Having our space and not caring

Our attempts at conscious uncoupling (opposed to unconscious coupling as I keep saying by mistake) has led to me having my own bedroom again, the first time in over 12 years now and it’s amazing!

I have always been a fan of bedrooms and like many others my age, spent much of my teenage years in my bedroom, if I wasn’t at school or out surfing. At university I was also a fan of my bedroom and was often huddled away, I loved staying up late while everyone else had gone to sleep, enjoying the stillness of the evening, listening to music, smoking joints and writing poetry. Back home post-university, my bedroom was my refuge, struggling as I did in those days with the reality of office work and a life that didn’t quite feel right - more of which you can read about in my new book (we ALMOST have a launch date, hoorah!).

When travelling, I loved nothing more than the safety and sanctitude of my room. On my many trips to Pokhara in Nepal, I would often choose the same room in the same hotel and on one trip I spent a couple of months living in it to the extent that it felt like my second home. I loved living so simply and with very few possessions, it felt light and spacious, at time there wasn’t even electricity, and this was before the dreaded WIFI, when the air was still and quiet.

Then there was a memorable month spent in a room in a YMCA in Vancouver - the first two weeks I was studying Yoga Therapy with Phoenix Rising, and then a further two weeks spent mainly in silence, popping out only to shop, attend yoga classes and go swimming. I reminisce about those last two weeks regularly, there’s nothing I find more uplifting and nourishing for my spirit than silence and my own space to just be.

In fairness I have had my own space since living at the cottage, and in the last few years especially, since having Eben, my sanctuary has been our main bedroom, where I tend to spend my evenings if not out wandering or swimming or whatever else may be happening. I don’t like TV, or noise generally, so I have made the most of the peace of our room and the bath, always I like to read in the bath as a way of winding down. But all that aside, I hadn’t realised that having my very own room would make such a difference, and a room that is far away from the dreaded TV!

Yes, the TV is really a bother for me and when I have lived on my own I haven’t had one. I always remember a fellow yoga teacher coming to our cottage for a private yoga session and judging me because of the TV screen in our living room, which you have to pass to get into the healing space. She commented on it, surprised, expecting me not to have a TV because I guess she had in her head a perception of how other yoga teachers might live. The reality is, I live with a family and while the boys watch their iPads and not the TV (yes, I’m totally OK with iPads), E loves watching films, the TV is his thing, who am I to dictate he shouldn’t have one because I don’t like it - does it make me more or less spiritual in any event?

Which brings me to the ‘judgment’ theme coming up with this full moon. It was really obvious to me yesterday working with clients as they too face their judgements, not least of self but of others. The main theme is about caring too much about what others think about us and the way this limits us in the choices we make. More often than not we have been trained to care, to the extent that we don’t always make the choices we’d like to make because we make them through this fear of how we are perceived by others, which means we’re judging ourselves and trying to see ourselves through their eyes, which off course we can never get ‘right; because we can never truly know what’s happening in someone else’s mind.

The spiritual world is rife with judgement, the spiritual ego is ever so tricky. We judge ourselves for not being spiritual enough, or for others not behaving the way we expect them to, because of the position they hold, or the way we perceive them and how we think they should live based on level of consciousness at that time. As I said in my last post, until we have lived in their shoes, how can we possibly know what it is like to live in their life so why do we think we should judge or criticise them for what we believe to be their short comings or their arrogance or whatever it is.

Being a yoga teacher, for example, does not mean you have to live a certain way. Being a human being doesn’t mean you have to I’ve a certain way either for that matter. Yet we are trained to live a certain way, maybe we call it convention or mainstream, ether way it’s a drag on the soul for so many, because our Way is not necessarily the way society has become, yet we are shoe horned at school to fit into the norm, and on it goes, to the extent that so many suffer with depression and anxiety trying to live a way that isn’t in alignment with their truth and who they truly are on a soulful level.

It takes courage though to live our way. We have to let go of our conditioning and be OK with living differently to others. We have to stop caring what other’s think. And to be honest, as tricky as it might feel initially, once we’ve stopped caring what others think about us, then it can be ever so liberating, because we stop judging ourselves too, for not living the way expected of us, or wanted for us, or imagined for us, or trained into us.

There is no right way, or wrong way, only the way that works for us. Obviously there’s the path of heart and the path of ego/fear, but who are we to judge which path we or someone else takes. And when it comes to parenting, we really have to let go. I know I felt a pressure for a long time, almost apologising for my perceived short comings in comprising on my high values pre-children.

For example, I wasn't going to let my children eat all sorts of things that they now eat, I also wasn’t going to let them have screens, but they adore their iPads. A client was surprised recently to hear that I let my children have iPads. It caught me for a minute, because I felt judged and I felt an old habit of judging myself kick in and I responded in a defensive way, justifying their iPad usage. Then i noticed what I’d done and almost chuckled to myself. Who cares. My boys love the iPads, whatever my justification and really I don’t care too much what anyone thinks about that.

Its the same with all sorts of things. Who cares which school children go to, whether they’re home schooled or not, whether they go to bed at 7pm or 9m, how they’re achieving, whether they’re dairy free or gluten free. What does it really matter to anyone else, or more to the point, why should it matter to anyone else. The minute we let go of caring, well the easier our lives become, the more we can live and let live, and truly own the choices that we make for ourselves and our family and not live in fear of being judged or criticised for them.

Which brings me back to our current reality. We’re finding out way. I always remember as children, going to stay at my parent’s friends house in the UK and being shocked that the couple had their own rooms with their own single beds. This was quite in contrast to the life I knew, where there was a family of four, with three bedrooms, one for the parents and one each for each child. Now I see it very differently, but it has taken time to unpick that conditioning and allow myself our own unique family way, that doesn’t fit a norm or convention and that is fluid (as my niece would say). The boys choose to share a room together, which is just as well for now.

The move itself was amazing. Well not the dismantling and re-assembling of three beds, albeit E and I managed to do all that without getting annoyed once, but the opportunity it presented for a big clear out of clothes and stuff, clearing out the energy. This felt very needed, not least with the seasonal change, but because of the new beginnings this move has created. I don’t think people realise the energetic drain of holding on to unnecessary stuff and the manner in which clutter messes with our energy.

Our boys are loving their new bigger bedroom together, E is enjoying his own space too and I am definitely enjoying the solitude of my smaller room, all to myself, well in theory, because obviously it doesn’t quite work out like that. The boys were rolling round on my bed last night before their bath. Then cat came in and fell asleep in my basket of scarves. And then later, I hadn’t actually tuned off my light to go to sleep when Eben joined me, kicking his way through the night beside me in bed. But hey, it’s a work in progress!

So this post is a big thumbs up to having one’s own space. It’s also a reminder that we’re in a period of change. The theme of ‘judgement’, whether that be being judged by others and/or judging ourselves (usually both) has been coming up today, along with the theme of caring too much about what others think about us and giving our power away accordingly, and/or being open to manipulation. So be aware of that and try to find the peace where you can - not caring is a really good place to start, oh and carving out your own space just to be.

Love Emma x