Surrendering to Yoga
Yesterday I was in overwhelm. Overwhelm at the thought of not being able to teach yoga or share Reiki. Overwhelm at the thought of not being able to touch anyone. Overwhelm at the idea of not being able to earn any money to help support my family. Overwhelm at the idea of home schooling/unschooling my children and at the sheer volume of people sharing home schooling content (thank you but enough already!). Overwhelm at the fast pace in which events are unfolding, and not being able to keep on top of it or process it properly. And overwhelm at the effect on children/loved ones and the wider community.
I wanted to understand and I had questions that couldn’t be answered, about the approach being taken by government and exit strategies and the manner in which decisions impact on everyone. I wanted certainty, of outcome, of knowing. I found myself reflecting, for example, on the irony, of how, in an effort to protect the vulnerable from suffering, many more end up suffering and feeling vulnerable – but this I know is karma in action, every action has a consequence, even well intended action.
I was torn on my perspective and feeling both compassion and anger all at the same time. It was like being in a washing machine of shifting emotions. Needless to say I went to bed last night with both a heavy heart, grieving all that had been, and feeling exhausted from trying to stay positive when there is so much fear pervading the world. I also felt helpless to do anything positive to help and a little purposeless as a result. There was a real sense of endings, with no clear idea of the new beginnings and my role in this.
Today I feel very differently. The Spring Equinox has ushered in a wave of clarity and positive energy, and there has been a surrendering to, and acceptance of our current situation. I am very aware that we are all facing the collective shadows, of fear of dying and fear of not having enough money to survive. It’s our survival that is being tested on every level. Yet what have we to lose?
For many it feels that we are losing everything we have ever known, our jobs, our businesses, our homes, the life that we had created thus far. Yet there is the concept of Samsara, first expressed in the Upanishads 3,500 years ago, the idea of the cycle of reincarnation, a continuous spin of birth and death as the soul completes its time in one form before taking on another.
Whether or not you actually believe in reincarnation, there is a lesson that can be learned from the concept of samsara itself – everything is continuously changing. During the course of our lives we will birth/create and let go of many identities, stages of life, relationships, ideas, beliefs and goals. We are continuously coming into new forms and ways of being again and again. Understanding and appreciating samsara as a natural and necessary process can be comforting at times like this, when we go through periods of (intense) transition.
In theory these are the periods of illumination that encourage us to grow. The more we settle into these moments of great change and uncertainty, the more comfortable we can become in the big-shift feelings that accompany them – albeit the feelings of anxiety, fear, sadness that accompany the letting go into the unknown and uncertainty can be utterly overwhelming.
I am reminded too of Isvara Pranidhara, the last of the five niyamas, or inner practices of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, meaning ‘surrender to a higher power’. This is not a process of defeat or of mindlessly submitting to another’s will, but the act of giving ourselves over to a higher purpose. It is about accepting what cannot change and acknowledging that we are not entirely masters of our own fate. In surrendering to something greater (of which we are a part – the collective consciousness), and letting go we open ourselves up to the potential of greater peace, love and freedom of mind.
I realise that yesterday I was very much stuck in my own ego and false sense of loss, whereas today (and long may it continue) the shifting energy has helped me to recognise that this is absolutely not about me! We are all affected and we all have a role to play. This is dharma, another of the concepts discussed in the Upanishads. Depending on our innate disposition or nature, each of us has been assigned (or has chosen) a role to play in this lifetime. It is our duty and responsibility to play our role to the best of our potential, getting on with it, uncomplaining, without hankering after someone else’s.
Life will never be quite the same again. Just like the body gives us signs before dis-ease manifests as illness, so too the universe has been prodding us, trying to get our attention. There have been financial crises encouraging us to live within our means, changing weather patterns showing us that all is not well up there in the atmosphere, and our own collective loss of mental wellbeing, indicating that as a specie we are not well either. We need to pull together to find a new way forward, living our dharma!
