Insecurity and safety

The squeeze keeps going, into the vulnerable places that we try to ignore. I’ve known it needed exploring but it was always possible to put it on the back burner, keep busy, pop it in the shadows, hope it might resolve itself without too much effort on my part. Those of you doing the work will know what i mean. You’ll also know that you cannot help it to resolve without going to those vulnerable places; it’s the natural lore!

It needs expression, release, a voice, a way of being digested, expelled.

I’m always, always blown away by how it works, the coincidences and the synchronicities, the seemingly small things that the universe sends in to help us feel the uncomfortableness of staying stuck and yet the uncomfortableness of finding our voice and speaking what needs to be said. Urgh.

It’s all good though. Today I’m very aware that it’s a beautiful world, really it is, however awful we may feel or however challenged or squeezed, really it is a beautiful world and it will support us and meet us as we need to be met. Everything is perfectly ordered in our lives, we just need to notice it.

This is the message that i received today and if you are reading this then you might relate to it too:

“Perfectionists often have conditional self-esteem: They like themselves when they are on top and dislike themselves when things don't go their way. Can you learn to like yourself even when you are not doing well? Focus on inner qualities like your character, sincerity, or good values, rather than just on what grades you get, how much you get paid, or how many people like you. “

This my friends is what underlays my current healing. This feeling is not a very pleasant feeling, laid down in childhood, the insecurity one feels from not living up to one’s idea of perfectionism, which I believe it underpinned by the need to keep safe.

I felt like I had found the missing part of the jigsaw puzzle when I read this:

“Some of us have very high standards for everything we do. You may want the highest grades, the best job, the perfect figure, the most beautifully decorated apartment or house, neat and polite kids, or the ideal partner. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always turn out exactly the way we want, even if we work extra hard. There is a piece of the outcome that is at least to some degree out of our control. Bosses may be critical, jobs may be scarce, partners may resist commitment, or you may have genes that make it difficult to be skinny. If you are constantly disappointed and blaming yourself for being anything less than perfect, you will start to feel insecure and unworthy. While trying your best and working hard can give you an advantage, other aspects of perfectionism that are unhealthy. Beating up on yourself and constantly worrying about not being good enough can lead to depression and anxiety, eating disorders, or chronic fatigue.” Psychology Online.

It’s always such a relief when we see more clearly into the shadows and make sense of that which we have been trying to understand for a good old while now. I’ve written a third book as many of you know, about my journey with depression and eating disorder to a point, the two are so interlinked it’s difficult sometimes to separate them; they feed into each other. I’ve been trying to explore the root of all of this, to understand more of what caused it all to begin. I had known on some level, but this substantiates it in a way that had not been so visible previously.

It feels like an ending in many respects. Kali came into my life the other day, the Goddess of endings and new beginnings, of death ultimately, and it all make perfect sense. We need to the ending, the dying, the letting go, the grieving and the sorrow. Like a fire we combust that which is no longer needed into ash, and this can be added to the soil in which we grow new seeds. It is all a cycle.

Our inherent feelings of safety on this planet are all being tested right now, Covid has tested the habits and patterns that we have created in our lives to give us a sense of feeling safe, whether that is real or imagined. The rug has been pulled from under our feet and we are trying to find our grounding again, clutching at anything which makes us feel safe, even if it is just imagined. We are all being squeezed, to heal those wounds which prevent us from feeling inherently safe in our connection to the universe, to God, to a higher power, however you want to define ‘it’.

It’s not easy though, because we have to go to those vulnerable places. I see this in yoga. We know, the ancient texts tell us, that yoga can help to cease the fluctuations of the mind, can help to ease our suffering, but even then, even knowing this, it can be too confronting for many to go there in the first place. We might try, we might like to stretch the body, build strength, take a few photos for instagram, but something stops us letting the practice take us deeper, into the shadows, to the spirit, to the heart of yoga.

It’s a shame and while I’m delighted that yoga has become more mainstream with increasing numbers of people teaching yoga now, and some with very few years of practice or experience, it doesn't matter because it is spreading yoga out into the world. But, my concern is that what is being taught is no more than an exercise class, that lacks the potential of yoga, so that many are buying into the idea that they are practising yoga but are able to remain unaffected by it, so that yoga is diluted and not allowed it’s expression either.

But i have to trust in that, because if I don’t then I can feel the frustration creep in, especially when i hear about rising levels of depression and anxiety and increasing use of medication to create feelings of safety and security, to try to mask the inherent feelings of insecurity. There is another way. It’s not easy, but it is worth it when you get there. A whole new world awaits, that you could never have imagined, when you find that place within yourself, your centre maybe, that helps you to access your inner strength and sense of security, challenged as it might be from time to time.

Just for today, we let go of all that is in our way. Just for today, we allow ourselves to go to those tricky places. Just for today we hug ourselves and remind ourselves how beautiful we are inside and out. Just for today we celebrate our perfections and our imperfections in equal measure. Just for today we acknowledge our vulnerability and we’re OK with that, rejoice in it even, because we have to go there to pop through teh other side, into a more compassionate level of being, more connected, more trusting. Then the feelings of safety arise naturally. We are safe, we are safe, we are safe.

Basic goodness, compassion and community

That was quite some moon. I thought I had it all figured out and then it caught me on the wane, reminding me that it takes time sometimes, to see into the shadows and understand the lessons. 

