It's all up in the air!
From an Ayurvedic perspective we are in the airy vata time of the year. From an Astrological perspective we are in Libra, which is an air sign. We’re a week on from the equinox too. So I guess it’s hardly surprising that everything is up in the air, or at least, this is what so many fo you are telling me - “everything is up in the air Emma”. Yes! I hear you. There is change.
E tells me that mortgage rates have tripled so those living on credit will no doubt be struggling. I’m sorry for those in dire straits, but a shift in the housing market is needed, its become pure greed, especially here on Guernsey. Many of you are going through relationship breakdowns or split ups or re-orientation, depending on your perspective, and yet more are changing jobs, careers too, taking the plunge, to try something different, see how it feels, find greater balance amongst the chaos.
It does feel chaotic. But for me, I know that that’s because I am juggling multiple things. Furthermore the energy is whipped up and its busy. I’m an expert on busyness. As E says, he’s never known me not to be busy. But there are different levels to busyness. Too busy and I hit overwhelm really easily, my mind spinning into a frenzy so I have to give myself a really good talking to in an effort to calm down and stop the future orientation. Moment to moment. That seems to work best. Breathing in and taking a long breath out again. Thank God for yoga and Reiki and Ayurvedic herbs!
Busy has its benefits though, if busy is not too busy. This isn’t busy to avoid feeling, or to distract from whatever else might be going on, as a coping mechanism or a form of denial, but busy because life is full and we are enjoying ourselves. I like that busy.
I don’t mind things being up in the air either, because I like change. The key is to maintain one’s centre and stay rooted regardless, in touch with heart and deepening into faith. Easier said than done I know, especially when you’re in the thick of it and not sure where it’ll all land. But in many respects that’s quite exciting, even though it can prompt anxiety, because of the groundlessness. Hence the benefit of getting outside, connecting with the earth and breathing fresh air into your lungs, let alone getting to a class and sloooowwwwwinnng down. I love Yoni Yoga for that.
The other thing going on - people are feeling under the weather, quite literally, the weather is shocking today and more forecast, it was a quick shift from the delights of summer to the wet and decidedly cold snap into autumn. It’s a huge seasonal transition, and one that does involve some grieving, especially if you are a summer lover and loved this summer especially with all that beautiful weather and the fun that was had, let alone the socialising and summer romances, and all that entails.
Grief is held in the lungs. The lungs fill with air. The heart chakra is represented by the element of air. So we may be feeling a heaviness in our heart, maybe a seasonal cold and cough trying to clear it out, maybe a depression that comes with this heaviness and sickness and the general grieving that might be needed, as we are encouraged to let go over and over again. Letting go of outdated ways of being, letting go of toxic people, letting go of giving ourselves a hard time for our perceived wrong doings, letting go of our victimhood simply because life isn’t turning out as we want or expect or desire.
if ever there was a time to dig into shifting the perspective, per one of the Yoga Sutras, then this is it. Shft the perspective into something positive. You do have the power for that. Your mind will tell you otherwise. But that’s the nature of the mind, it likes to be in control and when we let it run riot, we end up depressed and anxious and feeling unsafe and crappy about ourselves and the world, and we lose our centre and our confidence and our voice.
It’s also a time to remember the message from the Bhagavad Gita of not being attached to the fruits your labour, whether that be a job, a relationship, or whatever. Let go of expectation. Let go of attachment to outcome. I assure you, life is a lot easier to navigate when you do this. Then you’re not holding yourself up to unrealistic expectations and targets, or giving yourself a hard time because of not getting what you want or feel you deserve, and buying into that whole ridiculous notion that there’s something wrong with you. There isn’t. Its just about re-aligning and, of course, going within. You’ll never find what you’re looking for outside of yourself. Never.
Anyway, I’m writing this while simultaneously making pancakes, sorting a packed lunch and knowing that I have a cat awaiting his breakfast, so I shall leave you to it, knowing that you are not alone, that we are individually and therefore collectively going through a period of big change…its needed, embrace it all. Grieving, let go, and find the joy…and follow your joy too…big heart dive.