I feel that it is more important than ever to keep sharing yoga and Reiki with you and I am proposing this schedule next week:
Sunday 22 March 2020, 9.30-10.30am - Free Yoni Yoga for the ladies. This is a deeply nourishing and feminine approach to practice, with a guided Yoga Nidra, perfect for Mother’s Day. Facebook Live.
Monday 23 March 2020, 10-10.15/20am – Free Children’s Yoga. Let’s give it a whirl, Elijah might help me! Facebook Live. Depending on how the children find it, I’ll offer more.
Monday 23 March 2020, 6.15-7.30pm – Free Hatha Yoga class with Yoga Nidra. Zoom. You will need to sign up as a participant for Zoom, which is free. I will post further instructions, this will be a learning curve for me too!
Tuesday 24 March 2020, 8.30-9pm – Free group new moon meditation/Reiki share. We’ll try and do this on Zoom. We’ll breath together and prepare to sit and meditate on new moon energy, while sending distance Reiki for those Reiki attuned, and to each other within the group.
Wednesday 25 March 2020, 7.30-8.15 am – Free Hatha Yoga class. Facebook live.
Thursday 26 March 2020, 6-7pm – Hatha Yoga class, Zoom, £10 to join the session, email me to join and I will provide the link and payment details. You will need to sign up as a participant for Zoom, which is free.
Friday 27 March 2020, 9.30-10.45am – Hatha Yoga class with Yoga Nidra, Zoom, £10 to join the session, email me to join and I will provide the link and payment details. You will need to sign up as a participant for Zoom, which is free.
This is all subject to change, if there’s one thing we are learning, it is flexibility and going with the flow.
Love Emma x
P.S. Please do check the blog and Facebook for updates!
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.
The electric cargo bike and my increased wellbeing!
Investing in our electric cargo bike was a life changing moment for me towards the end of 2019, because little did I realise at the time how much I was positively investing into my general wellbeing.
2019 was a tough year, and I wasn’t feeling my most positive in autumn, when a bright orange electric cargo bike caught my attention from the window of our local bike shop.
I had been cycling my eldest son, Elijah (who is 6 years old), to school on my non-electric mountain bike, pulling him in a trailer behind me, but this was becoming increasingly hard work physically. We live at the top of a hill, and while the school is only 6 minutes away by car, or 10 minutes by bike, I was growing weary of the journey, sometimes repeated three times a day as Elijah comes home for lunch.
As the weather grew colder, drearier and wetter, the less inclined I was to use my mountain bike and trailer, and the more I started driving instead. But this made me miserable, not least because parking around the school can be challenging, and the traffic is sometimes a little testing too (by Guernsey standards!), but because I missed the fresh air and exercise. I’m also conscious of the environmental impact of using the car and this depressed me!
The electric cargo bike seemed to call to me from my car every time I drove past the bike shop, and before I thought about it too much, I booked to hire it for a few days, to see how it might work for us. It worked well! We loved it! I was amazed how much better it made me feel, and now that I had the electric motor I had absolutely no excuse not to use it regardless of the weathers – the wetter the better, because it made the experience even more fun!
Despite the cost, I therefore had no hesitation in ordering one and I haven’t looked back since! I think everyone should have one, especially here on Guernsey, because they are almost made for Island living.
These are the other reasons I love our bike:
They help you to get really fit. For me the bike is a mode of transport as opposed to an opportunity for ‘exercise’ and yet the by-product of using it all the time is that I’ve gotten fit. Some people believe electric bikes are just for old people and don’t think you have to put in any effort. Wrong! You can make it as challenging as you like, you just turn off the electric motor, but even with it on, you still have to peddle!
We can easily nip down to Saints Bay for a play on the beach/sea swim before school, without having to worry about parking, before zooming back up the hill (yes, all three of us up Saints hill, no problem) to the school, and again no parking issues.
I feel even more connected to nature than I did previously, and on the days that I have no cause to use the bike, I try and find any excuse I can to get out on it, even if it is just to nip to the shop, to get some fresh air and have the opportunity to notice the changing skies and landscape.