This was a moon which brought up deep rooted fears and insecurities so that we could see them more clearly and allow them release as we prepare for the eclipse season ahead, getting all our ducks lined up so to speak. 

A very old pattern around fear of confrontation, criticism and rejection came up for me, and nestled in amongst that was a strand of self-worth, because that always seems to weave itself in somehow!

I’d also been enquiring into the concept of community last week too; with so many election manifestos here in Guernsey mentioning community, and compassionate community too, it was making me curious.

While I was sad that we were not able to make it to Sark for the retreat, I have learned this year that we have no choice but to go with the flow of things and that when matters beyond our control take over, then we are best to surrender to them; be neither attached nor averse.

I hadn’t considered that others might not be so easy going, and while I’m sure it was never intended, old feelings around fear of criticism and fear of confrontation were triggered, resulting in an overwhelming feeling of vulnerability and helplessness for the state of humanity. 

My inner child was calling out for some love and attention and I took myself to bed in tears, weary with the weight of the sadness of the way in which this world is sometimes lived, this ‘me’ culture that is so in contrast to the message we keep hearing about ‘community’. But of course it is all a perception, whichever side of the fence we sit.

What became clear to me today as I continued to settle into the discomfort of what I was feeling, my neck still aching with vulnerability and my stomach churning as I tried to digest all these feelings, I recognised that we don’t reject others necessarily, we reject the moment/experience and we look towards others to blame, because there is often a conditioned need to blame someone, rather than just accepting things as they are come what may and taking responsibility. 

A good friend shared with me how she has had to cancel a yoga trip due to the continued quarantine requirements on Guernsey, and when she asked for a refund she was told that giving refunds would put the small independent company out of business, so she took a voucher instead. I couldn’t help thinking that not only was this an act of compassion but also an act of true community.

For me community is about coming together and supporting each other where we can for the common good of all, especially now as lives are adversely affected by the response to Covid-19, and the manner in which this continues to challenge on all levels, monetary, mental and otherwise! But I did wonder last night how many people truly live as if in a community, and how many struggle to see beyond their own needs.

I was heartened then today to visit the Renoir Exhibition, quite by chance - a positive one, one might say - because if I had have been on Sark I would have missed it! Here was a fantastic example of true community and I applaud David Ummels and Art for Guernsey for all their hard work in bringing this idea into reality.

It got me thinking whether community is something that we can create, or whether it is inherent within us, like compassion. I hear people talk of compassionate community and I like very much the idea of this, but I wonder in reality whether it is something that can be created through political manifesto or whether it is something that comes to be by the meeting of compassionate people – who already have compassion within them.

Compassion is having a sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others, and it is compassion that motivates people to go out of their way to help the physical, mental, spiritual and/or emotional pains of others and themselves. It is my experience and understanding that compassion is cultivated; the more we are able to open to our vulnerability and our suffering, the more we are able to open to the vulnerability and suffering of others.

 The trouble in our society is that we are so scared to reveal our vulnerability that we will do all we can to hide it and deny it and escape from it. We protect ourselves in innumerable ways; hardening our hearts, pumping our bodies, numbing out, disconnecting from our reality, controlling others, playing out the ball busting business woman, bullying others, using sarcasm, ignoring others or looking down on them, shaming others and on the list goes.

 It is only in allowing our vulnerability that we experience greater compassion, not least for ourselves but for others too. It is in this way that we grow as conscious human beings and help our community to thrive, simply because we can’t help but get involved. I know I get boring saying it, but it has to start with us, we need to cultivate compassion within ourselves by embracing our vulnerability, not turning away from it, and we have to support others when they find the courage to embrace their vulnerability too.

 I was reminded of this quote from Chogyam Trungpa Ringpoche in his book, From Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior:

“If we are willing to take an unbiased look, we will find that, in spite of all our problems and confusion, all our emotional and psychological ups and downs, there is something basically good about our existence as human beings. Unless we can discover that ground of goodness in our own lives, we cannot hope to improve the lives of others. If we are simply miserable and wretched beings, how can we possibly imagine, let alone realize, an enlightened society?”

Yesterday I experienced a temporary loss of faith, when I questioned the basic goodness of our existence as human beings. It was this, ultimately, that underlay my feeling of vulnerability that arose as a response to fear of criticism and rejection, which is underlaid essentially by a loss of feeling safe in this world. Watching Social Dilemma earlier this week has not helped. Is this a safe world?

Goodness is a basic human virtue and while we may lose sight of this at times, when we are triggered and scared and confused, goodness is all around us, if only we can acknowledge it. I take great comfort in this and in the many wonderful earth angels, the good people, the compassionate, part of my community, who appeared in my life today as if to prove this.  Thank you. 

Blame the moon!

This full moon has definitely been illuminating in many ways, shining a light into the shadows and, as always, bringing up fears and the opportunity to surrender to them. It has brought up a limiting belief too that has been awaiting release. 

I could feel it building all week, and with bad weather predicted and a Sark retreat to run I just had a feeling that the moon was going to make me face my fears around cancelling. I made extra time to meditate this week so that I could really feel into it and look at my fears and what underlaid them. I realised that there is only one way to manage a situation like this and it is to surrender to it, a little like when my waters broke six weeks early on the October full moon while leading a retreat on Herm and Eben arrived a few days later by Caesarean section. 

