Emma Despres 19/10/2022 Emma Despres 19/10/2022

The magic of Sark!

What a treat - dolphins playing near Herm on our way to Sark, there’s nothing quite like watching a pod of dolphins playing in the waves to lift the spirit, a real bonus as we travelled over to Sark for the autumnal yoga and wellbeing retreat.

Sark held us well as it is always does. Not least offering glorious sunrises, but the delight of the dark night sky and the stars shining brightly, I even got to watch the moonrise as I trekked over to the dolmen on Little Sark on my own on Saturday night.

I’m biased I know, I love Sark, but it really is the most wonderful place to retreat, to de-stress, unwind, let go and just go with the flow. You can’t help but connect with nature, the weather, the sea, the wildlife, the elements. It re-centres, re-aligns and re-energises and this is just the land, let alone the yoga.

Obviously I’m biased there too, but since restricting the group size and making it more intimate, it has become an even more enjoyable experience than it as already, certainly for me as a teacher, it allows me to get more involved in each student’s practice, and to manage the space more easily. I’m hopeful that the students feel the benefit of this - I have a sense that they do, as the students were all really committed and the group energy was wonderful.

I have a sense that retreats to far flung destinations need to drop away, not least because of then impact of air travel, and the stress of it, but because of cost in this current climate. And really, why travel far for a retreat, when we have Sark right on our door step, with its hassle free travel (high seas aside!), a wonderful hotel (thank you Stocks) in that amazing Dixcart Valley, and a short commute to the yoga space. We even have the benefit of Lynn-Marie’s healing hands for massage and Reiki. And of course there is Caragh’s chocolate shop too. What’s not to enjoy about any of that?!

I’m really grateful to all the students who joined us last weekend, all of them were returnees, which is credit to both Sark and to these retreats, people do really benefit. And those of us facilitating benefit too. We had a great fun staying at The Old Forge, the boys, E, Katie, Adam, Steph and Sunny too. The boys adore Sunny, we all adore Sunny, and it was an added bonus that Elijah’s pal, Etienne and our friend Faye, came along and hung out with us over the weekend.

We walked, swam, enjoyed the fact the island was super quiet, and the views stunning. We had fun in the sea at Dixcart, and Eben loved running around with Sunny. I got to indulge in my passion for neolithic stones, I love the Goddess statue there and of course the dolmen. I never bore of Sark, there is always so much to do, and actually we took it really gently this retreat and only made it to one beach - well two if you include Le Creux, for a swim right at the end, it’s like swimming in a crystal bowl (or how I imagine it to be!).

Thank you to all of you who joined us and helped to make this another special Sark retreat with lots of memories made and laughter had. I certainly felt the benefit and had my usual two-day post Sark crash! Guernsey always seems so busy and frantic energetically after the beautifully calm and spacious energy of Sark! It really is a magical island.

I’m already looking forward to the next one - our first women’s-only (sorry men!) Yoni Yoga retreat 12-14 May. You can find more information here.

Love Emma x

MAY 2023 RETREAT

Emma Despres 16/10/2022 Emma Despres 16/10/2022

Oh, that moon and shadows

As I expected, the minute I gave up my attachment to my 'delayed/lost’ bag, and started replacing the more practical items, it appeared. The process itself, though, did take me on quite an inner journey, and I shouldn’t have been surprised really, given the potency of that full moon and spending so much time in its rays in stone circles. Full moons have a habit of shining a light into the shadows and certainly a couple of shadows have revealed themselves since.

Not least sentimental attachment to objects (did I mention I lost Eben’s blanket…for a day, what a stress) but confusion that the universe would separate me from the rose quartz and clear quartz I’ve carried on many a dolmen visitation these last few years, let alone the fact I popped the bag in a bubble of Reiki energy with symbols too, for protection. But then, I realise that I’m on a couple of Reiki 21 day cleanses, having undertaken a number of attunements recently, so of course, Reiki was working its magic in helping me to awaken to a few patterns and learn from them.