I’ll leave you with these heartening words:
“In the time of the Seventh Fire, a New People would emerge. They would retrace their steps to find the wisdom that was left by the side of the trail long ago. Their steps would take them to the elders, who they would ask to guide them on their journey. If the New People remain strong in their quest, the sacred drum will again sound its voice. There will be an awakening of the people, and the sacred fire will again be lit. At this time, the light-skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. One road is the road of greed and technology without wisdom or respect for life. This road represents a rush to destruction. The other road is spirituality, a slower path that includes respect for all living things. If we choose the spiritual path, we can light yet another fire, an Eight Fire, and begin an extended period of Peace and healthy growth. “
Grandfather William Commanda, Circle of All Nations Prophecy of the Seven Fires of the Anishnabe, From Ancient Wampum Belt
Love Emma x
Happy letting go on Mabon!
Another turning of the wheel finds us in the balance of the autumnal equinox, the harvest festival of Mabon, when day and night are of equal duration and we have the sun rising directly east and setting directly west; the balance tips tomorrow and we descend into the darkness.
I managed to see the sunrise yesterday, knowing that it would be raining today, not that you wouldn’t still get the boost, but nonetheless, i like to see the play of light on the neolithic stones, which are perfectly aligned. It blows my mind every time I watch a sunrise from one of these places, that the ancients so perfectly aligned stones, when you cannot ever be sure of an actual visible sun from one year to the next.
But then life was very different back then. I am reading a fascinating book about the breath and about how the skull was different in ancient times, and how we breathed better, through the nose, maximising prana, so that our whole energy field would have also been more vibrant, purer, we were purer, the earth was purer, we respected her. Those were magical times, I have no doubt we were far more intelligent then too, could move the stones that even our modern technology would struggle to do today.
Interesting times for us now though, as we step further into this new age of Aquarius, which Rebekah Shaman wrote so helpfully about in her recent newsletter, and which you should be able to access through our Facebook page, if not on her own website/social media. We’ve lost our way along the way, forgot what is important, disconnected from nature, saw ourselves separate, separated within ourselves too, mind and body, and soul.
But it does feel as if things are changing. That more people are beginning to realise that we are nature and the more we try to separate ourselves from it, or control it, the more disconnected and chaotic we feel. But that doesn’t stop us being sick as a species - the mind especially is struggling with the pace of what is expected of it to live in this ‘modern’ world, and the body too, that struggles on, more autoimmune issues, people not liking themselves, we are our own worst enemy at times in the way we talk to ourselves and treat ourselves, let alone how this reflects out into the outer world.
What we put out comes back. We judge ourselves, we judge others, we are judged back. We put out sadness, we see sadness come back. We put out our victimhood and this will be reinforced over and over again, simply because of the way we seek it with the energy we put out in the first place. Our mind is rushed and the world rushes back to us. If we find inner peace however, well imagine what a world we would be able to collectively create, if we ALL found inner peace.
I can dream of such times. When we loved ourselves, cared about ourselves, treated ourselves with respect and, just as importantly, treated nature with the same love and care and respect. Alas, nature is a commodity now. Even we’re a commodity. Tax payers. Slaves. It’s all about productivity for the sake of productivity, a linear path taking us to?
I’m much keener on curves. The moon. The sun. The stones in the dolmens. The stone circles. Heads. Shoulders. Knees. Heels. Hips. I love the play of the dance, of the light and the dark. I love the menstrual cycle and all it reveals. I love traveling the world and never quite knowing what might happen next. I love the turning of the wheel and the seasonal shifts it brings. I love random encounters with wonderful people. I love polarities and the gentle balance of their meeting. I don’t particularly enjoy linear living. And I’m not a fan of productivity because it sucks the soul from our very being.
This week has been about meeting the extremes, the root below and the crown above and not seeing it as a linear thing, but of a coming together in the centre, into the balance, and allowing that to move, to draw apart but also when to draw back to centre again. Our centre. Being in our centre. Self-centred. Our self in OUR centre, not anyone else’s. Some may think this selfish but I don’t. We’ve been trained to think it’s selfish but seriously, why on earth would we want to be in someone’s centre? Why would we give our power away to others, losing our centre in the process?
Well sadly, people do it all the time, women especially, still that patriarchal undertone of having to be there for others, of having to give too much of ourselves, of not having healthy boundaries so we know where we end and someone else begins, of enmeshed families where we lose ourselves in the drama of what is expected of us, of the life others want us to live, of their dreams for us, of their caring too much about what others think, of their unintentional denial of our souls and our deeper yearnings to live a life of heart, of our dreams and of spending our time wisely, in our centre, for us, without - so important - without feeling guilty, or judging ourselves for it.
