Shifting perspectives; feminine energy

Something happened towards the end of last year (2018) that was very strange. I couldn’t for the life of me come up with my usual list of dreams and intentions for the new year (2019). 

This threw me into a bit of a spin because for as long as yoga and Reiki have been in my life, I have spent each new year writing out my list, before proceeding to put an enormous amount of effort into trying to make things happen, of trying to manifest my dreams. 

Admittedly the dreams have come true over the years – finally the boyfriend rocked up into my life, finally the children arrived and finally the books were written and published, but this had all taken a lot of effort and energy (and often masculine energy at that). 

But something felt different now. 

Initially, I also found myself questioning whether something was wrong with me.  Was I lacking clarity? Had I lost my direction? Was I no longer ambitious? Was I limiting myself on some level? Did I no longer have dreams? But the truth is, I still had dreams, but the idea of manifesting them simply wasn’t consuming me as they had done previously.

I decided to sit with it, just let it be. 

A couple of moon cycles passed and still I lacked the enthusiasm or interest in any new moon wishes or full moon magic and my old vision board looked on, now a couple of years out of date. It was a really uncomfortable feeling to wonder what had changed, but not yet being able to make sense of it.

Then the March equinox arrived and it suddenly became much clearer to me. On social media especially, there was this sense of urgency, of needing to tap into the equinox energy to make things happen, and yet all I saw was a lot of pushing and forcing. 

There were others going on and on about manifesting and taking their power back, and yet all I could see was them manifesting yet more ego and ego and ego (this is when someone pointed out to me that CEO might easily translate as Chief Ego Officer…).

At the same time, I could no longer ignore the fact that while many women are promoting the divine feminine and the need to honour the feminine energy, they are still living their own lives from a masculine perspective, yet more striving, pushing and yang energy.

 This coincided with me experiencing for the first time the Scaravelli-inspired approach to yoga, which those of you who have read my recent newsletter will know, has totally turned my world upside down. 

This approach to yoga has thrown all I have learned over the years on its head. Totally turned everything upside down and around again, which has been both confusing and enlightening – the paradox of the Scaravelli approach. 

This is an approach to yoga that is subtle and cannot be clearly described or delineated. There are no rules, no right or no wrong, only attention and sensitivity, honouring the body’s natural intelligence and resting into the earth with gravity, perhaps revealing the magical connections between lightness and rest. 

I had a sense that this is how life is perhaps best lived and that our dreams will come true regardless of the energy that we put into them. That it is about the feminine and flowing and intuition and listening, and continuously aligning with the heart and the soul, which is always guiding.

This is a whole new way of being that at first is confronting because it demands a lot of trust in self, and because the ego is not being asked to control anything and the ego likes to control. But this in itself becomes increasingly liberating. Not to say that it is easy, because the energy is very different and it takes some adjusting especially, if like me, you’ve settled more easily into the masculine previously. 

I might be off kilter, but I do feel that the soul has already written what it is here to live and experience in this lifetime, and it is our job, our work, to keep aligning with this truth.  It is in this way that the dreams will come true, because they are meant to be lived, if we can keep aligning to them. Listening. Flowing. Intuition. All those lively feminine qualities. 

It’s been difficult for me to put this into words so I was delighted when I came across this Forever Conscious posting about Friday’s new moon in Aries, because it helped to validate a little of how I feel.  It is this that has promoted me to write this blog, to share, in case you too have been feeling some shifting and stirrings. https://foreverconscious.com/intuitive-astrology-april-new-moon-2019

There’s certainly something going on and as boring as it gets to be reminded of that famous quote, “be the change you wish to see in the world”, it is true! If we truly do want to find a more aligned and more resourceful and peaceful way to live, then we must be the ones to live it. And if that means surrendering, then so be it.

 Happy new moon and yet more new beginnings!

xx

Shifting awareness

"In addition to creating new cultural establishments, we must enable our very mode of being to evolve. But I do not mean something implausible or fanciful. I mean what simply amounts to growing up. Rather than becoming something other-than-human or superhuman, we are summoned to become fully human. We must mature into people who are, first and foremost, citizens of Earth and residents of the universe, and our identity and core values must be recast accordingly. This kind of maturation entails a quantum leap beyond the stage of development in which the majority of people live today. And yet we must begin now to engender the future human". - Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Poltkin.

This quote fits really well with how I feel life is unfolding, at least, with the new year and the current spiritual paradigm shift.  I have a real sense that it is no longer about us.  Obviously we’re important, but it has to be about something much greater than ourselves, it has to be about the collective.  And this isn’t just in the sense of ‘airy-fairy-spiritual-fluffiness-oneness-in service-it’s all just about love and light-talk’, but about how we each impact on this world, and how we can all make a positive contribution by living a life on/of purpose.

It means setting aside our own ego-centric agendas for fame and fortune and the need to ‘be someone’, and to instead just ‘be’ our authentic selves, offering our gifts to the world for the greater good.  It also means setting aside the self-depreciating ego that says we have nothing to give and that we are not worthy.  It is also time to set aside the many stories, to exit the victimhood, the martyrdom and the various other roles we play (blaming others goes in there too) and to take absolute responsibility for our lives and the manner in which we react to, and/or perceive things to be.

It’s time to stop putting others on pedestals (especially spiritual ones) and to stop putting ourselves on them too.  It is also time to stop believing that anyone else is any worthier than us, and that we are any worthier than others.  We are all citizens of this wonderful Planet Earth and we all have a gift to share and we need to get on sharing it for the greater good of everyone else. 

It’s also of course about connecting more fully (perhaps for the first time) with nature.  To recognise that we are the microcosm of the macrocosm. It is time to notice the moon cycle and how this affects our own cycle, to notice the weather and the impact this has on our day to day lives, to notice the fruits and vegetables that are in season and when, to notice the changing seasons and the shifting light, and the manner in which both affect how we feel.  

It’s about becoming conscious really. About reducing separation. Not seeing ourselves as separate to the world we live in. We are very much a part of it, and what we do will impact on some level.

I have a strong sense that we are being propelled along in this direction anyway.  There’s going to be plenty of planetary shifts and eclipses this year to try and awaken us further from our slumber, and to help us to recognise that the current way of living is not sustainable and doesn’t work.  There does need to be a huge shift in the collective awareness, but of course this happens one person at a time. 

