The Blessings in the Curse

Now I’ve found my flow within this new reality that we find ourselves in, I have to admit that I am loving it. I appreciate that people are dying and are losing their jobs and others are unwell and separated from their families, yet I am grateful for this opportunity to shift how we are living and align to something slower paced instead. 

In many respects I have been quite lucky as our lives were already lived relatively simply. I wasn’t going to an office and I wasn’t working full time, so being at home with the boys has not been a shock to my system as it would understandably have been for others – I am in awe at those attempting to work full time from home and school children all at the same time. It helps too that my parents are on hand by FaceTime to help with Elijah’s learning, and I have been grateful for their support.

But more than that, over the years of practising yoga, aspects of how my life used to be lived have dropped away, I don’t go out for dinner, or socialise with the girls beyond meeting for a sea swim, for example. I don’t go to the hairdresser regularly, or have my nails done. I don’t go shopping for clothes or for anything else beyond food if I can help it! I don’t go to the cinema or to the gym. I don’t really do very much when I think about it, beyond yoga, writing, cycling, going to the beach, and being with the children!  

Of course there are things I miss, but the missing doesn’t feel as great as it did at the beginning, as I have let go a little of those attachments too. No doubt there will be more to let go of as this lockdown continues, but I’ve started to recognise more of the positives than the negatives and long may this continue! To be honest I have felt much more gratitude for all I have in my life, now, than I ever did previously and this in itself has been a positive, as are these:

·      There is less rushing and for this I am eternally grateful! I have known for a while that I needed to slow my life down and stop with the rushing, especially rushing the children in and out of the door, and lockdown has achieved this for me. We no longer need to rush and life is so much easier!

·      Time has taken on a whole new meaning. Aside from being on time for the yoga classes that I have scheduled, and the FaceTime sessions with my parents for Elijah’s home schooling, there is no need to be on time for anything else because we have no plans, we are able to just literally flow with where the energy takes us and that is extremely liberating. 

·      This means that we are able to drop more into the notion of there being no time or space, as we learn in Reiki Level Two, and I feel that this lockdown has allowed a greater lived sense of that. Time and space seems less of an obstacle as we connect over the internet regardless of space and time – one of my friends, Lottie, has been able to join some of the Facebook Live sessions with us from Australia, which is just wonderful. 

·      There has been greater connecting with people who are on my wave length, who I hadn’t had the opportunity to connect with previously. It’s as if a whole new world has opened up bringing with it lovely new connections. There’s also been a deepening in established connections, which has been wonderful too. 

·      The reduction in noise from the roads and the skies is a true joy and I can hear the bird song much clearer than previously and I’m slowly learning to recognise which bird song comes from which bird type!

·      I also feel that I can see more clearly too, without all the traffic, and I actually stopped my bike the other day, when I was out cycling, to stare at the wonder which was someone else’s garden full of beautiful flowers blossoming.

·      I feel like I can breathe more easily too, especially when I am out on my bike, the air just feels cleaner, like its filled with more prana, perhaps because it is spring and nature is abundant in energy. 

·      At times it feels as if the flowers on the hedgerows and cliffs and in the gardens are from another world as they look so stunning and so vibrant, with their bright colours, reminding me that nature is abundant in her beauty and is not scared to share with it others, so that we too can delight in it.  

·      Being more aware of what I am buying, and trying to make as many snacks as I can as well as cooking from scratch twice a day and having the time to be a little more adventurous than I might be normally.

·      The opportunity to write - not least a little more time without the regular trips backwards and forwards to the school each day, but also the creative impulse, as if the time and the space and the extra yoga lessons that I have taken with my teacher have allowed me the opportunity to drop deeper into the creative.

·      Extra yoga lessons with my teacher have been a joy as both of our schedules have eased and E is at home to help with the children.

·      The time spent as a family. We were lucky as our lives allowed us a lot of family time previously, but now we have even more time together, and while this certainly brings with it its challenges (how can it not!), it has also been wonderful to be more involved in Elijah’s education, and witness more fully the mania of Eben!

·      This has been another benefit, watching the children coming into their own, in their own ways. Elijah has never passionate about school and he is enjoying not having the pressure of that and he’s now stopped counting down to the weekend! He has enjoyed learning from home, and I have enjoyed being more involved in his learning so that we can celebrate his achievements together. 

·      While Eben has been a challenge at times because he just doesn’t understand the reason he can’t see my parents, and he misses his friends and pre-school, it has been lovely to see him thriving and wilding himself even more than usual.

·      Watching the boys’ relationship develop. They are forced together for most of the day and they have thrived on this, playing in a way they have never played previously, and we are laughing more together as a family because of this. We’ve been grateful for the opportunity to walk a dog for another family, we love this dog and she has brought much joy to us as a family.

·      This is the other thing, this wilding. The boys have always been a little wild and E and I too really, but now we can truly embrace this aspect of self, getting out into nature, wearing the same clothes more than once, and embracing the dirt!

·      I’ve stopped being so obsessive about the cleanliness of the house. This is a big one for me as I am a bit OCD with cleaning as those who know me will agree, but I’ve let this go a little too, as I have re-prioritised my time, I’d rather be writing or playing outside with the boys than cleaning for the sake of it, hoorah for that!

·      Creating a Reiki community, which is something I have always wanted to do but never had the time nor the idea of how I might make this happen. But it has happened all by itself and I look forward to the weekly Tuesday evening sessions so that we can connect through Zoom. 

·      Creating an online yoga community has been wonderful too, to stay connected and share yoga with others during this tricky time felt by many, especially those juggling a working schedule and home schooling children. It is a joy for me to teach yoga and I am grateful that I have been able to continue to do this and to share my passion to help and support others as yoga has helped and supported me enormously over the years and continues to do so.

·      A depending connection to the Earth and to her ancient wisdom. I have even started planting seeds to attempt to grow medicinal herbs, something that has been on my mind for a while now, and I am hoping that they will be kind and grow for me and for me to share with you. A whole new world potentially awaits, let us see.

·      Getting out running. I’m not a runner, I prefer swimming and cycling, but running has helped me to process my thoughts and all that is happening, it has given me the space to think about the book I am writing, it has helped me to notice the beauty of nature around me and to clear my head and enjoy some solitude away from the family. 

·      Having to face my long-held fear of IT and learning how to do online videos for myself, let alone sending out newsletters and doing minor updates to the website. It has been a teeny bit empowering and I hope I can continue to build on it. I am very grateful to Katie Bisson, my brother and Nicky Jenkins who have all helped in the background. 

·      I have had to face my fear of seeing myself on the screen! I employed Steph to film the videos on my website professionally,  and so I have never watched them as she kindly did all the editing without needing my input, so I have avoided thus far seeing myself on them. However with Facebook Live and Zoom I get to see myself on the screen as they are recording and I have to admit that really it is no big deal, I wonder what all the fuss was about! 

 ·      I have had to look a little at my fear of my family getting ill or dying. I suspect I am still very much in denial about this as I comfort myself very quickly with thoughts of karma and our souls having their own journey. It’s a fear that I will one day have to overcome, but I’m hoping that now is not that time. 

·      I’m extremely grateful for my family and for my home, and for the land on which we live, and this beautiful Island on which I was born and the wonderful community we have. We are truly blessed.  

·      While it might sound as if it is all about me if my ramblings above are anything to go by, It is extremely humbling to recognise those who are deemed essential workers and those who are not. As a yoga teacher and Reiki practitioner, I am not deemed an essential worker, and nor would I have been if I had continued to work as a company secretary in the finance industry. There is a humility that accompanies this and it is my hope that greater respect is given for those key workers post-Covid, the ones who ensure that there is minimal disruption to the fundamentals of our ability to live, from those working at the docks, to those filling the shelves, from those caring for the elderly to those working in hospitals. Let us not forget. 

