Ten years of sea swimming - the joy!

As I approach the ten year anniversary of all-year around sea swimming, I can’t help thinking how much life has changed, so that sea swimming has become normalised (as has chakras and crystals), which can only be a good thing.

Even doctors are nowadays prescribing sea swimming for depression as a friend of mine recently discovered. It was a bout of depression and anxiety that initially brought me to all-year around sea swimming. Depression was familiar, but anxiety was new to me and I was gripped by a ridiculous fear of leaving the house and was weepy and emotional, slightly paranoid too. 

I’d been overworking, teaching too much yoga and channelling too much Reiki without protecting myself properly or establishing good boundaries. It was a lesson learned. But nonetheless at the time, it was a little traumatic as I wasn’t familiar with the intensity of the feelings of anxiety and fear of leaving the house.

I stopped working, I had no choice, and took myself off to the doctor who referred me to the local mental health service for CBT. She prescribed Prozac too, but as with previous prescriptions for this drug, I knew that the pharmaceutical route was not for me, depression in my experience is a depression of the soul and this was a wake-up call; I wasn’t listening to my heart, or honouring my soul; my spirit was low.

One of my friend’s, who had a history of depression, invited me to join her sea-swimming, she said that it has really helped her when she was feeling low. I was aware by then of the healing power of nature, and E had encouraged me into the garden, and at the advice of my Ayurvedic doctor I was getting my hands in the earth and weeding – as if weeding out the weeds that were causing my depression, my inability to access the light. I was keen to try sea swimming and appreciated my friend’s support.

I’d been an avid surfer during my teenage years so was frequently in the sea all-year around, albeit in a wet suit. During my twenties, while I had stopped surfing by then, I hung out with a group of friends who were passionate about the sea and we’d frequently do the ‘weaver run’, often on our walk home late at night from the Rockmount, either at Cobo or Vazon. This involved removing our clothes and running as fast as we could into the sea at low tide, risking a weaver fish sting!

We’d also meet regularly after work during the summer months to swim at ‘Barnacle Point’ off Albecq or from the rocks near Fort Houmet, eager to connect with the sea after a day spent sat in soul-less offices. Towards the end of my twenties, I started travelling regularly, to Australia mainly, to undertake my yoga training, and I’d swim every day in the sea. Back home in Guernsey though, I might go a few times during the summer, but I didn’t make a habit of it.

So now I was keen to see how connecting with the sea might make me feel.  My friend collected me one mid-morning and drove us to Petit Bot, where we were the only people on the beach. It was this that positively affected me as much as the sea swim. I was so used to working during every hour that I had available to me, that I rarely took time to get out during the day time, and it felt odd, like a whole new reality was presenting itself to me – one where you allowed yourself to go to the beach during ‘normal’ working hours and do something for yourself, namely swim!

The swim itself was amazing. For the first time in days I wasn’t pre-occupied by the stomach churning anxiety and emotional sensitivity that this brought with it. Instead, I experienced myself very much in the present moment, of being shocked awake in the freezing cold sea! I couldn’t believe how much better I felt afterwards, as if something had literally been awoken in me; my mind calmer, my body more grounded than it had been for a long time, my energy cleansed, and my soul nourished by this interaction with Mother Nature.

I was hooked almost immediately and haven’t looked back since. I took a few months off from working, and went sea swimming daily, either with my friend, and the other ladies who swam at Petit Bot at that time, or with E watching from the beach. My mental wellbeing improved significantly during this period, and I always accredit sea swimming for this. 

Not only did the physical act of getting in cold water help to ground me in the present (and therefore ease the anxiety and depression) but it also helped me to look at my life and re-prioritise the way that I was living it, with daily sea swimming becoming an essential part of this. It created a shift in my perspective too, and I started to feel joy again, how could I not, as I took in the beach and the sea and the sky above; a true blessing and I started to feel gratitude again – my thoughts became more positive.  

