Running a retreat in India with the family in tow!

The Goa retreat may have brought with it some challenges, but it was an amazing retreat nonetheless and I know that I am not the only Goan adventurer who is feeling a pang for the nourishing energy of Satsanga Retreat Centre and the warmth of Goa.

One of the Yoga Sutras talks about the obstacles that one may experience on the spiritual path, and while these may include such inflictions as disease and laziness, we were all tested in our own way with obstacles on the path to India and the potential spiritual growth that lay ahead.

Sri Swami Satchidananda writes “…Yoga practice is like an obstacle race; many obstructions are purposely put in the way for us to pass through. They are there to make us understand and express our capacitates. We all have that strength, but we don’t seem to know it. We seem to need to be challenged and tested in order to understand our own capacities. In fact, this is natural law. If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does no express its power. But once you put an obstacle to the flow by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power”.

It seemed that many of us needed to demonstrate our strength to overcome the obstacles placed in our path! For example, there were a number of us challenged in the preparations for the retreat as the Indian authorities, in their infinite wisdom, have made it increasingly difficult for Channel Island residents to obtain a tourist visa. No longer can we obtain a simple and cheaper online e-visa, instead we have to apply by post, at increased cost and hassle. 

I admit that I found the whole visa thing an incredibly stressful experience, mainly because I had to complete the process four times, for each family member, and had to pay for it four times too, £140 each! This, may I add, after trying to obtain an e-visa (because I didn’t at that point know that we could no longer obtain e-visas, the system only changed in the spring) and losing £80 on that pointless application. 

Then there were the flights, as Jet Airways with whom we originally booked our outbound flights went bankrupt. I was keen to take night flights, thinking that this may minimise the challenge of travelling with young children, so this did limit the options available to us. Furthermore, as Dabolim airport in Goa is a military airport, international flights are only able to arrive during the night, so this adds another consideration.

Then, about two weeks before we were due to travel, Air India cancelled our flight out of Goa and onto Mumbai for our connecting flight home. By then I’d learned little of the lesson, that one clearly has to go with the flow, and try not to get stressed about things that are completely beyond our control. For us it just meant a night in Mumbai, and in many respects (and as it turned out), this was a positive and welcomed experience.

So all of this before we’d even left Guernsey! Still, it was all character building and there were definitely a few of us learning the lessons before we’d even got going. It’s like one of my friend’s, Alice, said, “don’t fight India, or India will fight you back”.  So true!

The four of us, me, E and the two children, left Guernsey on time and arrived into Gatwick in time, from there a train ride to Victoria and a bus ride up to Paddington by where we had arranged a day-use hotel from which to base ourselves ahead of our flight that evening. We thought we were terribly well organised, getting a hotel here, not only because we had to meet someone to take possession of a large pink suitcase containing taps, which we were taking with us to our friend Emma in Goa (don’t ask, long story that always makes me chuckle!), but also because it was close to the Heathrow Express. 

Taps in our possession and the children starting to tire at the end of the day (having fitted in a walk to the Princess Diana Memorial playground in Hyde Park for the children to play), we made our way towards the Heathrow Express platform at Paddington Station, Ewan having already bought the tickets earlier in the day (super organised see), only to find that all Heathrow Express trains had been cancelled. Arghh! So it was to follow, an expensive taxi ride for us instead. I should have known then that this was setting the scene for the journey ahead, but nonetheless it was clearly a process that we had to go through, for whatever reason, character building I suppose.

Heathrow was manic. I had forgotten how manic it can get. You need more than three hours these days to get through the whole check-in, security, obtaining-water for the flight etc. process, especially with children in tow. We thought we had ample time, I’d even checked out where we might find the children’s play area, but due to the chaos of Air India check-in, we ended up running past the children’s play area, because by then our gate was closing. As is always the case though, there was plenty of time once we had boarded the plane to sit around and wait, wishing that we had not rushed so much to get to the flight in the first place! Another lesson learned!

The flight from Heathrow to Delhi went without drama, but then we were delayed in Delhi for a good few hours, to the extent that we missed our connecting flight from Mumbai to Goa, so had to sit around Mumbai airport for a good few hours too; always a joy with children! The luggage went missing for a time too upon arrival into Mumbai. I couldn’t help thinking how typical it was, that our bags should go missing when we were in possession of the taps, which Emma was desperate to have so that she could finally get running water in her new kitchen.

This was most definitely a lesson in non-attachment, and I concluded that the only thing I was slightly sad about losing was my Tibetan singing bowl and my Yoga file, plus the crystals that I had brought with me as gifts for the retreat attendees. The rest of the stuff was just stuff that could be replaced, we’d managed to travel light with only 36 kilos between us all, which was much less than the 100 kilos we had available to us, and I wasn’t attached to it. “So what?”, I finally thought. 

As I reached this conclusion, by then at some early hour in the morning at Mumbai airport, me chasing our giggling boys around the arrivals hall (much to the delight of the elderly Indian ladies sitting and watching us), Ewan confirmed that our bags had been located, we just needed to wait for them to be delivered. More entertaining of children under the bemused and amused eyes of the Indian women who were desperate to get a hold of Eben and give him a squeeze.

