The reality of online learning and the inner child!

We popped to the beach first thing this morning for a swim at Saints because I felt that I needed the energy of the sea and the sun, and some grounding as the beginning of online learning loomed ahead.

Back home and we used Face-time to connect with my Dad who has very kindly volunteered to help with Elijah’s online learning, and bless him, spent 2 hours yesterday trying to navigate the online portal so we might be prepared for the beginning of Elijah’s official online learning.

Admittedly this probably wasn’t the best time for E to go off shopping but he figured the queues might be easier than usual, so he left me at home with both boys, as will become the norm when he returns to work soon (hopefully for him as a sole trading gardener). The idea was that my Dad would oversee Elijah’s work and I might manage my wild child, who needs lots of attention, especially at the moment as he’s still angry that he can’t see my parents or play with his friends at pre-school.

However, it quickly became apparent that I needed to be involved for the majority of the session with Elijah too. Not least because we needed to use my laptop to access all the online links that were provided through the online learning website, but also because Elijah is only 6 years old and isn’t yet able to write or read without some assistance - and certainly wouldn't have accessed the links on his own or read what he needed to do.

Five minutes in and by then Eben had dressed himself as a fireman and was whacking the walls with his sword. I suggested we might do a jigsaw at the table, and sent him off to retrieve one, but he returned with Pop-up Pirates and as anticipated, this game lasted all of about 2 minutes before he started attacking the pirate with his sword. He wandered off and I turned back to Elijah who needed the next video accessed.

Distracted by assisting Elijah, I just about heard the front door open maybe 5 minutes later, and wondered if it might be the postman, but a minute or so later when I realised it wasn’t the postman and Eben hadn’t re-appeared, I realised it must have been Eben who had gone out the front door unaided. Minor panic ensued as I rushed outside and through the gate to our parking area but couldn’t see him. I ran back in the house and there he was in the back garden, he must have walked around to the back of the cottage all on his own. That was a first. And a last!

My stress levels were now rapidly rising. I retrieved Eben from the back garden and wondered what on earth I might do with him, painting didn't seem the best option, so Dad suggested he join us to watch the Gruffalo on my laptop, Elijah’s next task. So he sat on me for all of a minute, more interested in tapping the keys on my laptop, than watching the video, which always panics me as I wonder if he might find the one button to press that may mean I can never work my laptop again!

So off he went, still wearing his shoes (we’re a shoe-free house and he’d sensibly put these on before letting himself out the front door), to try to find something else to do. Fortunately E arrived home soon after then although I suspect he wished he hadn’t, because the noise of him unpacking the shopping and boiling the kettle, and the noise of Eben firing his pretend gun at us was all too much for Elijah who was constantly distracted, which caused my Dad to suggest that perhaps we should give-up on the rest of the online learning for today. “No!”, I virtually shrieked, “we have to submit work!”.

At this point E found Eben attempting to comb the cat’s fur with his comb, so he proposed that he might take Eben outside and entertain him, while we carried on with the online-learning. So with such relief from me, off they went and I set about trying to sort the account for Elijah on the Class dojo system, but because I was having to use both my phone and my laptop, the WIFI struggled and we lost connection with my Dad! Blinking WIFI!

Fortunately I did manage to get the dojo to work, which is just as well because if not I might literally have hit my head against the table or used Eben’s pretend gun to shoot myself with the despair of it all! Elijah’s long suffering teacher will no doubt be as delighted as me, bless her, she tried to send me a number of links in the hope that one of them might work, and thankfully one of them did, so thank you Karen because I bet you were inundated with other parents unable to work this and that link too!

With WIFI working again and the connection with my Dad re-established, I was finally able to make a cup of tea as Elijah read to him, before I took over with the writing. Once that was done - and it took some effort I can tell you, Elijah is not really interested in this home-learning malarkey, he’d rather be playing (don’t blame him) - I managed to photograph his work and upload it to the class dojo. If I hadn’t have decided that 2020 would be a good year to give sobriety a try, I might have poured myself a very large glass of wine and been done with the day then and there!

Instead, I prepared lunch and tried to catch up on the emails that had come in this morning, including one about increasing my public liability insurance so I might be able to teach yoga at Sausmarez Park this summer. I add that in, to give hope to the fact we might, at some point, before the end of August, join together outside for some yoga without a single device in sight (no mobiles allowed!).

Lunch prepared and E and Eben now back in the cottage, I escaped upstairs and to my mat, where I promptly burst into tears with the stress of it all- and this, I know, ironic given that I’m a yoga teacher! But in that moment I felt like the most useless mother in the world, not least because I’m forcing Elijah to do something he doesn’t want to do and has no interest in doing, but because I’m basically having to ignore my 3-year old to the extent that he leaves the house and wanders off on his own, because I am distracted trying to do the requested online learning set by the powers that be. Nonsense.

I suddenly realised, I as I attempted to move my body and focus on my breath that this whole online-learning debacle has massively triggered inner child stuff, much like the IT issues I have had over the weekend. Just as I would have felt in childhood at some point, both the online learning and IT have brought up a very old pattern of feeling unsafe, powerless and useless. It was a relief to recognise this pattern and to see it for what it is. To know that at some point in the past when those feelings came up I would have reacted by getting stressed, angry and emotional, anything to avoid the uncomfortableness of the initial feelings.

Here we are again…those old feelings of loss of safety (overwhelm), powerfulness and useless have been triggered and I end up getting stressed and angry and emotional. That pattern hasn’t been triggered for a long time, not really, at least not with this intensity. Which is what got me thinking that this is part of a bigger picture, this inner child stuff. I’ve felt it the last few days and it now makes sense to me, and I can’t help thinking that the new moon on Thursday has something to do with this.

The intensity of the combination of lock-down, online learning, Coronavirus, being at home 22 out of 24 hours a day, temperamental WIFI and attempting to teach online, is definitely going to trigger something! And because I’m being triggered, and I’m part of the collective, i suspect that everyone is being triggered in their own way and is experiencing some inner child stuff coming up for them right now.