·      What I am loving the most is that this period is unprecedented, there is no guideline, no societal expectation on how we as a society or individually should behave or feel. I doubt there is a business model that can help guide businesses through this time with any certainty, we are all having to find a new way. This is extremely liberating not only in the moment, but also for the future of our society. We each have our own role to play in this, as part of the collective, to determine the kind of life we want to live post-Covid.

·      My soul feels more at ease, it enjoys this gentler rhythm, the time to observe my breath, to feel a part of nature, and to be in the flow of it – helped enormously because it is spring time. 

There are many other benefits too, in the wider world:

·      Councils in the UK have been told to house homeless people, some are now even being housed at Heathrow.

·      The population has renewed respect for health workers and those on the front line.

·      Around the world, Seismologists are observing a lot less ambient seismic noise – meaning the vibrations generated by cars, trains, buses and people going about their daily lives has decreased. This means that the Earth’s upper crust is moving a little less and overall the Earth is currently a much quieter place to live than it was.

 ·      There has already been a noticeable decrease in air pollution in some of the world’s most polluted cities.

 ·      I read that even the Ganges is looking a little bit cleaner!

·      People are coming together and helping their communities and especially the vulnerable within them.

·      People are connecting across the internet, there is a sense of global solidarity. 

I appreciate that there are many suffering because of fear about poor health and losing those they love, others fearful for the loss of the life they had previously enjoyed as more are made redundant or otherwise lose their jobs. Yet I know that every burden carries with it a blessing, it is the natural lore. So while it might feel chaotic and mad, once the turmoil has eased, the bigger picture will become much clearer.

We each have the opportunity now to re-assess our priorities and to really live and embody them, not just think about them, and then put the list back into the drawer until we have more time in our lives. That time is now. If ever there was a time. It might still feel crazy and messy, but every ending feels this way, and we should take comfort in the thought of the peaceful and more aligned new beginnings ahead, we just have to trust and keep letting go into the flow.

I hope that this time is kind to you and that you are able to be kind to yourself too. If ever there was a time for kindness and compassion then it is also now. Every now. But especially this now. 

Lots of love xxx

The light is never far away from the dark

If ever there was a time to settle into the light then it is now; as so many are overwhelmed and suffering, being forced to face their deepest fears.

It is a turbulent time of change and upheaval on Mother Earth, and I feel it is more important than ever to hold space for those who wish to connect to their inner light and wisdom, pouring love out into the world and raising vibration through yoga and Reiki classes. 

I’m writing this while on retreat on Sark, where the energy of fear has yet to appear and we are able to settle into our centre more easily. While others may feel differently, this is a heartfelt choice for me right now, although may well change as events unfold.

On Saturday, I was cycling down Sark’s high street, trying to think what I might write to those who attend class when I felt an overwhelming need to visit the local charity shop, which I’ve wanted to do for years. In here, I was immediately drawn to the book section where a book, “The Game of Life and How to Play It” by Florence Shinn caught my attention.  I opened the book by chance on page 51 and there in front of me were written these exact words:

“Perhaps one’s fear is of disease or germs. Then one should be fearless and undisturbed in a germ-laden situation, and he would be immune. One can only contract germs while vibrating at the same rate as the germ, and fear drags men down to the level of the germ”. 

Then later, at class, a particular poem caught my attention that I felt absolutely had to be shared:

The Choice for Love

What does the voice of fear 

Whisper to you?

Fear speaks to you

In logic and reason.

It assumes the language 

Of love itself.

Fear tells you,

“I want to make you safe”

Love says

“You are safe”.

Fear says

“Give me symbols.

Give me frozen images.

Give me something 

I can rely on”

Loving truth says

“Only give me 

This moment”

Fear would walk you 

On a narrow path

Promising to take you

Where you want to go.

Love says,

“Open your arms

And fly with me.”

Every moment of your life

You are offered the opportunity

To choose-

Love or fear,

To tread the earth 

Or to soar to the heavens.

If ever there was a time to accept the universal order, which only appears to be chaotic and ever-changing, then it is now. Regardless of what life throws at us, individually or globally, the dance of the universe is a happy one. We should nor fear the change or the loss – from darkness comes light.

This is an opportunity to put into practice all we have learned on our spiritual journey thus far:

• To stay centred through great confusion. 

• To go with the flow, not sweating the small stuff. 

• To develop a forgiving heart if someone has caused us harm. 

• Accepting life as it unfolds, however uncomfortable. 

• Finding the courage to live from our hearts and our deepest truth, even if that goes against what is expected of us by others. 

• Letting go of judgments and feeling compassion instead for those who have made different choices to our own. 

• Sending love and light to all those suffering, especially those who judge and criticise us for the choices we have made. 

 Love Emma x

Ten years of sea swimming - the joy!

As I approach the ten year anniversary of all-year around sea swimming, I can’t help thinking how much life has changed, so that sea swimming has become normalised (as has chakras and crystals), which can only be a good thing.

Even doctors are nowadays prescribing sea swimming for depression as a friend of mine recently discovered. It was a bout of depression and anxiety that initially brought me to all-year around sea swimming. Depression was familiar, but anxiety was new to me and I was gripped by a ridiculous fear of leaving the house and was weepy and emotional, slightly paranoid too. 

I’d been overworking, teaching too much yoga and channelling too much Reiki without protecting myself properly or establishing good boundaries. It was a lesson learned. But nonetheless at the time, it was a little traumatic as I wasn’t familiar with the intensity of the feelings of anxiety and fear of leaving the house.

I stopped working, I had no choice, and took myself off to the doctor who referred me to the local mental health service for CBT. She prescribed Prozac too, but as with previous prescriptions for this drug, I knew that the pharmaceutical route was not for me, depression in my experience is a depression of the soul and this was a wake-up call; I wasn’t listening to my heart, or honouring my soul; my spirit was low.

One of my friend’s, who had a history of depression, invited me to join her sea-swimming, she said that it has really helped her when she was feeling low. I was aware by then of the healing power of nature, and E had encouraged me into the garden, and at the advice of my Ayurvedic doctor I was getting my hands in the earth and weeding – as if weeding out the weeds that were causing my depression, my inability to access the light. I was keen to try sea swimming and appreciated my friend’s support.

I’d been an avid surfer during my teenage years so was frequently in the sea all-year around, albeit in a wet suit. During my twenties, while I had stopped surfing by then, I hung out with a group of friends who were passionate about the sea and we’d frequently do the ‘weaver run’, often on our walk home late at night from the Rockmount, either at Cobo or Vazon. This involved removing our clothes and running as fast as we could into the sea at low tide, risking a weaver fish sting!

We’d also meet regularly after work during the summer months to swim at ‘Barnacle Point’ off Albecq or from the rocks near Fort Houmet, eager to connect with the sea after a day spent sat in soul-less offices. Towards the end of my twenties, I started travelling regularly, to Australia mainly, to undertake my yoga training, and I’d swim every day in the sea. Back home in Guernsey though, I might go a few times during the summer, but I didn’t make a habit of it.

So now I was keen to see how connecting with the sea might make me feel.  My friend collected me one mid-morning and drove us to Petit Bot, where we were the only people on the beach. It was this that positively affected me as much as the sea swim. I was so used to working during every hour that I had available to me, that I rarely took time to get out during the day time, and it felt odd, like a whole new reality was presenting itself to me – one where you allowed yourself to go to the beach during ‘normal’ working hours and do something for yourself, namely swim!