This we encountered frequently, lovely Indian ladies of all ages, desperate to pick up Eben and have their photo taken with him, and with Elijah too if he’s indulge their requests, which he did eventually, disinterested as he was to all the attention. The main comment was about the length of the boys’ hair and how they look more like girls. “Yes, we know”, we were frequently saying, “but it’s less unusual back at home where we live”, although when I think about it, we don’t know many boys with long hair here either!

Finally, we arrived into Goa during the middle of the night/early morning, as we had been keen to avoid, and I did wonder at the ludicrous nature of our route to Goa all in the quest to avoid this exact outcome. We arrived into rain too, heavy rain, most unusual, the monsoon was meant to have finished.

The next day, it was still raining. Heavy rain. Not that this stopped us from having fun. It was wonderful to see our friends, Emma and Olaf, the owners of the retreat centre, and their beautiful boys Lomax (5) and Leo (2), plus all the beautiful staff who work at the centre and live in the local village. Our boys were grateful to have playmates and books and toys on hand, and there followed much playing and swinging from the indoor swing and interaction with the resident animals.

This was yet another challenge for us, when it came to the children at least, because Eben (who had turned 3 the day before we travelled) loves dogs but has no awareness of the fact that some dogs are kinder and more child-friendly than others. By the end of the trip he finally recognised this, but initially he was trying to hug and kiss all three of the dogs and one of them, Simba, was not so sure about this, and I’m not sure Shanti was that taken either! Prana, the friendliest sandy coloured dog, became the firm favourite and Eben was frequently found trying to pick him up or lie on him, or generally bother him. 

Seeing Goa through a child’s eyes was interesting, especially from the animal side of things. There was the novelty of the frogs and the lizards in our room, and then seeing cows in the roads, and the packs of dogs who frequented some of the beaches. Our first afternoon on the beach at Vagator, for example, during a brief break in the rain, a couple of dogs followed us to our spot in the shade, and were hanging around on account of the fact that the children were eating biscuits. Eben was desperate to interact with the dogs, but these are stray dogs, and it was certainly a challenge trying to educate him that these dogs are not like the dogs on the beaches at home who have owners and who are often on leads.

Those first few days, the rain continued to fall relentlessly from the grey-laden sky and soon the winds whipped up – there was a cyclone sitting offshore that wasn’t moving, just our luck! If ever there was the lesson in letting go of attachment to outcome and going with the flow then this was it. I have been working with both this year, as part of boundary work (the theme of the year it seems, not only for me but for others too as it is in the “field’) and letting go of the need to control outcomes, be that taking responsibility for other people’s experience or trying to force things to happen.  If there’s one thing I absolutely cannot control, however, it is the weather!

I’ll admit that this awareness didn’t stop me fretting! The thought of 19 lovely students travelling all the way to Goa and being met with relentless rain was not ideal. There followed a sleepless night the evening before the retreat began, as I listened to the relentless rain falling heavily, knowing that some of the ladies were arriving during this time, and some with wonderful open-top bathrooms – no need for a shower with that rain, they just needed to stand in their bathrooms with the heaven’s pouring down upon them! 

Fortunately, by the Saturday morning and the arrival of the last remaining guests, the rain had eased and while the forecast had suggested rain all week, we were happy to go with our taxi driver’s prediction that the cyclone was moving away and sunnier weather was ahead. He was right! By the time the retreat began later that afternoon, the sun had reappeared and life looked decidedly brighter.

As for the retreat itself; if there is one thing I love more than anything else (bar the family and writing) is teaching yoga, and especially teaching yoga in the Shiva Shala at Satsanga, which for many years was a dream. I felt enormous gratitude to the students who had travelled so far to help to make this dream a reality, and I had to catch myself at times, because as a teacher who teaches most of these students regularly at home, it was a blessing to have the time and the space within which to help them explore and deepen their practice and for me to share what I have learned with them in more ways than I can at home. 

This was my third trip to Satsanga and it was as beautiful as ever. It’s difficult to explain the attention to detail and the nurturing energy until you have experienced it for yourself, from the friendly smiles, to the flowers that were carefully and lovingly placed around the centre, to the men who cleared leaves from the pool, swept the paths, and made sure we felt safe with 24-hour security watch, to the women who cleaned, cooked and washed for us. Nothing was too much trouble, and no one ever imposed on your space. 

The food was a definite highlight and I am grateful to the local women who lovingly prepared this for us – no one was sick and all dietary requirements were catered for, including one of the ladies who had a severe nut allergy and various other dietary restrictions. For her, it was a real treat, because the majority of the dishes she was able to eat, and for once she didn’t feel as if she needed to be treated differently.  

The centre is strictly vegetarian although the majority of the dishes were vegan to allow for the various dietary requirements. This was the most amazingly tasty and nourishing home-cooked vegan food I have ever had the fortune to taste, and I am missing it very much now I am back home. It was served buffet-style so that you could help yourself and help myself I did!