Talking of which, we shop on the bike too, because it has huge paniers than we can fill with a whole family’s worth of shopping. We can also fill it with a plethora of beach toys when we go down to the beach.
I can even use the bike to get to yoga classes, filling the panniers and the cargo bit with bags of props and mats, absolutely no problem.
The front and back lights are really strong and I have no qualms cycling at night, with or without the children, I’ve done both, and it’s really rather lovely because we look for owls and watch the stars and the moon, and we’ve even cycled at night in the pouring rain too.
In the long run I have no doubt it will be saving me money. It doesn’t cost much by way of electricity to charge the battery (you’ve just got to remember to charge it otherwise it is a challenging cycle, especially with two children on the back!) and I am saving myself my previously weekly petrol bill.
I use the cargo bike on journeys I might not have used for my non electric bike previously. I think nothing of using this one to whizz to my parents, or down into town, or out to the cliffs. I now choose the bike over the car. I used to love driving but not anymore!
My stress levels have reduced significantly, not least from the exercising and fresh air (and being in nature), but from not having to drive (this elevates my stress levels!) and not having to get my children into their car seats, especially my youngest, which used to be a daily battle and often meant that we were then rushing to get to school or appointments on time.
My overall sense of wellbeing has increased. I feel so much better within myself because of the manner in which it has positively affected my mental wellbeing and lifted my previous depression (at the thought of the school run). It’s like sea swimming, just makes you feel better, more positive somehow.
Peace! It’s peaceful on the bike. No radio, no Dirty Bertie or Percy Park Keeper audios, no children bickering or moaning. You get to hear the sounds of nature, the bird song, water in the streams on the way down to Saints or Petit Bot, for example. Admittedly there’s still the sounds of the traffic, but when you get off the main roads this quietens.
The bike is better for the environment than using a car and is teaching my children about other modes of transport available to them.
Using the bike helps to calm the general traffic so other road users benefit (studies have shown that bikes on the roads help to calm the traffic and make the roads safer for cyclists to use).
We notice the litter much more now and have started going wombling to collect the litter. I never used to notice it when I was in the car, or at least, I might notice it but do nothing about it. Now I feel a need to do something about it. [Look out for details of our next collective wombling session by the way, let’s clean up this island together, collectively!]
It’s so much fun! We absolutely enjoy going out on the bikes. The boys will choose the bike over the car. Using the bike makes us all happy and there is no doubt that it increases our general sense of wellbeing.
The reasons we don’t like the bike:
None! We love the bike!
Happy New Year!
Namaste!
Hello, lovely people! I hope you are all well and enjoyed Christmas day with all that sunlight, like a gift from the heavens!
Now, as I sit here writing this on the new moon solar eclipse, the sun keeps disappearing as the rain pours down again. Still, the energy is very clear, and I feel positive for the future as we build up to the end of this decade and a new one soon beginning.
Like the Queen said, this year has been decidedly bumpy as we have been encouraged to let go of anything outdated and inauthentic, healing trauma and anything else that we have been unnecessarily holding on to, and (re)aligning ourselves more fully with our truth. For me it has been a year of studying and learning, embracing Ayurveda and the Scaravelli-approach to yoga, which has turned life on its head, and helped me to acknowledge what has needed to change.
This has been a challenging process at times - looking at ourselves honestly is never easy, nor is knowing how we might make the changes that need to be made. Still, once we take the first step, the universe conspires to do what it can to help us. I am reminded time and time again that it is only by shifting our inner world, that our outer world will change. I think too of Dr Usui’s teachings, 'that it is by mastering the mysteries of self that we learn to affect the mysteries of life’. So true!
At Beinspired it has been a busy year, with a couple of retreats to Glastonbury and Sark, the annual retreat to Herm and the one to Goa too; the boys have done a lot of travelling! We’re letting go of the Goa retreat for now, and we are still waiting to hear if we’ll be returning to Herm…however, don’t despair as places for the September Glastonbury retreat and the October Sark retreat go on sale at the beginning of February so look out for that!