The swim itself was amazing. For the first time in days I wasn’t pre-occupied by the stomach churning anxiety and emotional sensitivity that this brought with it. Instead, I experienced myself very much in the present moment, of being shocked awake in the freezing cold sea! I couldn’t believe how much better I felt afterwards, as if something had literally been awoken in me; my mind calmer, my body more grounded than it had been for a long time, my energy cleansed, and my soul nourished by this interaction with Mother Nature.

I was hooked almost immediately and haven’t looked back since. I took a few months off from working, and went sea swimming daily, either with my friend, and the other ladies who swam at Petit Bot at that time, or with E watching from the beach. My mental wellbeing improved significantly during this period, and I always accredit sea swimming for this. 

Not only did the physical act of getting in cold water help to ground me in the present (and therefore ease the anxiety and depression) but it also helped me to look at my life and re-prioritise the way that I was living it, with daily sea swimming becoming an essential part of this. It created a shift in my perspective too, and I started to feel joy again, how could I not, as I took in the beach and the sea and the sky above; a true blessing and I started to feel gratitude again – my thoughts became more positive.  

It took him a while but a year later, in the following March, E started swimming regularly with me and hasn’t stopped since. This began our mutual love of Petit Bot and we have swum there regularly ever since, sometimes daily depending on our schedules and the extent of the shore break, which seems to have gotten worse over the years! 

I swam in the sea throughout both my pregnancies, swimming the day before both boys were born. I was back in the sea as soon as I was out of hospital too, albeit I wasn’t able to swim as I had to have Caesarean sections for each of them. I wasn’t meant to be submerged in water, but I just needed to cleanse my energy and stand in the sea up to my waist, feeling its coolness and hearing its sounds; grounding and soothing after the trauma of birth!

Both our boys, Elijah and Eben, have fairly much grown up at Petit Bot! I remember the first time we took Elijah, fresh out of hospital and both of us going into the sea at the same time, as we’d done so many times previously, him in his car seat sat up on the pebbles at the top of the beach. We suddenly realised that this probably wasn’t appropriate, a helpless baby left on his own on the beach. It was just such a bizarre concept for us both, and this began our tag team effort, taking it in turns to swim ever since.

We’ve many photos of the boys on Petit Bot in various stages of development, car seats to crawling, toddling to running, and now climbing the rocks! We’ve seen the beach at all stages of tide, in all weathers and all times of the year; we know it well and love it dearly, there’s something special about knowing a beach. Our favourite time of year is October, when the summer visitors have left and the dog walkers are yet to arrive; we’re pretty much guaranteed to have it to ourselves. But we do have it to ourselves a lot of the time, especially early in the morning, and we’re always grateful for this.

We were tickled last year to be gifted, quite by chance, a Guernsey calendar, and were quite surprised to find a photo of us for the month of January (the person who gave the calendar to us didn’t realise this!). I contacted the photographer and she said she had met a friend at Petit Bot the previous January and had seen us walking down the beach, me carrying Eben in a car seat, and Elijah and E walking beside me, about to go for a swim, and thought it looked a lovely family scene. She kindly gave us a copy of the photograph, which I’ve posted above.

Growing up on the West coast of Guernsey and spending much of my time on Vazon beach, knowing that beach like a second home, it has been lovely getting to know more of the South coast of this stunning Island I’m lucky to call home. More recently I’ve been swimming at Saints with a small group of ladies, perhaps three or four times a week, on the way to drop Elijah to school in the morning – he loves it as he can climb the rocks and get some fresh air before going in the classroom. 

This has added a whole new dimension to sea swimming, allowing me to connect with another beach, and one that needs to be approached on foot (or bike in our case) so is even more private than Petit Bot, attracting a couple of other sea swimming groups; the sunrise can be spectacular in the winter months. Also, it has caused me to develop a beautiful relationship with the other ladies, brought together by our love of sea swimming and spending time outdoors in nature. 

We might swim at Fermain sometimes too, especially on a full moon, where we howl at her rising ahead of us, sometimes skinny dipping, sometimes not. I have to say though, that this is my favourite way to sea swim, it doesn’t get more natural and uplifting than skinny dipping and winter is the best time for this, at least you’re less likely to bump into anyone else coming to the beach!

I should make the point though, that these days I’m rarely in the sea for long. I used to swim maybe 5-10 minutes or so in the winter months, but a few years ago I started to get really cold afterwards, not helped because I was in the midst of sleep deprivation and just found it was taking me all day to warm up, not so pleasant. These days, especially in February, I might only be in for a minute or two at most, but even this makes me feel better, and well worth the traipse down to the beach and back up.

I can’t imagine our lives without sea swimming now, it’s become a part of our life, something that we make time to do, which will often determine the rest of our schedule, especially on the weekends. It’s the first thing we do when we have been away from the Island, getting our fix of Guernsey sea on our skin, and a definite if I have been working energetically with people and need to cleanse. It’s amazing and I’m always keen to introduce others to sea swimming so they may feel the benefits for themselves.

 The benefits of sea swimming for me:

 ·     Cleansing my energy;

·     Grounding me in the moment - you don’t think about much else when you’re in the sea, other than how cold it is, how long you might stay in and whether you’ll get caught by the waves.

·     Energising me.

·     Connecting me to nature so that I notice the tides, sunrise and sunset, and seasonal and moon cycles.

·     Feeling like you’re getting away from the rest of the world.

·     Slows life down, you can’t possibly be rushing or stressed on the beach.

·     Listening to the sound of the sea and watching the waves, both of which I find soothing for the soul.

·     Shifting a bad mood!

·     Raising the spirits and easing any depression

·     Reducing anxiety by the connection of feet literally to the earth (well sand really, but you know what I mean) and the sensation of the cold water on skin, getting you out of your head and into your body.

·     Strengthening your immune system – I’m not sure how that works, but I’m pretty sure that sea swimming plays a role in me rarely being ill, I’ve not had a single cold yet this winter (touch wood!). 

·     The special relationship you create with other sea swimmers as you share this mutual love for the sea.

·     It’s free, and the very act of getting onto the beach and getting into the sea and having a little swim is good for your general fitness. 

·     It has strengthened my connection to Guernsey and helped me to feel extremely grateful for living on this beautiful Islands.

·     It makes me feel alive and happy.

Yoga and change

Nothing brings me greater joy than witnessing yoga students embracing yoga and wanting to further their practice. There’s something about the practice, be it the breath or the postures or the relaxation, that affects them and they feel better for it; there has been a positive change and it motivates them to turn up again and again.

You can’t help but be changed by yoga. Yoga by its very nature encourages change. The way that we see things today does not have to be the way we saw them yesterday, and so it is with yoga too. The way we feel today, after a yoga practice, may feel very different to how we felt yesterday when we didn’t practice, and sometimes the way we feel after each practice changes too.

Some days we may feel positively elated, joyful, ecstatic, and other days we may feel tired and emotional. Yoga can bring stuff up for us. We might start to notice aches, pains and tensions in the body and mind that we hadn’t noticed previously. We might notice behaviour patterns and the manner in which we hold on to thoughts, notions and concepts, some well outdated and no longer serving us.

Sometimes the changes that yoga brings can be challenging. The painful emotions are confronting and the awareness of how much our life is out of a balance can be too much for some, so they stop coming to class. As much as they might like their lives to change, the change itself is too scary and they’d rather maintain the status quo however uncomfortable that is.