Be in YOUR centre. That’s the message coming through this week. This ahead of the Libra new moon on Sunday, Libra being a sign of balance. This is about balance. This is about living a balanced life in terms of how we relate to ourselves. Breath in and breath out. Give and take. Action and inactivity. Joy and sadness. Gladness and regret. Sunrise and sunset. Moonrise and moonset. High tide and low tide. Man and woman. Young and old. Light and dark. Happiness and depression. Empowerment and disempowerment. We are a world of polarities, of opposites and tensions, yet within all this the balance and a softness - the paradox of life.
However one of our greatest obstacles to this inner balance between the two tensions and to finding our own inner softness (why do we think it’s all about hardening, why are we obsessed about hardening the body/mind, even some approaches to yoga harden the body and therefore the mind?), is our judging one way to be the right way and one way to be the wrong way, one way to be good and one way to be bad. These are just thoughts running through our head. And our thoughts of course create our reality. We are always at war with something it seems, because we are always at war within side ourselves, to different degrees, because we haven’t accepted all parts of ourself.
This not accepting ourselves just as we are feeds our inherent insecurity. We’re trained to be insecure because then we can be more easily controlled. A spiritual path helps to set us free from this training, helping us to love and accept all parts of ourselves, reclaiming our power as we let go of our insecurity about not being good enough, loveable, worthy blah blah blah. It’s all lies. All an illusion. Something we bought into it and believed to be true, a truth. But really it’s just the mind, and its mis-perception of reality, of not seeing the truth of our essence.
This world feeds on insecurity. A whole economy is based on people feeling insecure, of needing something outside themselves to fix them, heal them, make them feel better about themselves. But really, we have all we need inside ourselves, if only we could stop this inner war, learn to accept and love all parts of ourselves, and put two fingers up to those who judge us for standing in our truth and our power, for living life the way we choose, secure in the support of the earth beneath our feet and the heavens/spirit above. The key is to draw this energy into our centre and keep it there.
We will be challenged, there will be obstacles, to test our ability to truth and maintain our faith. It’s interesting to catch ourselves and watch ourselves when the test comes in. To witness what we do. Do we panic, lose our grounding, switch off from spirit and grip on in our centre and to anything concentred we can find, losing ourselves in self destructive and self sabotaging behaviour patterns, or can we find the courage and the strength to stay present to whatever comes up for us, however uncomfortable, and breathe our way through it, leaning into the earth and the heavens rather than turning away from them?
It is this process that brings us more deeply to our centre and to our essence. But we have to find the strength to face it and say a bold ‘no’ to everything else. This is how we build security. This is how we learn to stand in our power, on our own two feet, here on Planet Earth. This is how our soul shines brighter out into the world. This is how we find greater inner balance.
We are safe. We are lovable. We are worthy. We are held in love. The universe has our back. We live in a world of polarity, where there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, only what is. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. A long Exhale. Let it go.
This is really a time of letting go. We’re on the wane to the new moon on Sunday and the descent into the deepest darkest day of the year at the winter solstice. All that we don’t need. All of the crap that we carry that makes us lose our centre and feeds our insecurity, that causes us to give our power away and neglect our boundaries, that can all be let go of now…the guilt, the shame, the malice, the judgements, the victimhood, all of that, can go. The moon and the sun are supporting this shift…it has to get messy because it gets clean…
It’s a time to clean ourselves up. We incarnated now for a reason. So enjoy the ride, because I have a sense it’s going to get a lot more intense if we don’t just get on and do the work...
Happy equinox!
Love Emma x
I love retreating on Sark!
I am sure I say this every time, but that was an incredible Sark retreat! Not only were we blessed with the most amazing weather, but we were only a small and intimate group, which was really lovely, and, for the first time ever, I got to do a retreat totally on my own, without any family or friends.
I cannot tell you the sheer joy that comes with spending the first few hours of a day in silence - it felt like true gift, especially cycling to yoga early in the morning with the rising sun and the crystal clear autumnal air, and not a single other person around. I’m sure I have mentioned it before, I am inherently anti-social, I love peace, silence and space and I am really not good in groups unless I’m leading them. So Sark suits me well, the energy resonates on a deep level, and I am always invigorated and renewed by time spent there.