Breakfast composed of a variety of cut tropical fruits, plus soaked chia seeds and a quinoa-puff cereal. There was also a choice of breads, porridge and another warm option, maybe a local savoury dish or pancakes, it always smelled yummy but I never managed more than just the fruit. 

We were often away from the centre for lunch, heading straight to the beach after breakfast, to get the children off-site and give the guests some quiet space, but also because we rather enjoyed travelling up north and exploring the beaches, playing in the sea and drinking chai!

I am assured that lunch was yummy, and certainly if it was anything like the evening meals then this is true. There was always so much choice and so many different flavours, and a real range of vegetables too.  There was a mix of rice, noodles, chapatti and dosa. It makes me miss it, just writing about it, and I’m not usually a foodie!

As for the yoga, this took place twice daily (apart from Wednesday when we took a break in the afternoon) in the stunning wooden-floored Shiva Shala, so called because it features an amazing bronze statue of Nataraja (the dancing Shiva) so that you cannot help but welcome Shiva into your life come what may – he being the destroyer of the trinity, including Brahma, the creator, and Vishnu, the preserver. 

We embraced mouna in the morning, and therefore arrived to class in silence, able to enjoy the morning sounds of the birds and insect life outside! Here we practiced some breathing exercises together before sitting in silence, building up a minute a day so that by the end of the retreat we were sitting for 11 minutes in silent meditation. This may not sound very much for seasoned meditation practitioners, but was a real achievement for those who had not sat for any length of time previously.

The rest of the morning class was active in nature, and everyone rose to the challenge. Not once was there any moaning about the heat, or about the fans being on too much or not enough, these practitioners just got on with it! it was a delight for me to have a whole cupboard of props available to use during the classes (mine are sadly all packed away in storage awaiting the moment I finally have my own yoga space!) so that we were supported where needed and were able to explore our practice. 

It was also a joy to have wall space available to us too. Much of my training was undertaken using walls and it really does add another dimension to practice and testing limitations (often of the mind, more than the body!). The walls helped many of the students to access inversions and backbends in a way that they might not have been able to otherwise. Furthermore, we were able to consider alignment principles, and experience postures in a different way – even on our yoga mats we get stuck in ruts and in habits so it is good to challenge these and maybe shift our perspective on life generally. 

The afternoon class was softer in nature and we often chanted together, learning the Om asatoma mantra (sometimes known as the peace mantra), but also singing devotional mantra and exploring ‘Om” as well as chanting the Bija mantra regularly. There was gentle movement, some yoni yoga (embraced by our male participant too), restorative yoga and daily yoga nidra too.

I invited Chiara one evening, an Italian singer of the Dhrupad tradition, who sang to us on the last retreat; she is fab! Dhrupad is a form of music to bring the mind to a peaceful and meditative state. It is an ancient science of sound and music that aims to develop human consciousness and its corresponding nervous system. An original form of Indian classical music, it has retained its pure form to date – it’s ancient, beautiful and powerful and I was certainly moved by the experience and felt a moment of heart opening and momentary expansion. 

I also arranged a singing workshop another evening with a lady called Natalie, also a Reiki Master, who has lived in Goa for many years and uses the voice for healing. I was joined by 9 other lovely ladies and together we found our voices and managed to create a beautiful sound together. I was proud of us for embracing the fear and joining together and supporting my efforts in arranging this. 

On our penultimate night I arranged a sound bath, which was unfortunately not as enjoyable as I had hoped. Simply because by then we had created a rather special group energy and it was a lesson for me in bringing someone else in to manage this, who was not part of the group energy. This meant that her resonance did not resonate with us as a group per se, and therefore it was not as restful an experience, or indeed as much of an expanded experience as I and others on the retreat know that sound baths can be (we’ve been spoilt in Guernsey!). We live and learn!

But really, this didn’t matter. The fact the group energy was so strong and had taken on so much of its own energy was testament to the positive attitude of all the students and their willingness and openness to embrace each other and all these new experiences. For me it was a joy to witness friendships formed, and everyone getting on with it, with non of the drama that can sometimes accompany these retreats, with different personalities and needs.

It was also a joy to see so many embracing what they could of Goa in their down time. While we as a family may have limited our excursions to exploring the beaches, with only a short trip to the weekly famed Anjuna market, others ventured further afield. There were visits to temples and to the Spice Farm, to Mapsa, the main centre of the area, to local eateries and villages, and even a sunset-viewing drink from one of the beach bars. 

There was also a lot of lying around and chatting beside the pool, and of course swimming - Elijah finally learned to swim properly on this trip! I took great delight in swimming in the evenings once the children had gone to bed, and I was joined by a few other ladies on a couple of the nights. On the last retreat we had managed a full moon swim, but this retreat coincided with the new moon, so there were star-swims instead!

The retreat was, without doubt, an unforgettable experience, that allowed all of us to get away from it all and dive deeply into our yoga and spiritual practice. You can’t help but be spiritually nourished and expanded, practicing in that beautiful Shiva Shala with all the energy of years of yoga practice and meditation that has taken place in that space under the watchful eye of Shiva. There is also no doubt that staying at Satsanga leaves you feeling nourished and nurtured and with a renewed sense of wellbeing that continued after the retreat finished.  