Me and retreats, we have a history, they provide a golden opportunity not only to me but to my fellow retreat goers too, to look at our fears and our patterns and potentially let them go. I don’t know that I’ve ever run a retreat that has been utterly painless or gone totally smoothly, they all bring with them a potential drama or issue, whether that be the weather, the boat, the hotel, the food and/or the student, there is always something that encourages me to surrender. This one was no different and I was remarkably calm when Sark Shipping finally told me they were cancelling (this after they had told virtually everyone else!) because I knew it was inevitable and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it but surrender!   

A limiting belief around motherhood also came up too, and I have a feeling that this may have been in the field as I know I am not alone. I could feel this creeping in during the week too, but I wasn’t able to give voice to it or understand what was happening until the clarity came today with the moon. I stared to feel old feelings around lack of worth and this in relation to my role in the world. I began to doubt the work I do and my choice to let go of titles and patterns of over work and over achieving in my quest to live my dream of being a more present mother to my children.

I ignored this dream for many years through fear that it would never become a reality and I threw my creative energy into my work and making money, in the finance sector initially and then in the holistic realm as I wanted to share my passion for yoga and healing with others. I gave everything I had and fell into a pattern of over work and exhaustion, which had always been my way, as if proving my worth through working and earning money. 

Then the children finally came along and not without a bit of effort and yet still, with the first one, I continued to throw myself into my work because this is what I had been conditioned to do, by my education and by society if I hoped to be seen as a successful woman. Yet this made me ill. I was trying to be all things to all people and my eldest child was growing up without me being truly present, always in the office or running off to teach yoga.

When the second one came along, and this after a failed IVF round which made me appreciate the fragility of life a little more, I decided I wanted to step up as a mother, but even then the patterns had been set and I got dragged back into the office and working and trying to be all things until my body made me aware that this couldn’t continue, but I didn’t know how to change things.

Then life intervened and my eldest suffered with separation anxiety at school which presented me with little choice but to step up and be a much more present mother. It took a bit of getting used to because I hadn’t realised how much of my identity and worth was tied up in my role as a company secretary where I could command a fairly decent salary and have people take me (relatively) seriously.

It’s ironic in many respects because as a career girl I used to judge those mothers who chose to stay at home, and those who worked but whose priority was their children. I had been sold the idea that to be a successful woman in this day and age, I needed to take my work seriously and put the needs of the business before both my children’s needs and my needs but I slowly started to wake up to this and the illusion I had been sold.

I started to notice how no one questioned the way in which we women are expected to be all things, how women were actively encouraged to put their children into childcare so that they could carry on working, women forced to stop breastfeeding, not because they wanted to, but because it impractical to continue once they returned from maternity leave and this sometimes after a mere 3 months.

Understandably many women have no choice, they have mortgages and bills to pay and they need to work. This was one of the reasons that I felt the pressure to return to work 3 months after having my eldest, but actually we could have coped. The reason I returned was because I didn’t know that I had a choice, it was what we women did, we had children and then (on the whole) we returned to work. 

I needed to earn money for the sake of earning money, I needed a career for the sake of having a career. I did all this because everyone else was doing it and it was expected of me. I did it because I expected to keep doing it. What was the point in all my education and professional training if I just gave up and stayed at home with my children? It just wasn’t even something I seriously considered; I was sold the notion that I would go mad, become brain dead, if I just stayed at home with my children.

It’s sad really, that we women have been conditioned to believe that we don’t have a choice. Some may well not have a choice and I am sorry about that; sorry that we live in a society where so little value is placed on the role of the mother in raising her young children herself if she chooses. I appreciate that not everyone wants to be with their children, and that is their right and choice too, it’s hard work and I was grateful for the distraction of work on many occasions!

Usually I don’t question the choice I have since made, to give up title and accumulation of wealth in exchange for more time spent with my children, but clearly there is something unresolved within me about it for it to have come up on the moon. I knew it was around feelings of self-worth but it wasn’t until today that I realised that this was in relation to my role as mum.

We finally watched Social Dilemma last night and this helped me to see some of the light. I saw so clearly the dark side of capitalism and how much suffering it creates in its pursuit of the accumulation of wealth above all else. This is partly the reason the earth is in such a mess and humanity too, that we sell out on that which is important in our pursuit of happiness=wealth=success. 

We know on a very basic level that this is not true, that wealth does not create happiness, yet we spend our lives trying to accumulate it anyhow and always at a cost. We equate money to success. It is very difficult to value motherhood, how can we measure it? And it’s this that makes it so tricky, when we have grown up in a society which is always trying to evaluate everything and put it in its place, even my six year old is evaluated on the speed at which he can answer sums to 10; its ingrained from a very young age.

Today I see this pattern so clearly and the extent to which society has lost its way.  But I also know how difficult it is to make the change, to go against the flow of things because something inside you tells you that it is not the way for you, to follow like a sheep, but this brings up fear because the way you are choosing is not known, it is not certain, it has no definite outcome, it is of the heart and soul and of trusting in that and having faith. 

 Keeping our faith high, and trusting in that little voice inside is not easy. This moon has made that very clear. But there really is no other way, not really, not if we are trying to live with integrity. It was this that struck me the most watching Social Dilemma, the way in which those humane IT guys live with integrity, and this gives me hope for the future of humanity. It also made me realise how easy it is to buy into the illusion and how we have to be really mindful about this. 

