What struck me the most though was the fact there was something so ancient about the place.  The predominant rock type is Lewisian Gneiss, a metamorphic rock which is astonishingly up to 3 billion years old, making it the oldest rock in Britain – two thirds the age of the Earth – and one of the oldest in the world. It’s stunningly beautiful and I was blown away by the concentric rings on many of the pebbles which looked too perfect to be real.

Furthermore, Lewis is home to the Callanish stones. Now I admit that this was a major draw for me, although I knew nothing about them until I visited, and was certainly not disappointed.  Wow! I love stones and stone circles in particular and I hadn’t realised that by visiting Callanish, we were completing the magical four – Callanish, Stonehenge and two we had happened upon quite by chance at Carnac and Avebury.

These ones are something else though, so unassuming, left to just do their own thing without the need for fencing or anything which means the general public have total access. They’re ancient too, believed to have been erected 5,000 years ago (thus predating Stonehenge) and believed to be an important place for ritual activity for at least 2,000 years.

What I also hadn’t realised is that there are actually three stone circles at Callanish all within a mile of one another. We chanced upon Callanish III, which is the medium sized one and has four remarkable stones within the main ring, three of which are thought to represent the ancient Celtic triple goddess. I trekked across the boggy peat in my wellies, a poorly Eben in arms, to have a feel. 

I really like to touch stones, to somehow get to know them.  I’m not sure whether that makes me weird or not, but there’s something rather lovely about feeling such an ancient energy that has borne witness to thousands of years of life on this beautiful planet. I like to try to get a feel with my pendulum too but I quickly realised that the constant wind wasn’t going to make that very easy, plus Eben was proving a bit of challenge.

 You see for some reason he hated the stones and started screaming as soon as we entered the circle, even though I had asked permission to do so (as I feel this is very respectful to the ancient circle keepers and energies), which made me feel a little uneasy because he is usually very good natured.  I tried to put my hands on the stones but this made him scream louder, so I took a few photos and retreated to the car to hand him over to E.

I returned on my own and settled against one of the stones, and felt peaceful, resting up there on my own with the incredible view ahead of Cailleach na Mòintich, a group of hills that resemble the sleeping woman. I then traipsed 200 metres or so over the boggy land to a smaller circle. I felt safe here too, and had a sense that this was a very special place affording views of the main stone circle in front of me – I had no idea of its vastness, it’s rather extraordinary.

It was a treat to be here on my own. That’s the beauty of Lewis, it is wild and free and raw. The wind was howling and the skies were cloudy, threatening rain that never came and so the light kept shifting. Here I sat totally on my own. On my own. Totally on my own at ancient stone circles.  That’s just so unusual, you certainly don’t get that opportunity at Stonehenge and actually the time I got to touch those stones was mid-summer sunrise when there were thousands of other people there too. It was a treat I can tell you.

We drove a little further up the road and E and I carried the two boys up to the main circle, but this was slightly challenged by their indifference to the stones and their desire to be looking at the mower at the visitor’s centre instead!  Queue sighing from me.  We’d come all this way and all Eben could say was “mower, mower, mower”, while Elijah moaned about wanting to see the decrepit tractor in a nearby field again. It’s comical really!

Still we persevered and having asked for permission again and with Eben still in arms I stepped into the circle only for him to start screaming again.  I put my hand on one of the stones and he literally peeled my hand off it.  I was so surprised I did it again.  Same reaction. I couldn’t believe it.  There was something that he absolutely didn’t like about these stones.  So we walked back down to the visitor centre and the mower and the views of the rusting tractor, and I had to laugh at how children put a totally different spin on things!

Still I then got to go back to the circle on my own and I happened to arrive at the same time as two guys, one of whom was educating the other one into the history of the stones and I heard for the first time that this is believed to be a moon circle.  Of course! It suddenly made sense and I almost laughed out loud because that very morning on the seal beach, and for the first time ever, Eben (in arms again, won’t walk - my arms got super strong this week!), pushed my head and pointed up to “moo….”. Ah yes, a half moon was visible in the sky. And that very morning I had a strange urge to wear moonstone, which I had brought on holiday with me but haven’t worn for a while.

