Becoming unstuck
Well we are certainly experiencing the April showers, cleansing somehow, a transition period to the lighter and indeed warmer days ahead (we can hope!).
It has been profound for me in many ways. I have been feeling spiritually stuck for some time now, not a great feeling, but a necessary one perhaps nonetheless, when you just feel like everything is the same, and you just know that something has gotten stuck inside.
I have started having Reiki for that very reason. For me Reiki is incredible in helping to remove blocks that prevent us from experiencing our true light. For me Reiki always helps to bring the old stuck stuff to the surface, where it is temporarily re-lived and the it goes. Of course the process is not always comfortable. Often you do literally get to re-live those old stuck emotions. So, for example, I have had had to re-live a day of complete insecurity, another of emotional instability with lots of tears, another of anger, and that wonderful frustration!
This is often called a healing crisis, when things get worse before they get better. It would be very easy to get scared by the process and decide that the Reiki is not working, only making you feel worse. But sometimes we have to feel worse to feel better in the long run. But the uncomfortable feelings that come from a healing crisis can often put us off taking the healing any further.
The healing can show up all over the body. I have developed sore patches on my face as the old literally weeps out of me. And then there are the vivid dreams where people from my past appear and I wake up more tired than when I went to bed the night before. Still, it is out. That is the most important thing. I guess it follows the understanding that by letting go of the old stuff, there is room for new stuff to enter. Essentially you can't bring in new stuff to your life, if you are filled with old stuff inside, there just isn't the room.
There is this wonderful quote - if we always do what we have always done, then we will always get, what we have always got.
The wonderful apse ct - for me - of working with Reiki is that it gets things flowing again. It helps to raise the vibration in the body so that you do feel lighter as all that old heavy stuff leaves the vibrational body. You start to feel more connected to the spiritual world somehow, that parallel universe that is beyond time and space.
It has been profound. While that parallel universe has always been there, sometimes it is difficult to feel a connection. The signs are still there, the miracles are still happening and the angels are still trying to nudge us on our path, but we don't notice, we have shut down somehow. Still after a few Reiki treatments, I felt connected again, things have happened, there have been quite a few coincidences, which aren't coincidences at all. Essentially, it is all about divine timing, as the angels have been trying to tell me recently.
I was fortunate to attend a chanting class on Saturday here in Guernsey. I have chanted quite a lot in the past, I have some special memories of chanting with Devika in her Yoga space in Nepal, first thing in the morning, both of us singing along to the mantras sung by the beautiful Deva Premal. The air is clearer and the vibration stronger first thing in the morning and there has always been something quite incredible about the early morning energy in Nepal what with all those mountains and the Himalayan connection to Shiva and the divine.
But here in Guernsey, chanting still has so much stigma attached to it. I have held chanting classes and even incorporated a class in my earlier Yoga & Wellbeing weekend on Herm, plus some one off sessions on a Sunday morning in the St Peter's community hall, but in general classes people often feel confronted by the idea of chanting and even chanting "Om" is too much for some.
It is a shame because chanting is powerful. It stirs something deep inside, the words have a magic of themselves, and the effect on our bodies is quite profound. Essentially the Sanskrit word mantra can be translated as "the force that liberates the mind". A mantra is a scared sound. It may be an entire phrase, a single word, or even a syllable. Mantras are considered to be ancient sounds that express feelings rather than concepts, emotions rather than ideas. It is said that mantras originated in the birth of language itself, and when you chant a mantra, you are chanting sounds that come from the source of all life itself. There is this wonderful quote:-
"This sound is the source of all manifestation...The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe" (Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan).
Regardless of the theory, from experience, I can safely say that chanting really does help to raise the vibration in the body, helps to clear energetic blocks, and helps to assist in entering a meditative state. The class on Saturday was great. Not only did we learn how to pronounce the Sanskrit in its perfect way, but we got to join with others to share the energy. I am really grateful to Michael for organising the session and helping to remind me how wonderful it makes one feel.
That evening I started reading a new book that I had ordered from Amazon a few weeks ago and had only just arrived. It reminded me of that sense of everything being divinely timed. if it had arrived just after I had ordered it then I am sure the messages would have been lost, the timing would have been wrong. It is Paolo Coelho's new book, "Aleph", which spoke to me from the first page. He too was suffering from a spiritual stuckness, where he felt disconnected from the spiritual world, stuck in the routine of the mundane world.
He began a journey, a physical one, as the pilgrim he is, to bring him back to himself, to his light again. So his journey continues to talk to me, for while I have not disappeared to Nepal to seek the light again as I would have done previously, I have still been fortunate to feel the light returning once more and the messages and the signs were obvious for a few days.
In fact I had to laugh. On Sunday morning I attended a Yoga therapy course about Yoga and the back with a yoga therapy teacher from the UK. This was great. Lots of slow movement to seek release through the back (through the spine therefore, the conduit of all that prana) coupled with chanting "Om" on the exhalation. So again more chanting in my life and "om" of course is widely considered to be the most powerful of all mantras.
In any event I left that class floating and feeling ridiculously tired. I have been ignoring the signs for a while - the ones that ask me to soften, to rest and to let things happen, rather than the constant pushing and effort that goes with trying to make things happen when the time is not right. There is a certain quality that comes from having patience and waiting for life to unfold and opportunities to present themselves - think divine timing and also the Oak tree, how it grows in its own time, it wouldn't have the energy to constantly grow, it needs to take time to rest too.
So there was a lesson hammered home and believe you me, I have been trying to learn this lesson for the last 2 years since I suffered adrenal exhaustion from simply doing too much. It makes me chuckle to think that I have been resisting for so long, caught in the same mental groove over and over again.
In any event later that evening having spent an hour that afternoon lying on the sofa reading Paolo's book, I begrudgingly joined E and our friend Chris to watch a DVD. I was expecting it to be either violent or adrenally exhausting, hence my reticence just before bed on a Sunday evening. However it was quite amazing as it had a spiritual undertone that showed a guy in prison discovering a spirituality that focused on chanting to heal the soul. He went through quite a transition to find his light again and while all the other main characters lost their own light a little, he grew and moved his life on upon release from prison.
It made me laugh. It was a totally random choice but I couldn't help thinking of the coincidence, that chanting has certainly come back into my life, and with that a renewed sense of faith and spirit. It reminded me that the signs are everywhere, if only we can see them. The miracles too. We just have to have the courage to go let go.
On another note our poor little white nectarine and peach trees have black fly. Nasty things. Mum and I spent an hour on Sunday afternoon picking off the bad leaves and using an organic spray to deter the black fly from spreading even further. We planted more seeds so we have quite a nursery now. And back here at home E and I have been planting more flowers in the garden and he has been adding to our trees too. I guess we are trying to do our bit to bring more life into this world and more healing vibrational energy too.
So let us see what this week offers, another Reiki session and more Yoga classes.
With love, light and gratitude
xx