It took him a while but a year later, in the following March, E started swimming regularly with me and hasn’t stopped since. This began our mutual love of Petit Bot and we have swum there regularly ever since, sometimes daily depending on our schedules and the extent of the shore break, which seems to have gotten worse over the years! 

I swam in the sea throughout both my pregnancies, swimming the day before both boys were born. I was back in the sea as soon as I was out of hospital too, albeit I wasn’t able to swim as I had to have Caesarean sections for each of them. I wasn’t meant to be submerged in water, but I just needed to cleanse my energy and stand in the sea up to my waist, feeling its coolness and hearing its sounds; grounding and soothing after the trauma of birth!

Both our boys, Elijah and Eben, have fairly much grown up at Petit Bot! I remember the first time we took Elijah, fresh out of hospital and both of us going into the sea at the same time, as we’d done so many times previously, him in his car seat sat up on the pebbles at the top of the beach. We suddenly realised that this probably wasn’t appropriate, a helpless baby left on his own on the beach. It was just such a bizarre concept for us both, and this began our tag team effort, taking it in turns to swim ever since.

We’ve many photos of the boys on Petit Bot in various stages of development, car seats to crawling, toddling to running, and now climbing the rocks! We’ve seen the beach at all stages of tide, in all weathers and all times of the year; we know it well and love it dearly, there’s something special about knowing a beach. Our favourite time of year is October, when the summer visitors have left and the dog walkers are yet to arrive; we’re pretty much guaranteed to have it to ourselves. But we do have it to ourselves a lot of the time, especially early in the morning, and we’re always grateful for this.

We were tickled last year to be gifted, quite by chance, a Guernsey calendar, and were quite surprised to find a photo of us for the month of January (the person who gave the calendar to us didn’t realise this!). I contacted the photographer and she said she had met a friend at Petit Bot the previous January and had seen us walking down the beach, me carrying Eben in a car seat, and Elijah and E walking beside me, about to go for a swim, and thought it looked a lovely family scene. She kindly gave us a copy of the photograph, which I’ve posted above.

Growing up on the West coast of Guernsey and spending much of my time on Vazon beach, knowing that beach like a second home, it has been lovely getting to know more of the South coast of this stunning Island I’m lucky to call home. More recently I’ve been swimming at Saints with a small group of ladies, perhaps three or four times a week, on the way to drop Elijah to school in the morning – he loves it as he can climb the rocks and get some fresh air before going in the classroom. 

This has added a whole new dimension to sea swimming, allowing me to connect with another beach, and one that needs to be approached on foot (or bike in our case) so is even more private than Petit Bot, attracting a couple of other sea swimming groups; the sunrise can be spectacular in the winter months. Also, it has caused me to develop a beautiful relationship with the other ladies, brought together by our love of sea swimming and spending time outdoors in nature. 

We might swim at Fermain sometimes too, especially on a full moon, where we howl at her rising ahead of us, sometimes skinny dipping, sometimes not. I have to say though, that this is my favourite way to sea swim, it doesn’t get more natural and uplifting than skinny dipping and winter is the best time for this, at least you’re less likely to bump into anyone else coming to the beach!

I should make the point though, that these days I’m rarely in the sea for long. I used to swim maybe 5-10 minutes or so in the winter months, but a few years ago I started to get really cold afterwards, not helped because I was in the midst of sleep deprivation and just found it was taking me all day to warm up, not so pleasant. These days, especially in February, I might only be in for a minute or two at most, but even this makes me feel better, and well worth the traipse down to the beach and back up.

I can’t imagine our lives without sea swimming now, it’s become a part of our life, something that we make time to do, which will often determine the rest of our schedule, especially on the weekends. It’s the first thing we do when we have been away from the Island, getting our fix of Guernsey sea on our skin, and a definite if I have been working energetically with people and need to cleanse. It’s amazing and I’m always keen to introduce others to sea swimming so they may feel the benefits for themselves.