The principle lessons were of faith in the goodness of humanity and of trusting in the universe. Patience was thrown in there too, the Runes were right about that, and while on some level i knew this to be true - that I needed to be patient - this awareness didn’t stop me getting myself into quite a state, now three days into the bag not turning up and no one from the UK baggage handlers updating me on the situation.

It was this lack of communication that sent my mind into a total spin and triggered an old core belief, that I discovered when I dug deeper into the acute anxiety mode I found myself (by then) in. I knew it was a pattern, because I had felt exactly the same when my friend, Marie, died last year. Obviously one cannot compare the loss of a bag to the loss of a friend, but at its source loss is loss and can trigger the same emotional response, one of feeling totally out of control, because there is absolutely nothing we can do to change the situation.

It was this feeling of being out of control that was really bothering me about the bag. I wasn’t in control. I had an email address but no number, there was nothing I could do, no one to talk to, no one to ask for help, bar my family, who were amazingly helpful and did what they could (and my mum especially, who even retrieved the bag from the airport and waved all my clothes before delivery it home!) . Really, it was an opportunity to surrender, the full moon has all been about surrender after all, but for whatever reason i was struggling with that.

Arriving into Kirkwall in Orkney my bag hadn't made it with me then either; delayed flights and close flight connections made the whole journey rather stressful, but at the same time I knew it was all a lesson in surrendering to it, come what may. It was OK on the outbound, borrowing clothes from my friend and patiently waiting for my bag to arrive the next day, distracted by cairns and stone circles, but back here, on the return leg and with one day becoming two, becoming three and a Sark retreat ahead and all my leggings in my lost luggage, well I wasn’t doing so well at the surrendering!

But there was something else at play, something deeper still, that underlay this feeling of being out of control. This I discovered, when I dug even deeper into this ridiculous stomach churning anxiety I was feeling, was a very old core belief, probably laid down in childhood, around the world being essentially unsafe and people essentially lacking goodness. I know this isn’t true. I’m not normally a catastrophist, I try to see the good in humanity and I am aware of the support of the universe, but for whatever reason, a strand of the old core belief is still there, deep within, and clearly there are some situations, around loss it would seem, and feeling utterly out of control, which trigger it.

The anxiety was crippling. I feel very sorry for people who feel this feeling all the time. Anxiety is horrible. I felt nauseous and restless and agitated, totally on edge, emotional and unable to sleep at night. Fortunately it only lasted a couple of days, but it is a feeling that has popped up a few times this last month, clearly it was trying to get my attention, and all the travel a perfect opportunity, with leaving the children, tight flight connections and two Sark retreats too, plenty of opportunity for my faith being tested and my ability to trust, let go, and surrender, hmm.

Yep, I’m not sure I did that well with the test. I mean I got it eventually, Sark gave me the space to see it clearly, bag retrieved by then. But this was of course after the anxiety had set in. Urgh. Its something I write about in my new book, because I used to get anxious, but I developed ways of avoiding having to feel it, including various OCD tendencies, an eating disorder, smoking cannabis, drinking wine, over exercising and keeping busy!

Over time, as my mind has been positively impacted by the yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda, the thought pattens that led to feelings of anxiety - because of my mind’s imaginings, and the fear that accompanied this - have changed and the coping mechanisms gradually dropped away. But clearly there was still something there, some fear around loss of control and the world being a scary and unsafe place and people inherently unhelpful and uncaring.

[It does concern me though that we are becoming an increasingly automated and online society, lacking in personal touch, face to face communication, customer service and care. We are also becoming increasingly greedy, higher prices for less service, hidden charges and always this emphasis on the bottom line, still putting profit before everything else. What concerns me is that people make this all happen, they work for the companies and make the decisions that essentially put in place all these hidden charges, automated systems, and pressure for online living].

Anyway, the lessons have been learned, I have seen the bigger picture and the manner in which I allowed an old mental pattern and outdated and unhelpful core belief to be triggered. Now I’ve seen it, now the shadow has been brought into the light, I can let it go, or at least be more conscious of it in the future, so I can catch myself quicker, before I enter into a ridiculous and unnecessary state of anxiety, which was simply brought on by my mind. The mind is so clever and yet so dangerous at times.