Not to say that India wasn’t still challenging us as she does. We left the retreat centre at 7pm the same day that the retreat finished, for our 11.35pm flight up to Mumbai. To say we were tired might be an understatement, given that I had taught about 22 hours of yoga, and Ewan had looked after the children during this time, all the while tested by our 3-year old testing boundaries. Twice he managed to run away from Ewan and turned up in the Yoga Shala while I was teaching! Nothing like teaching tree pose with a small child in arms!! 

So we could have done without the delay to our flight that meant sitting around the airport with the children until well after midnight. The highlight was the fact we attracted a number of Indian children who were keen to play games with the boys, their ability to speak English was just amazing and here they were some of them only 6 years old. 

By the time we made it to our hotel in Mumbai it was 3.35am. Not quite what you have in mind when you have finished a retreat, and needless to say body clocks being body clocks we were all up by 7am! Still the hotel was a treat, and we are grateful to our travel agent, Lisa, for having taken pity on us with all the flight changes we had encountered which meant we needed to stay a night in Mumbai; and we were treated to pure luxury and we relished every moment of it!

We enjoyed our limited time in the city too, taking a tuk tuk (at Elijah’s request) to see some of the boats and the beaches, passing shanty towns and the luxury buildings that lies side-by-side. Our tuk tuk driver, appreciating we had limited time, stopped enroute at a building crowded by Indian tourists. We had no idea what it was but took an obligatory photo anyhow, thinking maybe it was a famous temple, but when I later googled it, I discovered it was the home of a famous Bollywood actor! This is certainly a city that deserves more time and more exploring. 

We chanced upon a café near to our hotel that served the most wonderful India chai. This felt like a gift from India before the long journey back home. The caffeine was also much needed, because after only 3.5 hours sleep post-retreat, we had to keep going until our 10pm flight that evening. We had learnt by then the need to get to the airport really early, and this certainly made the whole experience less stressful – I even managed a final Thali. 

The flights home were uneventful fortunately. Admittedly it would have been a joy to take a direct flight back to the UK, rather than a short hop to Dubai and a wait there, before the longer leg, at 1.30am back to the UK. The boys slept on the short hop and then in pushchairs throughout Dubai, but Ewan and I had to keep going. I think we managed 3 hours of broken sleep on that journey. 

I admit that while we are experts in sleep deprivation having had two boys who still, 6 years on, don’t sleep through the night without waking us at least once, the 6.5 hours of broken sleep split over two nights, following the end of an intensive week-long retreat, was a whole other level of sleep deprivation, that I don’t want to experience again if I can avoid it! We are only now beginning, slowly, slowly, to feel more human, especially now the children have stopped waking at 5am!

Sleep deprivation aside, it was a wonderful retreat and I miss Satsanga and our friends dearly. India was as wonderful as ever, and the challenges perhaps necessary for us to learn the lessons she was trying to teach us. Namely, go with the flow, non-attachment to outcome and running retreats in India with the family in tow is a sure sign of madness!!

In all seriousness, though, I did question whether this was some form of self-harm that I had set-up for myself – teaching a retreat in India with two small children on site and enduring all that travel. It’s something I am still pondering, because these patterns do have a way of playing out in our lives, even though we may try and convince ourselves that it is character building and all in the quest for love and light.

Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed all of it, and would love to teach at Satsanga again, but all the challenges did get my attention! Perhaps I was also, on some level, testing out the superwoman role. This is being tested for many of us women at the moment – do we want to be superwomen? No, I can honestly say I don’t. It’s an old paradigm, that we women need to move on from now.

How? I don’t know. But in our quest to ‘rise, sister, rise’ I do feel that we’ve got ourselves trapped even more into the ‘being of all things’ with this pressure we’ve put on ourselves to run a household and run a business, like it’s a badge of honour now, the latter, rather than the former. I don’t get off on the ‘running the business’ thing anyway, because what is that all about anyway, who cares?! Just do what you love and love what you do.

Which is my problem. Because I do what I love and love what I do, and somehow that takes me on crazy adventures to India! Thank you Shiva for calling me back, and thank you to our most beautiful friends Emma and Olaf for making it as easy as possible when we were there. Thank you also, to you most wonderful yoga students who joined me, I really miss you all and look forward to seeing you at class soon!

*Many more photos can be found on the Beinspired Facebook pages.

Jill's Walnut Pesto

Ingredients

Good handful of basil leaves (or rocket)
1/2 cup of walnuts
Glug of olive oil
1/2 cup finely grated Manchego cheese (it’s a hard sheep’s cheese)
1 clove garlic (if using)
Salt and ground black pepper

I use my mini mixer to make it, but you have to pack the basil down and whizz it a couple of times. The olive oil ‘loosens’ the mix. I guess it’s probably 1 to 2 tablespoons. Start with less and add if necessary.

Dark Night of the Soul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Retreating on Sark

I love retreating and while I’ve never had a ‘bad’ retreat, there are some retreats that are very special, and this Sark retreat was certainly one of those.