 The benefits of sea swimming for me:

 ·     Cleansing my energy;

·     Grounding me in the moment - you don’t think about much else when you’re in the sea, other than how cold it is, how long you might stay in and whether you’ll get caught by the waves.

·     Energising me.

·     Connecting me to nature so that I notice the tides, sunrise and sunset, and seasonal and moon cycles.

·     Feeling like you’re getting away from the rest of the world.

·     Slows life down, you can’t possibly be rushing or stressed on the beach.

·     Listening to the sound of the sea and watching the waves, both of which I find soothing for the soul.

·     Shifting a bad mood!

·     Raising the spirits and easing any depression

·     Reducing anxiety by the connection of feet literally to the earth (well sand really, but you know what I mean) and the sensation of the cold water on skin, getting you out of your head and into your body.

·     Strengthening your immune system – I’m not sure how that works, but I’m pretty sure that sea swimming plays a role in me rarely being ill, I’ve not had a single cold yet this winter (touch wood!). 

·     The special relationship you create with other sea swimmers as you share this mutual love for the sea.

·     It’s free, and the very act of getting onto the beach and getting into the sea and having a little swim is good for your general fitness. 

·     It has strengthened my connection to Guernsey and helped me to feel extremely grateful for living on this beautiful Islands.

·     It makes me feel alive and happy.

Yoga and change

Nothing brings me greater joy than witnessing yoga students embracing yoga and wanting to further their practice. There’s something about the practice, be it the breath or the postures or the relaxation, that affects them and they feel better for it; there has been a positive change and it motivates them to turn up again and again.

You can’t help but be changed by yoga. Yoga by its very nature encourages change. The way that we see things today does not have to be the way we saw them yesterday, and so it is with yoga too. The way we feel today, after a yoga practice, may feel very different to how we felt yesterday when we didn’t practice, and sometimes the way we feel after each practice changes too.

Some days we may feel positively elated, joyful, ecstatic, and other days we may feel tired and emotional. Yoga can bring stuff up for us. We might start to notice aches, pains and tensions in the body and mind that we hadn’t noticed previously. We might notice behaviour patterns and the manner in which we hold on to thoughts, notions and concepts, some well outdated and no longer serving us.

Sometimes the changes that yoga brings can be challenging. The painful emotions are confronting and the awareness of how much our life is out of a balance can be too much for some, so they stop coming to class. As much as they might like their lives to change, the change itself is too scary and they’d rather maintain the status quo however uncomfortable that is.

Others have no choice but to keep coming, there’s no going back for them now, the changes, however uncomfortable, are less uncomfortable than maintaining the status quo, of remaining the same. The body and mind have made it perfectly clear to them that there is a way out, that there is a chance of a new beginning, of a better way of living, of feeling something that’s more positive than the way they have been feeling, of hope for a future that they had almost given up on. There is a chance…

The joy of yoga, is that if we take the leap, if we overcome the obstacle of fear that prevents the change, if we listen to the body, to that ache and pain, and we keep practicing, well then then yoga will hold us while the changes are being made. Perhaps we need to let go of a destructive relationship or a draining friendship, perhaps we need to change jobs or professions to align yourself more fully with our talents, perhaps we need to leave a situation in which we have a vested interest. Yoga will help us through all of this and more. 

Yoga is not to be saved for when we feel in a good place in our lives, or comfortable in our own skin (“I’ll come back when I’ve lost weight”, “you’ll see me when I’m not so tired”), yoga is for when we are in the nitty gritty thick of it, when we are on our knees, when we can barely get through a day, when we can’t stop crying, when the anxiety has become acute and overwhelming, when we can barely look at ourselves in the mirror, when we are lost and alone and fearful. This is when we need yoga the most.

