Cultivating a positive and heart orientated perspective
What’s become clearer to me is that we are indeed going through a period of re-prioritisation and re-orientation, realising more of what is important and therefore how we expend our energy and time. There appears to me to be a draw towards gratitude and acknowledging and celebrating all the beauty and blessings in our life.
If we are used to catastrophising and always seeking the negative then this will be a significant shift for us, and we will likely have to pay great attention because old habits and patterns of negativity will still be there, ingrained, and we will have to work to replace them with a more positive approach to our perspective and life. But it can be done!
Yoga Sutra 33 reads, “Vitarka badhane pratipaksha bhavanam’’ which basically means when improper thoughts trouble you then take the opposite side. This can be applied to our thinking. if we notice we are thinking negative thoughts and caught in a pattern of head versus heart, fear/insecurity versus love and future/past versus now, then we can begin to cultivate greater awareness of shifting away from our habitual patterning and instead rest into the heart, feel into love and be here NOW. This is the first Yoga Sutra - “Atha yoga anushasanam” - Now, the teachings of Yoga. This stresses the importance of being in the here and now.
When we are in the here and now, it is much easier to rest into the heart and be grateful for all that we are and have in our lives. The problem comes when our head takes over, as it has a tendency to flitter between what has happened in the past and our imaginings of the future, and before we know it we can find ourselves entering a rabbit hole…we can stick ourselves in the past simply because we cannot move away from our memories (false or real) of what happened to us previously and therefore we will be less likely to take a step into the unknown and uncertain of the future. Furthermore, we can get stuck in our imaginings if the future, based on our memories of the past, and again, be so much in our head that we also don’t allow ourselves to move forward in our lives.
I go into this in my new book, From Darkness Comes Light, which should be available to buy in September…but as a summary, the fear of the unknown and uncertain sticks us in our head and fills us with fear. Then we lose all sense of gratitude, because we are busily trying to figure everything out mentally and intellectually. If we can orientate back to the heart - which frankly couldn’t care less about certainty and being known because it just wants to help you express your soul in the world just for the sheer joy of experiencing itself (to therefore to gain anything from the experience, hence all the spiritual emphasis on letting go of the fruits of our labour and having no expectation to outcome, just create for the sheer joy of the creative process, not for the end result (therefore if you want to write or paint, just do it for the love of it, not to sell a best seller!))- then we will fin ourselves in the present moment where all is well and all is possible. There is nothing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to let go of either. We just be.
I do feel that many of us might be treading this space. The eclipse awoke each of us a little bit more to our potential and wants his to step further out of our comfort zone and to truly express our soul and our gifts in this world. We just have to let go of old patterns around not being good enough, not being deserving/worthy enough of a bloody good life, and not letting old feelings of insecurity and fear of loss get in our way. There is nothing to lose as we don’t own anyone or anything anyway! And we are good enough, beautiful enough, deserving enough, because we are SOUL.. and how can it be any other way. It’s just our silly little ego that tells us otherwise.
So we can really work with this sutra to shift our perspective and remember to express gratitude, to acknowledge all the many blessings and gifts in our life. The Kirtan on the beach last night with the children was an absolute blessing. Eben slept on me the whole time, which was a gift in itself as he can be a pickle playing with other children, and it was wonderful to see Elijah off playing with his friends, and my other mum-friends able to enjoy the chanting while their children played too. It was a delightful evening, the weather was amazing, the fire an added joy and beautiful people sharing their lovely energy - thank you Katie! We’ll do another family friendly Kirtan again soon.
So with gratitude to all of you who read this, albeit I’d write it anyway, but nonetheless, I do appreciate the support and all the joy that writing and sharing brings into my life. Hope to see some of you around a fire or on your yoga mat or even joining me online tonight for the free Reiki share at 8.30 where we will be sending Reiki to those in need and to ourselves too.
Love Emma x