You’ll know it, because it’ll be a pattern, a certain way that you behave, a certain feeling or feelings that come up when you are feeling really tested and totally out of your comfort zone, when you are feeling vulnerable as you would have done as a child, when it felt as if your world was changing and you had no control over it. You would have reacted a certain way and since then, every time those same emotions of vulnerability and being out of control are triggered, you’ll react in this same way that is rarely helpful, because it is unconscious, it happens without you noticing the role you play in it.

This is the inner child, the part of ourselves that we stashed away because it was too painful to feel the feelings that the child in us was feeling at that time. Yet those feelings are still there and from time to time they will be triggered and we will have the opportunity to see them for what they are, to recognise that it is just our inner child crying out to be held and loved, before we react in a way that we learned to do back then and have been doing ever since, but that just harms us and separates us even more from the inner child, perpetuating the cycle.

Catching myself as I did, and seeing the truth of the situation, I decided then and there that I was done. It is time now - as it is for all of us - to hold my little inner child in my hands as if she is as precious as my own children, and look after her with tolerance, compassion, forgiveness and love. No more will I give her a hard time and respond to her with anger and frustration at that which I can not control. No more will I try and fit Elijah and I into a system that doesn’t work for us, in which we don’t fit right now.

Enough. We will do what we can, Elijah, Dad and I, accessing the online resource when it works for us, but we’re not going to lose sleep over it, or get upset about it, or force Elijah to do stuff that he doesn’t want to do for the sake of his ‘education’. The whole education system needs a shake-up anyhow, but not this way, and not now. I will no longer put Elijah’s ‘education’ above the needs of Eben either. That too is nonsense.

This whole period of my boys life is tricky as it is, cut off from their beloved grandparents and their friends and the wider community, their routine is out the window and they’re missing playing at the park and going swimming, all the usual things that children loved doing. It’s not fair for them having to endure stressed parents who are trying to do their best, but are finding it a bit tricky to manage all that is expected of them by the Education Department, while trying to hold down jobs, go shopping while social distancing, and maintain sanity!

So this afternoon we did the other thing that the inner child needs and that is have fun. We borrowed a dog and we took her to L’Eree where we threw the ball for her and we walked and we laughed and we played. The boys removed their clothes and ran up and down the beach nude, we collected litter and crab shells, we chatted at distance with some friends who happened to be walking past, and we had a jolly good time as a family together.

This is what my children need right now. They need me playing and having fun. They need to be out in nature where they can connect with the elements. They need to be free to explore their world and learn from it. They need to be held as gently as I am now holding my own inner child, showered with compassion and love, not ignored in the quest for education, or forced ‘to do learning’ in a way that is alien to them.

We even popped into the fairy cave, because I longed to feel that ancient energy and to call upon the guardians for strength and protection, to usher more of their wisdom into this world, because if ever we needed it then now is that time. It is extremely calming in the cave, and was definitely a tonic for the soul, and for the inner child, ahead of the new moon.

It’s been a tricky moon cycle that’s for sure, but I’m grateful for the insight that today brought with it, to notice the triggers and the underlying feeling, and to rise above it and find another way to be with it that is not angry or frustrated or negative but is loving and kind and gentle. We are all doing our best. We must remember this. And when something isn’t working, rather than battle against it, it’s a sign to turn the devices off, to get outside and to have fun together, changing the memory into something positive and worth remembering.

Happy new moon you lovely people.

Sending you a huge energy ball filled with Reiki, love and compassion.

Love Emma xx

The full moon lunar eclipse

There’s a full moon lunar eclipse occurring tomorrow, this two weeks after the new moon solar eclipse, back on 25/26 December 2019.

It’s a Cancerian full moon too, and I must admit that when I heard this I expected it to be watery and emotional, especially as I am a Cancerian. However it has been anything but that for me, although there is still time!

I haven’t read too much about it because I really wanted to just feel into it for myself, and I have a sense that if you have been doing the work on yourself, then this moon will usher in the fresh energy that you have been working towards.

It will come as a relief after a tricky 2019, as we were repeatedly encouraged to let go of anything inauthentic and to dig deeper into our truth and who we are. This will have become clearer during the year, whether it was by choice or forced upon you by events seemingly out of your control.

2020 is meant to be the year of ascension and I do have a sense of this. Life needs to be lived differently, I think we are all realising this, and while it’s perhaps not clear exactly how this will look, we are all beginning to recognise the role we individually play in this.

We know that we have to live more sustainably, with greater respect for this beautiful planet which houses us. Many of us also know that we need to take greater responsibility for not only how we live, but how we relate to ourselves too - for our own health and wellbeing.

It’s time for us to be bold. To recognise our true values and live by these, regardless of whether they go against history and how life has been lived previously, whether they accord to expectation of not, whether that be family members, friends or society as a whole. It doesn’t matter. We have to find a new way and that new way is in each of our hearts.

We all know that living in accordance with the heart is tricky, because there is no script, no map to follow and no historic records to follow. It’s a big leap of faith but a necessary one. This is ascension really. A leap of faith. There’s no need for talking or discussing, it’s just a matter of getting on with it, being in the experience.

It’s a huge coming home to self and to the family and to what matters most. It’s a bit of a paradox - while there is the idea of ascending upwards into the ether, there’s actually a strong energy bringing us back down to earth and into the root, reminding me a little of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, food, water, rest and warmth - cosy and safe in the bosom of the world!

I can’t help thinking that Harry and Meghan are truly embodying this. Them stepping away from the expected roles they are meant to be playing in the Royal Family is bold! Someone wrote that Harry is following his heart, not his head. Well good on him I say. Meghan too. For being bold and having the strength to not only honour their hearts but to act on them and in the most public of arenas too. They’ve chosen to take responsibility for their mental wellbeing and to put the needs of their family first. They’re making a safe home for themselves and their son as they feel best.

This moon is encouraging the same of us all. Many of you will have seen this playing out in your own lives as you’ve made decisions this last year that support your wellbeing and that of your family. Others know that the changes need to be made, but have yet to figure out how you might make that happen. I’ve a feeling this eclipse will help to move us all on in some way. How we respond to this is up to us. It’s watery, so it’s best to flow, life is easier that way somehow.

Enjoy the moon.

Love me xx

New moon and Equinox shifting

We’ve a super new moon on Saturday and I don’t know about anyone else, but I am certainly feeling it. Phew.