The weather forecast for the weekend didn’t look that great earlier in the week, but we were indeed blessed. There was the usual strong winds on the Friday, testing us all in some way, but I’m very aware that there is always an obstacle on the spiritual path and always an obstacle in the days leading up to a retreat (or the months in the case of Goa and the whole visa drama), if not on the day itself.

But we arrived safely, albeit the journey was a little bumpy and a little longer than ordinary, setting us back a little from our tight schedule, which meant that the class started later than planned on the Friday and was therefore shorter than intended. But all good! Plus we were joined by a number of Sark residents, so there was certainly a welcoming feel to our first few hours on Sark, which continued throughout!

It was only when I was cycling home on my own that night, in the seeming pitch black that it hit me that this is one dark place! I know it’s a dark sky Island, but I’ve never noticed quite how dark it really is! It almost made me feel claustrophobic and certainly disorientated, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was a metaphor for life, as the recent moon cycle and equinox shift made a lot of us feel desperately disorientated and uncomfortable.

I was reminded that one has no choice really, but to just surrender to the flow as I too had to surrender to the bumpy path beneath me and keep pedalling, trusting that I would end up at my home for the night eventually! Of course we do have a choice, we always have a choice, we choose our thoughts after all! But what sense is there, what sense would there have been for me to go against the flow of the path on that dark evening? In life, what sense is there is pushing and battling against the flow of things?

The flow can be tricky though, simply because we can’t be sure, exactly, where we will end up. There is no certainty! But really, apart from the certainty of our breath (at least from the moment we are born, to the moment we die), and the fact we will age, what certainty is there in our lives anyway? It is more than this though, flowing often means that we need to let go. Letting go of who we think we are, so that we can settle more fully into a more authentic version of ourself, because life changes and sometimes we just stop fitting into the one that we have previously created.

There is grieving that comes with letting go, we have to break down all that we have created, and that can be tricky, heart over head, that is definitely not without its issues, the head likes to control, the heart doesn’t know what control means. So inevitably fear arises - there is some vulnerability that comes with following the heart and trusting the flow of things - and it could be very easy to resist and close the heart, dropping back into old well trodden paths instead, and yet knowing that you have outgrown these now so inevitably they will feel uncomfortable (cue head in sand or numbing out somehow).

Inevitably I made it home, to the light, and there were the children wired, absolutely wired with the excitement of being on Sark and of having my Dad, Baba, on hand to play with them at every opportunity, and of course Daddy too, but in comparison to Baba, Dady is rather boring! So there followed a mission to get them to sleep, and it was a late one! 10pm before the pickle otherwise known as Eben finally settled, and I was not far behind him! I’d love to say it was a restful night but it wasn't! Much bed swapping and finally some sleep!

I might only teach on retreats, rather than attend them as a student these days, but they are still transformative by their very nature. Not least because of the practices and spending at least 9 hours in a yoga environment full of beautiful yogic energy, but because of sharing my passion with others, which is a joy - I love to share yoga and only hope that others may be positively touched by the practice as I have been in my own life, this is what motivates me to teach, it is a duty!

On Saturday, the sun was shining as I cycled to the yoga space at the Island Hall for the first class that morning. We may have had a terrible night with our children, but I was beginning to see even more of the light - this is such a beautiful spot on Planet Earth, a tonic for the soul.

The class was active in the morning, raising the energy, and after brunch, a few of us met for a walk through the beautiful valley to Dixcart Bay for a high-tide swim. Others joined Caragh for her popular chocolate making sessions (you even get to take lots of chocolate home with you!). Other still cycled around enjoying the views, walking, chatting, doing what you do on Sark and on retreat - as little or as much as you like!

Later afternoon some of us met at 4.30pm for some Bhakti yoga and devotional chanting of mantra to Krishna, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. We also enjoyed the illuminating and energising Gayatri Mantra; with much gratitude, thank you. This before the chanting of the Bija mantras, to raise the vibration of each of our seven main chakras. We shared Reiki too, and held crystals, there was a lucky dip and most definitely a theme with rose quartz for the heart and sodalite for the throat showing up frequently. It is all about the heart and voicing this!

The tea time yoga session was gentle in nature. By then my voice was well and truly giving up on me, my sore throat had been getting worse during the day, a message there for me metaphysically, and a chance to look clearly at my fear of not being heard, ha ha! I just loved the class regardless of the croaky yoga nidra!

More dark night and this time walking and chatting to Stocks with Sarah, before cycling on home alone, but this time enjoying the solitude and the unknown within the darkness and finding my way easily home. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the children were suitably exhausted by their Sark antics, all that fresh air had worked its magic, phew, a night of quality sleep!

More sunshine awaited me Sunday morning and this fairly much set the scene for the whole day, which whizzed past after another active morning class, and the end to the yoga element of the retreat. I really enjoyed the group energy that the students helped to create, and felt emotional that this was us done, so quickly! Thank you to all you really lovely ladies who attended and joined together so easily, it was an absolute honour and a joy.