We’ve let go of our weekend yoga classes for now too. Vicki is taking a break from the Sunday morning class, and I shall be enjoying some time with the family when I’m not running a retreat, workshop or Reiki attunement session.
We have a number of places still available for the Yoga Pause on Saturday 18 January.
This is ideal for those of you who would like to deepen your practice and enjoy a whole morning of uninterrupted yoga - a treat, and a much needed pause in our busy lives…sometimes a pause is all that is needed to shift the perspective more positively. I’m excited about this. Please sign up here
There are also some spaces available on the Yoni Yoga session, one of my favourite sessions of the year which you can sign up for here
The Reiki courses are such a treat, Reiki (and yoga) saved my life and I absolutely love sharing it with others and witnessing how it positively touches lives - the more people practicing Reiki, the best for the planet! There’s two spaces remaining on the Reiki Level Two course on 8 February 2020 and 1 space left on the Reiki Level One course on 1 March. I’m intending to run further courses later in the year so keep an eye out for those. We’re taking deposits for these courses (another lesson learned) and we hope this helps people to commit.
There is something new in 2020 for those of you Reiki Level Two attuned - I am now ready to offer Reiki Master attunements! This will be conducted on a one-to-one basis, with certain criteria met before I am prepared to do this. A big thing for me at the moment is the loss of sacredness in yoga and Ayurveda and I am starting to see this filter into Reiki too. Just to stress that I am not prepared to attune anyone to Master level who is not doing it for the right reasons, it is a calling, not for a title or business. Please find out more here.
The other exciting development for 2020 - we’re giving away our 6-week anxiety video pack for free! We’re aware how many of you suffer with anxiety and we are hopeful that this may help. To access this, click here. Please do give us your feedback. We’re not intending to do any more videos for now, that’s another thing we’ve let go of this year, time for new projects ahead!
We’re still working on our Family Yoga Book, which we hope to finish this year! Steph has now moved onto new pastures and we are lucky that her younger sister, Katie, has taken being my most wonderful helper, and we are all three, keen to see this book come to fruition finally!
I’m also still editing my third manuscript, and would like to think I might get a chance to finish this too, but lets’s see! My time is limited as the children are my priority and with Eben starting pre-school, I expect I’ll be cycling to drop-off and pick-ups even more than I am already!
However, if I do find some time, I will also be offering Ayurvedic consolations and Yoga Therapy sessions, which combine Yoga and Reiki on a one-to-one basis, which is a really healing combination. You can find out more by clicking on the links above.
Ah, the other big news (I almost forgot!) is that I have a card reader! Woo hoo! On the basis that it works then this can be used to pay for yoga classes, drop-in or blocks of tokens, and also for Ayurvedic and Yoga therapy sessions. I won’t be using it for Reiki attunement sessions or retreats for now.
For me personally 2020 is about doing what I can to restore the sacred, and to embrace the home. I’m excited that after a 9-year absence, E and I are returning to Nepal with the children in March. This has been a dream since before they were even conceived, I’m sure it’ll be a very different experience to our previous trips. This is a home-coming as much as anything else, as I always considered Nepal my second home, but also an opportunity to truly tap into the sacred which permeates this beautiful part of the world.
I’m very much looking forward to seeing my Nepali friends again, and will miss Devika who is now living with her family in the US. I am also looking forward to visiting the Namaste Children’s Home, which is very close to my heart. I’m hoping to scout a place for a potential yoga retreat, but I’m very aware that this might be a step too far with the children being the age they are - we’ll see!
I’m also headed to Stonehenge for the summer solstice this year and am keen to explore the sacredness of the Guernsey landscape, which is rich in energetic hotspots. Sacred spaces are a big thing for me and I am giving some thought to this...watch this space!
This just leaves me to wish you all a new year that brings great pease, wisdom, and choices that enrich your life, other’s lives, and the healing of the world!
Love Emma and the lovely team at Beinspired.