And here now in the circle, I realised there are 13 stones, presumably representing the 13 moons in the year. The stone circle is actually contained within a Celtic cross, which makes it even more extraordinary. The guess is that the standing stones were erected as a kind of astronomical observatory. Patrick Ashmore, who excavated the site in the early 1980s writes,“The most attractive explanation…is that every 18.6 years, the moon skims especially low over the southern hills. It seems to dance along them, like a great god visiting the earth. Knowledge and prediction of this heavenly event gave earthly authority to those who watched the skies”.

It’s certainly a very special site even without the moon skimming!  There’s just something about its energy and its ancientness (is that even a word?!). I walked around a little bit and touched some stones and tried to do some dowsing. However, I started to feel a little unease and I crouched against one of the stones out of the wind and it felt to me that someone was saying, “please leave us in peace now and go to your family”. So that’s what I did.  It felt the right thing to do.

That same afternoon we headed up to the very north of the island to Ness, stopping at a lovely beach at Shawbost on the way.  The weather had improved throughout the day and the further north we drove the brighter and clearer it got, so I had a feeling that if we were going to see the Northern Lights then this would be that night.  However, while I may have had in mind that we would camp out at a carpark in Ness awaiting this magical light display, I had forgotten that of course we had two young boys in tow.

The two young boys were struggling a little with the amount of time spent in a car (in Guernsey journeys are so short!) and the fact we had skipped dinner time, and that it was pitch black and unknown to them. After ten minutes of moaning and E and I unsuccessfully trying to turn it into a bit of an adventure I think we both realised that our quest for the lights of Aurora Borealis was going to have to wait until another time. So with that we drove the hour and a quarter back to the cottage, both boys falling asleep in the process!

The week just got better and better from then on and we concluded that it is the island that just keeps giving and giving.  The rainbows were sublime, the deserted beaches a dream, the sea very cold to swim in but energising all the same, the ever changing skies enchanting and entrancing so that I was constantly reaching for my phone to try to capture it, and then of course the people who seemed so lovely and genuine. 

Then there was the joy of the remoteness and slower paced living that appeals on some deep level, so entwined with the elements and the Celtic land, rooted in the moment to moment changing weather patterns that have influenced the way of life, as wind blows and blows and the rain falls, and yet the rainbows come as the sun shines once more. It’s heaven on earth, a gift all of itself. It’s also, I now realise, the edge that it offers us edge dwellers.

Sharon Blackie talks about this in her book, If Women Rose Rooted, where she writes, “We are all edge-dwellers, those of us who inhabit this long Atlantic fringe in the far west of the continent of Europe. I have always been drawn to the edges of things, the places where two things collide.  Where bog borders riverbank, where meadow merges into forest. Where you stand in the margins of what is behind you and look out across the threshold of the future. The brink of possibilities – will you cross? Edges are transitional places; they are also the best places from which to create something new…

 …The Shore is the greatest edge of all. Sometimes it seems gentle, on a still summer’s day when the sun warms the shallows and the soft sand cradles you. But you must also be prepared to face the storm…Those of us who live here [on Lewis] must be comfortable with storms and with change, for it is on these unsettled, unsettling edges that we will hear the Call which launches us on our journey. And though we can never quite be sure what that journey will involve, we know that new possibilities may be created only if we surrender to uncertainty. 

You know it’s true isn’t it. We talk about edges in yoga, always flirting with the edge, never pushing into it, just being curious about it, that edge between one way of being and another (some will argue that we are boundary-less and maybe that too is true, but I believe that on some level we are always creating our own boundaries and at times these are essential for our health and energetic and mental wellbeing), nudging it almost, not too tight, not too loose, breath in and breathe out.