The fear of loss of safety is huge. Funnily enough, it’s something I have been studying lately, in the body, how we hold onto these patterns, I have a tendency to hold onto it in my knees and thighs, and working recently into my knees and thighs with my yoga teacher, it’s perhaps no surprise this has all come up at the same time. The body keeps score after all, and as we explore deeper levels, well the old patterns start to pop up to be cleared, not only from the muscle memory of the body, but from our mind too, releasing us from our crap and enlightening us - literally lightening us - in the process.

It’s never an easy process as those of you going through your own healing crises will know. But it is a necessary process as we let go of our past and aren’t so restricted by it and the core beliefs we have taken on about ourselves and the world, which keep us literally tied to the past. I find it all very fascinating.

The Sark retreat was amazing, but more on that another time.

Love Emma x

Emma Despres 12/10/2022 Emma Despres 12/10/2022

Orkney stone adventure

I have just returned from THE MOST AMAZING time in Orkney, making a dream come true and finally visiting Ring of Brodgar. It didn’t disappoint. This is the most powerful stone circle I have ever visited and to spend a full moon at it was just one of the most gifted coincidences, which I will never forget, not least for the 40+mph winds, but the solitude and the energy, and all the learnings that came with it.

The island itself is beautiful, a soft undulating landscape which creates a very feminine energy. The place is positively littered with tumulus, cairns, brochs and menhirs making it a stone-lover’s place to be. The stone circles though, of Brodgar and Stenness were really the draws for me, I love stone circles and these are the most northerly in the world with various astronomical alignments and an energy that is like no other I have ever experienced previously.

I was certainly pleased to be there and the whole trip, the turmoil at leaving the boys and the guilt that this brought up which asked me to dig deep into patriarchal wounding around the notion of ‘mother’ and the anxiety that came with tight flight connections that had me almost miss onward flights and for my bag to get delayed in transit on two occasions (and still delayed even now), the stepping outside my comfort zone to walk Ring of Brodgar on my own in the wind and the rain, by moonlight, my friend too cold by then to join me, and the energy that greeted me, to say nothing of the peace that comes from living without WIFI in a pod in the the middle of nowhere for 5 nights, well it certainly all took me on an inner journey.

I learned a lot. Especially that our children survive without us and that their dad can be pleased of a break, that it is absolutely OK to take time out for ourselves, that this doesn’t make us selfish, or bad mothers, or any of that patriarchal crap, that standing stones are just incredible and that latitude makes a big difference to the moon’s transit across the sky, that chanting the Śraddhā Sūktam (for faith) from the Rig Veda over and over again can literally strengthen faith and remind us to trust in the bigger picture, come what may, letting go over and over again, even if that feels uncomfortable and edgy and we have to surrender to that - which was ultimately what the Aries full moon was all about - surrender and faith.

And I’m still digging into that now. Returning home without a bag (still lost in transit) and a charger to my phone, an iPod broken, car brakes needing fixing, and on it goes…but it was ALL worth it. It was an incredible five night break, and while there is so much more I could write, I don’t believe words will ever be enough to share my experience, that it really was between me and the earth and the moon and my stone friend. And actually, that’s probably how it should be. And even that awareness has made me stop and reflect about what is said and what isn’t, about just ‘being’ without having to share. But I couldn’t help sharing a little bit, and the photos, which speak more than the words.

From Standing Stones of Stenness to Ring of Brodgar

Love Emma x

Emma Despres 29/09/2022 Emma Despres 29/09/2022

It's all up in the air!

From an Ayurvedic perspective we are in the airy vata time of the year. From an Astrological perspective we are in Libra, which is an air sign. We’re a week on from the equinox too. So I guess it’s hardly surprising that everything is up in the air, or at least, this is what so many fo you are telling me - “everything is up in the air Emma”. Yes! I hear you. There is change.