I joined the family and we cycled out to the dolmon on Little Sark. This place blows my mind. How did people get the stones here and why? It’s a beautifully protected spot, with the midday sun, at least at this time of the year, shining in. I suppose it’s just really peaceful, there was no urgency to leave. As those of you who know me will know, I love any sort of ancient stone for they contain a special energy, a link above and below, and I would certainly encourage the traipse to find these one next time you are in Sark.

We cycled around a little more but I’ll be honest, while others went sea swimming, I lay down in the bedroom of the house where we were staying and enjoyed a yoga nidra and opportunity to rest as Eben napped on the bed. Navigating Sark on a bike and breathing in all the fresh air, let alone the yoga, certainly makes one tired, plus of course life slows down a pace and all the stress dissipates.

We returned to Guernsey on the 4.30pm boat, but I can’t say I was ready to leave, there is something about this magical Island, which just gets right under the skin, you can’t help but be uplifted by a stay, there’s something in the rocks and in its general energy.

I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to retreat on Sark, and for the family to come with me. The children absolutely love Sark, especially as they love tractors and tractors are everywhere, but also because they can just be so free. We can all be so free! It feels to me that Sark frees us a little bit in some way, maybe that sounds esoteric but here is some truth in it.

I’m very grateful to all of those who retreated with me and to Sark for holding space so marvellously, and for enlightening, and lightening the path a little. There was a lot of love on that retreat, and on that island generally.

Thank you. xx

Overwhelm

Today I had a moment of overwhelm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is an awful lot of fear out there. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New moon and Equinox shifting

We’ve a super new moon on Saturday and I don’t know about anyone else, but I am certainly feeling it. Phew.

Like treading through treacle.

Emotional treacle.

But at the same time, the speed at which things are ‘popping up’ and ‘popping out’ is pretty fast, and has been since the last full moon. 

Everyone says that the energy around an Equinox is fairly potent and the layers between the dimensions are relatively thin, and this is certainly my experience this Equinox.

All of nature is in flux, as the light decreases and the colours change and the relentless wind blows the old away. This change should be welcomed, for it is bringing with it a collective shift in perspective that is long overdue.

It’s easy to fight it, to cling on to what we know, because it is scary letting go into the unknown - how can we know that there is another, more aligned way of being, until we have experienced it. It’s a tricky one. 

Sometimes we don’t even realise we are fighting change, or clinging on to a version of ourselves that needs updating. We might have a sense that something is amiss, a depression, for example, or a feeling of weariness and heaviness, or an overwhelming need to scream (as if the scream itself may release something). Sometimes we might just feel as if we have outgrown ourselves.

When we finally let go – and the universe will provide opportunities for this – it can be such a relief, because all of a sudden the heaviness lifts and we experience a lighter and brighter perspective and version of ourselves that we hadn’t even known was there in the first place (this can be both exciting and slightly depressing with the recognition that there is always more potential that we may never realise in this lifetime). It’s as if the world itself has changed, and yet it’s just that we see things differently as our perspective shifts.

This might bring with it some challenges though, because while we may see things differently, those around us may not be party to the same vision. It takes courage to live from this new perspective, because there isn’t always a template. This can be scary, and can prevent us making the leap in the first place as fear might take hold.

However, there is nothing worse than living a life that no longer fits. The resistance and the fear of change becomes much more painful than the uncomfortable feeling that accompanies the surrendering in the first place. Yet many never make the leap, and numb out instead – there are many, many ways we can numb out, just think about it, we all have a go to numb-out-approach.

If there’s one thing yoga has given me (and it has given me many things) is the ability to become increasingly comfortable settling into the unknown. This is mainly because the practice itself leads us into the unknown, to those parts of ourselves that we might not yet know or that we have been resisting, or have been in denial of, or have rejected for some reason. Furthermore, it directs our lives in ways that we couldn’t ever have imagined, and all it asks of us in return is to keep surrendering and practising.

It’s this reason that many stop practising yoga, because it all becomes too confronting. Why look at ourselves honestly if that is going to make us feel uncomfortable? Isn’t it better to rest in ignorance, comfortably numb, drifting along? That approach has never worked for me, there is too much of a drive for the truth, however difficult that might be, but I appreciate that we are all different. 

Surrendering is also not easy. There’s no guide on how you might achieve this. Generally, life will provide an opportunity, the final straw, so that there is no choice but to let go, no more fighting. This summer I had that experience, as illness took hold and forced me to surrender to another way of being. It was much needed as the way I had been living was unsustainable and was no longer fitting. 

But I feel as if that process continues on, that while I might have felt a settling a few weeks ago now, I have been shaken up all over again by this energy that is whipping through our cottage and sending my youngest wild. There is more that needs to shift, I was only touching the sides previously, there has to be another, more sustainable way to live, one that is even more aligned to my truth.

It’s perhaps good timing (as these things tend to be) to find myself reading Simon Haas’ book about dharma and making enlightened choices, because in here, he shares this quote, which struck a chord with me:

 “The low minded person thinks in one way, speaks in another, and acts still differently; but the great soul, or Mahatma, says what he thinks, and does what he says.”

It’s this reason that I find Greta Thunberg so inspiring. Here is someone who is not only living her truth but speaking it too. Her speech to world leaders was genius because it cut right through our denial and said what many of us have been feeling:

 “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight”.