If ever there was a time to stand up for what we believe in, then it is now. Reducing our plastic usage is not enough, although it does help.  It has to be so much more than this. It has to be about doing the healing work, and bringing light to the shadows.  No more getting stuck in the spiritual ego or spiritually bypassing, but being truly honest and real.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound preachy as that’s not my intention.  But I must admit I have been getting a touch challenged by all the spiritual waffle that seemed to increase last year, as if being spiritually ‘awake’ Is now a badge of honour, and entitles you to join ‘awake’ groups on Facebook, creating yet more division and separation. 

 Wake up people! We are all one. And we live on the same Planet. And if we want the Planet to heal, we need to heal ourselves and reduce our sense of separation. That means going inwards. Joining a Facebook “conscious’ group or posting about being ‘awake’ isn’t going to make the difference (that my friends is the spiritual ego kicking in). Nor is merely talking about it. You need to do the work! Delve right in!

We also need to honour the soul. The soul is constantly trying to get our attention through the body. That ache or pain you’re feeling? That’s the soul trying to get you to listen. The soul doesn’t want you to opt out, it too wants you to dive right in. It wants expression! So do what you can to quieten the inner noise and distraction, and allow it some expression. 

 Needless to say I’m biased, but yoga is often exactly what is needed. Not only does yoga help to quieten the mind and allow the soul expression (a voice even) but each time we practice yoga, everyone benefits because our vibration increases and as we are part of the whole, the vibration of the whole planet increases.  This explains the reason that the more we heal, the more the Planet heals too.  We all become clearer and cleaner conduits for the greater whole.

Furthermore, as yoga helps us to connect more fully with our true nature, so it also helps us to connect more fully with nature. Yoga is about union - union of body, mind and soul, and union with nature and the Planet in which we inhibit. We are not separate and this is what we need to realise.

Other than yoga, I’m also going to suggest a sound bath, one of my favourite (after Reiki) healing modalities.  We are spoiled here on Guernsey to have Sabine and her amazing sound gongs and Ariana visiting who uses her voice and Tibetan singing bowls. Both are profound in their own way. Both give the mind a break. Both resonate with the soul in a very real way. Both have a deep resonance with nature.

Of course the healing list could go on. There are crystals and sea swimming and walks in nature, to say nothing of getting your hands in the earth and preparing a meal using fresh ingredients consciously for your family with love.

For now I shall leave you with an extract from Bill Plotkin’s book, Nature and the Soul, “ …how we might grow whole, one life stage at a time, by embracing nature and soul as our wisest and most trustworthy guides. This model for individual human development ultimately yields a strategy for cultural transformation, a way of progressing from our current egocentric societies (materialistic, anthropocentric, competition based, class stratified, violence prone, and unsustainable) to soul centric ones (imaginative, ecocentric, cooperation based, just, compassionate, and sustainable).”

Happy New Year!

Letting Go into the Darkness of Winter

I haven’t written a blog post for ages as life has been a bit full, catching up on office work and Ayurvedic study from when we were in the Outer Hebrides (and trying to land back to life here in Guernsey) and then finally publishing my book, Namaste! (You can buy it from Amazon here or Waterstones here).

It’s funny as the book publishing was a bit of an anti-climax having started it 11 years ago and giving up on it a number of times over the years, but always having it in the back of my mind that I really wanted to publish it, because it has been a dream and I like dreams to come true! I’d lived the thought of publishing my book many times in my mind, in my sankalpa repeated during yoga nidra, on healing mandalas, in my journal and in my prayers, so it was almost a relief to let it go, come what may. 

The planetary dancing the last few months has made it feel very full-on for people and I almost sighed of relief when I felt a shift a little while ago. While I don’t know much about it from an astronomical perspective, I can feel it; there’s been a slowing down. It’s more than that though, at least for me. It’s a gentle release into the darkness, into the unknown. A shifting from one way of being to another, and yet not really knowing what that is, but also not needing to know, because there’s a need to trust the process (as the caterpillar trusts in the process to become a butterfly perhaps). 

It’s happening in nature right now anyhow and I have noticed that the more I attempt to acknowledge the turning of the wheel and the changing seasons, let alone the moon cycle, then one can more easily see how our lives are a reflection of that (the micro and the macro). We’re moving further into the darkness as the winter solstice approaches in less than a month, and the trees continue to shed their leaves as all of nature lets go. 

Thus all around us is a closing in, a hibernation, and as a reflection I feel this within me too - a need to be even gentler in my yoga practice, with candlelight and eyes mainly closed, dropping forever inwards, deepening the breath and lying silently on my mat, resting. I’ve also been enjoying nurturing yoga nidra, thanks to Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and the free yoga nidras on the Yoga Nidra Network (thank you Uma!). There are also some yoga nidra audios on our website that we’ve recorded too - you can find them here.

It’s certainly a time of endings and letting things settle before the new beginnings, as Imbolc will approach on 1 February, bringing with it that spark that gives life to the first buds of spring. It can be uncomfortable, the not knowing how the new may enter in, but trust it we must, because forcing it will do us no favours in the long run (trust me, I’ve tried that many times previously).

Of course new year will bring with it the pressure to will it in, to force the new, what with new year’s resolutions (sigh) as many try to force themselves to be someone that they’re not and never will be. And so they’ll berate themselves for a while for not losing weight or stopping drinking or truly making the change that they’ve decided they must make. But actually all they need to do is stop the trying, and just step more fully into who they are to begin with, even if that means still drinking the wine and eating the milk chocolate.  

Perhaps it’s in the authenticity that we find the balance so the bad habits drop away naturally, without the need to force and be unkind to ourselves in the process. Much better if you ask me to begin the new year being even kinder and more loving to ourselves than we may have done previously. Maybe that’s where the true shift really needs to begin – in the positive, rather than the negative. I’ll be teaching a yoga class on new year’s day (click here for details) for this very reason. I’m reminded time and time again that there’s nothing wrong with us really, only in how we perceive ourselves in the first place.

Less is more I’m also reminded, so all I really wanted to say was that I hope you’re all well and navigating this autumnal fall with a smile on your face. It won’t be long until Christmas, and that will distract us enough to get us to the new year and then who knows what that will bring but I’m pretty excited about it, and the retreating between now and then. So enjoy the ambiguity and the letting go and the darkness and the insights this provides. And enjoy my book too, if you can find the time! 

The Magic of the Outer Hebrides - a Place for Edge Dwellers

We have just returned from an incredible trip to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

It’s funny how things happen and how seeds are sown.  A good few year’s ago now a friend gave me a CD of Stornoway’s music and I was rather curious about the name.  What was this Stornoway? Well Stornoway happens to be the main town on the Isle of Lewis and that got me thinking, what would life be like living on an island so far North. 