Like treading through treacle.

Emotional treacle.

But at the same time, the speed at which things are ‘popping up’ and ‘popping out’ is pretty fast, and has been since the last full moon. 

Everyone says that the energy around an Equinox is fairly potent and the layers between the dimensions are relatively thin, and this is certainly my experience this Equinox.

All of nature is in flux, as the light decreases and the colours change and the relentless wind blows the old away. This change should be welcomed, for it is bringing with it a collective shift in perspective that is long overdue.

It’s easy to fight it, to cling on to what we know, because it is scary letting go into the unknown - how can we know that there is another, more aligned way of being, until we have experienced it. It’s a tricky one. 

Sometimes we don’t even realise we are fighting change, or clinging on to a version of ourselves that needs updating. We might have a sense that something is amiss, a depression, for example, or a feeling of weariness and heaviness, or an overwhelming need to scream (as if the scream itself may release something). Sometimes we might just feel as if we have outgrown ourselves.

When we finally let go – and the universe will provide opportunities for this – it can be such a relief, because all of a sudden the heaviness lifts and we experience a lighter and brighter perspective and version of ourselves that we hadn’t even known was there in the first place (this can be both exciting and slightly depressing with the recognition that there is always more potential that we may never realise in this lifetime). It’s as if the world itself has changed, and yet it’s just that we see things differently as our perspective shifts.

This might bring with it some challenges though, because while we may see things differently, those around us may not be party to the same vision. It takes courage to live from this new perspective, because there isn’t always a template. This can be scary, and can prevent us making the leap in the first place as fear might take hold.

However, there is nothing worse than living a life that no longer fits. The resistance and the fear of change becomes much more painful than the uncomfortable feeling that accompanies the surrendering in the first place. Yet many never make the leap, and numb out instead – there are many, many ways we can numb out, just think about it, we all have a go to numb-out-approach.

If there’s one thing yoga has given me (and it has given me many things) is the ability to become increasingly comfortable settling into the unknown. This is mainly because the practice itself leads us into the unknown, to those parts of ourselves that we might not yet know or that we have been resisting, or have been in denial of, or have rejected for some reason. Furthermore, it directs our lives in ways that we couldn’t ever have imagined, and all it asks of us in return is to keep surrendering and practising.

It’s this reason that many stop practising yoga, because it all becomes too confronting. Why look at ourselves honestly if that is going to make us feel uncomfortable? Isn’t it better to rest in ignorance, comfortably numb, drifting along? That approach has never worked for me, there is too much of a drive for the truth, however difficult that might be, but I appreciate that we are all different. 

Surrendering is also not easy. There’s no guide on how you might achieve this. Generally, life will provide an opportunity, the final straw, so that there is no choice but to let go, no more fighting. This summer I had that experience, as illness took hold and forced me to surrender to another way of being. It was much needed as the way I had been living was unsustainable and was no longer fitting. 

But I feel as if that process continues on, that while I might have felt a settling a few weeks ago now, I have been shaken up all over again by this energy that is whipping through our cottage and sending my youngest wild. There is more that needs to shift, I was only touching the sides previously, there has to be another, more sustainable way to live, one that is even more aligned to my truth.

It’s perhaps good timing (as these things tend to be) to find myself reading Simon Haas’ book about dharma and making enlightened choices, because in here, he shares this quote, which struck a chord with me:

 “The low minded person thinks in one way, speaks in another, and acts still differently; but the great soul, or Mahatma, says what he thinks, and does what he says.”

It’s this reason that I find Greta Thunberg so inspiring. Here is someone who is not only living her truth but speaking it too. Her speech to world leaders was genius because it cut right through our denial and said what many of us have been feeling:

 “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight”.

Speaking and living our truth is something that keeps coming up, and this new moon is just accentuating it. It’s not easy because on some level this is tied into boundaries, and boundary work is definitely not without its challenges, simply because it asks us to take ourselves seriously, and this brings with it a need for a shift in perspective.

So here we are. 

Being asked to consider our truth, and to look at where our actions are out of kilter with this, and to consider our boundaries too. It’s in the field, we can’t escape it.

It’s noble work, and needed.

Underlying all this – before it all gets too heavy – is to acknowledge that essentially all is well. Mother Earth is supporting us from below and the universe from above, and the moon and everything else in between. We can feel gratitude, for there is much to celebrate – we are on the cusp of a significant moment of change.

Each of us has a role to play, and it’s important to remember this, because it can be easy to feel lonely and isolated, as if only we are going through this inner shift that needs to be made. It’s also important to acknowledge that we have our individual role to play – our authentic offering to the world that is aligned to our truth, not anyone else’s (this awareness should keep the ego in check and stop us feeling threatened by others).  

We are part of the collective and so any change or shift we experience will shift the collective consciousness too. This is exciting. It makes the need for inner work even more important, for we can literally shift the collective experience of life on Planet Earth. This is important to remember when we start to feel overwhelmed about the current state of the world affairs and wonder how we might ever be able to change it. Just do you work, make your changes and this will impact on the collective.

We’ve heard it a zillion times before, but the change has to begin with ourselves. We can faff around trying to change our outer world, but until we change the inner world then the change is only superficial. What to do?    

 The clarity may well come with this new moon. Opportunities to surrender may also arise. The weather is supporting this, so try and flow with it as the wind clears the cobwebs away, and the rain cleanses our energy. We may have a greater sense of our truth and how we might manifest this in the world, and we may also feel renewed gratitude.  Let’s see! 

Happy new moon!

Full moon mutterings

The full moon brings out the angst in me. It shines a light into the shadows and helps me to find the words for the things that have been bothering me.

I don’t know about you but I’ve grown weary of perpetuating the story about the ecological crisis which is occurring right now and being told that I must be feeling overwhelmed and burdened and unsure what I can do to solve the problem.

The truth is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Why feel choose to feel burdened by something that is beyond our control? Why spend our days depressed about the demise of the world? 

This serves no good to anyone, especially not to us. Nor to Mother Earth. 

 Better to just get out there and do something about it. Be the change. Don’t wait for someone else to do it for us.