Speaking and living our truth is something that keeps coming up, and this new moon is just accentuating it. It’s not easy because on some level this is tied into boundaries, and boundary work is definitely not without its challenges, simply because it asks us to take ourselves seriously, and this brings with it a need for a shift in perspective.

So here we are. 

Being asked to consider our truth, and to look at where our actions are out of kilter with this, and to consider our boundaries too. It’s in the field, we can’t escape it.

It’s noble work, and needed.

Underlying all this – before it all gets too heavy – is to acknowledge that essentially all is well. Mother Earth is supporting us from below and the universe from above, and the moon and everything else in between. We can feel gratitude, for there is much to celebrate – we are on the cusp of a significant moment of change.

Each of us has a role to play, and it’s important to remember this, because it can be easy to feel lonely and isolated, as if only we are going through this inner shift that needs to be made. It’s also important to acknowledge that we have our individual role to play – our authentic offering to the world that is aligned to our truth, not anyone else’s (this awareness should keep the ego in check and stop us feeling threatened by others).  

We are part of the collective and so any change or shift we experience will shift the collective consciousness too. This is exciting. It makes the need for inner work even more important, for we can literally shift the collective experience of life on Planet Earth. This is important to remember when we start to feel overwhelmed about the current state of the world affairs and wonder how we might ever be able to change it. Just do you work, make your changes and this will impact on the collective.

We’ve heard it a zillion times before, but the change has to begin with ourselves. We can faff around trying to change our outer world, but until we change the inner world then the change is only superficial. What to do?    

 The clarity may well come with this new moon. Opportunities to surrender may also arise. The weather is supporting this, so try and flow with it as the wind clears the cobwebs away, and the rain cleanses our energy. We may have a greater sense of our truth and how we might manifest this in the world, and we may also feel renewed gratitude.  Let’s see! 

Happy new moon!

Jill's green curry paste recipe without heat

Here is Jill’s version of the green curry paste she made in Chang Mai, Thailand on a cookery course, but without the heat, so is better for those who react to, or don’t like, chilli, or are on a Pitta-reducing diet.

Ingredients - for the paste

2 small shallots - chopped
A piece of fresh ginger (about thumb size) - chopped
2 or 3 lemongrass stalks - chopped
Fresh coriander - a handful including stalks
1 Kaffir lime - skin only (difficult to find in UK)
1 teaspoon roasted coriander seeds
1 teaspoon roasted cumin seeds
Twist of pepper
A large pinch of salt

You could add garlic but Jill chooses not to.

Put all ingredients into either a mini food processor or a pestle and mortar and grind until it looks like this :-

It is a rough paste.

To make the actual green curry

Use with a tin or two of coconut milk. Add chopped veg and chopped chicken (leave out chicken obviously if you are vegetarian or vegan), along with about 6 kaffir lime leaves that you have scrunched in your hand. Leave to simmer until veg/chicken are cooked, then add a shake of fish sauce and a small amount of palm sugar (or light brown sugar - 1/4 of teaspoon). Check seasoning and adjust as necessary. Add Thai basil just before serving if you can get hold of some.

It is very moorish!

Please be kind and gentle to the children!

Please, if your child is screaming and clinging to you when you drop to him or her off at pre-school or school, don’t shout at them!

There is a reason that a child screams and you screaming back at them, or losing your temper or getting cross or, even worse, threatening them, is not going to help, its just going to make their experience traumatic 

There is a reason that a child screams and clings to you when you try to leave them at pre-school or school. They’re scared! You’re putting them in the unknown, separating them from you, and they are rightly anxious and in need of your support and love, not your harsh words!

They trust you, you’re their stability and here you are, handing them over, into a situation, and with people, with whom they have no trust whatsoever. Who wouldn’t be scared?!

 Having had a child of my own suffer with separation anxiety both at pre-school and school, I know only too well how distressing it is for both parent and child, but I also know deep in my heart that losing it with them (or telling them you are going to lose it with them, as I heard one mother tell her distressed and screaming son in the playground at school drop off this morning) is not going to solve the problem. All it is going to do is harden your child to this world, scar their heart and harm their soul.

 Why is it that adults feel that they can impose their will over their children, and do so with harsh words and brute force? To me, this is all that is wrong in this world. That even as parents we can’t just be kind and gentle to those we love the most and are meant to be looking after, and caring for, in this world.

Listen to your child. Why is he or she screaming? Take a moment to think which of their needs is not being met. What is it that they are trying to tell you? Sure, it can be extremely confronting to consider the manner in which your actions might have added to your child’s distress at being separated from you in the first place (have you been giving them enough attention and attending to their emotional needs, for example), but better to do this than just yell at them as if it is all their fault (they’re children!).

There is such a pressure in this world to conform to society’s expectations, and to promote this need for separation as if that is a good thing. What’s good about separating new-born babies from their mothers immediately following birth and popping them in plastic boxes albeit by your hospital bed, or in cots in another room all on their own at home, for example? Why the need to stop breastfeeding babies simply because of working commitments or societal norms, whether the little thing is ready or not.