I believe the others were also positively affected by the time spent retreating this weekend. Everyone was really dedicated to the yoga, in circle in the island Hall, with a few lovely Sarkees joining us, and going deeper within. We were lucky on Sunday morning as Caragh taught the Qi Gong and Yoga fusion class outside on the lawn at the Island Hall, with the morning dew bringing the element of water to our Autumn infused practice the rising sun, waning moon also overhead and the earth under our feet. Thank you Caragh, a really special class.
I made the most of my freedom, enjoying a swim with one of my Guernsey swim friends, Jo, down at Dixcart on Saturday after brunch, it’s so magical walking through Dixcart Valley and not having to carry a child made a huge difference! Don’t get me wrong, I was delighted to see them on Sunday, but a whole few hours not having to think about anyone else but myself was a dream, and what these retreats are all about really - time for people to immerse in themselves and come home a little.
I spent the afternoon with my dear Sark friend, Estelle, and her beautiful daughter, Robin. We enjoyed a good chat down on Grand Greve, and a swim, always there has to be a swim! Oh and tea, always tea! And of course we passed Caragh’s chocolate place on the way, so there might have been some chocolate too. Mint tea and super dark chocolate are two of my favourite things, they combine perfectly!
I managed to get over to Little Sark that night too, I love being out in the dark and visiting dolmens and cists and Little Sark has such an incredible energy, it is another realm entirely and I was blessed with an owl, who flew over last time too, both times as I have been leaving the little isle. The highlight, other than the dolmen (obviously) was the night sky. My goodness, it was insanely amazing, with there being no moonlight, and I was lucky to catch a couple of shooting stars. Sark is such a fab spot for night time gazing, interesting to see all the lights on all the neighbouring lands and the boats out at sea, let alone the satellites and planes overhead - it’s a very busy world we live in.
And actually that’s the joy of Sark for me. I might still have kept myself busy, but the pace is different and the land holds us all so beautifully. Stocks too is an amazing spot to stay, in that valley with those trees and that energy, let alone the beautiful rooms and friendly staff and yummy vegetarian food - although I do believe meat and fish sneaked into the brunch menu without me realising! The only reason we attempt a vegetarian retreat is because it’s lighter energy, to compliment he lightening of energy of the classes and Sark experience. But whatever, I am sure the brunch was enjoyed by all, veggie or not!
We’ve another retreat coming up on Sark 14-16 October with a space or two now available due to a cancellation. We like to keep them more intimate these days. Our next one won’t be until the end of May and this will be a women only one, a Yoni Yoga one actually, for those who wish to go deeper. We’ll be releasing the details in a few weeks, numbers will be limited.
For now though change in the air with the equinox approaching this week. I am looking after two cats this week, with my parents and a good friend both away at the same time, so lots of moving around the west coast and trying to keep two cats happy! But also a wonderful opportunity to sleep…the enquiry into sleep has started.
Enjoy the waning moon and equinox energy approaching, life changing, for now though everything still up in the air, albeit I’m grateful to Sark for helping to ground me and replenish me ahead of the shift and to those students who gave so beautifully of themselves on the weekend. It really highlighted to me this weekend how important it is to prioritise time for ourselves and take a break from the children if we can - I’ve certainly got more energy for them now and I feel decidedly calmer too…let’s see how long that lasts!
A big thank you to Jo and Al for sharing their photos with me as I didn’t take a single one! These sum up the weekend perfectly, thank you ladies.
Love Emma x
An enquiry into tiredness...Happy full moon!
It’s full moon day and I already bashed the car first thing this morning, a moment of total lack of spatial awareness as I tried to access Silbie nature reserve. This is an absolutely stunning little spot on Guernsey btw and Planet Earth generally, and well worth a venture, but alas, I advise paying much more attention to all the granite around there!
I take it as a wake up call actually, to get more sleep, especially as it’s happened on full moon day, and first thing. I have been thinking a lot about sleep recently as it is something that I have never felt too strongly about, I’ve never been one for early nights and lay ins. I love the stillness of the later night and it was only having children and the endless wake-ups that then ensued (not helped by 6.5 years of breastfeeding, which seems like utter names now!) which encouraged me to get to bed earlier than I might have otherwise done.
Before then, I’d frequently stay up to midnight and beyond, enjoying the silence and the stillness, and the clarity of the air without the general hum drum of evening life with all the TVs and online activity, and the traffic, not that we can hear too much of that here, but nonetheless, there’s an energetic shift, and the energy begins to clear about 10pm. It’s funny the cut off, it’s something I’ve noticed on my late night ramblings, that there’s little point in going out before 10, or 11pm really, if you hope to access other realms, which are otherwise disturbed by our human activity, and traffic especially.