 I was thinking about this in the context of the “Plant Trees: Promote Peace” charity class that I was intending to hold this summer, to raise cash through yoga to buy trees that people can then plant.  This because I love yoga and I love trees, and I have a theory that if we all practiced yoga and all planted trees, then the world would be a much better place to live.

 It crossed my mind that it’s a bit silly really, that we should have to come to an event like this to feel that we might be making a difference. I mean we could all practice yoga at home every day to promote peace and we could all go out there and buy a tree and plant that, even if we gifted it to someone and planted it on their land, or at a school, or on public land (with permission of course).

 Why is it that we need someone else to organise it for us? Why do we need to do something publicly to feel like we are making a difference – is it an ego trip, an image thing?

And why do we have to feel that we are getting something back, to put something in in the first place? (go to a yoga class, get something out of it, to donate our cash in the first place).

Why don’t we just do what needs to be done regardless? [In this instance planting a tree and practicing yoga].

This is not to knock my idea. I like my idea! I like the concept of coming together to share a love of yoga and do something that creates a positive difference and gives back to Mother Earth in someway.

 But it did get me thinking about what motivates us to do the things we do. 

Which brings me on to my other angst at the moment, which is the incredibly large number of holistic courses available to us that promise to change us during the course of a day or a weekend. You know, help us release all the trauma, all the blocks that are holding us back from living the life that we desire in our heads (if not our hearts).

I believe that these are all well and good, and have a place, as long as they don’t continue to perpetuate the story that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed. That somehow disempower us before we have even got going. That cause us to dwell on the negative and that put course leaders on pedestals. And even worse, that promise us the quick fix.

I’m also slightly cynical about the number of holistic courses being run, where making money is the motivation, rather than the heart-felt desire to help someone. I’m reading “Selling Yoga” by Andrea Jain at the moment, which probably doesn’t help matters, and has just made me even more aware how many sell out in the name of business - and the holistic world has become big business full of clever marketing to draw you in, but not really offering anything different, when you look at the small print. 

Sadly, even Yoga Nidra has become big business these days. We move in fads. I’d like to think that the recent Sound Bath craze will continue, but as consumers we can be fickle, and when we realise that these events are wonderful but don’t make all our problems go away in one hit, we move onto something else, like Yoga Nidra or a Goddess ceremony, that might offer us the quick fix that we seek. 

There is no such thing as the quick fix in the holistic world, because it takes time, and some effort (and some practice) to get to the root cause of a problem, which more often than not stems from our childhood.

It works the other way around too. I’ve had a number of couple of people contact me over the years wanting to advance their Reiki studies. Some of these are genuine, in so much as they truly want to help others through Reiki and have pure intention, but there are others who rarely use Reiki on others, let alone themselves, and simply want to advance their studies for the title that they can put on their business cards – so it becomes nothing more than an ego trip and ‘business’.

This is all that is wrong with the holistic world today – somewhere along the lines the heart got lost a bit.

This is the key for me. The heart. How does it feel about the decisions that we are making, about the way we are living our life, about the courses we are attending, and about our motivations (money, ego or otherwise)?

There’s this wonderful quote from Rumi, which reads

“Yesterday I was clever,

So I wanted to change the world.

Today I am wise, 

So I am changing myself”.

I agree. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Let’s let go of the story (and stop using the story to sell products) about how out of control we must be feeling, and how awful the state of the Planet and world affairs, and how broken we are (with all that unresolved trauma, anxiety and depression we’re carrying) to focus on something positive, like our breath and the fact we are breathing, or the fact that we live on a beautiful Island here in Guernsey where there is fresh air to breath, clean sea to swim in and little threat of war or natural disaster, where we can leave our cars unlocked and they are unlikely to be stolen.

Let’s remember all the good things.

Let’s remember that yoga has been around for thousands of years and has been tried and tested and really does make a positive difference. And Reiki too, the knowledge of which was contained in a sutra (thread of knowledge) uncovered by Dr Usui all those years ago.    

Both of these practices transform us into lighter and brighter human beings and heck that has to be good for the Planet. Actually, I KNOW it’s good for the planet, because every time one of us increases in vibration then the Planet has no choice but to increase in vibration.

However, every time we are told how overwhelmed, vulnerable, blocked, anxious, depressed, lost and disempowered we are…the vibration of the planet goes down again. We sag under the weight of the world telling us this story that doesn’t have to be true, but becomes true because someone is telling us it is true. A self-fulfilling prophesy.

I say listen to Rumi. Rumi is wise. Rumi knows. Rumi does not make us feel sad or depressed, or victims of someone trying to sell us the new ‘awaken’ fad. 

No one can do the awakening for us. No course achieves this for us, however much it might promise it. Sure it might provide a missing jigsaw piece or help us to see things differently, but we have to do the healing for ourselves.

That’s the reason I’m pretty happy with good old yoga and Reiki. You can practice both at home for free (there are a ton of free yoga videos out there these days and online stuff showing you the reiki self-healing positions) and they work! Get that. These practices actually work, they connect us to the heart and helps us to release all the stuff we don’t need to carry in our lives anymore (if we are ready to do the letting go). But, and here’s the thing, you just need to practice. That’s all these practices ask of you. Nothing else. 

Change yourself, change the world. 

Go practice some yoga and Reiki. 

Go buy your best friend a tree. In fact, go buy everyone you know a tree.

And create a new and positive story. 

Don’t give your power away. And don’t put others on pedestals, particularly in the yoga and holistic world, they don’t know your way any better than you do it. 

Follow your way; your heart.

Happy full moon!

P.S. The “Plant Trees: Promote Peace” has been postponed until 2020, because something else has come up…but please go practice yoga and plant a tree regardless!

P.P.S I realise I’m slightly hypocritical in many respects because I too offer courses that are aimed at helping people heal. I offer them from my heart. I genuinely want you to heal and feel better (if you need healing and feeling better!) but I appreciate this won’t necessarily happen overnight. I hope I don’t promise this.

Leo New Moon and Lammas ranting!

It’s the new moon in Leo today, and Lammas, the Pagan festival celebrating the first fruits of the Harvest (traditionally this is the time for break-making and corn-dollies).  

I’m hopeful that the turning of the wheel will bring smoother days ahead, and the new moon cycle will support this!