On it goes, the pressure to get your child sleeping through the night so that you ignore their cries and let them, ‘cry it out’ as if that’s a good thing, imposing your will over them, when all their little hearts want is some comfort in the middle of the night, when it’s dark and they have woken scared, or perhaps hungry, and are desperate for another heart to be held against. But no, you ignore their cries because that is what you are meant to do because other member of society say so, to get a good night’s sleep, and they will adapt won’t they? 

Yes, they will, but a little bit of their soul is likely to have withered in the process, as another of their needs is not met. Their heart will bear the burden too, still craving that heart-to-heart contact, a compassion – will they one day find that comfort that they sought in the when they were a helpless baby? We can only hope that that’s the case, that they consider themselves worthy of the love that their parents neglected to give them in the middle of the night, or when they were scared about going to pre-school or school and were shouted at instead. 

I’m certainly not perfect and I am constantly learning how to be a gentler and kinder and more heart-led mother. Parenthood is not easy. My youngest is a few months away from turning three, and he is testing all the boundaries and is constantly doing rather naughty things. He still wakes in the night, at least once, and he likes to lie on my chest given the choice, so sleep is not something that we get a huge amount of, still, in this household.

But I feel it is worth this short-term sleep deprivation, because at least he knows that I am there for him when he needs me in the night. And the breastfeeding too continues until he is ready to stop, his immune system benefiting by each passing month. Both are not the norm, and people do think that we are crazy to put up with all the night time waking’s and heaven forbid that I might attempt to breastfeed my almost-three-year-old in public – it’s totally out of most people’s comfort zone.

Last year, during that first term, my eldest son cried most mornings as I dropped him to school, and it was all I could do to leave him in the classroom. Fortunately, the teachers were really compassionate and I was welcomed to stay as long as I needed, until I felt that he was settled – none of the ‘leave him crying and screaming and just run’ approach of the pre-school we initially chose and thankfully had the sense to stop fairly soon afterwards, albeit much of the damage had been done (why did I not trust my intuition and leave with him?! Oh yes, because every one told me that this was normal. Normal? It’s a crazy world we live in).

 Sure, my life has had to change considerably. I recognised that I hadn’t been there for him as much as he needed, that I hadn’t been meeting his emotional needs. I had been too busy working, too busy trying to achieve. So I gave up one of my jobs, which also meant giving up our financial security as well as a (false as it turns out) sense of identity. It was a big deal for me at the time, but I haven’t regretted it since. 

 Admittedly it took some time to adapt to all the seemingly endless trips to and fro from school, so that the day passes so quickly and very little else gets done in the interim (I’ve just taken a deep breath as we get back into the routine this term). But you do what you do, don’t you, for your children, for the next generation? You find a way. A kind way. One that you hope doesn’t damage them in the long-term, or give them the impression that their needs don’t matter. 

This is even more important if you are parenting one of the wave of sensitive children who have come in to this world in the last ten years or so. True gifts to the world they are, because they don’t fit in, they’re not meant to fit in, because they are going to show us another way to live, a more conscious, calm and peaceful way to live, if we let them guide us, rather that feeling we need to knock their sensitivity out of them. If you have a sensitive child then you need to nurture him or her, and their need for quiet space, meet them rather than expecting them to change to meet your expectations of what their life should look like.

For us, the changes to the way we lived, me prioritising my eldest son’s needs, seemed to work. By the end of the school year, he had settled and made one really good friend, who is a regular visitor at our house these days. He made other friends too and was OK about being separated from me, because he knew I was always there for him, that I had managed to find a way to make myself available to him. I’m grateful to his teachers too, for respecting and addressing his individual needs and doing all they could to help him settle.

Our children learn from us, and unless we can find a way to interact with them that doesn’t involve yelling at them when they do something that we don’t want them to do (like making a scene when they don’t want to go to school), then they’ll think that it’s OK to shout at, or threaten others if they don’t do what they want either. And on it goes from one generation to the next. So that this world never changes. More hurt hearts and people searching for their souls, lost and disillusioned, wondering where it all went wrong.  

This is our responsibility as human beings and as parents especially, to make the difference, to make this world a kinder and gentler and more compassionate place to live, and this has to start with how we not only treat ourselves, but equally as important, how we treat our children.

We don’t have to do things the way society expects us to do things, if that way doesn’t work for us, doesn’t have a heart, especially. Let’s face it, does this look like a happy society in which we are currently living? The rising anxiety and depression rates certainly don’t support this being a thriving society, to say nothing of the greed and quest for material wealth which is leading to exploitation of Mother Earth. No, we’re not thriving as a humanity and something will need to change.  

So if your child is having a hard time settling into pre-school or school, please don’t think that you have to act a certain way. That it needs to look a certain way. Please be gentle and kind and loving. Please don’t shout at them. Please try and find out what is bothering them and work together with the teachers and carers to find a way so that they may settle gently. Make sure you’re heard – if it doesn’t feel right, don’t leave them - and listen to your children.

And when your child wakes in the night needing comforting, please do go and give them your heart to rest their head upon. We need more awakened hearts in this world.

 xx