Yoga does not need to look a certain way. Yoga doesn't care at all what you look like, what you’re wearing, whether you’ve brushed your hair, or are wearing make-up, whether you are fat or thin. Yoga couldn’t care about any of this. It just cares if you showed up today. If some part of you managed to make it onto your mat, even if you spent the session (as I’ve done many, many times) in tears, breathing from one pose to the next through your mouth because your nose is too snotty and you have to keep stopping to let the tears drop onto your mat, and wait until you can connect again with your body and breath and move into another posture, a momentary respite before the emotional wave crashes in again.

There’s this wonderful saying about people coming into your life for ‘a reason, a season or a lifetime’. I see this in yoga. People come in for their reason, for their season, or for their lifetime. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve seen supported by yoga as they make a life change and then I don’t see them again. But this doesn’t matter, because they have allowed yoga to change them, the practice has given them the strength to make those changes.

 Others drift in and out, being touched, but not allowing the practice to touch them enough, and others, once they have a taste of change, are in it for the long run, it makes them feel better and it helps support them in their daily lives through thick and thin. Yoga is there for a reason, for a season and for a lifetime, you’ve just got to get practicing and see what it brings. 

 As Desikachar writes in his book, The Heart of Yoga, “The body and mind are used to certain patterns of perception and these tend to change gradually through yoga practice. It is said in the Yoga Sūtra that people alternately experience waves of clarity and cloudiness when first beginning a yoga practice. That is, we go through periods of clarity followed by times in which our mind and perception are quite lacking in clarity. Over time there will be less cloudiness and more clarity. Recognising this shift is a way to measure our progress”.

Perhaps it is this that changes us the most, the ability to see more clearly our truth, and to experience a greater sense of who we are, underneath the layers of illusion and false notions that we have adopted over the years. It always makes me think of the famous quote accredited to Gandhi, “Be the change you’d like to see in the world”. This is yoga. You cannot help but be changed into the change you’d most like to see in the world. Yoga changes us, and usually for the better.

We shouldn’t be scared by the change that yoga brings. Yoga just asks us to look at our lives more honestly, helping to open ourselves up to our potential for living a life beyond our wildest dreams. All it asks of us is to keep turning up and practicing, that’s all. “Practice, practice, practice and all is coming”, Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois is accredited for having said. It has become a little of a mantra for me over the years. This not to be attached to the fruits of our labours, but as a reason to keep turning up on the mat, day after day, year after year. Just keep practicing and let yoga reveal itself to you as you your-self are revealed. 

My life has changed beyond recognition since I found yoga. Yoga saved my life. I’ve changed so that I don’t really recognise the old me, the before-yoga Emma. I’m not sure who that person was, but she wasn’t me, she was lost and depressed, paranoid and at times anxious, lacking in any sense of true self or self- confidence, soul fragmented. The yoga path has not always been easy, there have been many tears and healing crises along the way, but each practice has sparked something in me, helped the light to glow a little brighter, helped to make me whole, and it is this that has always motivated me and spurred me on.

I love it when I see this light lit in others too, because I know that it has a ripple effect. You being changed changes those around you, your family, your friends, your colleagues, they all start glowing a little brighter because something in you sparks something in them. It is in this way that yoga is changing the world one person at a time. Embrace the fear of change, and let yoga hold you, be the change you’d most like to see in the world – the one where fear is replaced with love. Love will continue to come back to you.

The electric cargo bike and my increased wellbeing!

Investing in our electric cargo bike was a life changing moment for me towards the end of 2019, because little did I realise at the time how much I was positively investing into my general wellbeing.

2019 was a tough year, and I wasn’t feeling my most positive in autumn, when a bright orange electric cargo bike caught my attention from the window of our local bike shop.

 I had been cycling my eldest son, Elijah (who is 6 years old), to school on my non-electric mountain bike, pulling him in a trailer behind me, but this was becoming increasingly hard work physically. We live at the top of a hill, and while the school is only 6 minutes away by car, or 10 minutes by bike, I was growing weary of the journey, sometimes repeated three times a day as Elijah comes home for lunch. 