The last eclipse cycle was potent, and I am still going through the releasing of the old to make way for the new. Not only is my physical body doing a lot of releasing – I’ve had a relentless cough for the last week, as I cough out the rubbish that stops me from fully speaking my truth - but mentally there’s been the letting go of outdated concepts too. 

I was lucky to attend a workshop with the inspiring Stewart Gilchrist over the weekend as we considered how we can apply the yoga yamasa and niyamas from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (philosophical framework) from 2,000 years ago to life today. 

This was truly enlightening, not only in how we might make these ancient scriptures and teaching more relevant to our modern day living (or excuse for living) but in listening to Stewart speak his truth, which was also fairly much my truth, but I don’t have his courage to always talk so openly, for fear…for fear of being ridiculed, or challenged, or made to feel that I need to get a grip on reality (because this reality is serving us so well isn’t it?!).

This last moon cycle has fairly much been about the heart and throat chakras for me, and as I am part of the collective, and collectively we go through things, even if we sometimes think it is just us going through it all on our little own, then it’s highly likely that your throat and heart chakras have been making themselves known to you too. 

New people have been entering my life and others have been dropping away. What once was aligned is no longer and so there has been (and continues to be) some shifting to accommodate this change. You just know sometimes, don’t you, that things have to change, but making the change is often the tricky bit, as it demands courage. The Leo new moon will give us that courage, so those changes can be made with more conviction this month. 

Where does this leave us? I’d like to try and stay positive and say that once the debris has settled from the eclipses then we’ll be in a much better place as a civilisation and humanity, but with recent political events, I’m not sure we’re through the other side just yet. 

The question remains, will we ever be? We’ve got to hope so haven’t we, but still we’re buying into the illusion. Yoga is a case in point. While I enjoy visiting city studios because of the energy they imbue, I am also tickled and slightly irritated by the commercialisation of yoga and the fact it doesn’t reflect the underlying philosophy.

I pad £3.80 for a small cup of chai! That’s stealing in my opinion! Let alone being charged £17 for a drop-in class (admittedly there are deals that can be had) when you know the teacher is being paid a pittance per hourly rate. It’s not only that, it’s the branding that drives me mad, that yoga has to look a certain way now, Lululemon and Spiritual Gangster are the epitome of this! 

Admittedly, back in the day, long before yoga, I was a surfer and branding meant something to me then. It was really important that I accrue as many t-shirts as I could with the Billabong or Rip Curl logo. It made me feel like I was a proper surfer. Or something like that. As surfing grew in popularity, my interest in it waned. Or at least my interest in the commercialism of it waned.

 It got to a point where I loved surfing for surfing, not for the clothing that came with it. I suppose what I recognised was that I was only ever trying to buy into an illusion. If I wore those branded Rip Curl clothes then I may look the part and be good at surfing, and maybe attract myself a lovely surfer boyfriend in the process. It was a story I played out in my head.

As it happened I was OK at surfing in the end, coming second in the University Nationals my first year at Uni, and I did have a surfing boyfriend for a while, but by then I’d grown weary of the branding and the commercialism of surfing, because I had recognised that none of it was real. What was real was being out in the water, and catching waves, and the feeling that came from this. 

Maybe because of my surfing experience, or maybe because I discovered yoga before it became trendy, and had learned from my surfing experience, I have never bought into the commercialism of yoga. I have a mat. What more do I need? I certainly don’t need clothes that have been designed for yoga and cost an absolute fortune. 

Just like I don’t need a named eye pillow promoting someone’s business (the give-away is in the ‘business’. “Yoga is a spiritual practice”, I want to cry out to anyone who will listen! What right does anyone have to try to ‘own’ it in any way). For some reason the branded eye pillow especially tickles me, it’s like you just can’t escape it, even in Savasana! 

So where was I going with this? See throat chakra has been affected somewhat recently, I’ve started ranting again!

I suppose my point is, that if we buy into the illusion of it all as yoga practitioners (who, in theory are meant to be addressing the five kleshas, the five obstacles, the first of which is ignorance) then there really is no hope. I mean obviously there is always hope, but really, we need to be discerning. This is so important.

Of course this is relevant to all of life, not just the commercialisation of yoga. Discerning what is true for us, not what some marketer has fed us (…often an illusion to sell us a product and make someone money).

So I think this brings me back to my point, if I even had a point, as I feel like I may have just need to rant and get that all off my chest, the bit about the commercialisation of yoga and selling out…ah yes, buying into the illusion.

Let’s stop buying into it! Let’s stop buying what we don’t need for a start. Maybe we need to start saying no more frequently too, Just say no! No more wars. No more trees being cut down for developers gain. No more children being separated from their parents at the US/Mexican border. No more refugees dying as they try to escape to Europe. No more politicians messing with our children’s education. No more wasting food. No more turning our backs on the homeless and people needing help. No more turning a blind eye. No more putting our heads in the sand. No more cruelty to others, animals, humans, plants. No more buying into the commercialisation of yoga (no branded eye-pillows, please!).

Let’s see where the new moon energy lands. If there’s one thing for sure, this new moon is definitely bringing out the roar of the Leo lion!

Happy New Moon and Happy Lammas.

xx

The Eclipse Gateway

A lot of people have been commenting to me about the strange energy at the moment. We’re in an eclipse gateway!

I don’t know that I’ve ever been as conscious as I am now of being in an eclipse gateway but it feels a little like a liminal space, neither here nor there, a sort of ‘hanging’ energy, and yet one full of potential.

We had a solar eclipse on the new moon on Tuesday 2nd July, and a lunar eclipse on the full moon due on Tuesday 16th July. This is potent time! When eclipses are two weeks apart, there is a gateway between them, like a bridge, helping to merge their energies, and shift consciousness from one way of being to another.

Eclipses bring with them the potential for change - you might have noticed this in your own life or the lives of those around you. Change is in the air, and during the gateway you start to see the transformation that might lead to the actual change bedding in, once the bridge has been crossed.

A few days ago I started to feel a shift in perspective, an awareness that we get to choose whether we see the world through’ a glass that is half empty’, or ‘a glass that is half full’. It might seem really obvious, but it just struck me how this perspective might truly influence the direction that our life flows. Which one do we choose?