E tells me that mortgage rates have tripled so those living on credit will no doubt be struggling. I’m sorry for those in dire straits, but a shift in the housing market is needed, its become pure greed, especially here on Guernsey. Many of you are going through relationship breakdowns or split ups or re-orientation, depending on your perspective, and yet more are changing jobs, careers too, taking the plunge, to try something different, see how it feels, find greater balance amongst the chaos.

It does feel chaotic. But for me, I know that that’s because I am juggling multiple things. Furthermore the energy is whipped up and its busy. I’m an expert on busyness. As E says, he’s never known me not to be busy. But there are different levels to busyness. Too busy and I hit overwhelm really easily, my mind spinning into a frenzy so I have to give myself a really good talking to in an effort to calm down and stop the future orientation. Moment to moment. That seems to work best. Breathing in and taking a long breath out again. Thank God for yoga and Reiki and Ayurvedic herbs!

Busy has its benefits though, if busy is not too busy. This isn’t busy to avoid feeling, or to distract from whatever else might be going on, as a coping mechanism or a form of denial, but busy because life is full and we are enjoying ourselves. I like that busy.

I don’t mind things being up in the air either, because I like change. The key is to maintain one’s centre and stay rooted regardless, in touch with heart and deepening into faith. Easier said than done I know, especially when you’re in the thick of it and not sure where it’ll all land. But in many respects that’s quite exciting, even though it can prompt anxiety, because of the groundlessness. Hence the benefit of getting outside, connecting with the earth and breathing fresh air into your lungs, let alone getting to a class and sloooowwwwwinnng down. I love Yoni Yoga for that.

The other thing going on - people are feeling under the weather, quite literally, the weather is shocking today and more forecast, it was a quick shift from the delights of summer to the wet and decidedly cold snap into autumn. It’s a huge seasonal transition, and one that does involve some grieving, especially if you are a summer lover and loved this summer especially with all that beautiful weather and the fun that was had, let alone the socialising and summer romances, and all that entails.

Grief is held in the lungs. The lungs fill with air. The heart chakra is represented by the element of air. So we may be feeling a heaviness in our heart, maybe a seasonal cold and cough trying to clear it out, maybe a depression that comes with this heaviness and sickness and the general grieving that might be needed, as we are encouraged to let go over and over again. Letting go of outdated ways of being, letting go of toxic people, letting go of giving ourselves a hard time for our perceived wrong doings, letting go of our victimhood simply because life isn’t turning out as we want or expect or desire.

if ever there was a time to dig into shifting the perspective, per one of the Yoga Sutras, then this is it. Shft the perspective into something positive. You do have the power for that. Your mind will tell you otherwise. But that’s the nature of the mind, it likes to be in control and when we let it run riot, we end up depressed and anxious and feeling unsafe and crappy about ourselves and the world, and we lose our centre and our confidence and our voice.

It’s also a time to remember the message from the Bhagavad Gita of not being attached to the fruits your labour, whether that be a job, a relationship, or whatever. Let go of expectation. Let go of attachment to outcome. I assure you, life is a lot easier to navigate when you do this. Then you’re not holding yourself up to unrealistic expectations and targets, or giving yourself a hard time because of not getting what you want or feel you deserve, and buying into that whole ridiculous notion that there’s something wrong with you. There isn’t. Its just about re-aligning and, of course, going within. You’ll never find what you’re looking for outside of yourself. Never.

Anyway, I’m writing this while simultaneously making pancakes, sorting a packed lunch and knowing that I have a cat awaiting his breakfast, so I shall leave you to it, knowing that you are not alone, that we are individually and therefore collectively going through a period of big change…its needed, embrace it all. Grieving, let go, and find the joy…and follow your joy too…big heart dive.