As the weather grew colder, drearier and wetter, the less inclined I was to use my mountain bike and trailer, and the more I started driving instead. But this made me miserable, not least because parking around the school can be challenging, and the traffic is sometimes a little testing too (by Guernsey standards!), but because I missed the fresh air and exercise. I’m also conscious of the environmental impact of using the car and this depressed me!

The electric cargo bike seemed to call to me from my car every time I drove past the bike shop, and before I thought about it too much, I booked to hire it for a few days, to see how it might work for us. It worked well! We loved it! I was amazed how much better it made me feel, and now that I had the electric motor I had absolutely no excuse not to use it regardless of the weathers – the wetter the better, because it made the experience even more fun!

Despite the cost, I therefore had no hesitation in ordering one and I haven’t looked back since!  I think everyone should have one, especially here on Guernsey, because they are almost made for Island living.

These are the other reasons I love our bike:

• They help you to get really fit. For me the bike is a mode of transport as opposed to an opportunity for ‘exercise’ and yet the by-product of using it all the time is that I’ve gotten fit. Some people believe electric bikes are just for old people and don’t think you have to put in any effort. Wrong! You can make it as challenging as you like, you just turn off the electric motor, but even with it on, you still have to peddle! 

• We can easily nip down to Saints Bay for a play on the beach/sea swim before school, without having to worry about parking, before zooming back up the hill (yes, all three of us up Saints hill, no problem) to the school, and again no parking issues.

• I feel even more connected to nature than I did previously, and on the days that I have no cause to use the bike, I try and find any excuse I can to get out on it, even if it is just to nip to the shop, to get some fresh air and have the opportunity to notice the changing skies and landscape. 

• Talking of which, we shop on the bike too, because it has huge paniers than we can fill with a whole family’s worth of shopping. We can also fill it with a plethora of beach toys when we go down to the beach.

• I can even use the bike to get to yoga classes, filling the panniers and the cargo bit with bags of props and mats, absolutely no problem. 

• The front and back lights are really strong and I have no qualms cycling at night, with or without the children, I’ve done both, and it’s really rather lovely because we look for owls and watch the stars and the moon, and we’ve even cycled at night in the pouring rain too.

• In the long run I have no doubt it will be saving me money. It doesn’t cost much by way of electricity to charge the battery (you’ve just got to remember to charge it otherwise it is a challenging cycle, especially with two children on the back!) and I am saving myself my previously weekly petrol bill. 

• I use the cargo bike on journeys I might not have used for my non electric bike previously. I think nothing of using this one to whizz to my parents, or down into town, or out to the cliffs. I now choose the bike over the car. I used to love driving but not anymore!

• My stress levels have reduced significantly, not least from the exercising and fresh air (and being in nature), but from not having to drive (this elevates my stress levels!) and not having to get my children into their car seats, especially my youngest, which used to be a daily battle and often meant that we were then rushing to get to school or appointments on time.

• My overall sense of wellbeing has increased. I feel so much better within myself because of the manner in which it has positively affected my mental wellbeing and lifted my previous depression (at the thought of the school run). It’s like sea swimming, just makes you feel better, more positive somehow. 

• Peace! It’s peaceful on the bike. No radio, no Dirty Bertie or Percy Park Keeper audios, no children bickering or moaning. You get to hear the sounds of nature, the bird song, water in the streams on the way down to Saints or Petit Bot, for example. Admittedly there’s still the sounds of the traffic, but when you get off the main roads this quietens.

• The bike is better for the environment than using a car and is teaching my children about other modes of transport available to them. 

• Using the bike helps to calm the general traffic so other road users benefit (studies have shown that bikes on the roads help to calm the traffic and make the roads safer for cyclists to use).