It is easy to convince ourselves that our actions are OK because everyone else is doing them. I know I’ve been kidding myself about that and air travel for a while now, justifying it somehow and yet knowing that it is not a sustainable way to travel, and in conflict with my other efforts to live more sustainably and with respect for the planet. There are many ways that we kid ourselves and buy into the illusion that its all OK. 

Social media is a prime example of this. I have been going on about it for months now and you can just imagine my joy that others are now taking note as a result of Social Dilemma. No doubt many will watch it and know they need to do something, but will continue to bury their heads in the sand because they will continue to buy into the illusion that this is the way that the world works now, this is the way to stay connected, the way to run a business, and the way to be someone.

But hopefully if enough of us find a different way, let go of the need for titles and the notion of ‘being someone’ and the idea of the happiness=wealth=success paradigm then things might change more positively. As for the over work and over achieve pattern, I can see this still so clearly rooted in the fear of not being good enough, of not being enough, of not being useful to society and of not living a life of purpose. Yet what could be more fulfilling or give my life more purpose or be of more value for society than me nurturing, watching, listening to and meeting the needs of my children? Let alone me meeting my own needs, that I have recognised too. 

This one of meeting our genuine needs requires a paradigm shift, meeting the needs of our children and ourselves, of genuine connection and simple living. It’s back to basics, coming full circle, knowing where our food comes from and having time to prepare it into a nutritious meal for our family, of re-prioritising and realising what is important, of valuing motherhood, of taking responsibility for our physical, mental and emotional health and looking after ourselves and our planet and saying no to anything that compromises any of this, including our own fears. 

Our suffering is our awakening

The last few days have been wobbly, the moon is waxing and she’s a powerful one, due full on Thursday, the first of two this October, the second will find us on Herm for the retreat, coincides with Samhain too and this month is due to be quite a potent one astrologically.

I’ve spent the day trying to feel into her. I had a sense that she is bringing surrender and there was something about community too, but then it came to me this evening, it’s illuminating more of the illusionary world we inhibit. Life is an illusion, this doesn’t mean that it isn’t real, or that it doesn’t exist, more so that it is subject to our interpretation and this a perspective and state of mind, so everyone will perceive the world differently.

There is no absolute truth therefore, other than purusha, the soul, the seer, which experiences through the mind but it is not the mind, it is the observer. The trouble is we cling to the mind and its idea of how life should be lived and we try to make certain that which is uncertain and judge and categories and otherwise create our own suffering through buying into the illusion.

Its interesting timing then that we should find ourselves going through an election here in Guernsey during October and between these two potent full moons. It wasn’t until I was talking to a friend earlier this evening that I realised how much this has been bothering me. I have spent the last few days reading manifestos and listening to videos and my soul has become increasingly weary. I don’t doubt that everyone wants positive change, but people are coming at it in such different ways, some with heart, passionate about some cause, and others because their ego says so.

Even those I might surmise are coming from heart, are trying to sell us a little of the illusion and the lie. I’m all up for the decriminalisation and legalisation of cannabis, for example, why not when alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs are used by the general public legally. But let’s be careful when we start using the excuse that cannabis is a plant medicine. Yes it is a plant medicine, but like any plant medicine you still need to proceed with caution. Wormwood is also a plant medicine but I’m not about to smoke that, and nor will I take more than I need without it having a toxic effect on my body and my mind.

But you can’t tell people this, or have a conversation about how we might look at reducing our dependency on drugs generally, because drugging ourselves on alcohol and prescription drugs has become such an acceptable part of our society that the notion of going without would literally create shock waves, because our pain and suffering is so great that we need something to numb it…don’t we? I’m biased. In the past I did use cannabis and alcohol to numb my pain, sometimes excessively and sometimes under the illusion that it was expanding my mind (the cannabis) and making me more spiritual (ha ha!).

But I finally recognised that my numbing to ease my suffering was actually creating more suffering in the long term and my buying into the illusion that antidepressants was going to help me find my way with depression, was a step too far for me. My little soul which was fairly much suffocated by this stage, managed to find the strength to flash through my mind and somehow make me consider in the darkest of dark moments that there had to be another way. Thank God for the soul. Thank God for yoga too.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, chapter 2, verse 16, reads, “hey duhkhamanagatam”, which basically means what must be avoided is future suffering, what is done is done let it go - yoga is all about reducing suffering. The chapter then goes on to share with us the tools that will help us to reduce our suffering including asana (postures) but not limited to this! Chapter Six of the Bhagavad Gita contains four definitions of yoga and one of them is especially genius -'“ yoga is the unlinking of the link with pain”.

This has been my experience of yoga. I have been practising yoga daily for just over 17 years now and during that time my life has changed beyond recognition and my relationship with my self and my mind has also changed in ways that I never imagined it could ever change. My relationship to pain has changed significantly too; I am not longer scared of pain and I no longer need to numb myself from it. Without doubt, pain has become one of my best friends because it highlights to me where I need to focus my attention and it is in this way that I can ease my suffering.

Our pain will manifest in all ways, but there will always be a mental source. We suffer because of our mind. This does not mean that our physical pain is not real, our physical pain will feel very real, only that it is our mind that ultimately creates our suffering in how it responds and manages our pain. Therefore if we can find ways to manage our mind, then we might be able to free ourselves from our overall pain and our suffering.