I am aware that many - myself included at times - choose the negative approach, and sometimes this is so deeply conditioned that we don’t even realise we are doing it; it is not conscious. This is fascinating to explore, this inherent need to see the negative first, almost as a subtle victim of circumstances, seemingly powerless…and yet not, if the awareness shifted.

I couldn’t help thinking that in many respects the ‘glass half empty’ approach is a little like a form of self harm, as if we might deny ourselves the opportunity for happiness and continuously lower our spirits, make sure that life is hard work, like a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Furthermore, the negative becomes like a protective armour. It binds our heart. It stops us from truly saying ‘yes’ to all life has to offer. It also harms other people, especially our family and friends, because they have to deal with the hardness in us that this approach creates.

I wonder what underlies it? A suffering? We’re suffering so let’s make sure everyone knows about it, and let’s make them suffer too? An anger? A sense of being truly pissed off at the world? Let everyone know! The world has got it in for me! (like attracts like, self-fulfilling prophecy again).

I know from my own experience, that this perspective is so deeply ingrained that we don’t always recognise immediately when we have outgrown it. What would we choose to be anything but happy? I’m not suggesting that we pretend other than how we feel, or we bypass emotionally in any way, I just mean, why would we not choose to try to see the positive. What stops us doing this?

The current gateway has made this crystal clear to me, this need to take responsibility for our experience of life on planet Earth depending on our perspective, ‘glass half empty’, ‘glass half full’.

The frequency is high and there is the opportunity to receive downloads (I know this sounds really esoteric and weird and I remember when I first heard the term ‘download’ I was thinking it sounded a bit too star seedy for me, but I don’t know now how else to describe it because that is what it is), almost as if we are receiving some insight from somewhere else.

It’s like the portals (yes, I know, a bit esoteric and weird too, but this is what they are, like streaming) are open and we can receive messages from the collective higher self more clearly, or maybe it’s just from our higher self, but I have a sense that it is more expansive than that somehow, because we are feeling it collectively, not just individually, I’m not sure if that makes sense and apologies if not, sometimes it’s tricky to explain how you feel.

I felt energised after the solar eclipse and there was much more clarity; this sense that this is really the time for tying up loose ends, and yet I’ve felt that since January and this has led to me retreating a little, to see what needed to be tied up and let go, and what just needed tidying up to move forward. Much of this was a perspective shift too and a continual questioning about underlying motivation.

Interestingly they say that what is happening now is completing a cycle that begun with the eclipses in January 2019, so if you can think back then, that might help you to gain more clarity on what is happening now. I was going to say that it depends how much you have flowed with it, but that’s the thing about eclipses, they make the change happen regardless. I guess the more you can stay attuned to it, and the less of shock the change might be.

I have felt very supported in the last few weeks, more so than at other times this year, when there has been some scary moments of leaping into the dark, of doing things differently with no idea of the outcome, safe or otherwise. It’s been uncomfortable at times, but one has to keep trusting in the heart, because what else is there, otherwise.

There has been coincidence, strange happenings and the fairies have been apparent (bless Elijah for communicating with the magic fairies and reminding me frequently of the magic inherent in life!).

The last few days has drawn in situations that have helped to make the path ahead clearer, at least in terms of what I am feeling in my heart, and what direction this might take (the universe has been continually questioning motivation), and what the picture might look like, even though there are still many missing jigsaw pieces and still some leaping of faith. There’s renewed inspiration.

I’ve a feeling the energy will change in the days ahead as we approach the lunar eclipse. We might notice the blocks, and feel despondent, probably emotional.

But there’s really no stopping where it’s going. We just have to keep listening. I’m sorry if that sounds really wishy washy and new age-like, but I don’t know how else to say it. Perhaps I’m reminding myself as much as anything else.

I don’t know, let’s see. Take some time alone if you can. Keep your frequency high, use crystals and keep clearing your space with sage and herbal potions, cleansing out the old. Keep praying and communicating with the Goddess, her energy is also high, look at the moon building in the sky. Don’t buy into the illusion. Keep it different. To the heart. You know what I mean, you’ll feel it anyhow.

Happy eclipse shifting!

Love Emma

Mothering

It was a new moon in Gemini yesterday, and it wasn’t until a few days prior to that, when I had already started writing this blog posting, that I became aware this new moon is encouraging us to look honestly at what we want from our life and to speak our truth. On the back of this new moon energy, I share with you now my truth, but appreciate that it might not be anyone else’s truth. 

I’ve experienced a few Ayurvedic Pancha Karma in my time, but the one I had last week was probably the most intense in its release thus far. It could just have been the timing however, taking place a few days after that rather powerful Scorpio full moon and after a weekend in Glastonbury, the home of the Goddess. 

For those who don’t know, a Pancha Karma is basically a three-hour oil-based massage, which deeply penetrates the skin, loosening impurities and stimulating circulation. Hot poultices of Ayurvedic herbs are also applied, the herbs being absorbed through the pores in the skin.  

Shirodhara (my favourite) is then employed, where warm oil is poured in a gentle stream over the forehead, calming and pacifying the central nervous system, stilling the mind and senses, and allowing stress to be released (my main focus at the moment, releasing stress!). This is followed by a head and face massage, before steam treatment to help expel toxins.

 I’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ever since, experiencing a healing crisis, where everything feels worse before it feels better. There have been many tears and my heart has been making itself known to me, clearly needing some healing. As painful as this has been at times, it has brought with it a pause for reflection, and finally some clarity, which has been a relief.

 I have felt that something has been amiss for a while now and yet I couldn’t quite put it into words, but now I feel able to do so, rightly or wrongly. My realisation will not necessarily resonate with you all, it’s just what’s relevant to me in my life right now.

Simply put, it seems to me that we women have been fed a lie, that we’re part of some big social experiment to see what happens in the name of empowerment. It is what women are pressured (in whatever way) to think they want, but has anyone actually thought about the wider cost.

Not only are women now fulfilling the role of provider (and main provider in many cases), and perching themselves on the ladder with the men, but they are also continuing, on the whole, with the role of householder and mother. There is a whole generation of women exhausted and depleted, living a life that is totally out of balance with their natural rhythm, because society deems that this is ‘the way’. 