Then a few years later I happened upon an episode of Island Parish, which was set on the tiny island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides and it just looked like one of the potentially amazing places on this Earth, what with the runway on the beach and there being so few people and beautiful beaches. I had a look into it, but it seemed rather complicated to access and Elijah was only little at the time.

So it followed that 18 months or so later, I came across Sharon Blackie’s amazing book If Women Rose Rootedand here she writes about the four years she spent living in a remote part of Lewis, and there was something about what she said, about living on an edge, that resonated with me and I thought to myself, I have to visit this place.

 So that’s what we did. I’m not sure E knew what to make of my decision to travel up to the Outer Hebrides with the boys being the age they are (2 and 4).  He half heartedly looked at some of the accommodation I showed him as I spent hours trawling through this over a year ago now. I’m sure he nodded at all the right times, and tried to show a little bit more interest in the hire car, given that it was a car and he likes those!

But truthfully both of us were a bit blind and it really was an intuitive thing.  I emailed about some accommodation but they never got back to me and instead the same cottage kept catching my attention.  I took it as a sign eventually, especially when the booking was made easily.  Sometimes you just have to flow and trust, even though you have no idea where you might end up. 

We ended up in the middle of nowhere, just under an hour’s drive from Stornoway, arriving in the dark, on a Sunday evening (when all shops are shut, the petrol station that is open that day closes at 4pm, al other shops observe Sunday closing), so that we had no real idea of where we were until the following morning.  It was a fitful night sleep for me as I was obsessed at that point in seeing the Northern Lights and kept getting up to look at out of the window, not really knowing which direction I was looking, and with no awareness that ahead of me was a huge hill, so I wouldn’t have seen them even if they had been shining that night!

The next morning dawned bright and very cold and windy and what a treat to find that we had a view of the sea from the kitchen window.  We wrapped up in our layers, laughing because days ago I’d been wearing flip-flops and swimming easily in the sea back home and now it was utterly freezing and I wasn’t sure that I was going to put a hand in the sea, let alone my entire body!

The pebbly beach below our homely croft, reminded me of Petit Bot, and I had this strange feeling as we arrived that a seal was going to pop up (as keeps happening this last year) and lo and behold a few minutes later and this is exactly what happened. It freaked me out a little because I had been talking to a friend about seals the day before we left Guernsey and she had reminded me of the Selkie story in If Women Rose Rooted, which I had re-read the night before our trip and here again the sign…queue reading up on the spiritual reason for seeing seals…always insightful!

Thus began a magical week of wonderfulness. This is most definitely a place that just keeps giving. We loved its raw and wild nature that had us awestruck time and time again with the changing light – there’s so much light here – and the skies that were utterly mesmerising. This is the land of rainbows and of stunning and empty beaches, of peat and bogs and hills in the distance, and of kind and generous people, and of community and freedom and this overwhelming sense of just letting things be.

What struck me the most though was the fact there was something so ancient about the place.  The predominant rock type is Lewisian Gneiss, a metamorphic rock which is astonishingly up to 3 billion years old, making it the oldest rock in Britain – two thirds the age of the Earth – and one of the oldest in the world. It’s stunningly beautiful and I was blown away by the concentric rings on many of the pebbles which looked too perfect to be real.

Furthermore, Lewis is home to the Callanish stones. Now I admit that this was a major draw for me, although I knew nothing about them until I visited, and was certainly not disappointed.  Wow! I love stones and stone circles in particular and I hadn’t realised that by visiting Callanish, we were completing the magical four – Callanish, Stonehenge and two we had happened upon quite by chance at Carnac and Avebury.

These ones are something else though, so unassuming, left to just do their own thing without the need for fencing or anything which means the general public have total access. They’re ancient too, believed to have been erected 5,000 years ago (thus predating Stonehenge) and believed to be an important place for ritual activity for at least 2,000 years.

What I also hadn’t realised is that there are actually three stone circles at Callanish all within a mile of one another. We chanced upon Callanish III, which is the medium sized one and has four remarkable stones within the main ring, three of which are thought to represent the ancient Celtic triple goddess. I trekked across the boggy peat in my wellies, a poorly Eben in arms, to have a feel. 

I really like to touch stones, to somehow get to know them.  I’m not sure whether that makes me weird or not, but there’s something rather lovely about feeling such an ancient energy that has borne witness to thousands of years of life on this beautiful planet. I like to try to get a feel with my pendulum too but I quickly realised that the constant wind wasn’t going to make that very easy, plus Eben was proving a bit of challenge.

 You see for some reason he hated the stones and started screaming as soon as we entered the circle, even though I had asked permission to do so (as I feel this is very respectful to the ancient circle keepers and energies), which made me feel a little uneasy because he is usually very good natured.  I tried to put my hands on the stones but this made him scream louder, so I took a few photos and retreated to the car to hand him over to E.

I returned on my own and settled against one of the stones, and felt peaceful, resting up there on my own with the incredible view ahead of Cailleach na Mòintich, a group of hills that resemble the sleeping woman. I then traipsed 200 metres or so over the boggy land to a smaller circle. I felt safe here too, and had a sense that this was a very special place affording views of the main stone circle in front of me – I had no idea of its vastness, it’s rather extraordinary.

It was a treat to be here on my own. That’s the beauty of Lewis, it is wild and free and raw. The wind was howling and the skies were cloudy, threatening rain that never came and so the light kept shifting. Here I sat totally on my own. On my own. Totally on my own at ancient stone circles.  That’s just so unusual, you certainly don’t get that opportunity at Stonehenge and actually the time I got to touch those stones was mid-summer sunrise when there were thousands of other people there too. It was a treat I can tell you.

We drove a little further up the road and E and I carried the two boys up to the main circle, but this was slightly challenged by their indifference to the stones and their desire to be looking at the mower at the visitor’s centre instead!  Queue sighing from me.  We’d come all this way and all Eben could say was “mower, mower, mower”, while Elijah moaned about wanting to see the decrepit tractor in a nearby field again. It’s comical really!

Still we persevered and having asked for permission again and with Eben still in arms I stepped into the circle only for him to start screaming again.  I put my hand on one of the stones and he literally peeled my hand off it.  I was so surprised I did it again.  Same reaction. I couldn’t believe it.  There was something that he absolutely didn’t like about these stones.  So we walked back down to the visitor centre and the mower and the views of the rusting tractor, and I had to laugh at how children put a totally different spin on things!