Others have no choice but to keep coming, there’s no going back for them now, the changes, however uncomfortable, are less uncomfortable than maintaining the status quo, of remaining the same. The body and mind have made it perfectly clear to them that there is a way out, that there is a chance of a new beginning, of a better way of living, of feeling something that’s more positive than the way they have been feeling, of hope for a future that they had almost given up on. There is a chance…

The joy of yoga, is that if we take the leap, if we overcome the obstacle of fear that prevents the change, if we listen to the body, to that ache and pain, and we keep practicing, well then then yoga will hold us while the changes are being made. Perhaps we need to let go of a destructive relationship or a draining friendship, perhaps we need to change jobs or professions to align yourself more fully with our talents, perhaps we need to leave a situation in which we have a vested interest. Yoga will help us through all of this and more. 

Yoga is not to be saved for when we feel in a good place in our lives, or comfortable in our own skin (“I’ll come back when I’ve lost weight”, “you’ll see me when I’m not so tired”), yoga is for when we are in the nitty gritty thick of it, when we are on our knees, when we can barely get through a day, when we can’t stop crying, when the anxiety has become acute and overwhelming, when we can barely look at ourselves in the mirror, when we are lost and alone and fearful. This is when we need yoga the most.

Yoga does not need to look a certain way. Yoga doesn't care at all what you look like, what you’re wearing, whether you’ve brushed your hair, or are wearing make-up, whether you are fat or thin. Yoga couldn’t care about any of this. It just cares if you showed up today. If some part of you managed to make it onto your mat, even if you spent the session (as I’ve done many, many times) in tears, breathing from one pose to the next through your mouth because your nose is too snotty and you have to keep stopping to let the tears drop onto your mat, and wait until you can connect again with your body and breath and move into another posture, a momentary respite before the emotional wave crashes in again.

There’s this wonderful saying about people coming into your life for ‘a reason, a season or a lifetime’. I see this in yoga. People come in for their reason, for their season, or for their lifetime. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve seen supported by yoga as they make a life change and then I don’t see them again. But this doesn’t matter, because they have allowed yoga to change them, the practice has given them the strength to make those changes.

 Others drift in and out, being touched, but not allowing the practice to touch them enough, and others, once they have a taste of change, are in it for the long run, it makes them feel better and it helps support them in their daily lives through thick and thin. Yoga is there for a reason, for a season and for a lifetime, you’ve just got to get practicing and see what it brings. 

 As Desikachar writes in his book, The Heart of Yoga, “The body and mind are used to certain patterns of perception and these tend to change gradually through yoga practice. It is said in the Yoga Sūtra that people alternately experience waves of clarity and cloudiness when first beginning a yoga practice. That is, we go through periods of clarity followed by times in which our mind and perception are quite lacking in clarity. Over time there will be less cloudiness and more clarity. Recognising this shift is a way to measure our progress”.

Perhaps it is this that changes us the most, the ability to see more clearly our truth, and to experience a greater sense of who we are, underneath the layers of illusion and false notions that we have adopted over the years. It always makes me think of the famous quote accredited to Gandhi, “Be the change you’d like to see in the world”. This is yoga. You cannot help but be changed into the change you’d most like to see in the world. Yoga changes us, and usually for the better.

We shouldn’t be scared by the change that yoga brings. Yoga just asks us to look at our lives more honestly, helping to open ourselves up to our potential for living a life beyond our wildest dreams. All it asks of us is to keep turning up and practicing, that’s all. “Practice, practice, practice and all is coming”, Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois is accredited for having said. It has become a little of a mantra for me over the years. This not to be attached to the fruits of our labours, but as a reason to keep turning up on the mat, day after day, year after year. Just keep practicing and let yoga reveal itself to you as you your-self are revealed. 

My life has changed beyond recognition since I found yoga. Yoga saved my life. I’ve changed so that I don’t really recognise the old me, the before-yoga Emma. I’m not sure who that person was, but she wasn’t me, she was lost and depressed, paranoid and at times anxious, lacking in any sense of true self or self- confidence, soul fragmented. The yoga path has not always been easy, there have been many tears and healing crises along the way, but each practice has sparked something in me, helped the light to glow a little brighter, helped to make me whole, and it is this that has always motivated me and spurred me on.

I love it when I see this light lit in others too, because I know that it has a ripple effect. You being changed changes those around you, your family, your friends, your colleagues, they all start glowing a little brighter because something in you sparks something in them. It is in this way that yoga is changing the world one person at a time. Embrace the fear of change, and let yoga hold you, be the change you’d most like to see in the world – the one where fear is replaced with love. Love will continue to come back to you.

Letting go with a burning bowl ceremony.

Today we held the yoga class to let go of 2019, followed by a burning bowl ceremony.

I was introduced to the burning bowl ceremony back in 2005 when I was in the middle of my Reiki training and I was part of a lovely group of Reiki students who met once a week with our teacher, Dr Alyssa Burns-Hill, for meditation and angel cards. I loved this hour, each Thursday evening, 6-7pm, on the way home for work. Not least because we got to sit and meditate together, Ally often leading us through guided meditations, and enjoying angel cards and the insight they provided, but because, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged.

I was relatively new to this world back then, the holistic one, with angels and chakras and crystals, but there was something about the energy of all this, the way it felt then, that just, well, felt right. The people were friendly and welcoming, and despite my naivety, I never felt judged or out of place. We’ve all gone in our own direction since Ally left the Island and I wouldn’t probably recognise many of them now, but I’ve always been extremely grateful for this very light fuelled time of my life.

One of the ladies was an American who has since moved back to America, and it was her who suggested one night that we do a burning bowl ceremony. i don’t remember the ceremony itself, but I do remember feeling a huge sense of relief that there was this opportunity to let go of things. Until that point in my life - I was approximately 29 years old then - I had no idea that we could let go of things that were no longer serving us. Mind you, there was lots I didn’t realise we could do back then, I was only just beginning to recognise that we create our own reality and that our thoughts create this. I was only just awakening.

So the burning bowl ceremony had quite a profound effect on me and I have done one every year since. Often these were with one of my best friend’s Hayley, with whom I spent a number fo new year’s eves. I’ll never forget on new year where we burned our letters in a saucepan and the whole thing was in flames and there as a complete panic that we ere abut to set the house on fire! How we laughed! Clearly we had a lot to let go of that year, but actually we did every year, and I’m never sure that back in those days the cava helped much!

One year, maybe when I was 34 though, my cousin, Yolande, and I were joined by my friend Samata, and we conducted our burning bowl ceremony at the fairy ring here in Guernsey, one wild afternoon when we were all sober! It was a blustery day and it was a challenge, it has to be said, to get the flame going, but Yo got it going and with that up into the air went all the things we wanted to let go of - I have a feeling that smoking was high on my list of priorities back then, to give up that is. That year, 2010 I did. I recognised that sober burning bowl ceremonies were best!

Burning bowl ceremonies are powerful. Potentially. I should caveat that. As I said to students this morning, you have to really feel it. No point writing down that you are going to let go of things that you know that you have no intention of truly letting go of from your life. Or after too much cava so that it becomes more of a wish list with ‘not drinking so much cava’ top of it, ha ha. You have to feel ready, as if there may be some possibility, with a little help from the angels and the universe generally.

Letting go is an interesting concept. I’ve worked a lot with it over the years, and this year I have been working with it a lot. What I’ve noticed is how difficult it is to let go! Even though we might think we want to let go of some childhood trauma, or some hurt that happened to us with maybe an ex-boyfriend, or whatever it may be, when we truly look at it, we realise that we’re holding onto it because on some conscious, some crazy level, we want to be pained! I know it makes no sense when you read that, but think about it. We’re all holding onto something. Some hurt, some pain something that stops us being totally free of suffering. I’ll be surprised if I’m wrong about that.