“We’re empowered”, they shout out, “we can do everything that men do, and better too. We can run businesses, we can keep a house and raise a family. We can do it all”. 

However, no one really talks about the reality of what this truly means. No one talks about the fact that many women spend their day existing on a diet of coffee, chocolate and salad, eating on the go, never having time to properly refuel. Or the fact that women are so busy trying to hold it all together that as a society we now just accept this as a fact of modern living, “she’s just busy”, we say, “she’s got a demanding job and children”, we simply explain, and everyone knows what we mean. 

Many women are rushing through their life, from one appointment and meeting to the next, juggling all their various responsibilities and roles and trying to manage their time with their children as best they can. Some choose to do this because they want to have a career, other because they are not naturally gifted at motherhood (and don’t usually mind admitting it) and there are those who do it out of necessity as they need an income (and therefore don’t have a choice).

I suppose it is the lack of choice for many that saddens me the most, because while they might rather be at home with their children, society offers them little support to achieve this. In Sweden, for example, both parents receive 480 days’ parental allowance per child, and in the case of multiple births, an additional 180 days are granted for each additional child.

When I birthed Elijah back in 2013, I was only eligible for 3 month’s maternity leave, thankfully by 2016 and the arrival of Eben, this had increased to 6 months. However, by then I didn’t want to be dictated to by the workplace about when I should return post-baby, so I quit my job while pregnant and gave up the opportunity for maternity pay in favour of keeping my freedom to stay with my baby until I chose to return to the workplace. 

But even then, I felt a pressure to return after 6 months, because it just felt that I should be working and earning a proper income. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I might just stay at home with the boys. I had a well-paid professional role in the finance industry, wouldn’t I be mad to just give that up? The truth is, and I didn’t recognise this until recently, that so much of my identity was tied up in my job, I didn’t know how to be any other way. 

In many respects, this is the reason that many women are leaving it later and later to begin a family, because they have invested a lot of time and energy into their careers, and their whole identity is tied into it. Many don’t want to jeopardise this by falling pregnant, and hold out until they can no longer ignore their biological clock ticking. By then many need fertility treatments to help them, if not because of age, then because of increased stress levels.

It is these women, and other women too, who have their children and return to the workplace, because it is expected of them (because they expect it of themselves as much as anything else), who are then constantly torn in two. Like me, they might not have appreciated the demands of motherhood and by then it’s too late, they have to keep working because they need the income/have become used to the income/their whole identity is tied into the income, and yet they miss their children, and are trying to manage both the demands of motherhood with the demands of the workplace. 

We just keep going though don’t we, us women, whether we enjoy it or not, whether we chose it or not, whether we want it or not. We’re empowered and we can do it all. We can run businesses, have top careers and still raise a family. Look how much we admire female entrepreneurs and look up to them as role models – giving birth to children and running their businesses the next day!   

But the question is, are we women thriving? Are our young people thriving? Is society thriving? Are we all better off for it? If the rising depression, anxiety and stress rates are anything to go by, then I think not.

All I ever wanted to be since I was little, was a mother one day. Yet society was never particularly encouraging of this, the focus was always on academic success and a career. There was a sense that to be a successful woman living in this 21stcentury, I needed to be so much more than ‘just’ a mother to fulfil my potential. Instead, I need to be up there fighting for a perch with the men, or out there with all the other women attempting to change the world by running their own businesses. 

I am slowly coming to recognise that this does not need to be the case. For me now, fulfilling my potential means being a good mum to my two boys. It’s not about earning lots of money in finance or running my own business, it’s not even about publishing books or having my own healing space. Admittedly, the latter two are dreams, but they should not be confused with what it means to fulfil my potential, because then they become distractions from the truth.

Furthermore, when we talk about purpose and dharma particularly – what are we here on this earth to do - I might talk about teaching yoga and sharing Reiki with others, writing perhaps too, but truth be told, it’s being a mum. Everything else becomes irrelevant, really, when I consider the most sacred of duties that I could ever have been gifted in this lifetime is the one of mothering my own children.

Sure, when I die, it might be nice to be remembered for teaching a couple of inspiring yoga classes, or helping someone in their life, but I’d really like to be remembered more so for being a good mum to my children.  That’s my life work. My children couldn’t care less about what I do either and regularly groan because I’m off to teach another yoga class. All they care about is spending time with me. 

It’s a relief to finally recognise this after feeling adrift for a while now, wondering what’s next. It was almost as if the children arrived (and not without some challenge and heart ache may I add) and I ticked a box, OK that’s the children done, now what? And on I went with the next challenge, publishing books, as if time was somehow running out and all those dreams needed to be achieved overnight, and because I’m an empowered woman and that’s what we do.

But it was bothering me. Something didn’t feel right. My increasing stress levels were an indication that all was not well but I just couldn’t see any other way. This was how I had been trained to live since as long as I can remember – the focus on working and results and achieving. Furthermore, society supported this and the quest for it.

As I mentioned earlier, I returned to work three months after Elijah was born, expressing breastmilk in the toilets so that he could be fed by my Mum (fortunately) while I was in the office. None of it felt right but I did it because it was what was expected of me. Not once did I sit down and seriously think about whether I might stay at home with my son, especially during those early months.

In the workplace, there was little allowance for the impact that the transition to motherhood may have had on me and my life. I was expected to show up just the same as I had done pre-baby and yet absolutely everything had changed. There were the endless sleepless nights to navigate, let alone the breastfeeding and the hormonal changes of the post-natal period (which goes on for a good two years’ post-baby). There was this relentless and constant rushing and an overwhelming sense of guilt that I wasn’t with my son at home.  

Admittedly there were bills and the mortgage to pay, but when I think back, we could have found a way. We could have made other sacrifices, gone on less trips, cut back on other expenses. Ayurveda focuses on causative factors rather than symptoms and I now know with absolute certainty that this is when the stress, with which I have been working this last year, set-in. 

 I’ve been slowly trying to unravel from this and find my balance after five years of living a life out of balance, doing too much and not being as present to my children as I might have once intended. Furthermore, I have been seeking my truth, trying to navigate my way through my societal and academic conditioning, to recognise and hear what I feel deep down in my heart.