Still I then got to go back to the circle on my own and I happened to arrive at the same time as two guys, one of whom was educating the other one into the history of the stones and I heard for the first time that this is believed to be a moon circle.  Of course! It suddenly made sense and I almost laughed out loud because that very morning on the seal beach, and for the first time ever, Eben (in arms again, won’t walk - my arms got super strong this week!), pushed my head and pointed up to “moo….”. Ah yes, a half moon was visible in the sky. And that very morning I had a strange urge to wear moonstone, which I had brought on holiday with me but haven’t worn for a while.

And here now in the circle, I realised there are 13 stones, presumably representing the 13 moons in the year. The stone circle is actually contained within a Celtic cross, which makes it even more extraordinary. The guess is that the standing stones were erected as a kind of astronomical observatory. Patrick Ashmore, who excavated the site in the early 1980s writes,“The most attractive explanation…is that every 18.6 years, the moon skims especially low over the southern hills. It seems to dance along them, like a great god visiting the earth. Knowledge and prediction of this heavenly event gave earthly authority to those who watched the skies”.

It’s certainly a very special site even without the moon skimming!  There’s just something about its energy and its ancientness (is that even a word?!). I walked around a little bit and touched some stones and tried to do some dowsing. However, I started to feel a little unease and I crouched against one of the stones out of the wind and it felt to me that someone was saying, “please leave us in peace now and go to your family”. So that’s what I did.  It felt the right thing to do.

That same afternoon we headed up to the very north of the island to Ness, stopping at a lovely beach at Shawbost on the way.  The weather had improved throughout the day and the further north we drove the brighter and clearer it got, so I had a feeling that if we were going to see the Northern Lights then this would be that night.  However, while I may have had in mind that we would camp out at a carpark in Ness awaiting this magical light display, I had forgotten that of course we had two young boys in tow.

The two young boys were struggling a little with the amount of time spent in a car (in Guernsey journeys are so short!) and the fact we had skipped dinner time, and that it was pitch black and unknown to them. After ten minutes of moaning and E and I unsuccessfully trying to turn it into a bit of an adventure I think we both realised that our quest for the lights of Aurora Borealis was going to have to wait until another time. So with that we drove the hour and a quarter back to the cottage, both boys falling asleep in the process!

The week just got better and better from then on and we concluded that it is the island that just keeps giving and giving.  The rainbows were sublime, the deserted beaches a dream, the sea very cold to swim in but energising all the same, the ever changing skies enchanting and entrancing so that I was constantly reaching for my phone to try to capture it, and then of course the people who seemed so lovely and genuine. 

Then there was the joy of the remoteness and slower paced living that appeals on some deep level, so entwined with the elements and the Celtic land, rooted in the moment to moment changing weather patterns that have influenced the way of life, as wind blows and blows and the rain falls, and yet the rainbows come as the sun shines once more. It’s heaven on earth, a gift all of itself. It’s also, I now realise, the edge that it offers us edge dwellers.

Sharon Blackie talks about this in her book, If Women Rose Rooted, where she writes, “We are all edge-dwellers, those of us who inhabit this long Atlantic fringe in the far west of the continent of Europe. I have always been drawn to the edges of things, the places where two things collide.  Where bog borders riverbank, where meadow merges into forest. Where you stand in the margins of what is behind you and look out across the threshold of the future. The brink of possibilities – will you cross? Edges are transitional places; they are also the best places from which to create something new…

 …The Shore is the greatest edge of all. Sometimes it seems gentle, on a still summer’s day when the sun warms the shallows and the soft sand cradles you. But you must also be prepared to face the storm…Those of us who live here [on Lewis] must be comfortable with storms and with change, for it is on these unsettled, unsettling edges that we will hear the Call which launches us on our journey. And though we can never quite be sure what that journey will involve, we know that new possibilities may be created only if we surrender to uncertainty. 

You know it’s true isn’t it. We talk about edges in yoga, always flirting with the edge, never pushing into it, just being curious about it, that edge between one way of being and another (some will argue that we are boundary-less and maybe that too is true, but I believe that on some level we are always creating our own boundaries and at times these are essential for our health and energetic and mental wellbeing), nudging it almost, not too tight, not too loose, breath in and breathe out.

I joke in class about this and how much it might or might not change someone’s life to all of a sudden touch their toes in a forward bend, to have moved from one edge to another.  But the reality is, that every shift on our yoga mat brings with it the potential for transformation, for things to shift, for life to start looking and feeling a little bit differently.  Edges are huge. This is the place where we learn the most about ourselves…how are we on an edge? How does that edge make us feel? What is that edge trying to tell us about ourselves and the way that we’re living? Too fast, too slow, mind too hectic, too chaotic and scattered, or rooted clearly in the moment, on the breath, in the body, here grounded and present on Planet Earth? 

Lewis brought me back to Earth and slowed my mind to a gentler pace. I noticed this most when I attended the weekly evening yoga class at Uig community centre with Julie who inspired greatly with her authenticity and passion for both yoga and the Outer Hebrides. It was a gift truly, not only to attend on the Thursday with one other student, but to return again on the Friday morning (E seeing how much the previous class has positively affected and effected me) and have a one-to-one as no one else turned up to the class (their loss) and a yoga nidra just for me, I truly thought I had died and gone to Heaven.

The children were waiting for me following the class and it was straight back to reality, a calmer reality perhaps, or maybe not, because I am human and it a challenge going straight from chilled out post-yoga-bliss-state to the next minute finding yourself in the car with two screaming children because Eben was hungry and screamed to make me aware of it, which made Elijah scream as he hates the sound of Eben screaming and so I tried to maintain my peacefulness and smile on face on the short journey back to our cosy croft. And I laughed because I was also re-reading the Yoga Sutras at the time, which touch on obstacles on the spiritual path. Not that my children are obstacles, only that they do add another element, certainly making me even more grateful for the peaceful three hours I spent at class while on a family holiday (thank you E)! 

But actually this whole experience is a reality, this is life! We can’t expect to walk around in post-yoga-bliss the whole time.  I mean that’s be nice, but where’s the fun in that!  But what yoga does is it helps us to notice what happens when we reach our edge – it helps us to recognise when we’re approaching an edge so that we have a moment to consider whether we might just fall over it or retreat from it, or smile through it. [Btw, Eben doesn’t always scream, he just doesn’t like standing stones or being hungry!).