So what stops us letting go then? I suppose in many respects we form our current reality based on what’s happened to us in then past, so if we let go of some aspect of our past, well then that has the potential to change our current reality, and as much as we might want that, well it can be scary because it’s new and unwritten and we don’t know what it might feel or look like. Better to keep things under control, the way they’ve always been…only that deep down we know that hat isn’t serving us either. It’s a dilemma.

It’s like smoking. What good comes from continuing to smoke? And yet when we’re a smoker, so much of our identity is tied up in being a smoker. What will happen if we want a time out? What about our friends who smoke and our relationship with them if we don’t go fo sneaky fags together? And all that sneaking around? What happens when we just start being a ‘normal’ non-smoking human being, you know one who doesn’t feel crappy for smoking, who isn’t rebelling against parents, society, whatever it might be. Or if we’re smoking the wacky backy, what happens when we stop numbing out!

For so many years I kept smoking mainly because I liked to smoke the wacky backy. It was such a part of my identity and yet I hated smoking generally. But how to give up one and not the other. Impossible. I had to really look at that very honestly and come - in my own slow time - to recognise that while I may have thought I was having these wonderful spiritual experiences smoking cannabis, and somehow becoming more ‘spiritual’ (whatever the hell that means), I was actually just numbing out from life. I was self-medicating, in the same way that some might take anti-depressants or other ‘acceptable’ drugs.

It was difficult to let that go. You know what I mean? Who are we when we let go of whatever we are holding onto?

How about that childhood trauma (we’ve ALL got childhood trauma, it comes with being human), what happens if we just let that go? Gosh all of a sudden we get to take responsibility for our lives and our experience of it. Maybe we finally get to stand on our own two feet. Scary.

That hurt from those who took advantage of our kindness or who rejected us? Gosh, well then we have to accept the fact that actually it was us who put ourselves in that position and it is us, only us, who can really do any self-loving and who do a huge amount of the abandoning. We can’t keep blaming such and such for messing us up (even if he/she did…but we chose he/she in the first place). so all of a sudden we have to stop being the victim. Ouch.

I’ve been through all this. It’s the breath that really made me take note. A full breath in? Receiving all life can give? Am I worthy of that? The exhalation, letting go, truly…am I prepared to do that, who will I become?

I’ve been hauling my past around with me, like a heavy bag hung over my shoulders, weighing me down, making me play out unhelpful behaviour patterns all the time, attracting much of the same (crap) into my life despite the intentions and the affirmations and all the stuff I hope might change things.

You have to be ready. You have to get to a point where you’re done. I’m done. I no longer want to be defined by my past. There is only this moment and this moment can be whatever you want it to be. But for it to be unhindered by the past, tossed around, you need to let it go. It is not you. Just like the thoughts that run through your mind, day in and day out, are not you either. They’re thoughts. Your past is your past. In the past.

All the great spiritual teachers and masters teach one thing. Live in the present. You can’t live in the present when you’re carrying your past around with you, anymore than you can live in the present when you’re obsessed with the future.

But how do you let go? You just do. Like a hot potato. You just let it go. No need to analyse, to question, to write about it (ha!), justify it. None of that. Like forgiveness, you just feel it and you just do it.

A burning bowl ceremony helps enormously. Burn, burn, burn!

Today, lots of beautiful students wrote down the stuff they want to let go of from their lives and this evening E built a fire and burned the notes. I stood and watched, with a sliver of a new moon behind me, the sun having set and creating the most beautiful light on this unusually still and magical winter day, and I thought how wonderful, this letting go. In the flames. Fire to smoke and up into the air, transformed as we too, with our letting go are transformed (and eventually transformed from this body to spirit). Magic.

If there’s one thing I wish for all of you it is to transform, again and again and again, and I’m pretty certain that letting go of our past, of beginning anew and anew and anew is a fairly powerful way of doing this. Live in the present. Set the past down. Aside. Look back at it with LOVE.

That’s the key. My friend, Michelle Johansen reminded me of this recently. Look back at your past for the blessings it gave. That hurt, that betrayal, that trauma, that crappy thing that happened to you, look back with love. Say thank you, feel gratitude, know that helped to make you the most amazing human being that you are, helped you to awaken and heal, to take steps to heal, time and time again. It made you YOU. That’s worth celebrating huh?

So here’s to a new decade, a lighter one too, without that haul of the past weighing us down and continuously limiting our future.

Let go!

This is a most powerful power (in my humble opinion) about letting go, shared by my doula, Anita Davies, which has been really impactful on my life, through birth and beyond…

She Let Go

by Safire Rose

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

Love Emma xxx

Dark Night of the Soul

I can’t help noticing that this is a big year for many people. Like 2003 and 2008, there is significant change and the turmoil that comes with this.

It feels to me that with all these eclipses we are in a washing machine spinning around and around. I can’t be sure when the washing cycle is going to end but I do know that we have an annular solar eclipse** on 26 December, followed by a penumbral lunar eclipse*** on 10 January 2020 so perhaps things might settle then.

This, after a year that found us experiencing a partial lunar eclipse* on 6 January 2019 followed by a total lunar eclipse* on 21 January 2019, and then a total solar eclipse on 2 July 2019 followed by a partial lunar eclipse on 16 July 2019. 

I’m certainly no expert on the effect of these things, I can only share from my own experience but I have to admit that life has been a touch challenging this year and while I like to blame the moon, I’m going to blame all these eclipses too!

There was the Ayurvedic and Sanskrit studying and then discovering the Scaravelli-approach to yoga, which turned everything on it’s head, this before July. My Ayurvedic exams took place a few days after the July partial eclipse and this was followed by a virus that left me sick and feeling very sorry for myself all summer. 

I finally recovered from the virus in time for our retreat in Glastonbury on the full moon in mid-September, and I felt so much better for this, but it was short lived. In came the super new moon on 28 September 2019 and things felt decidedly sticky again with more illness and more disorientation. 

For others too, there is a sense of being shaken, as if we are being collectively shaken awake (this is exactly what is happening!) and with it there has been illness, bereavements, life-changing diagnoses, relationship break-ups, and/or job changes, and some of these changes happening suddenly, pulling the rug from under our feet, leaving us feeling confused and ungrounded.  

To me it feels like we’re going through a collective dark night of the soul. This is when life feels desperately uncomfortable, with a sense of despair and sometimes a total disinterest in living or in life itself – the darkness descends. Sometimes this feeling may only last a matter of hours, and other times it can last for days on end, and we might wonder if we will ever see the light ever again. 

Life doesn’t fit. Nothing feels right. There is a complete lack of clarity about how life may unfold and a panic that it might stay life this forever more. Life is full of uncertainty, and yet the uncertainty becomes more pronounced, and this brings with it a feeling of disorientation and not having a clue which way is up, or how life might look, or even who you are anymore as who you thought you were starts to dissolve and yet you’re still living the life of the person dissolving. 

There are tears, lots of tears and some anger, frustration, irritation, rage and an overwhelming sense of tiredness and exhaustion. Chaos reigns, we feel helpless and very alone, cast adrift without a map or a paddle to find our way home. And even if we know deep down that we just have to keep going, that it is just a process with a potentially positive outcome, it’s still extremely challenging!