My body has been nudging me with its physical expression of stress, and the overwhelming tiredness. And I started to make changes, to re-prioritise my life bit by bit, to spend more time with the children. But there has still been this restlessness, this panic at times, “but what if I miss an opportunity to fulfil my potential, what if I don’t make my dreams come true because I’m spending all my time with my children”.

Now I have clarity I can laugh at the irony of it. It’s like the red herring. The answer has been staring at me in the face, as if the ‘child’ angel card I’ve repeatedly received over the last few months hasn’t been enough, and the photos of my children on my altar in front of which I practice yoga every day, let alone the words of my Ayurvedic doctor and Reiki friend, trying to signpost the path ahead in their gentle ways if only I would listen (and get beyond my conditioning that makes changing my mind so difficult).

It’s very easy to get super busy, to work and work and work, to make things happen, to run a business, to fulfil superficial dreams, to fulfil our potential according to society, when all the while the greatest dream, the greatest miracle, the greatest potential, well they’re growing up, and if I’m not careful – if we’re not careful – I’ll miss it, we’ll miss it. 

There is a whole generation of women torn and a whole generation of children being cared for by nursery workers and child minders, grandparents too if they’re lucky. Where did it all go so wrong? Why did we feel such a great drive to get out of the home? Isn’t the home where the heart is? Isn’t this what gives stability and love to our children? Isn’t this the very root of society?

I know that I am not alone. I take my hat off to those women who make the decision from the outset to stay at home with their children. It can’t be an easy decision to make and I have noticed that there is often some reluctance in admitting that “I’m just a stay at home mum” as if that is not enough somehow. It is sad to think that in our quest for empowerment, of the modern need to be someone, that there is now a stigma attached to being at home with our children, as if that is shameful. 

 I have a friend who is a full-time mum to her children and arranges child-care so that she can have a break and attend a yoga class once a week. She sadly feels that she has to justify this to people, and I think, good on you, being at home with young children is really challenging. I used to find going to work in the office easy in comparison. 

A few days ago I was feeling really peeved about all this, for buying into the whole women’s empowerment movement, without really being conscious of what I was giving up in the process. It’s been depressing in many respects too, to recognise that I am a cliché of what it means to be a woman in the twenty first century. 

I was raised to be different, not to follow others like a sheep, to question and think for myself. Yet I never did enough questioning. Perhaps this is what saddens me the most, now realising that I’ve bought into the illusion that this is what us women want and this is the life we must lead if we are to be empowered. This being a life lived on empty and always so busy.

It’s not surprising that increasing numbers of women are turning to yoga and meditation as they seek a time out from the craziness of the life lived in their heads and look for meaning in their lives. 

It’s also not surprising that the divine feminine has appeared into our lives, infusing mainstream spiritualism, encouraging us to connect with our inner goddess. I’m all up for this, I love nothing more than yoni yoga and the more feminine approach to yoga, but I have become completely turned off with the ‘rise, sister, rise’ theme.

Where do we women think we need to rise to? Have we not risen enough? Are we not empowered enough? What more do we want? 

There is a whole genre of books written around this theme and I can’t help noticing that many of the women writing them have not yet birthed children. Because let’s face it, the divine feminine can’t get any more manifest than as the mother. She is the mother! She has been revered for centuries for her power. 

Even here in Guernsey, there are two statues in her honour from pre-Christian times, one outside St Martin’s church and the other at Castel church, known as La Gran’mère du Chimquière. When I visited this Pagan earth mother at St Martin’s church this morning, I noticed that someone has placed a  chain of sweet peas around her neck because we are still celebrating her, even today (maybe even more so today). 

She is not asking us to compete with the men, nor run our own businesses, or become female entrepreneurs. She is not asking us to work harder and spend even more time in our heads and away from our children (although sadly this is what I see, even amongst yoga teachers who are spreading ‘her’ wisdom).

She is here to ask us to get back into our bodies, to come home to ourselves, to our families and to Mother Earth. She is asking us to get back in touch with our natural rhythms, to connect to the moon and our own inner cycles. She is asking us to step up as mothers, to reclaim that which we have lost in the name of empowerment. 

Yesterday I randomly chose the Green Tara goddess card. She rescues us by empowering us to save ourselves. I couldn’t help thinking that this card was rather appropriate timing – yes, Green Tara, we need you in our lives, helping to empower us to save ourselves, our femininity, and our opportunity for motherhood. I certainly need you.

This is what the world needs, this is what society is crying out for: mothering. We need to honour the mother again.

Anyone who has lost a mother will know what a loss it is. 

Like Mother Earth, women have been exploited for too long now. 

We need to re-build the home. 

This doesn’t mean we need to stop working. I can honestly say that if I didn’t share my passion for teaching yoga and Reiki, and have a break from the children in the process, for example, then I would go slowly mad. It just means that we need to feel that we have a genuine choice again.

We need to respect the mother and all that she brings, not only to the family but to society and to the planet. 

Society needs to wake up and re-prioritise, recognise what is most important. We need to honour and respect the mother again. 

I’m really proud to be a mum. It is not only my greatest achievement, but also the most difficult job I suspect I shall ever have in this lifetime. 

It has brought me fully into myself, and I have learned more about myself since becoming a mother than I ever learned on my yoga mat in the years previous to this. Motherhood is the practice! Children help us to engage completely - and consciously – with life: it’s Tantra!

Every day my boys provide me the opportunity to try to be a gentler, kinder and more compassionate human being. I’ve become increasingly aware of the times when I am not this, when they trigger me and I react before catching myself and taking a breath – when I become unconscious. There is a certain humility that accompanies this awareness. I am constantly given the opportunity to learn how to be a better human being and a better mum.  

My boys have brought me back to earth. They have helped me to turn a house into a home. They have helped me to recognise the need to take better care of myself. They have taught me what it means to love unconditionally. They have helped me to recognise that being a mother is enough. 

I shall end this post with a poem from Hafiz:

And still, after all this time,

The sun never says to the earth

“You owe Me”.

Look what happens with 

A love like that,

It lights the whole sky”. 

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.