I like what Sharon writes about edges and islands, “Edges define an island…and yet an island’s edges are not strictly defined. They shift with the tides, in an ongoing, fluid, co-creative partnership between land and sea. They are in an unending state of becoming, and we are like them: we ebb and we flow; we soften sometimes, merge into ecosystems of others, then retreat into the safety of our own sharply defined boundaries. We are gentle, and warm, and then we are storm. Perhaps this is why islands fascinate us so; perhaps this is why, at certain times in our lives, they draw us to them”.

Any of you who have lived on islands will know this to be true.  I am certainly drawn to islands because they are always changing and yet there is a defined edge to them too - the cliffs! Standing on the cliff at Ness by the lighthouse in the north of Lewis I struggled with the very defined and yet undefined edge. There was no boundary between the edge of the cliff and the 30m fall below. It made me feel desperately uncomfortable and Elijah’s running was put on hold, “keep away from the edge”, I shouted at no one in particular. I had found my edge. Cliffs.

I noticed this later as we drove around Uig and I could see the cliffs and I was keen to walk to them but desperately uncomfortable with them being so raw and real. There’s no coming back from that edge. No edging into that edge. That’s the thing about edges. We have to have a sense of them. They bring up the fear with their uncertainty and they encourage us to go deep within. To listen clearly. Awareness heightens. Present moment. Standing on the edge of a cliff (only recently in the news three people died from taking selfies on cliff edges…).

Lewis cast a spell over me (and over E too, even Elijah was sad to leave). It took me to an edge of freedom, there was just so much freedom, no rules or regulations, so much space. This was an edge I liked. It made me edgy because it was boundless. It was for me to create my own boundaries. And that is when it dawned on me, the message that Lewis was conveying to me (it had been my Sankalpa…never underestimate a naturally arising Sankalpa). Because it’s true what Sharon says about islands drawing us to them. They have a habit of doing this. Pay attention!

There are a few special places in this world that I have been fortunate to visit and Lewis is one of them. There is still so much we have yet to see and Barra now to finally visit, so I’ve now doubt that the seed that was sown all those years ago will continue growing - there’s always another edge to investigate Thank you Lewis!

The light of the shadow, delving in

The wheel has to turn but I’m not sure I’m ready for autumn yet; summer has just been too much fun and I’m grateful that the sun continues to shine easing the transition!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed taking a break from working and spending my time playing with the children instead. We’ve managed our first festival as a family of four in the UK (and finally got to visit the uplifting Stroud) and a camping trip to Sark, plus daily sea swimming, visits to the beach and many Guernsey adventures. 

I’ve also made the most of the extra time to myself to delve a little deeper into the shadows and indulge in some inner healing work - I’ve enjoyed receiving Reiki, massage and a couple of sound baths, and to have the opportunity to practice lots of yoga through Yoga International and at Wilderness too. I’ve also rested to some Yoga Nidra and enjoyed some Vedic chanting too.

This all helped to support the monthly work that I’ve been doing with the wonderful Jo de Diepold Braham. Jo is by far the most intuitive and gifted healer I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. She helps us to see, feel and potentially release the ‘stuff’ that we’re holding in our body and energy field that no longer serves us, and which is potentially (and negatively) impacting on our relationships (with self and other) and in our daily lives.

I’ve also been taking Ayurvedic herbs for a little while now (prescribed by my Ayurvedic doctor), initially focusing on healing the solar plexus following hernia surgery at the end of last year, but continuing on from there (there’s always another layer!). I managed to get to the Ayurvedic clinic for a healing and transformational Pancha Karma session back in March, which resulted in me spending the whole of May consumed by writing, as the old stuff poured out of my solar plexus and onto paper. 

A rather bemused E didn’t see much of me during the month (I don’t think I saw a single friend either, apologies!) as I spent every evening writing, ending up with a whole manuscript. Whether I publish it here or elsewhere remains to be seen, but my solar plexus feels better for it, not so clogged up with all the stuff that I hadn’t been able to digest or process at the time, and that had been weighing me down ever since (it gets awfully tiring dragging our past around with us). 

Despite having worked with Ayurveda for over 12 years now and having undertaken a few Pancha Karmas over that time, I’ve been blown away recently by the healing and transformative nature of the Ayurvedic process. I am reminded that we just never truly know our potential, and that we limit ourselves repeatedly through fear of change and stepping into the unknown (lack of trust and faith essentially).

Shadow work has been the focus these last few months and I’ll admit that this is never easy because we have to come to terms with parts of ourselves that we’ve kept hidden in the dark, those parts we’ve denied and those parts which we have found hard to accept so we pretend that they are not a part of us. Thus the work can get messy, and I’ve certainly shed a few tears and experienced a couple of outbursts of rage and anger as some of the pent up energy has released and things felt like they got worse before they got better, a healing crisis then.

Still, this is all part of the process, and after many years now of working on myself (how indulgent, I know, especially when you think of the Syrian refugees who are merely trying to survive, but that’s a whole other story for another time) and trying to shift old patterns that no longer serve me, and negatively impact on my life and relationship with self, I am aware that you do get to a point where it’s more painful to avoid the pain then to dive head first into it.

It’s important to do this work too. The more we ignore the shadow, the more it plays out in the world, affecting our relationships, not only with others but with our selves. Further, the more fragmented and discontented we feel, the more the world will feel fragmented and disconnected too – we are a reflection of the bigger picture.  Thus I believe that we have a responsibility as citizens of Planet Earth to do what we can to be as whole (all parts in union) and inwardly peaceful as possible so that this is reflected in the outer world too (and positively effecting everyone, including Syrian refugees).

Perhaps this was one of the most revealing aspects of the recent healing work; the recognition that it boils down to loving and accepting the self, because this alone totally shifts our vibration and therefore the vibration of the world (if you’re new to all this, I appreciate this sounds a bit ‘out’ there but have a think about it).

This is not just those aspects of self that we like (that’s the easy bit), but the whole package, allaspects of our self, the good, the bad and the ugly – because let’s face it, it’s only us who define in this way anyway, and that’s on a subjective basis so has no weight. What’s good to one, is bad to another, what’s ugly to one, is beautiful to another and so on.

It’s a sad and dark world we live in though, not least when we become desensitised to the plight of others (think Syrian refugees again) but when we have little respect for the self. I was shocked (and yet not) to recently read that a fifth of 14-year old girls in the UK self-harm. The Children’s Society report (as reported by the BBC) said that gender stereotypes and worries about their looks were contributing to unhappiness and those who felt boys should be tough, and girls should have nice clothes, were least happy with life.

On the one hand it seems utterly crazy to me that at the age of 14, teenagers have already decided that they are not good enough, and that they loathe themselves and their lives to the extent that they will self harm. Yet on the other hand I was only two years older when I also felt a deep loathing for the self. 

