Butterflies and community

We might not have made it to Sark last weekend, but we were lucky to get there this weekend instead and what a special weekend it was too.

I love Sark and its beautiful skies and this weekend was no exception, I often just stopped and stared, mesmerised! We managed a few beautiful swims too and the butterflies were just amazing! This morning the path was just lined with butterfly after butterfly, even E was taken away by it. 

 Butterflies seem to be the theme today in a strange kind of way. I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about community and about yoga and Reiki and teaching and about the bigger picture. It’s easy to lose sight of this in the drama of life, and get sucked up in the minutia of the ‘me’ culture that permeates society and forget that we are all in this together.

Yoga and Reiki saved my life and I was so passionate about these practices that I threw myself into them, and this led to me qualifying as a teacher, simply because I wanted to learn as much as I could and share what I had learned with as many people as possible for the greater good.

When I set up Beinspired, I hoped that this might encourage a sense of community where people could discover, embrace and share their own uniqueness without fear of prejudice and have fun as they experience the benefits of yoga and Reiki for themselves. I’m hopeful that Beinspired has achieved some of this, certainly we have had some fun over the years.

Over the years I have tried to do fundraising for the community, and his year E and I have set up our Plant A Tree Project where we hope to help grow more trees on Guernsey. Plus we financially support projects in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Greece so that we can try and positively impact on the wider global community.

 However I have been thinking that it needs to be developed further, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I got a little bit of clarity walking back up Dixcart Valley on my own today. There is something quite magical about that valley as there is about Sark generally and I was grateful for the time on my own this morning to immerse myself in it. 

I’ve just got this sense that even in yoga and Reiki, in our quest to be someone, we can almost sabotage it’s potential benefits to humanity and to the planet generally because rather than pull together we can pull apart, doing our own thing.

It’s a tricky one to explain, but I have noticed that in my own life even though there are now more yoga teachers teaching yoga and Reiki practitioners channelling Reiki, which can only be a good thing for humanity and the planet, I have a certain resistance to it.

I question whether what is being taught is truly yoga, albeit appreciating that every new teacher has to start somewhere, just as I wonder whether Reiki is being diluted because people are seeing it now as a career choice rather than a calling. Yet who am I to pull someone up for their motivation in doing the work that they do? if income generation is the only motivator for teaching yoga and Reiki, does this make it any less spiritual or helpful than someone who wants to share to promote peace as a primary motivation?

It’s something I have questioned all weekend, because I can see that even in the holistic world which is meant to be all caring and sharing, we often lack a cohesive sense of community as people compete for business accolade, financial gain and a sense of being good. We can’t help it, this is our conditioning, the need to be someone and be recognised for it. It makes us feel better about ourselves and eases our inherent insecurity.

I can see how I might feed into this from time to time, losing sense of the bigger picture and the role we each have to play as part of the whole. It’s a bit like the butterfly effect, this idea that the small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system – the concept of the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon. In reality a single act like the butterfly flapping its wings cannot cause a typhoon but a small event can serve as a catalyst…

In theory each time someone gives/receives Reiki and/or practices yoga their vibration increases, which raises the vibration of the planet. So really it doesn’t matter who is doing the teaching or the practising or the giving, the important thing is that someone is doing it. 

If we truly wish to live as a community and help humanity and the planet to heal then this is all that needs to take place; the teaching, the receiving and the practising, and it really doesn’t altogether matter who does which of these!

So it is that my moment of clarity today found me wanting to establish a list of Reiki practitioners with whom people might receive a treatment, and yoga teachers who might help students to develop their practice. Simple really. So that it isn’t about me, not really, it’s about all of us, and about community, about coming together and about the bigger picture. Let’s see!

Tonight after yoga one of my students shared a stunning photo of two butterflies that she had taken. I thought this rather appropriate given my ponderings and my interactions with butterflies this weekend. I’m also aware that the butterfly is about transformation, and I know that this process if occurring too, as it brings with it a slight contraction, which is uncomfortable but also – perhaps for the greater good. Let’s see on that too!

La Gran’Mère du Chimquière

Oh my goodness, this most beautiful gift and addition to my altar arrived into my life today, totally unexpectedly and I have been smiling ever since.

This was a gift from a special friend who knows me much better than I realised and knew what I was missing when even I didn’t.

Last week, as you know if you have been reading this blog regularly, I went to see La Gran’Mère du Chimquière because I felt things were a little shaky and wobbly with the moon and I wanted some of her strength and support to help me see it through to the other side of the full moon. It’s been a bit like going through the mill, break down to break through, always the process is uncomfortable, but heck, how else would we grow!

I managed a trip to the fairy cave yesterday, felt the need to just go and be held by that space, and the ancients, always there to support if you feel the need and are able to heed the call. We sort of just ended up there, if anything it was E’s call, he was insistent we visit Lihou island even though it was far too windy to walk with the children far. But it got me in the cave and I’m grateful for that and the ancients because it did positively shift something.

I could feel it all lifting yesterday evening and talk of the new came in which got my heart fluttering and I awoke this morning with the clarity I had been searching these last six months or so. It’s always an utter relied when the light floods back in again, and yet funny it should happen on the waning moon and the decline into winter, Samhain not too far away now, so maybe actually it’s perfect.

It was certainly perfect timing for her to come into my life today. I hadn’t even realised she had arrived until I was just about to go out to the beach and there she was by the front door, delivered and I wasn’t even aware of it ensconced in my yoga practice upstairs instead. I was overwhelmed by her. Of course I took it as a sign but I also took it as a reminder of the goodness in life and that everything is just as it needs to be. With that I positively skipped to the beach for a swim.

Thank you Kristin for being so thoughtful, kind and generous, and thank you La Gran’Mère du Chimquière for being in my life.

Love x

Insecurity and safety

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Basic goodness, compassion and community

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blame the moon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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