I joke in class about this and how much it might or might not change someone’s life to all of a sudden touch their toes in a forward bend, to have moved from one edge to another.  But the reality is, that every shift on our yoga mat brings with it the potential for transformation, for things to shift, for life to start looking and feeling a little bit differently.  Edges are huge. This is the place where we learn the most about ourselves…how are we on an edge? How does that edge make us feel? What is that edge trying to tell us about ourselves and the way that we’re living? Too fast, too slow, mind too hectic, too chaotic and scattered, or rooted clearly in the moment, on the breath, in the body, here grounded and present on Planet Earth? 

Lewis brought me back to Earth and slowed my mind to a gentler pace. I noticed this most when I attended the weekly evening yoga class at Uig community centre with Julie who inspired greatly with her authenticity and passion for both yoga and the Outer Hebrides. It was a gift truly, not only to attend on the Thursday with one other student, but to return again on the Friday morning (E seeing how much the previous class has positively affected and effected me) and have a one-to-one as no one else turned up to the class (their loss) and a yoga nidra just for me, I truly thought I had died and gone to Heaven.

The children were waiting for me following the class and it was straight back to reality, a calmer reality perhaps, or maybe not, because I am human and it a challenge going straight from chilled out post-yoga-bliss-state to the next minute finding yourself in the car with two screaming children because Eben was hungry and screamed to make me aware of it, which made Elijah scream as he hates the sound of Eben screaming and so I tried to maintain my peacefulness and smile on face on the short journey back to our cosy croft. And I laughed because I was also re-reading the Yoga Sutras at the time, which touch on obstacles on the spiritual path. Not that my children are obstacles, only that they do add another element, certainly making me even more grateful for the peaceful three hours I spent at class while on a family holiday (thank you E)! 

But actually this whole experience is a reality, this is life! We can’t expect to walk around in post-yoga-bliss the whole time.  I mean that’s be nice, but where’s the fun in that!  But what yoga does is it helps us to notice what happens when we reach our edge – it helps us to recognise when we’re approaching an edge so that we have a moment to consider whether we might just fall over it or retreat from it, or smile through it. [Btw, Eben doesn’t always scream, he just doesn’t like standing stones or being hungry!).

I like what Sharon writes about edges and islands, “Edges define an island…and yet an island’s edges are not strictly defined. They shift with the tides, in an ongoing, fluid, co-creative partnership between land and sea. They are in an unending state of becoming, and we are like them: we ebb and we flow; we soften sometimes, merge into ecosystems of others, then retreat into the safety of our own sharply defined boundaries. We are gentle, and warm, and then we are storm. Perhaps this is why islands fascinate us so; perhaps this is why, at certain times in our lives, they draw us to them”.

Any of you who have lived on islands will know this to be true.  I am certainly drawn to islands because they are always changing and yet there is a defined edge to them too - the cliffs! Standing on the cliff at Ness by the lighthouse in the north of Lewis I struggled with the very defined and yet undefined edge. There was no boundary between the edge of the cliff and the 30m fall below. It made me feel desperately uncomfortable and Elijah’s running was put on hold, “keep away from the edge”, I shouted at no one in particular. I had found my edge. Cliffs.

I noticed this later as we drove around Uig and I could see the cliffs and I was keen to walk to them but desperately uncomfortable with them being so raw and real. There’s no coming back from that edge. No edging into that edge. That’s the thing about edges. We have to have a sense of them. They bring up the fear with their uncertainty and they encourage us to go deep within. To listen clearly. Awareness heightens. Present moment. Standing on the edge of a cliff (only recently in the news three people died from taking selfies on cliff edges…).

Lewis cast a spell over me (and over E too, even Elijah was sad to leave). It took me to an edge of freedom, there was just so much freedom, no rules or regulations, so much space. This was an edge I liked. It made me edgy because it was boundless. It was for me to create my own boundaries. And that is when it dawned on me, the message that Lewis was conveying to me (it had been my Sankalpa…never underestimate a naturally arising Sankalpa). Because it’s true what Sharon says about islands drawing us to them. They have a habit of doing this. Pay attention!

There are a few special places in this world that I have been fortunate to visit and Lewis is one of them. There is still so much we have yet to see and Barra now to finally visit, so I’ve now doubt that the seed that was sown all those years ago will continue growing - there’s always another edge to investigate Thank you Lewis!