Which brings me back to the election and the illusion. I appreciate that many of those standing are doing so to make a difference, because they believe that they have something new to offer to us, to save the environment, to boost our economy, to sort our education once and for all, to ensure that the elderly are better cared for, to improve the mental health service, to make cannabis available to all, but it’s all just words and it’s just feeding the illusion.

If we truly want change then it has to come back to each of us individually and we need to begin to take greater responsibility, to see through the illusion and stop feeding into it. Facebook is such a good example of this, so many people moan about how it makes them feel bad, how they waste so much of their time on there, but they still cannot delete themselves from it, they are still feeding into the illusion that they will miss out, or lose a sense of community if they are not on it.

My weary soul took me to see La Gran’mère du Chimquière today, to touch something real that has stood the test of time and change. I felt better for it, so too the sea swims and the time spent wandering on Richmond dreaming of spiritual community, This is what I crave the most here on Guernsey, the weaving of the spiritual into our ordinary life, creating a shift in our awareness, ushering in a new paradigm, which doesn’t try to create more of what’s been while calling it something different, but invites in a whole new way of being, one of heart and the sacred, of deeper respect for the self and for the world we live in.

This is a whole new idea of what it means to be alive, if only we could shift our perspective to that extent; so that all the rest would shift effortlessly in a more harmonious and positive direction, so that we wouldn’t need to be talking about treating symptoms but could get right back to the cause of the loss of harmony and wellness of our society in the first place, to what made us sick; treating the symptoms never solved anything.

In many respects our suffering if a gift. It has the potential to awaken us, and this is needed now more than ever before in our history. All of this life currently lived, with Covid is asking more of us individually and collectively. We are trying to fight it, but it is not a war to be fought, it is an opportunity to look deeper at all that is flawed and all that has been mis-sold to us, including yoga, yes, including yoga. This is a time for deep discernment and discrimination, to see beyond the illusion. Only then will life change in a truly positive direction. Are you up for it?!

Chakra Balancing Crystals

I can barely contain my excitement as my new batch of chakra crystals have arrived! My lovely cousin Yolande has managed to source these for me from reputable buyers, no easy feat right now with Covid-19 affecting mining and distribution.

I’m grateful to Yolande because I have questioned in recent months, the ethics of crystal mining and selling. I love crystals but I’m aware that as their popularity has increased in recent years, there are increasing numbers of people trying to benefit from this, and selling sub-standard products at a high rate. I also question the industry itself, and the manner in which the crystals are being mined.

It all starts to get a bit heavy though and detracts from the joy that crystals can bring. They make such a difference in my life and I am grateful for every one of them. I am hopeful that these crystals will make a difference to other people’s lives too and look forward to sharing them on retreats and Reiki trainings, and ad hoc workshops.

I can highly recommend investing in a chakra lay out so that you can place the relevant crystals on each of your chakras if you are feeling in need of balance. There is a free chakra balancing guided relaxation on my website, it is a bout 10 minutes long and you could listen to this at the same time of lying still with the chakra on you - this is something we do during the Reiki Level Two training. It’s something I do from time to time too. You could use the following:

Root - red jasper

Sacral - Carnelian

Solar Plexus - Yellow aventurine or yellow jasper

Heart - Rose quartz and Green aventurine

Throat - Sodaiite or Blue lace agate

Third eye - Amethyst

Crown - Clear quartz

Anyhow I just wanted to share these crystals with you because just sharing them may spread their joy to you too!

Love xx

Introducing my calendula ointment!

Well here it is, my calendula ointment, and if I’m honest, then I’m proud of myself for it!

Sometimes in life things just happen. Traipsing up to Everest Base Camp as detailed in Namaste was one of those things, so was my water breaking six weeks early while leading a yoga & wellbeing retreat on Herm as detailed in Dancing with the Moon. Not that I’m thinking that my growing pot marigold will lead to me writing and publishing a book but you never know - something things do just happen!

Me seeing Fi’s Facebook post about her organic seeds just happened. Me accepting some of her organic seeds just happened. Me deciding I might grow them on the waxing moon because I thought this might help them grow just happened. Me giving them Reiki also just happened. The seeds growing just happened, and it seemed to happen very quickly.

These were the seeds that germinated before any of the other medicinal plant seeds did, that grew faster than any of the others and demanded the most of my attention and yet I was pleased to tend to them because they were so giving with their cheerful and uplifting energy. These were the plants from whom I learned to transplant into bigger pots and bigger pots and even bigger pots because they just kept on growing!

These are the plants that whispered to me that they needed to go in the ground a few months later and caused me to spend an entire weekend establishing a moon garden on Lammas so I could make sure they were in the ground after this, when the full moon had aded her energy to the prepared soil.

These are the plants that produced the most beautiful yellow and orange flowers which are not only hugely cheerful but calming to the spirit too. I quickly began to love my pot marigolds and have never looked back since; they have been extremely abundant and giving, even now I am still picking the flowers. I struggled with this initially, it seemed such a shame, especially as they attract pollinators, but it is almost as if they like to keep giving more flowers to bloom.