I take some comfort in Simon Haas’ words, “A dark night of the soul is a period of purification and transformation. Like the process of refining gold or making ghee, parts of us that have remained concealed from others, and even from ourselves, rise to the surface during a dark night experience. During a dark night, we may become increasingly irritable, angry, impatient or resentful. We may fall into guilt, self-pity and even self-loathing. This is often our experience to the suffering we’re experiencing. We may even feel hatred towards those who we believe have contributed to our crisis”.

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to all of this! It’s both embarrassing and humbling! I am a cliché!

He continues, “We all have a dark side, an “ungodly” side, which only those closest to us may know. Sometimes the dissolution of our world can reveal things about us that surprise even ourselves. We suffer the death of who we thought we were, whilst encountering those parts of us we have kept hidden – qualities, behaviours and motivations that may be difficult for us to acknowledge. In a dark night, we come face to face with what we can no longer hide.

Some for instance, become aware of how much anger that carry. Others must face the unbearable truth that ultimately, they don’t really care about others. These inner revelations can be difficult to acknowledge or bear…[there is] a strong impulse to retreat from life. This impulse is partly the result of acute suffering and partly due to a loss of personal direction, leading to paralysis. When the ego is being destroyed, there is often intense angst and a strong desire to disengage from life. It can extinguish even the desire to remain alive…when our inner world collapses, we’re entirely powerless, like a shell tossed about in the waves of the ocean. It’s an inner helplessness.”

Sadly, I can’t offer you much advice in what you might do if you’re stuck in a dark night of the soul. It’s a process that we have to work our way through in our own way. Personally, I take comfort in getting out in nature, walking the cliffs and sea swimming, spending time alone (when I can) in silence, practicing yoga, repeating the Bija mantra, daily Yoga Nidra (grounded one’s mind), rose quartz, lots of rose quartz, and playing with the children, running around the beach, getting some fresh air together. Sleep helps enormously too, slightly tricky if you have children who don’t value sleep so much though!

 I am very well aware that as uncomfortable as it all is, it is part of the bigger picture and if I can remember this (and not get caught up in the intense emotions) then I feel some comfort in knowing it’s not just me! In fact, it’s the “me” that’s the problem, because essentially what is happening is part of “me”, is dissolving and the ego isn’t particularly happy about this, but it is necessary, because it leaves more space for the heart and the light to come in, instead.

This is all about the heart, it can only ever be about the heart. Love not fear. And as much as everyone says they love unconditionally, it is actually really difficult. There is huge vulnerability in truly loving, without conditions, of putting our hearts on a line and opening ourselves up for being hurt, betrayed or disappointed. Yet we are being asked to step more fully into the heart and out of the small mind. The situations in our life will ask us to step more fully into the heart.

 It is in this way that we may positively impact on the state of the planet. Where there is love, there is fear, and we see this clearly now with the fear being created by the media about the state of Mother Earth and the climatic disaster awaiting us. The fear will not create the change that is needed though, the only way things will change, at least positively and in the long term, is if we keep embracing love, and overcoming the fear (not ignoring it or turning away from it, but acknowledging it).

It feels to me that the whole universe is being upgraded, if only we can step up into it. We are experiencing perhaps a collective dark night of the soul, Mother Earth too. Only that Mother Earth will always be OK, she knows how to look after herself, it’s us, us humans, who will ultimately suffer. Which is why it is our duty to keep stepping into the love, not to just talk about it, but to embody it, to find it within ourselves to weed out anything which stops us from truly loving and truly living.

We are asked to turn towards those who have hurt us or harmed us or who just irritate us, with love.  We are being asked to be clear about our boundaries and what is acceptable in our life – we are being asked to love ourselves too, to keep stepping into the heart. Love conquers all. It is love that underpins absolutely everything (another reason to bring Reiki into your life, the energy of love!).

 I’ll leave you with this marvellous quote from Jack Kornfield in his marvellous book, “A Path with Heart”, which sums it all up rather nicely for me and reminds me of the spiritual and heart in all life:

“Whether in a monastery, in our place of business, or in our family life, we need to listen to what each cycle requires for our heart’s development and accept its spiritual tasks. The natural cycles of growth – developing right livelihood, moving to a new home, the birth of a child, entering a spiritual community – all bring spiritual tasks that require our heart to grow in commitment, fearlessness, patience, and attention. The cycles of endings – our children leaving home, the aging and death of our parents, loss in business, leaving a marriage or community – bring our heart to the spiritual tasks of grieving, of letting go gracefully, of releasing control, of finding equanimity and openhearted compassion in the face of loss.

Occasionally we get to choose the cycles we work with, such as choosing to get married or beginning a career. At these times it is helpful to meditate, to reflect on which direction will bring us closer to our path with heart, which will offer the spiritual lesson that it is time for in our life.

More often we don’t get to choose. The great cycles of our life wash over us, presenting us with challenges and difficult rites of passage much bigger than our ideas of where we are going. Midlife crisis, threats of divorce, personal illness, sickness of our children, money problems, or just running yet again into our own insecurity or unfulfilled ambition can seem like difficult yet mundane parts of life to get over with so we can become peaceful and do our spiritual practice. But when we bring to them attention and respect, each of those tasks has a spiritual lesson in them. It may be a lesson of staying centred through great confusion, on a lesson of forbearance, developing a forgiving heart with someone who has caused us pain. It may be a lesson of acceptance or a lesson of courage, finding the strength of heart to stand our ground and live from our deepest values”. 

*A solar eclipse happens when the moon moves between the Earth and the Sun while a lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth casts a shadow on the full Moon.

**An annular solar eclipse happens when the Moon covers the Sun’s centre leaving the Sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” or annulus around the Moon.

***A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth and the Moon are imperfectly aligned. When this happens, the Earth blocks some of the Sun’s light from directly reaching the moon’s surface and covers all or part of the Moon with the outer part of its shadow, also known as penumbra.

Overwhelm

Today I had a moment of overwhelm.

I felt the rage rising inside me and I heard a scream, it came from my mouth, but I didn’t recognise it as mine.

Not once, not twice, but three times. I felt like I was screaming for me and for all of humanity. This was a raw scream from a deep place that I didn’t even know existed and it surprised me.

I have been feeling this scream building the last few weeks, and as much as I’ve tried to scream, to clear my throat chakra, it felt forced and insincere. I tried the lion breath and some Vedic chanting too, hoping that this might clear the block, but alas, the feeling remained. 

But yesterday, there was a trigger, something small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things that happened, and all of a sudden I was filled with this overwhelming sense of frustration and anger at the pointlessness of it all. 

In that moment of madness, I felt done. Done with life. The fury was all consuming and hot, fury at the world, at humanity and at Planet Earth. How have we managed to create this collective disaster that is our current society all out of balance? Why is there so much pain and suffering? What is the point to it all?

The tears followed. Big and warm angry tears running down my cheeks and dropping onto the floor beneath me. I was so angry that I didn’t know what to do with myself, almost shaking with it. 

I remembered my breath and took big angry gulps of air. I roared.

Anyone would have thought me utterly mad. I felt mad! It was a release, that’s for sure, a healing crisis. It was very real, very present moment and very much a part of what has been building since the last eclipse.

We are awakening, as a collective. And there has to be significant letting go of the way that we think life should be lived, of what it looks like. We need to step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown, and establish a new way of living that better serves our future generations. My children and their children!

Of course the collective is influenced by the individual and so it is us, each of us, that actually needs to do the letting go, so that we positively impact the collective and all of society.

But letting go is difficult, and painful, because we have to let go of our pains and our traumas and all the stuff that we hold on to, which falsely defines who we are, and which prevents us from moving our lives forward. The letting go, sometimes means that we feel into our pain, and this discomfort is what prevents us letting go in the first place.