I’ll leave you with these heartening words:

“In the time of the Seventh Fire, a New People would emerge. They would retrace their steps to find the wisdom that was left by the side of the trail long ago. Their steps would take them to the elders, who they would ask to guide them on their journey. If the New People remain strong in their quest, the sacred drum will again sound its voice. There will be an awakening of the people, and the sacred fire will again be lit. At this time, the light-skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. One road is the road of greed and technology without wisdom or respect for life. This road represents a rush to destruction. The other road is spirituality, a slower path that includes respect for all living things. If we choose the spiritual path, we can light yet another fire, an Eight Fire, and begin an extended period of Peace and healthy growth. “
Grandfather William Commanda, Circle of All Nations Prophecy of the Seven Fires of the Anishnabe, From Ancient Wampum Belt

Love Emma x

Emma Despres 23/09/2022 Emma Despres 23/09/2022

Happy letting go on Mabon!

Another turning of the wheel finds us in the balance of the autumnal equinox, the harvest festival of Mabon, when day and night are of equal duration and we have the sun rising directly east and setting directly west; the balance tips tomorrow and we descend into the darkness.

I managed to see the sunrise yesterday, knowing that it would be raining today, not that you wouldn’t still get the boost, but nonetheless, i like to see the play of light on the neolithic stones, which are perfectly aligned. It blows my mind every time I watch a sunrise from one of these places, that the ancients so perfectly aligned stones, when you cannot ever be sure of an actual visible sun from one year to the next.

But then life was very different back then. I am reading a fascinating book about the breath and about how the skull was different in ancient times, and how we breathed better, through the nose, maximising prana, so that our whole energy field would have also been more vibrant, purer, we were purer, the earth was purer, we respected her. Those were magical times, I have no doubt we were far more intelligent then too, could move the stones that even our modern technology would struggle to do today.

Interesting times for us now though, as we step further into this new age of Aquarius, which Rebekah Shaman wrote so helpfully about in her recent newsletter, and which you should be able to access through our Facebook page, if not on her own website/social media. We’ve lost our way along the way, forgot what is important, disconnected from nature, saw ourselves separate, separated within ourselves too, mind and body, and soul.

But it does feel as if things are changing. That more people are beginning to realise that we are nature and the more we try to separate ourselves from it, or control it, the more disconnected and chaotic we feel. But that doesn’t stop us being sick as a species - the mind especially is struggling with the pace of what is expected of it to live in this ‘modern’ world, and the body too, that struggles on, more autoimmune issues, people not liking themselves, we are our own worst enemy at times in the way we talk to ourselves and treat ourselves, let alone how this reflects out into the outer world.

What we put out comes back. We judge ourselves, we judge others, we are judged back. We put out sadness, we see sadness come back. We put out our victimhood and this will be reinforced over and over again, simply because of the way we seek it with the energy we put out in the first place. Our mind is rushed and the world rushes back to us. If we find inner peace however, well imagine what a world we would be able to collectively create, if we ALL found inner peace.

I can dream of such times. When we loved ourselves, cared about ourselves, treated ourselves with respect and, just as importantly, treated nature with the same love and care and respect. Alas, nature is a commodity now. Even we’re a commodity. Tax payers. Slaves. It’s all about productivity for the sake of productivity, a linear path taking us to?

I’m much keener on curves. The moon. The sun. The stones in the dolmens. The stone circles. Heads. Shoulders. Knees. Heels. Hips. I love the play of the dance, of the light and the dark. I love the menstrual cycle and all it reveals. I love traveling the world and never quite knowing what might happen next. I love the turning of the wheel and the seasonal shifts it brings. I love random encounters with wonderful people. I love polarities and the gentle balance of their meeting. I don’t particularly enjoy linear living. And I’m not a fan of productivity because it sucks the soul from our very being.

This week has been about meeting the extremes, the root below and the crown above and not seeing it as a linear thing, but of a coming together in the centre, into the balance, and allowing that to move, to draw apart but also when to draw back to centre again. Our centre. Being in our centre. Self-centred. Our self in OUR centre, not anyone else’s. Some may think this selfish but I don’t. We’ve been trained to think it’s selfish but seriously, why on earth would we want to be in someone’s centre? Why would we give our power away to others, losing our centre in the process?