In historic times calendula was used for magical purposes. It was also used by the Romans and Greeks in many rituals and ceremonies, sometimes garlands and crowns were worn that were made from calendula. It is sometimes called ‘Mary’s Gold’ referring to the flowers’ use in early Catholic rituals in some countries. They are considered sacred flowers in India and have been used to decorate the states of Hindu deities since early times, and they were used around the shala at Satsanga Retreat centre in Goa when we were there last year.

They were used for culinary purposes too, both for favour and colour. However it is its long history of medical use throughout the world that has made calendula so popular and continues to make it popular today. It is considered a vulnerary agent, a plant which promotes healing. It has been used internally and externally with above-average results compared to other healing herbs. It has anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. When applied to wounds, calendula prevents microbial growth and does not cause skin tissues to retract, thus providing more oxygen to the skin cells to lessen the healing time - as I discovered on a burn recently. The flowers are high in vitamin C and have been used to improve appetite and increase circulation.

I decided that I would use my flowers to make a calendula ointment that could be applied to skin. I started picking them and drying them on a hanging rack I bought for that purpose in our airing cupboard. Initially I picked all the petals from the flower heads thinking it was just then petals that one would add to any oil but then I read more into the subject and discovered, with much relief as it was rather time consuming, that the whole flower head could be soaked, phew!

I researched oils and while I opted for organic olive oil for my lavender, rosemary and sage, I chose almond oil for the calendula, it just felt the right choice intuitively. I covered the calendula flowers with the oil in a glass jar and placed it on a sunny window sill for three weeks or so and over a waxing moon too. Actually during the latter part of the moon cycle from half moon to full moon, I placed the jar outside so that the oil and flowers could absorb both the moonlight and sunlight directly. I’m ever hopeful that this may have increased its potency and healing properties.

After three weeks or so, I don’t know, just when it felt right, I drained the flowers and was left with this most beautiful orange oil. There was something about its colour and texture, like a form of liquid gold, that made me feel very satisfied and very grateful for the abundance of my beautiful plants.

My mum helped me then to melt organic beeswax into the oil so that I could make it into an ointment. This was exciting! It wasn’t anywhere as near as tricky as I had imagined, and extremely pleasing, I felt like I had actually achieved something, made a dream come true that I hadn’t even recognised was a dream, but there was something in me that was delighted to have made a potentially healing potion. I’m a passionate healer and a little bit Wiccan and I guess it was empowering. I infused each jar with Reiki and of course they were made with love too!

So here it is, my calendula ointment…

It can be used to treat acne, burns, scrapes, nappy rash, scratches, minor abrasions, small cuts, insect bites, recurring skin conditions such as dermatitis and eczema, to ease very rough and dry skin, on cradle cap and dandruff, on haemorrhoids or inflammation of the rectal area, peeling and chapped lips, vaginal yeast infections, conjunctivitis, deep aches, muscle spasms and rheumatism. Ointments keep body heat and water in so it shouldn’t really be used on hot, inflamed and weepy skin conditions.

I’ve used it in a few situations and I know I’m biased but it feels good! It eased some sore skin, it healed a burn quickly, it helped my son’s dermatitis and I used it on a sun burned nose too! I’ve given some to my friends to test on their various skin conditions and am hoping it works for them too.

I don’t have many pots, but if you feel it might help you then let me know. I am selling them for £15 for a 120ml pot.

But really they are invaluable to me, because they brought so much joy and it is difficult to put a cost on that!

Apologies for the slightly amateur photos, not my strongest point!!

Love Emma x

You're not a fraud!

It’s been in the ‘field’ recently, because a number of people have shared with me how they feel a fraud for working in the capacity of Reiki healer or yoga teacher when they are still healing themselves and dealing with their own trauma, insecurities and lack of self-worth.

I have fallen into this trap in the past too, of believing that I had to have all my ‘stuff’ sorted to work in a healing and yogic capacity. I used to put all my yoga teachers up on pedestals, for example, thinking that they had it sorted, that they were wiser and somehow better than me; healed and enlightened. Not that I had any evidence that this was the case, beyond my own perception of what it might mean to be a ‘proper’ yoga teacher and/or Reiki practitioner. 

And this is often the problem that we face; our own minds and what we believe to be right or wrong and our (mis)perceptions and expectations of what a particular ‘role’ in life might look like. Others will feed into this with their perception and expectation of what they think your life should look like too. Many yoga students assume that yoga teachers are vegan-eating, calm and centred semi-enlightened beings. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!

 We are all human and we are all doing the best we can, and those of us yoga teachers and healers are trying to find our way just like everyone else. As E always says, we’re probably more neurotic than most, and it is this, and our own suffering, that has led us to yoga and healing in the first place. More fool anyone for putting themselves on a pedestal and putting out to the world that they are sorted, because it will always catch up on you in the end.

I suppose this had been on my mind, when quite by chance, or not perhaps, I stumbled across reference to Michael Stone on a yoga website a few weeks ago. Michael was a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, Buddhist teacher, author and activist, committed to the integration of traditional teachings with contemporary psychological and philosophical understanding. He hosted sell-out seminars, retreats, conferences and workshops related to Buddhism across Canada and around the world. 

Married with two children and another on the way, he died from a drug overdose in Victoria on Vancouver Island at the age of 42 in 2017. Unbeknown to his students or the outer world, Michael was suffering quietly with bipolar disorder and several months before his death, his mania began to cycle more rapidly. Until that point he had been managing his mental health through Buddhism and yoga for years, but had sought medical help in the months leading up to his death.