I know only too well, therefore, that self loathing messes with your mind and makes you feel pretty crazy fairly much all the time. At itscore it means you don’t really like yourself very much and there’s this voice running through your head constantly telling you that you’re not good enough, that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. The inner critique runs wild; the narrative is always negative. 

You loathe the way you look, loathe the way you feel, loathe your body, feel inadequate and loathe absolutely everything about your life. It’s all consuming and at times terrifying with the manner in which it takes over your life and keeps you shackled, playing over the same story in your mind and creating a life that’s fairly much always hard going and lacks any joy (anxiety and depression go hand in hand).

Like so many of us, the seed of “I’m not good enough” has likely been laid in childhood, and been growing a little ever since.  But now, at the age of 16, after a trigger event where I didn’t get the boy I fancied (the skinny popular girl in our year did instead) it was as if the sun shone brightly on it, and the seed started flourishing.  Within six months I had developed an eating disorder as I attempted to become skinny because maybe then, or so I thought, I might be good enough.

Only that you can never be good enough.  Not really, not once you’ve started playing that silly game. Having an eating disorder is a terrible thing, an extreme expression of self harm.  It is utterly exhausting and all consuming and absolutely never creates the intended result of feeling worthy and liking yourself again.

While 18 and when at university, I started smoking and polluting my body with nicotine and tobacco, another way in which we harm ourselves and create a smokescreen. I also discovered that drinking alcohol helped to quieten the destructive voices and numb the insecure feelings inside, at least while I was drinking. Of course I always felt worse the next day, but the momentary relief was enough to keep me wanting to drink more cider or wine or blue curacao or whatever it may have been at the time.  Smoking pot helped enormously in numbing out too. 

After graduating I returned to Guernsey and fell into my first full time job in the offshore finance industry that I hated from the first day and the self-loathing became even worse, as I tried to fit into a world that didn’t fit me. One night I tried to cut myself. I didn’t like that feeling much, so I hit myself with my fist instead.  I was so full of self loathing that I actually hit myself!  I also hit my head against the wall once too, as if to knock the sense back into it!

Another night I was so repulsed at what I felt was a fat tummy, that I grabbed the flesh and squeezed it together and reached for the scissors and thought that perhaps I’d just cut it off there and then and teach my tummy a lesson. I was acting insane! But actually I was just very depressed and desperately unhappy and loathed myself to the extent that a few years later I actually thought life was no longer worth living. 

There was no where left to go. Fortunately, though, my desperation and the thought of truly ending my life that fateful evening, and my Mum’s intervention, woke me up from my madness of mind. I was desperate, the pain was deep. Fortunately, the magic of the angels ushered yoga into my life shortly afterwards, which truly saved my life as the practice helped me to slowly come to appreciate and accept myself just as I am. 

Of course this process hasn’t happened overnight, it’s ongoing and I shall always be grateful to the practice. Sometimes its difficult to truly know the impact that it has because it’s such an integral part of my life, and I don’t know how life might be without it, nor do I have any intention of finding out as I suspect it would lack a certain strength, nourishment and vibrancy. 

It’s become a cliché recently this whole idea of self care, and rightly so at times because in many circles it’s an opportunity to avoid responsibility, but I do believe that we need to look honestly at the way we are living our lives. We need to figure out what is truly working and what is not working, regardless of what society is telling us and whether it is deemed ‘normal’ or not. We need to care for the self. 

The trouble is, sometimes we blindly follow like sheep even though we know that the current speed of life and the way we exploit Mother Earth is not sustainable and that our lives can become so busy with meaningless distraction (think overworking, too much social media, filling our children’s lives with activities so that we don’t even get to embrace our inner child and play with them) that we forget to care for ourselves – meals become hurried, our yoga practice happens once a month (but in our head it happens regularly) and before we know it we loathe ourselves all over again because we’re totally out of balance and out of synch with nature’s flow. 

It’s hardly surprising that so many suffer with depression and anxiety and as a yoga teacher I see it show up all the time. Still, it came as a bit of a shock recently to talk with a friend and find out that anumber of her twenty-something friends are taking antidepressants to deal with their anxiety and depression.  I had no idea! There’s a whole generation numbing their pain via pharmaceuticals. 

Mind you there’s a whole generation numbing themselves out on alcohol, and a whole other generation numbing out on legal highs, let alone sugar. Numbing out can be subtler than that though.  We can numb out on TV, and on working too much, and on anything that distracts us from ourselves and from our pain, that gives us an excuse to never have to go there, because we’re too busy doing something else. 

I’m not a fan of ‘blame’, but I do feel that the media hasn’t done humanity any favours in giving us the idea that life has to look a certain way, or that we, as people, need to physically look a certain way. As if to prove this (as I was mulling it over), I recently came across a podcast interview with Jameela Jamil which really caught my attention (what an incredible lady she is by the way!

I’m a company secretary by profession so I tried to transcribe a part of what she said but there’s value in listening to the whole recording - https://www.channel4.com/news/ways-to-change-the-world-jameela-jamil):

“I had an eating disorder. I didn’t eat a meal between the ages of 14 and 17. I didn’t menstruate for three years because I was starving myself to fit into an ideal... I had all these different talents and gifts none of which I thought were important, none of which I remotely cared about because I felt that I would never be good enough unless I weighed six and a half stone.  

I was bombarded with a narrative that had no alternative. There were never any women who were celebrated for their intellect. They’re not given any attention in the Press. I wasn’t reading about wonderful astronauts or great scientists or musicians. I was just seeing highly sexualised popstars who were very, very skinny on my TV. Or I was seeing skeletal actresses who were obsessively…their weight was obsessively spoken about. And all of my magazines were selling weight loss products or telling me to be thin otherwise I wasn’t worth anything”. 

It’s so true, that so many feel a deep sense of dissatisfaction with them selves simply because they are comparing themselves with the media’s superficial and warped perception of what it means to be to good enough. Furthermore, there is this underlying idea that we must continuously seek perfection, whatever that means, as if we need to embody our own utopia, which of course never truly exists, it’s just a concept in our heads that can create so much inner disharmony and dissatisfaction.

A few week’s ago I was swimming far out from shore on my own at high tide at Petit Bot, and I looked back at the beautiful Guernsey south coast cliffs and just thought, “Wow! This landscape is stunning, absolute stunning!”.  I was so moved by the moment and the beauty of it all that I couldn’t resist literally shouting out, “You’re so beautiful” to the cliffs, to the land, to the sea, to the sun, to the rocks as I tried to soak it all in! 