I also have the issue though, that I like the stillness and quietness of the early morning too, before the chaos of the energetic shift of alarm clocks and the sighing and the heaviness of the general populace getting up and ready for work, let alone off to school, there’s an energy shift that happens then too, I’m sure we’ve all felt it this week with the schools returning. It’s a bit like we can tell the difference between a Monday morning and a Friday morning, the energy is completely different, the way you’re treated on the roads changes, people actually smile first thing on a Friday, less so on a Monday, this is the nature of the slave world we live in.
Anyway, from a sleep perspective, it’s a quandary, not helped because my children are not sleepers either, never have been and I have let go of the notion that they ever will be. People talk about their teenagers being in bed half the day, but I just can’t see that happening with mine, because it never happened with me. I mean yes, sure, I loved lying in bed, reading books, writing letters (this in the day before email!) and, on occasion, watching something on the marvellous red TV I was lucky enough to have in my bedroom at that time - I wouldn’t dream of such things now!
But now it’s different. No TV for a start, but also limited opportunity for lying about of a morning with two boys raring to go and my priorities are different, I like to get on my mat and in the sea and there is always something outdoors to be doing. In the evening too, there’s not much sitting around, as the boys are not sleepers, they certainly don’t make bed time easy, and when they finally sleep, well, I like to make the most of the opportunity for quietness and space to connect inwards, before a read in the bath and bed.
However, this week has been a little crazy, full moon energy and autumnal shifting, and the resulting busyness, plus this feeling of just wanting things in some semblance of order, focus then, after a summer of scattered energy and dissipation. Thus, I’ve found myself going to bed much later than usual, simply because of all the administration that has needed to be done, let alone the back to school stuff and on and on. Thus, sleep has not been a priority and I’m sleep-deprived-tired and my little bash was indicative of the momentary loss of consciousness that clearly results from this!
I believe that tiredness might be another theme coming through with the moon, as it’s been on my mind and clients have talked to me about it too. I did decide that sleep would be my next enquiry, to see what happens if I actually prioritise this and get to bed earlier than usual. I was always in awe of my friend, Marie, for her 9.30pm bed times, and I had a client see me this week who hates being tired to the extent that she goes to bed 9pm most nights. This blew my mind, not least that she could go to bed that early, but that she loathes being tired to the extent that she prioritises sleep above all us.
It made me realise how little I have prioritised it. It’s something that needs to be done, a little bit like eating, but I don’t get excited about either. I am always surprised how passionate people can be about food and what they’re eating, and so too, it seems about early nights. In many respects I am in awe of my client for knowing herself to the extent that she knows that tiredness doesn’t work for her and actually does something about it. I know that tiredness isn’t great for me either, it causes me to bash my car for example, but that still doesn’t stop me burning the candle at both ends from time to time.
Mind you, there are different forms of tiredness, just as there are different levels of sleep deprivation-tiredness. I’m fortunate, and accredit yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda to this, but I rarely feel energetically and physically tired. Sure there are times when I am emotionally drained, or mentally weary, but I can still keep on going, I’m one of those people who doesn’t have an obvious off button, just ask my family, it drives them all mad at times. When I do start to feel energetically and/or physically tired then I know that I have pushed it and need to prioritise early nights and resting and yoga nidra.
The sleep-deprived tiredness though, that I can maintain on a level. But even then there are times, like this last week, when I am aware that I am pushing my edge on it and need to reign it back in. Which is perfectly timed really for the full moon, because we will be on the wane tomorrow and I am intended to begin my enquiry into sleep…prioritising it, seeing how that might change things, getting to bed a little bit earlier, easier now the evenings are increasingly darkening, flowing I guess with the changes in season, because now it is all about letting go and beginning the process of deeper rest as nature too prepares for the big winter sleep…
I have a feeling that the more we sleep, the more we prioritise sleep because we begin to notice the differences. It’s like anything though isn’t it, the more we care about ourselves, the more we want to care about ourselves, and the more we shift the way we’re living to re-prioritise. What we begin to notice - usually - with these changes, is how much more alive we feel. And perhaps this is the theme that also comes up on this full moon - how alive do we feel/ If not very, well we have another moon cycle, wane and wax, to see if we can find a way to culture a greater feeling of aliveness.