A statement at the time of his death said, “He went to bed early. He ate a special diet…He saw naturopaths and herbalists and trainers and therapists. As things worsened, he turned to psychiatry and medication as well. Balancing his meds was ever-changing and precarious”. The statement went on to say that Michael kept his condition private because he “feared the stigma of his diagnosis…[but] he was on the cusp of revealing publicly how shaped he was by bipolar disorder and how he was doing”.

I was shocked when I read all this and felt sad that Michael hadn’t felt he could share his suffering with his students, as if he might be judged, or his sharing might somehow negate his teachings, cause others to question them. His website reads, “Michael was on the cusp of revealing publicly how his life was shaped by bipolar disorder. It was complicated though. As a spiritual teacher for whom so many looked to for stability, he wondered if it was better to hide his own fragility. As a psychotherapist, he was trained to put his own stuff aside in order to work with others. He was also a human who felt—and was allowed to feel—the stigma, shame, and self-consciousness that comes with a mental health diagnosis in a culture that largely doesn’t know how to deal with neurodiversity.”

It is complicated. There is a certain vulnerability that comes with being deeply authentic in this world with all its expectations, and especially when we have such high expectations for ourselves too. As many of you will know I have a history of depression and have been trying to write about it in a manuscript these last few years. The writing has taken me on an inner journey as I have been required to dig deep and resolve those aspects of self that still held an emotional resonance, that were still impacting on my mind, feeding into false perception and continuing to support – in many respects – my suffering.

During lock-down I dropped into a dark night of the soul and the depression felt all too real. It was all part of the process, and was necessary for my writing and own self-healing. A friend asked how it was that I could continue teaching and I remarked that it is in the teaching and the attempt at being there for others that keeps me grounded and helps support my own healing – life continues anon and I want to be a part of that, not hide away from it, because I feel that my life should look a certain way if I am to be a compassionate and effective teacher or human being. 

This is reflected to a point by Michael’s website, which further reads, “Michael loved his students and he loved his work. The practices he shared through workshops, retreats, and writing were a life raft for him. His work inspired and grounded him. As a neurodiverse person living with internal instability, he channelled his challenges and the insights gleaned from his experience into tools that he could share with others. It could be argued that it was in experiencing these challenges that Michael became so effective as a teacher and communicator. For someone facing his kinds of suffering, he did really, really well.”

This raises a very important point, especially for those who are battling with their ‘goodness’ and ability to teach/heal others when they are going through the mill themselves. It is only through our experiences that we grow as conscious human beings, that we gain insight and are en-lightened of the human condition. Let us not forget that we are in this together – we are all connected and are a micro of the macro. Our challenges are here to help us to grow and it is through our compassionate sharing that we can help to support others as they too navigate their challenges; empathy, understanding and compassion are paramount to the healing process.

Authenticity is crucial too. Without this, we are kidding ourselves as much as we are kidding others and we are setting ourselves up for a fall. This also comes with experience, the dropping away of the layers that prevent us from being honest with ourselves and allowing more of our vulnerability. It is a never ending process and demands patience and kindness towards the self. Unfortunately our ‘quick fix’ culture, especially influenced by the allopathic world, does very little to support this, and it is common place to find yoga and Reiki students grasping for the ‘cure’, the course, workshop, training and/or attunement that will suddenly make them whole and fix them.  

It will all help, of course, but it takes time and honesty, getting out of our denial, and the tendency towards self-sabotage and the misperception that we have to have it all sorted otherwise what right do we have to help others – buying into the idea that we are indeed a fraud. It’s tricky territory, because as soon as we start buying into this, we start to give ourselves a hard time and our internal critic reigns as we feed into the negative self-talk and add to the weight of our lack of self-worth, which underpins so much of this.

I went through this not that long ago so write with some degree of experience. Fortunately my healing friend, Jo, pulled me up on it and I am more aware of catching myself now. I have had a skin condition for three years now, which has gotten worse over that time. I have been trying to treat it holistically, mainly through Ayurveda. I can see so clearly why it is there from an Ayurvedic perspective, but have ‘struggled’ (this word is the give-away!) to heal it myself. I felt like a fraud – how can I possibly help others to heal Ayurvedically, when it didn’t appear to be working for me. 

This train of thinking did nothing to ease the bout of depression. I was giving myself a really hard time, to the extent that my spirit flagged and I questioned whether I might continue working in a ‘healing’ capacity. I went to the doctor in the end, which was a big deal for me, because until that point, despite the many lessons I have learned through my experience with conception and birth, I still held onto the notion that allopathic treatment is bad, holistic is good; the mind was buying into the separation and thus creating some inner-disharmony.

The doctor diagnosed peri-oral dermatitis, which was a huge relief, to finally have a diagnosis and something to work with and I wished it hadn’t taken me so long to ‘surrender’ to seeking allopathic help (and having to therefore let go of my notion of right/wrong, good/bad – it amuses me how we create so much of our own suffering through our perceptions). I was prescribed three months’ worth of anti-biotics, which caused me to actually laugh out loud in the doctor’s surgery, because of course I know only too well that what we resist persists - I have been a vocal advocate against antibiotics for a good while now and this was strengthened when I saw for myself the damage they caused when Eben was prescribed them at birth; even now his tummy is still not healed.  