• We notice the litter much more now and have started going wombling to collect the litter. I never used to notice it when I was in the car, or at least, I might notice it but do nothing about it. Now I feel a need to do something about it. [Look out for details of our next collective wombling session by the way, let’s clean up this island together, collectively!]

• It’s so much fun! We absolutely enjoy going out on the bikes. The boys will choose the bike over the car. Using the bike makes us all happy and there is no doubt that it increases our general sense of wellbeing.

The reasons we don’t like the bike:

None! We love the bike!

Littering ourselves: littering the world

This is the collection of litter that Elijah and I picked up off one lane on the way home from school today.

There is no doubt that much of it came from the same source, probably thrown out of the car on the way home from town.

This just further helps to support my notion that those who pollute their bodies with rubbish, think nothing of polluting the land with rubbish either.

There was a time, a long time ago may I add, when I used to eat take away food after a night out drinking too much alcohol in town! This was back in the day when i smoked cigarettes and didn’t really care much for my body. I also didn’t care much for the environment either.

Fortunately times have changed and I have noticed a direct correlation between me caring more about my body and what I put into and onto it, and about my caring for the environment too. We are the micro of the macro, and this to me has always proved it.

This is one of the many reasons that I am so passionate about yoga, because it helps us to awaken to our bodies and to treat them with more respect, it also helps us to awaken to the wider world around us and to appreciate that our every action has a consequence and with that we have a responsibility.

We have a responsibility not only to ourselves and to our families and the community within which we live, but to the wider world as a whole. Everything we do, every thought we think, it all has an impact somewhere, on someone and on something. There is much truth in the saying, “choose your thoughts wisely, for they are the energy that create your life”.

This is another reason why it is so important we are aware of the manner in which we litter our minds with stuff that we see or hear, be that on Facebook or television, or from other people. It all has an impact on how we think and how we feel, and not always positively, diminishing our energy and numbing our minds.

So it’s not just takeaways and poor food choices that pollute us, but our experience of the world around us and how we digest (or don’t digest) this, and what we hold on to, energetically or otherwise, polluting the way we feel and impacting on the quality of our lives.

I can’t help thinking (ha!) that it is only by healing and cleaning ourselves up, becoming more conscious of our thoughts and those to which we give energy (reducing the litter that we take in and hold on to from our past), as well as the diet that we eat, that we will help to heal and clean this planet.

Of course we can pick litter up, that might help, doing what we can, one day at a time, to help clean up this planet and you might find that the more you care for the planet, the more you might care for yourself, it works both ways. It might also be helpful if polystyrene takeaway packaging was banned!

Love to the planet!

Beinspired by Wombling!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the environment and what more I can do to help heal this beautiful planet we live on. The ‘Found on the Beach in Guernsey (Beachcombers)’ Facebook group have inspired me, as they are always out wombling on the beaches collecting litter and held a large group event recently to clean up Le Grande Havre. 

Travelling by electric bike as much as I can (which has been positively life changing might I add and I can highly recommend), has made me realise how much litter there is cluttering the roads, lanes and hedgerows here in Guernsey. Then, while I was pondering all this, Elijah came from home from school and excitedly told me that the planet is currently being cleaned up as if it’s some agreed worldwide project! I loved the simplicity of his understanding of it. Yes, I thought, let’s just focus on cleaning up the planet, as if we were cleaning up the house, or cleaning up ourselves. The more I thought about it, the more I’ve started to consider that there is a link – the more we do clean up ourselves, the more we want to clean up the environment we live in, and the more we clean up the environment we live in, the more we want to clean up ourselves! 

We’d love it if you got wombling too, but off the beaches, in our many lanes and roads. Perhaps taking a bag out with you to collect litter while dog walking, or when you’re walking the children to school, or just taking a quick stroll around your neighbourhood; anything you can do to pick up litter will help! More hands make ‘light’ work as the saying goes. 