I suppose what i mean by that reframe is that it is all too easy to complain of our tiredness and just get used to it without digging deeper and ascertaining the nature of our tiredness - is it because we’ve been burning the candle at both ends, not getting enough sleep, or is it an indication that something is draining us and weighing heavily on us, making us feel tired? Sometimes we don’t realise the extent to which the way we’re living, the thoughts we’re thinking, the mental conditioning we keep buying into and the emotional baggage we cart around with us are draining us and tying up our energy, so that not only can we not move positively forward in our lives, but we don’t feel that we have the energy to do anything about it either.
Of course there is always something we can do about it. I’m biased but certainly the modalities of yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda work a treat in their own ways, of not only helping to restore energy levels but helping us to understand what is depleting us in the first place, simply because these modalities continuously lead us back to ourselves, “knowing thyself” is key, if we are to make positive changes in our life for our own wellbeing.
I’m pretty sure that I need more sleep, but it’s full moon tonight and I like getting out in the moonlight so I shall begin my new enquiry tomorrow and let you know how that goes. As for the plastic-free enquiry, so far so good. My shopping habits have had to change, and the shops I visit have changed too. What we’re eating has shifted a little bit too, more seasonal perhaps, mainly as I am making the most of the hedge veg over here - one of my students was selling an array or produce last week, pears, strawberries, grapes, courgettes, limes, garlic, celery, we stocked up and have been relishing all this fresh goodness much more than we would have done previously. Still, it is early days…
Happy full moon!
Love Emma x
Having our space and not caring
Our attempts at conscious uncoupling (opposed to unconscious coupling as I keep saying by mistake) has led to me having my own bedroom again, the first time in over 12 years now and it’s amazing!
I have always been a fan of bedrooms and like many others my age, spent much of my teenage years in my bedroom, if I wasn’t at school or out surfing. At university I was also a fan of my bedroom and was often huddled away, I loved staying up late while everyone else had gone to sleep, enjoying the stillness of the evening, listening to music, smoking joints and writing poetry. Back home post-university, my bedroom was my refuge, struggling as I did in those days with the reality of office work and a life that didn’t quite feel right - more of which you can read about in my new book (we ALMOST have a launch date, hoorah!).
When travelling, I loved nothing more than the safety and sanctitude of my room. On my many trips to Pokhara in Nepal, I would often choose the same room in the same hotel and on one trip I spent a couple of months living in it to the extent that it felt like my second home. I loved living so simply and with very few possessions, it felt light and spacious, at time there wasn’t even electricity, and this was before the dreaded WIFI, when the air was still and quiet.
Then there was a memorable month spent in a room in a YMCA in Vancouver - the first two weeks I was studying Yoga Therapy with Phoenix Rising, and then a further two weeks spent mainly in silence, popping out only to shop, attend yoga classes and go swimming. I reminisce about those last two weeks regularly, there’s nothing I find more uplifting and nourishing for my spirit than silence and my own space to just be.
In fairness I have had my own space since living at the cottage, and in the last few years especially, since having Eben, my sanctuary has been our main bedroom, where I tend to spend my evenings if not out wandering or swimming or whatever else may be happening. I don’t like TV, or noise generally, so I have made the most of the peace of our room and the bath, always I like to read in the bath as a way of winding down. But all that aside, I hadn’t realised that having my very own room would make such a difference, and a room that is far away from the dreaded TV!
Yes, the TV is really a bother for me and when I have lived on my own I haven’t had one. I always remember a fellow yoga teacher coming to our cottage for a private yoga session and judging me because of the TV screen in our living room, which you have to pass to get into the healing space. She commented on it, surprised, expecting me not to have a TV because I guess she had in her head a perception of how other yoga teachers might live. The reality is, I live with a family and while the boys watch their iPads and not the TV (yes, I’m totally OK with iPads), E loves watching films, the TV is his thing, who am I to dictate he shouldn’t have one because I don’t like it - does it make me more or less spiritual in any event?
Which brings me to the ‘judgment’ theme coming up with this full moon. It was really obvious to me yesterday working with clients as they too face their judgements, not least of self but of others. The main theme is about caring too much about what others think about us and the way this limits us in the choices we make. More often than not we have been trained to care, to the extent that we don’t always make the choices we’d like to make because we make them through this fear of how we are perceived by others, which means we’re judging ourselves and trying to see ourselves through their eyes, which off course we can never get ‘right; because we can never truly know what’s happening in someone else’s mind.