I thought to myself, “That cliff over there, it doesn’t question its beauty, doesn’t give itself a hard time, just is what it is, it’s accepting of its everything”. This made me think again how crazy we are, to give ourselves a hard time for being anything other than just ourselves, fully accepting of all aspects of ourselves, even those bits that we’ve decided that we don’t like for whatever reason.

All this conditioning, so much of it so insidious in our society and culture that we are unconscious of it, lurks in the shadows shaping our reality as we play out the unconscious time and time again. It’s often subtle and yet sometimes not so subtle too. It’s always so much easier to see it in someone else than in ourselves.

That’s the joy of this work though, because we start to see the mirrors all around us, in those with whom we come into contact – especially those who we find challenging, who mirror back to us some unresolved side to ourselves. Irritated by your princess friend? Yep, then perhaps you’re a princess too, but don’t recognise it because it’s not a side of you that you’re comfortable accepting, ‘better’ to think of yourself as humble and without needing attention, less ego then right?!

Shadow work may be tough, but it’s also very enlightening (you’re bringing in the light) and amazingly liberating because all of a sudden (once you’ve done the integration), you stop pretending to be someone that you’re not. You don’t need to say ‘yes’ when really you want to say ‘no’, Your boundaries become tighter and you’re OK being all the things you didn’t think you were. 

Inevitably things will shift for you and perhaps relationships that once resonated won’t resonate any more as the dynamics change and you stand firmer in your sense of self.  You’re less likely to give yourself away, and less likely to give yourself such a hard time – or at least you might catch yourself when you’re triggered and about to give yourself a hard time. It’s all good and it’s all a process, a never ending one I suspect, as we do our bit to step further into authenticity and cut the cr@p!

This is one of the many reasons I love yoga, not least because a regular and dedicated practice will help to make us stronger, more flexible and more balanced in body and mind, but it will also help us to develop a healthier relationship with self. The practice will also allow us to sit with our pain and allow it to transform into something that no longer has a hold over us. 

We need to learn to love ourselves, however tough that might be, because maybe then, the world will finally start to be a more loving place for everyone to live.  It may also help the younger generation to stop harming themselves, and start to recognise their beauty –there is beauty in everything!

So remember that there’s always a bigger picture to all you do in your lives. You’re not just practicing yoga for yourself, for example, and while I joke about healing work being indulgent, this is merely because I think of all those who don’t have the space/money/time/support to do this, but therefore it becomes even more important for those who can, because it does make a difference to the bigger picture of life. 

What we do does have an impact on others and please never forget that.  If you’re reading this, then it’s likely you already recognise this, or maybe you’re just starting out and will always remember this.  We need to heal ourselves to heal the world, the more we do the inner work the more the outer world benefits. 

Have a fabulous end of summer and beginning to autumn, the wheel is turning and we’ll soon be retreating further into the darkness!

Holding space - the magic that is Ed Sheeran!

I attended Ed Sheeran's concert in Wembley on Thursday evening with my Dad. I wasn't sure it was for me as he's so "main stream" but it was AMAZING! It was also deeply inspiring as I watched and indeed felt him hold space for 85 thousand people.

I sat there, with Dad beside me, contemplating this, and the clouds above, and the energy in that stadium all evening. I'm not sure I was always entirely present to the music, as I felt into the whole experience and thought about what I was learning.

Ed kept going on about joining him in singing however bad your voice, and dancing however self conscious you may feel, and I watched as slowly around me, one by one people started to find their voices and their feet.

When it came to the penultimate song, I looked up to find my Dad on his feet dancing and singing. Then the last song was played and before I knew it, I was also on my feet dancing and singing at the top of my voice.  The whole stadium was dancing and singing and there was an incredible energy of loveliness pervading the space. I couldn't quite believe it!

Ed is very ordinary, totally authentic and very gifted. He naturally held space, him and his guitar, all on his own for a whole two hour set for 85 thousand people.  That's quite some feat.

Holding space is something that fascinates me.  How we can bring people together and something happens energetically, and someone often holds it so that this can happen.

We are all of us connected in a field of energy - us, the trees, the stones, the plants, the cats and the bird. Our every action has a consequence and will affect someone or something somewhere.

When we come together in space, something magical can happen, depending on the energy created.  

When women come together in circle, to talk or to practice yoga then something magical can happen.

When people come together on a yoga retreat to practice yoga, then if that space is held well, magical things can happen.

When a gifted singer takes to Wembley and is himself in front of 85 thousand people, sharing his  talent and gift with the world, then magical things happen.

The heart opens.

Ed Sheeran helped to open hearts. And as each of our hearts opened, so the energy of the art grew stronger in the auditorium and all of a sudden magical things started to happen.  The clouds looked like hearts as if they were awoken too.  People smiled and laughed and were considerate of one another and I felt an overwhelming sense of love for mankind, all will be well in the end.

In that moment it seemed so simple to me, and I thought that really, it is just a question of being real, and sharing whatever it is we have in our hearts to share with the world, because us sharing a bit of our heart will touch the hearts of others, so one by one we each awaken and the whole world becomes an increasing unified field of love, like a force field, spreading out.

Ed Sheeran, I aspire to hold space like you, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart to your heart for the manner in which it touches lives.

With gratitude.

Returning to Avalon, the home of the Goddess

I struggle to find the words to explain how it feels when I see the sign to tell us that we are back again in Avalon, Glastonbury.  Just like I struggle to find the words to explain how it feels to stay at Lower Coxbridge House, three miles from Glastonbury.

There are many special places that I have  had the grace and fortune to experience in this lifetime, and both Glastonbury and Lower Coxbridge House are two very special ones for me.

For me, there's nothing more magical than practising yoga outside on the Earth in view of Glastonbury Tor, or lying on the bed in the yurt and looking through the open door to that magical view.

I don't know what it is about the Tor but it mesmerises me.  I watch it endlessly.  In the early morning I see it rising through the mist, the mist of Avalon.  In the day time, I stare at it, noticing how it changes with the changing light.  

In the evening I can barely keep my eyes off it as the sun sets to its left side, the sky lit up with oranges, purples and reds. In the middle of the night when I go to pee in the field, I am mesmerised again as I can see the gentle crescent of the new moon glowing in the sky to the left of the Tor, and the stars shining brightly overhead.

These are the moments when I feel I may have died and gone to heaven.  Let alone the moments  when I'm the only one awake, sitting writing in the early morning light, enjoying the birds' morning choruses and watching as one or two of them flutter around collecting material for their nests.

