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.