The spiritual world is rife with judgement, the spiritual ego is ever so tricky. We judge ourselves for not being spiritual enough, or for others not behaving the way we expect them to, because of the position they hold, or the way we perceive them and how we think they should live based on level of consciousness at that time. As I said in my last post, until we have lived in their shoes, how can we possibly know what it is like to live in their life so why do we think we should judge or criticise them for what we believe to be their short comings or their arrogance or whatever it is.
Being a yoga teacher, for example, does not mean you have to live a certain way. Being a human being doesn’t mean you have to I’ve a certain way either for that matter. Yet we are trained to live a certain way, maybe we call it convention or mainstream, ether way it’s a drag on the soul for so many, because our Way is not necessarily the way society has become, yet we are shoe horned at school to fit into the norm, and on it goes, to the extent that so many suffer with depression and anxiety trying to live a way that isn’t in alignment with their truth and who they truly are on a soulful level.
It takes courage though to live our way. We have to let go of our conditioning and be OK with living differently to others. We have to stop caring what other’s think. And to be honest, as tricky as it might feel initially, once we’ve stopped caring what others think about us, then it can be ever so liberating, because we stop judging ourselves too, for not living the way expected of us, or wanted for us, or imagined for us, or trained into us.
There is no right way, or wrong way, only the way that works for us. Obviously there’s the path of heart and the path of ego/fear, but who are we to judge which path we or someone else takes. And when it comes to parenting, we really have to let go. I know I felt a pressure for a long time, almost apologising for my perceived short comings in comprising on my high values pre-children.
For example, I wasn't going to let my children eat all sorts of things that they now eat, I also wasn’t going to let them have screens, but they adore their iPads. A client was surprised recently to hear that I let my children have iPads. It caught me for a minute, because I felt judged and I felt an old habit of judging myself kick in and I responded in a defensive way, justifying their iPad usage. Then i noticed what I’d done and almost chuckled to myself. Who cares. My boys love the iPads, whatever my justification and really I don’t care too much what anyone thinks about that.
Its the same with all sorts of things. Who cares which school children go to, whether they’re home schooled or not, whether they go to bed at 7pm or 9m, how they’re achieving, whether they’re dairy free or gluten free. What does it really matter to anyone else, or more to the point, why should it matter to anyone else. The minute we let go of caring, well the easier our lives become, the more we can live and let live, and truly own the choices that we make for ourselves and our family and not live in fear of being judged or criticised for them.
Which brings me back to our current reality. We’re finding out way. I always remember as children, going to stay at my parent’s friends house in the UK and being shocked that the couple had their own rooms with their own single beds. This was quite in contrast to the life I knew, where there was a family of four, with three bedrooms, one for the parents and one each for each child. Now I see it very differently, but it has taken time to unpick that conditioning and allow myself our own unique family way, that doesn’t fit a norm or convention and that is fluid (as my niece would say). The boys choose to share a room together, which is just as well for now.
The move itself was amazing. Well not the dismantling and re-assembling of three beds, albeit E and I managed to do all that without getting annoyed once, but the opportunity it presented for a big clear out of clothes and stuff, clearing out the energy. This felt very needed, not least with the seasonal change, but because of the new beginnings this move has created. I don’t think people realise the energetic drain of holding on to unnecessary stuff and the manner in which clutter messes with our energy.
Our boys are loving their new bigger bedroom together, E is enjoying his own space too and I am definitely enjoying the solitude of my smaller room, all to myself, well in theory, because obviously it doesn’t quite work out like that. The boys were rolling round on my bed last night before their bath. Then cat came in and fell asleep in my basket of scarves. And then later, I hadn’t actually tuned off my light to go to sleep when Eben joined me, kicking his way through the night beside me in bed. But hey, it’s a work in progress!
So this post is a big thumbs up to having one’s own space. It’s also a reminder that we’re in a period of change. The theme of ‘judgement’, whether that be being judged by others and/or judging ourselves (usually both) has been coming up today, along with the theme of caring too much about what others think about us and giving our power away accordingly, and/or being open to manipulation. So be aware of that and try to find the peace where you can - not caring is a really good place to start, oh and carving out your own space just to be.
Love Emma x