To start this off I thought we could have an impromptu Beinspired ‘Cleanup’ event this Sunday 19th January, 2-3pm. We could meet at Jerbourg main carpark and then split up to comb the area for rubbish on the cliffs, at the side of roads, in hedges and so on.

But whether you can join us on Sunday or not, please do share with us photos of your wombling efforts, which we can post here. Email to me , emma@beinspiredby.co.uk.

Happy cleaning!!

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

Jill's Nut Roast Recipe - not just for Christmas!

I can vouch for the yumminess of this nut roast and can see this becoming a regular dish in our household!

This quantity makes enough for a 1lb loaf tin.

2 banana shallots finely chopped

½ medium aubergine cut into small cubes

½ small butternut squash cut into small cubes

½ large courgette grated (or whole smaller one)

2 sticks of celery finely chopped

½ red pepper cut into small pieces about same size as cubes above

Handful of green beans finely chopped

Couple of tablespoons olive oil

1 flat tsp veg stock powder

50g brown breadcrumbs

70g mixed nuts (almond/brazil/pecan) blitzed to breadcrumb size

4 soft apricots finely chopped

50g pine nuts - whole

50g pistachios – whole

Salt and pepper

1 egg

Sage, parsely and thyme finely chopped

Or

1 tsp ground coriander and 1 tsp ground cumin plus handful fresh chopped coriander

1.         Fry onion and celery for a couple of minutes until onion softens then add rest of chopped veg, turn down heat, put lid on and ‘sweat’ for about 5 – 10 minutes.   Sprinkle over veg stock powder, mix well and leave to cool.

2.         In a large bowl combine breadcrumbs, blitzed mixed nuts, chopped apricots, pine nuts and pistachios.  Add salt and pepper to taste (remember veg stock powder has salt in it too).

3.         Once veg have cooled, add to dry mix and add egg.   Mix well.

4.         Depending on whether you want a herby roast or a ‘curry’ flavour roast, add your choice now and mix well.   You could halve the mix and make two smaller ½ lb roasts.   If you do this halve the herbs and/or spices. Grease your tin (s) and line with a strip of baking parchment.   Press mix down firmly.

Cook in oven at 175 for 45 minutes to 1 hour

For Christmas I topped it with a mixture of fresh cranberries which I had rolled in rice malt syrup and whole pecans.

You could use any mixture of vegetables and/or nuts but you do need the breadcrumbs and egg to ‘bind’ the mixture.

Happy New Year!

Namaste!

Hello, lovely people! I hope you are all well and enjoyed Christmas day with all that sunlight, like a gift from the heavens!

Now, as I sit here writing this on the new moon solar eclipse, the sun keeps disappearing as the rain pours down again. Still, the energy is very clear, and I feel positive for the future as we build up to the end of this decade and a new one soon beginning.

Like the Queen said, this year has been decidedly bumpy as we have been encouraged to let go of anything outdated and inauthentic, healing trauma and anything else that we have been unnecessarily holding on to, and (re)aligning ourselves more fully with our truth. For me it has been a year of studying and learning, embracing Ayurveda and the Scaravelli-approach to yoga, which has turned life on its head, and helped me to acknowledge what has needed to change.

This has been a challenging process at times - looking at ourselves honestly is never easy, nor is knowing how we might make the changes that need to be made. Still, once we take the first step, the universe conspires to do what it can to help us. I am reminded time and time again that it is only by shifting our inner world, that our outer world will change. I think too of Dr Usui’s teachings, 'that it is by mastering the mysteries of self that we learn to affect the mysteries of life’. So true! 

At Beinspired it has been a busy year, with a couple of retreats to Glastonbury and Sark, the annual retreat to Herm and the one to Goa too; the boys have done a lot of travelling! We’re letting go of the Goa retreat for now, and we are still waiting to hear if we’ll be returning to Herm…however, don’t despair as places for the September Glastonbury retreat and the October Sark retreat go on sale at the beginning of February so look out for that!