Then there's the moments when the children run wild with the freedom of this beautiful place, wired into the late evening as it must surely be located on a special energy line that heals and energises.

I am energised beyond belief.

It's a big deal sometimes to run a retreat with two small children who don't like to sleep, one of them hanging off any breast at any available opportunity.  But there is something about Lower Coxbridge House and Glastonbury that sustains me, all of us really. 

The yoga practiced in this space of healing energy is a joy. The place holds space all on its own and further sustains me. 

The beautiful healthy vegetarian food prepared and cooked with love by Olga sustains us all.

Glastonbury is the heart chakra of the world and my heart is always opened when I come here, as if it is the place that gives, and gives and gives.

It is also the home of the Goddess and certainly the Goddess within awakens a little more on each visitation. I can feel her. She's everywhere. It's hardly surprising that so many women flock here.

We trekked up the Tor and wound our way back down, this was metaphoric on some level, as we felt the energy shift into a gentler pace, and we spotted the line to Lower Coxbridge House.  

In Chalice Wells we drank the iron water and were treated to the beautiful sound of the vibrationally-aligned-heart crystal singing bowl of the beautiful soul who played her so beautifully by the open well. Even Eben was quiet for a good few minutes before he started shouting and was whisked away by E because this is a place of peace and tranquility,

This was actually the most stressful part of the weekend - my children running riot in Chalice Wells and being aware of the disapproving stares of those adults who had come to experience the quiet. We took them out as soon as we could and I carried Elijah with me to the White Spring, which he has grown to endure!

It's a cavern of darkness, as if retreating into the very womb of Avalon, and a relief from the early afternoon bright sunshine. Chris and I dipped naked in the cool and cleansing waters of the White Spring, revitalised and bonded by the experience.  I love this place for its quirkiness and for helping us step outside the comfort zone.  

The heart-singing-bowl lady was playing here too, her voice bringing shivers to my spine.  Not so to Elijah, who was keen to leave at this point!

We visited the Goddess Temple too, Elijah and I lighting a candle and making wishes. We visited the beautiful Abbey as well and I stood on the bleeding stone, wishing it was more obvious to the public - let's not be shamed by bleeding! There's so much power in giving our blood back to the Earth.

I did a lot of shopping too. For Goddesses and crystals and wands and chocolate brownies. Glastonbury is abundant in all of these amazing things. Bless E for being so patient throughout!

I could go on.  But really you have to come to this place for yourself.  If you are feeling the calling, then answer it.  there is something deeply profound about this place...but you need time to dig down to its depths...and still I have some digging to do because as I said earlier, it just keeps giving and giving.

With a deep bow of gratitude to the Goddesses who joined me to make the retreat possible and for their sharing and energy, to Olga and Sarah for their magic and to E and the boys for enabling this all to happen, and to my Mum and Dad for doing all our washing and preparing dinner for the boys so I could dash off to teach within an hour of our return to Guernsey...and to Lower Coxbridge House and Glastonbury, may you continue to light the lives of many.

x

Guernsey has truly awakened!

I love Guernsey, I've always loved Guernsey, it's an amazing place to live, but this last year it's just become even more amazing than it's always been.

It's said that Glastonbury is the heart chakra of the world, Mount Kailish in Tibet is the crown chakra and Ayres Rock in Australia is the solar plexus.  There are minor chakras too and a star seed intuitive I spoke with in the US also believed (as do I) that Guernsey is one of these - Byron Bay too.

Guernsey has certainly awakened in recent years and especially during 2017 - I suspect it was all that light coming in, it has propelled people forward and helped them to awaken a little to their own light.  Never have I known so many people practicing yoga or being drawn to learn Reiki, and there are now a plethora of nutritional therapists, life coaches and holistic practitioners. It's incredible, it really is a healing Island!

There's been a re-wilding too as increasing numbers take to the sea for all year around swimming.  Ewan and I have been swimming all year around for a few years now - I started when I was suffering with a bout of depression, due to adrenal fatigue, and it has such a positive effect on me that I haven't stopped since. 

Others have since realised the benefits - helped I'm sure by the 30 bays in 30 days charity campaign and the Cheshire Homes Boxing Day swim and in the last few months I've met many new friends through swimming thanks to a WhatsApp group set up by one my original swimming friends. It's been brilliant, to have the opportunity to swim with other like minded souls, many of whom practice yoga, and to enjoy the great outdoors together, especially the moon!

Even the moon and it's effect on us is being more recognised and accepted these days. In yoga people don't seem so threatened by it and welcome it in, the fortnightly shifting energies and the opportunity this presents for forgiveness, gratitude, letting go and letting in - certainly the Sunday classes have always encouraged this awareness. 

There's been an awakening on Facebook too, although I'm always a little cynical. I'm not so keen on the need for labels whether that be 'conscious' or 'lightwkrker' or whatever it is.  We're all conscious light workers in our own ways, even if we don't realise it - and probably it's in the un-realising of it that we keep a part of ourselves in the shadows.

It's the shadows that truly help us to awaken.  The more we shine the light on those dark places within us, the more we can begin to realise our true potential in this lifetime. Talking about being conscious, or intellectualising it, or trying to join groups that claim to be more conscious, doesn't actually make us any more conscious than anyone else. It just means we get better at talking about it!

Really we need to be doing the inner work, the nitty gritty, getting stuck into it, shining lights on the shadows, coming out of our denial and become a clearer and higher vibratory channel as a consequence. It's then that the world will begin to change. It's a cliche I know, but we really do need to be the change we want to see in the world.

If we want to see a kinder world, then we need to be kinder to ourselves and to everyone else with whom we interact in our daily lives. My family provide me with many opportunities to become a better person.  I hear myself telling my boys to be kinder to one another, and then I might hear the words and tone I'm using and consider that maybe I could be kinder too!

The Universe is constantly trying to help us in our quest to be better people. There are mirrors everywhere. People do things that we don't like and we might catch ourselves complaining about them, only to then consider that perhaps they're a reflection of us - we do those things too, just it's so much easier to judge others for their shortfalls (in our opinion) than see this in ourselves!

Anyhow I digress.  I'm just excited.  Guernsey is a such a marvellous place and I feel very lucky to live here and to have my lovely sea swimming ladies and all these magical people drawn to the Island for their own healing and to help to heal others with their wonderful offerings. And this is before I've even gotten started on all the ancient monuments we have over here, the standing stones and the energy...more on that another time...

With gratitude. xxx