It’s been a fascinating and yet incredibly exhausting process, all this letting go these last few weeks. I mentioned this in my previous posting, but it’s like things have been popping up rather quickly, one layer after another, of stuff that I thought I had already worked through, and resolved, at least in my mind if not in my body. But clearly there’s more depth to this current healing process than I had recognised and the moon has been encouraging greater release.

So old stuff has come up from nowhere, like an old energy entering my life again, which has felt uncomfortable, because the resonance is all wrong, but there it is nonetheless, reminding me of a time gone by, a depression here, a disappointment there, a frustration here, an old behaviour pattern there, I even reached for my childhood teddy bear the other day, because inner child stuff has certainly been a part of the process.

When I stand back (if I can manage to stand back) then it’s really rather amazing, that we are being given this opportunity to clear out, on the autumn clear out, for the greater good of all humanity as humanity herself, with climate change concern ringing in our ears, giving us the perfect opportunity to make the collective shift that needs to be made.

Today seemed to bring all those old feelings together in one big surge, and threw in, just for good measure, that feeling of utter despair that comes with overwhelm. It’s a scary feeling, because while it is one of great potency for change, it can push people over the other edge, into a void from which you may never recover, numbing out on life as a result. 

I am aware that it is part of a process, of the breaking down of all that’s been, so that life can be recreated all over again. This is life, if we allow it. It moves through cycles. The opportunity to destroy and re-create are constants. We just need to learn to ride it, to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness of it all, of not knowing what it is that we need to destroy, and what might come into its place instead. 

I comfort myself by thinking about a river. How its course will often change, but how it just keeps flowing, sometimes turbulent, sometimes gentle, but one way or another, it does its thing, weaving its way to the sea, its journey’s end, and with that, a letting go of what it has once been. 

I know that I’m not alone, because whatever I am feeling, is felt within the collective, we are one, and because I have asked friends, and many are sharing this healing crisis and feelings of overwhelm.

Please be very gentle at this time and keep close to the land. Get in the sea if you can and keep clearing your energy.

There is an awful lot of fear out there. 

Climate change is now everywhere. Lots of people talking…let’s see how many do the walking. We’re very good at making excuses for maintaining our own status quo, and yet finding fault with how other people are adjusting to the need for a more sustainable way of living.

Fear separates communities, and it separates aspects of ourselves, so we must be careful not to buy into it. 

The antidote to fear is love. The world has only ever needed love, yet how many of us truly love? How many truly love themselves, let alone others? That is, without applying conditions, making it conditional.

I’m humoured by all the ‘sustainable business’ chatter that we’re also now hearing. I can’t help thinking that it is business that got us into this mess in the first place. Investopedia reads, “the term business also refers to the organised efforts and activities of individuals to produce and sell goods and services for a profit”. Business is ultimately about making profit and I can’t help thinking that until we reframe and re-define business, then nothing is going to change.

Sure there’s lots of people talking about sustainable business, but are they going to give up their bonuses and profit margin so that greater consideration can be given to the climate and to Mother Earth? Unlikely. Many will actually use the whole idea of ‘sustainability’ and ‘going green’ to profiteer even further, using it as a marketing tool to attract people to their business. Sorry, I’m feeling a bit cynical about it all!

No one really knows what we should be doing, or how we might positively shift the way that we are living. Not yet. But we will know. It’s just a matter of raising consciousness so that we have the awareness. And the only way we will do that collectively, is if we do the work on ourselves to raise our own consciousness, to love more, and let go of anything that prevents us from doing so. 

This happens in many different ways, sometimes life circumstances present opportunities to grow, through illness and trauma, and sometimes we just need to grasp the ball by the horns, so to speak, and do the inner work that is required of us, the universe and the moon will always support us.

 The calmness has returned now, and I have a strong sense that what is trying to breakthrough is the children; my children, your children, everyone’s children. They are our future and we need to become increasingly conscious of how we are treating them and the ‘food’ we are feeding them, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too. I shall ponder anon and see what else materialises, as my children try to get my attention (the irony of it!).

If you feel a scream coming on, then go for it. It’s not as mad as it may seem, because it can really clear the energy. I’m not mad, honest, just sharing and opening myself to vulnerability, in the hope that this may help you too. 

Spilling your guts - the solar plexus and boundaries

Following on from my previous blog posting, the connection between ‘boundaries’ and the gut fascinates me. The gut, and our digestive health (agni – digestive fire), has been the focus of much of my Ayurvedic training thus far, but I am by no means an expert and I’m quite sure my Ayurvedic doctor would not consider me, at this stage in my studies, well placed to write about Ayurveda from an academic perspective, but I can certainly share from my personal experience. 

 You see, our gut is not only the place where we digest our foodstuffs on a physical level, but it is also the place where we digest our thoughts, emotions and feelings on a mental level too. Both, the digestion of foodstuff and the digestion of thoughts, emotions and feelings, will impact on our physical and mental wellbeing. 

Thus our gut health is not simply about eating healthily, and it’s certainly not about just consuming gut enhancing pills and potions, and as much probiotic as you can get into it. It’s also about our mental health and the ability to digest and process our life experiences and integrate all parts of ourselves, especially our emotions and feelings. 

I was made incredibly aware of this last year when I undertook a Panchakarma session at the Ayurvedic Clinic. I’ve always been a fan of Ayurveda because, like yoga, it works! Both are based on ancient knowledge that has been tried and tested over thousands of years. Ayurveda is the science of life, and is a holistic health care system that considers the root cause of any imbalance.

I presented with an imbalance in my solar plexus, following umbilical hernia surgery, and I knew that there was some healing work to be done. I attended the Ayurvedic Clinic in Purley Oaks, near Gatwick, last March, for the Panchakarma, this following a skype consultation with my Ayurvedic doctor.

Panchakarma means five actions, and is a cleansing and rejuvenating program for the body, mind and consciousness - basically put, a sublime three-hours of various massages and oil treatments. My Panchakarma was centred on helping to address and heal my solar plexus, and the treatment was followed up with herbs, which I took for a good few months afterwards.   

The Panchakarma was as wonderful as ever, but it wasn’t until May, two months later, that I really felt the effect, and even then it wasn’t until the end of the summer, that I realised that what took place in May was in any way related to the Panchakarma. That’s the thing with Ayurveda, it’s powerful, and yet gentle in its unfolding, so it’s not until you look back that you notice the transformation. 

Basically, during May, I felt an overwhelming need to write. Writing is my preferred and natural way of processing, and at that time I was involved in editing Namaste(my book about my trek to Everest Base Camp), so it caught me by surprise this need to write, in addition to the editing. The need was so strong that I would spend a couple of hours each evening and/or early morning writing. I just had to get what was in my head (or gut, as I later realised) onto paper; I had to get it out!

I was consumed for the entire month, and ended up writing a 90,000-word manuscript. I had no idea that I was still holding on to so much of my past, and that it was held in my gut, right in my solar plexus! This holding comprised years and years of thoughts, feelings and emotions, right back to childhood, that I had not processed or made sense of at the time. 

All these feelings and emotions had sat there in my gut all those years, undigested and festering, much like foodstuff that isn’t digested. It is perhaps no surprise I had ended up with a hernia, right there, in the very centre of my solar plexus as I tried to keep everything tightly in!  It didn’t help that I’d had my belly button pierced in my early twenties, disrupting the flow of subtle energy in this sensitive area of the body (my Ayurvedic doctor strongly discourages piercings here!). 