Well sadly, people do it all the time, women especially, still that patriarchal undertone of having to be there for others, of having to give too much of ourselves, of not having healthy boundaries so we know where we end and someone else begins, of enmeshed families where we lose ourselves in the drama of what is expected of us, of the life others want us to live, of their dreams for us, of their caring too much about what others think, of their unintentional denial of our souls and our deeper yearnings to live a life of heart, of our dreams and of spending our time wisely, in our centre, for us, without - so important - without feeling guilty, or judging ourselves for it.

Be in YOUR centre. That’s the message coming through this week. This ahead of the Libra new moon on Sunday, Libra being a sign of balance. This is about balance. This is about living a balanced life in terms of how we relate to ourselves. Breath in and breath out. Give and take. Action and inactivity. Joy and sadness. Gladness and regret. Sunrise and sunset. Moonrise and moonset. High tide and low tide. Man and woman. Young and old. Light and dark. Happiness and depression. Empowerment and disempowerment. We are a world of polarities, of opposites and tensions, yet within all this the balance and a softness - the paradox of life.

However one of our greatest obstacles to this inner balance between the two tensions and to finding our own inner softness (why do we think it’s all about hardening, why are we obsessed about hardening the body/mind, even some approaches to yoga harden the body and therefore the mind?), is our judging one way to be the right way and one way to be the wrong way, one way to be good and one way to be bad. These are just thoughts running through our head. And our thoughts of course create our reality. We are always at war with something it seems, because we are always at war within side ourselves, to different degrees, because we haven’t accepted all parts of ourself.

This not accepting ourselves just as we are feeds our inherent insecurity. We’re trained to be insecure because then we can be more easily controlled. A spiritual path helps to set us free from this training, helping us to love and accept all parts of ourselves, reclaiming our power as we let go of our insecurity about not being good enough, loveable, worthy blah blah blah. It’s all lies. All an illusion. Something we bought into it and believed to be true, a truth. But really it’s just the mind, and its mis-perception of reality, of not seeing the truth of our essence.

This world feeds on insecurity. A whole economy is based on people feeling insecure, of needing something outside themselves to fix them, heal them, make them feel better about themselves. But really, we have all we need inside ourselves, if only we could stop this inner war, learn to accept and love all parts of ourselves, and put two fingers up to those who judge us for standing in our truth and our power, for living life the way we choose, secure in the support of the earth beneath our feet and the heavens/spirit above. The key is to draw this energy into our centre and keep it there.

We will be challenged, there will be obstacles, to test our ability to truth and maintain our faith. It’s interesting to catch ourselves and watch ourselves when the test comes in. To witness what we do. Do we panic, lose our grounding, switch off from spirit and grip on in our centre and to anything concentred we can find, losing ourselves in self destructive and self sabotaging behaviour patterns, or can we find the courage and the strength to stay present to whatever comes up for us, however uncomfortable, and breathe our way through it, leaning into the earth and the heavens rather than turning away from them?

It is this process that brings us more deeply to our centre and to our essence. But we have to find the strength to face it and say a bold ‘no’ to everything else. This is how we build security. This is how we learn to stand in our power, on our own two feet, here on Planet Earth. This is how our soul shines brighter out into the world. This is how we find greater inner balance.

We are safe. We are lovable. We are worthy. We are held in love. The universe has our back. We live in a world of polarity, where there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, only what is. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. A long Exhale. Let it go.

This is really a time of letting go. We’re on the wane to the new moon on Sunday and the descent into the deepest darkest day of the year at the winter solstice. All that we don’t need. All of the crap that we carry that makes us lose our centre and feeds our insecurity, that causes us to give our power away and neglect our boundaries, that can all be let go of now…the guilt, the shame, the malice, the judgements, the victimhood, all of that, can go. The moon and the sun are supporting this shift…it has to get messy because it gets clean…

It’s a time to clean ourselves up. We incarnated now for a reason. So enjoy the ride, because I have a sense it’s going to get a lot more intense if we don’t just get on and do the work...

Happy equinox!

Love Emma x