We’ve let go of our weekend yoga classes for now too. Vicki is taking a break from the Sunday morning class, and I shall be enjoying some time with the family when I’m not running a retreat, workshop or Reiki attunement session.

We have a number of places still available for the Yoga Pause on Saturday 18 January.
This is ideal for those of you who would like to deepen your practice and enjoy a whole morning of uninterrupted yoga - a treat, and a much needed pause in our busy lives…sometimes a pause is all that is needed to shift the perspective more positively. I’m excited about this. Please sign up here

There are also some spaces available on the Yoni Yoga session, one of my favourite sessions of the year which you can sign up for here

The Reiki courses are such a treat, Reiki (and yoga) saved my life and I absolutely love sharing it with others and witnessing how it positively touches lives - the more people practicing Reiki, the best for the planet! There’s two spaces remaining on the Reiki Level Two course on 8 February 2020 and 1 space left on the Reiki Level One course on 1 March. I’m intending to run further courses later in the year so keep an eye out for those. We’re taking deposits for these courses (another lesson learned) and we hope this helps people to commit.

There is something new in 2020 for those of you Reiki Level Two attuned - I am now ready to offer Reiki Master attunements! This will be conducted on a one-to-one basis, with certain criteria met before I am prepared to do this. A big thing for me at the moment is the loss of sacredness in yoga and Ayurveda and I am starting to see this filter into Reiki too. Just to stress that I am not prepared to attune anyone to Master level who is not doing it for the right reasons, it is a calling, not for a title or business. Please find out more here.

The other exciting development for 2020 - we’re giving away our 6-week anxiety video pack for free! We’re aware how many of you suffer with anxiety and we are hopeful that this may help. To access this, click here. Please do give us your feedback. We’re not intending to do any more videos for now, that’s another thing we’ve let go of this year, time for new projects ahead!

We’re still working on our Family Yoga Book, which we hope to finish this year! Steph has now moved onto new pastures and we are lucky that her younger sister, Katie, has taken being my most wonderful helper, and we are all three, keen to see this book come to fruition finally! 

I’m also still editing my third manuscript, and would like to think I might get a chance to finish this too, but lets’s see! My time is limited as the children are my priority and with Eben starting pre-school, I expect I’ll be cycling to drop-off and pick-ups even more than I am already! 

However, if I do find some time, I will also be offering Ayurvedic consolations and Yoga Therapy sessions, which combine Yoga and Reiki on a one-to-one basis, which is a really healing combination. You can find out more by clicking on the links above.

Ah, the other big news (I almost forgot!) is that I have a card reader! Woo hoo! On the basis that it works then this can be used to pay for yoga classes, drop-in or blocks of tokens, and also for Ayurvedic and Yoga therapy sessions. I won’t be using it for Reiki attunement sessions or retreats for now.

For me personally 2020 is about doing what I can to restore the sacred, and to embrace the home. I’m excited that after a 9-year absence, E and I are returning to Nepal with the children in March. This has been a dream since before they were even conceived, I’m sure it’ll be a very different experience to our previous trips. This is a home-coming as much as anything else, as I always considered Nepal my second home, but also an opportunity to truly tap into the sacred which permeates this beautiful part of the world. 

I’m very much looking forward to seeing my Nepali friends again, and will miss Devika who is now living with her family in the US. I am also looking forward to visiting the Namaste Children’s Home, which is very close to my heart. I’m hoping to scout a place for a potential yoga retreat, but I’m very aware that this might be a step too far with the children being the age they are - we’ll see!

I’m also headed to Stonehenge for the summer solstice this year and am keen to explore the sacredness of the Guernsey landscape, which is rich in energetic hotspots. Sacred spaces are a big thing for me and I am giving some thought to this...watch this space!

This just leaves me to wish you all a new year that brings great pease, wisdom, and choices that enrich your life, other’s lives, and the healing of the world!

Love Emma and the lovely team at Beinspired.