While the writing gave me the opportunity to process and digest all the undigested stuff, I still found myself holding onto it.  I didn’t realise I was doing this, but I had it in mind that I might turn my writings into something that others may read. It seemed that I wasn’t prepared to just let it go without giving it yet more energy. I felt that maybe my life experiences, or the sharing of my life experiences, may help others who may find themselves in similar life situations.

However, after setting my ‘manuscript’ aside from a few months, I started to have a few doubts. Was the solar plexus outpouring, poured out to be shared.  Did I need to spill my guts to the world? And to what end anyway, did people need to know my every life experience, did I need to share to prove that healing had taken place? Did I need to give so much of myself away? And did I need to continue to inform my present by continuously talking about my past? 

Fast forward another few months and I happened upon a yoga video on Yoga International, where the teacher talked about students having an awareness of drawing the tummy in during asana practice, to prevent the guts spilling out. This made me laugh, because I had been trying to teach this notion in class, and yet, I had been missing the point in my own life.

Rather than repeat my, “try not to stick your tummy out and give your power away” approach, I replaced this in class recently, with the “draw your tummy in so you don’t spill your guts” approach instead. Needless to say, this was met with much groaning and laughter.  Those are powerful words!

 ‘Spilling our guts’ means to tell everything secret or private about our lives - one may ‘spill their guts’ and offload whatever is bothering them about their job or their relationship with their partner, for example. Essentially it means giving more of ourselves than we would ordinarily do, giving our power away and potentially leading to increased feelings of vulnerability and disempowering ourselves in the process – think poor boundaries. 

I’m sure many have had the experience of drinking too much alcohol and offloading our inner-most truth to others, sometimes complete strangers, only to wake up the next day and almost cringe, wondering what we said and to whom, and questioning why we said it in the first place!  There can follow an extremely uncomfortable few hours, or indeed day, and our solar plexus may feel decidedly unhappy, our gut filled with increased anxiety and paranoia - it’s those kind of feelings that may arise when we ‘spill our guts’. 

However, for others, ‘spilling our guts’ can be a cathartic release, an opportunity to let go of what has been held onto, lightening the load so to speak.  It can be an opportunity to let go of shame and any of those other horrible feelings that in themselves, eat away at us on the inside. But there is a fine line between healthy releasing and the sharing of our feelings, and unhealthy releasing which can lead to feelings of intense and gut-wrenching insecurity and vulnerability. 

This leads me to the solar plexus, which is the energy centre that comprises the gut. Centred around the navel, the solar plexus, is an extremely complex chakra, and one that people often overlook in their quest to open their hearts and ground their feet, let alone those seeking spiritual expansion who focus solely on their crown chakra. It is my experience that to expand, we need to have an awareness of all our chakras, and we absolutely need to work with the solar plexus – it’s at our very core.

The Sanskrit name for the solar plexus means, ‘jewel in the city’ and the jewel it refers to is the mind.  When the solar plexus is in balance, the mind is also in balance.  We are in control of ourselves and the challenges and decisions that we face in life.   Furthermore, a balanced solar plexus means that we are discerning, disciplined and assertive, and we face life’s challenges with courage and integrity.  

Furthermore, our ego will no longer need continual gratification.  We will discover a moderation in thought and action; we are able to listen to people without being overwhelmed by them. We instinctively find a comfortable relationship with the world.  Our character becomes gemlike: solid, multifaceted, filed with life. I like to think of a ball of crystal clear quartz; clear about who it is and the qualities that it brings to the world, potentially like us. 

As a comparison, an overly dominant solar plexus leads to bullying, egotistical and aggressive behaviour.  These people believe they are always right and get angry easily, and seek to control others through their anger. A weak solar plexus, on the other hand, results in depression, guilt and lack of confidence; it becomes hard for us to see our life clearly, leading to feelings of heightened vulnerability.

I can certainly relate to all this from my own life experience and also from working with people through both Reiki and yoga. My mind – the jewel – was depressed for much of my twenties until I found yoga. As I shared in my previous blog posting, my boundaries were poor and my solar plexus weak. I lacked discernment and discipline – I had zero willpower, especially when it came to addictions (smoking!), and making positive life changes.

Furthermore, my gut was constantly challenged. I was often bloated and constipated, not digesting food properly. This was heightened due to poor diet choices as a result of an eating disorder which had plagued me since I was 17 years old - but I’ve no doubt it was also due to all the unprocessed ‘stuff’ I was carrying in my gut. It is only as I look back, I see so clearly the correlations between my mental state and my solar plexus. The fact I suffered with gallstones and had to have my gallbladder removed at the age of 21 only further illustrates this (the liver and gallbladder form part of the ‘solar plexus’).

I have worked with a number of people with Reiki, who have suffered with depression and anxiety and they shared a commonality – a big black hole in their solar plexus.  It felt to me that they had had the life force sucked out of them, and their mind was suffering as a result of this. I see it showing up in yoga too; you can tell so much about someone’s mental state and the manner in which they are living their lives, by watching their bodies and how they move on their mats.  

I have learned the hard way, that because the solar plexus is the centre of the intellect and decision-making, it is important for the health and development of this chakra that we make our own choices, rather than have them made for us. The development of the solar plexus is hindered if we have a feeling of powerlessness in life – and yet, the lack of development of the solar plexus will create a feeling of powerlessness, so it is tricky to make the changes!

One way we can work with the solar plexus is through our yoga practice. Even just noticing the solar plexus and the manner in which we relate to this area of our body during an asana practice can make a difference.  Do we have an awareness of our centre, or do we allow it to almost flop out into the world? Or perhaps we hold onto it so tightly, that there’s no room for release and movement? Do we try to ignore our tummy, or do we embrace it, fat and all?

Can we breathe diaphragmatically, with awareness of the expansion of the tummy on each inhalation, and the release on each exhalation; can we both give and receive? We can take the awareness from our practice out into our day to day life. What people and situations are we attracting? Are our relationships healthy and nourishing? Can we say no when we don’t want to do something, and how does this make us feel? Do we feel guilty without any specific reason?

Of course it is very easy to try to overlook any imbalance, to drift off in a yoga class, for example, when reference is made to the tummy and our solar plexus.  Sometimes it is easier to pretend that there isn’t any imbalance, than to begin the process of unravelling, of opening the can of worms, so to speak, and looking into the shadows in our gut, more honestly.

However, the more we ignore the solar plexus, the more we will continue to experience the symptoms of the imbalance, not only physically (think dodgy digestion, bloating, constipation, candida etc.) but also mentally (think unsettled mind, depression, sense of vulnerability, anxiety etc.), and thus the more the imbalance will impact on the quality of our relationships and the manner in which we interact with the world.  

I’m biased but in addition to yoga, Reiki offers a marvellous way to release what might be unnecessarily held in this chakra. Ki massage (energetic shifting) too, can encourage us to look into the shadows and bring to light any denial (buried stuff), and the manner in which this is unconsciously impacting on our day to day life. It almost goes without saying that Ayurveda can be hugely helpful too. 

The healing work I have undertaken on the solar plexus has certainly lightened the load and helped me to establish healthier boundaries. This has been key and I have become much more discerning as a consequence, which in itself has been liberating, and priorities have changed. 

It’s not easy though. Working with the solar plexus demands courage. But then it can give us so much courage in the process of working with it. It’s a potentially life changing process, which positively impacts on all levels, giving us a greater sense of what is healthy, and the manner in which people may try to manipulate us and take our power away. Essentially, it helps us to learn not to take on anyone else’s crap leaving them deal with that, and just look after our own crap instead (quite literally, but that’s a whole other story!).