It was a big deal for me to take the tablets, and yet I learned so much about my mind during the experience, that has been helpful. It kickstarted too my research into peri-oral dermatitis, which is of course not straight forward to treat, why would it be, how would I grow if there wasn’t a healing challenge to resolve! The anti-biotics will help to an extent, but will not get to the cause - any skin condition, as I know only too well, is linked to the heart and involves a good look at self-love and the manner in which we self-harm, and it is intrinsically linked to stress too, which is ironic, is it not, for a yoga teacher to be stressed! 

Yet stressed I can be, in my effort to be all things, to live up to my cultural expectation and my own inner drive towards achieving and being of some use and purpose in this world - living life to the full, helping and knowing more of my own mind in the process; in short, becoming conscious. Reading about Michael, it struck me that this might well have underpinned so much of his motivation too and I couldn’t say it better than the words used on his website:

“Considering his practice and teaching, it’s easy to wonder how he could’ve died. We could instead ask, how did he live so well considering the power of his neurodiverse wiring? What can we learn about our own minds and hearts from someone who visited the front lines of the mind? There is an all too common theme in yoga and dharma worlds: if you practice deeply enough, you will heal, and if you don’t heal, your practice or something in you is flawed. This is not true.”

 I agree; I know that those teachers and friends who have inspired me the most, are those that have gone through, and are going through their own mill. These are the people who are doing work on themselves, who embrace the challenges, because it gives them something to work with. Yoga and meditation are practices, they provide us with tools to help us navigate our way through life, they are not the cure in themselves, it is only when we work with them that we might come to heal more of ourselves. So it is the same with Reiki and Ayurveda – we adopt the principles so that they become a part of our life; we live them. 

There are times when we need help from others, when we need counselling or therapy, when we need allopathic medicine. All of these I have called on over the last few years; nine months ago I went through a course of EDMR because the yoga and the Reiki and the Ayurveda had got me so far, unravelled some of the trauma, but I was struggling to let it go and EDMR helped me through this process and I shall be forever grateful to Marni Alexendra for that (life changing) processing.

We should not feel it is a sign of weakness or be shamed by the need to seek professional help or to allow our students to know what we are going through; we are all only human, even those of us teaching yoga. We need to give ourselves a break and allow the break downs to help us to break through whatever is getting in our way. Sometimes we are our own obstacle because we feel we have to look, act or be perceived a particular way. It takes a lot of energy to keep up this pretence and half our problem is letting go of that and this idea of an image that we want to present to the world. 

I am grateful to the depression and also to the peri-oral dermatitis, for both have given me a reason to dig deep and learn more about healing and about myself. My learnings have helped me to be kinder and more compassionate to myself, forgiving and letting go of stubborn unforgiveness and having greater compassion and empathy for others too, so that my experience informs my work and I may share from a place of deeper awareness and integrity.

I suspect the depression will always come and go for it is a messenger that shows me where I need to let go of holding in my mind, of mental constructs which are limiting me and the process of letting go allows me to breakthrough to another level of consciousness so that the world appears brighter, with more potential than I could have ever possible imagined - as if a new world awaits if only I could get out of my own way (depression helps this). As for the peri-oral dermatitis, I’m not quite sure where this is taking me, but I’m flowing with it as best I can and increasingly accepting that we are more than the face we put out to the world! 

To those of you battling with this idea that you have to be whole and healed to do the work you do, give yourself a break: it is your humanness that will inspire others, and allow them to be more of who they are, not your denial of it. The more you can allow your authentic self its expression, with all its messiness and contradictions, the more it gives others permission to awaken and acknowledge those aspects of self that might require attention. It is in our healing that we help others to heal, it is in our growing and expansion that we allow others to grow and expand too. I’m grateful to Michael, for his story has allowed me to own more of my truth - thank you.

Love Emma x

More plants!

I managed to move more plants to our home yesterday, get them in the ground as they requested! They really do talk, its amazing. E thinks I’m crazy, says they are just responding to the gases in my breath when I talk to them, but I believe they have a consciousness and we can tap into that, same with trees.

Here’s the Echinacea, in our front garden, by some lavender that a kind neighbour gave to us. This is good for supporting our immune system and preventing colds and such like.

Here’s the Valerian, good for sleep and relaxing, looking forward to trying that!

Here’s some of my elecampane, got to figure out whether I can fit the rest of it into that space…

I’ve got about 70 pots of St John’s Wort that still need a home. E’s beginning to grow weary of me taking over ‘his’ garden that he’s cultivated from a wild mess of stone and brambles when he bought the property 15 years ago now. It’s incredible the transformation, and what he has found as he has turned the land, it was very much a rubbish dump out the back overlooking the quarry.

My veggie patch has been abundant too this year and we are going to extend this, if we can make the room, we’ve got almost 200 saplings we are nurturing for our Plant A Tree Project, and intend to extend on this the next six months or so. It’s so exciting, I just love the process of growing, my grandparents were tomato growers, my uncle was a rose grower, both my cousins have grown their own produce for many years, more recently my parents too, you can’t escape your nature can you.

Trying not to get too attached…that’s the tricky bit! That’s when the suffering comes, as I am continuously learning; the more attached we come to outcome or expectation, the more our mind craves it and is disappointed if it doesn’t materialise. So let’s just go with it, see what happens, ‘let it be’, that’s my mantra for now.

Love