Emma Despres 27/10/2022 Emma Despres 27/10/2022

There's heightened anxiety in the air

Anxiety is definitely in the air. I don’t know much about the planetary alignments currently and whether that is to blame, or maybe it’s the effect of this now being eclipse season, or maybe it’s just that collectively our intuition knows that something is amiss, but we don’t yet know what exactly that is, or just a general vata-autumnal ungrounded thing going on, but it is real.

The majority of my clients this week have been anxious and some of them experiencing anxiety on a level never felt before. Many of them are not usually anxious, so are surprised about the intensity of the anxiety they have been feeling, deep in their solar plexus, so that they are actually getting physical symptoms, such as stomach ache, nausea and inner restlessness/churning.

I know I have blogged about this recently, but it’s still taking me by surprise, the extent that people are feeling it. They are manly ungrounded, too much mental energy, trying to work things out, stay in control, make sense of life as it is unfolding, with all its various challenges, which seem to be accentuated for many currently.

I know its easy for me to sit here and write about how we need to dig into trust when all anyone wants is something concentre to tell them that life will be OK, that they will be OK, that whatever they are worrying about (even if it is imagined and not real) will all work out OK, but really we have no choice, not if we want to maintain our sanity. We have to trust in something and try and elevate the perspective, see the good where we can ad know that ultimately, for now at least, in this moment, we are safe.

The trouble is, once anxiety takes hold then it can be difficult to shift it as the whole physical, mental, emotional, energetic and spiritual bodies get involved and sometimes we do need someone to help ground us and get our mental energy back down, into heart, and feet on the earth. Sometimes we just need some space out in nature to process and connect back in, or a chat with a close friend, to share whatever is bothering us, lighten our load, come back to centre and let go of stressing about things.

Often it is a letting go that is needed. Of trying to control things. Because let’s face it, we’re out of control down here. I mean we try to control things, but every once in a while the universe will remind us that we’re not in control, not really.

What I do know is that this way of living is not working for us as a society. Mental illness is prevalent. In England & Wales last year, the suicide rate was 6.9% higher than 2020, that’s the equivalent of 10.7 deaths per 100,000 and that’s only those who were formally registered as suicide. The greatest suffering is depression and anxiety. It’s everywhere. To me its an indication that we’re not living well. That we aren’t able to cope with the demands placed on us by the way society and our place in it has become. When will it stop?

It interests me what happens next. Because I can’t see how we can keep feeding the system and expecting things to change, how we can keep on this hamster wheel of busyness and financial pressures and not lose ourselves to it, not all crack up over it, lose our minds, stay under the duvet, unable to cope and be interactive in the world.

I was listening to The Chameleons today and they have this fab song called “Look Inwardly” and it’s ace, because the message is clear, ‘look inwardly”. That’s all we can do, look into ourselves and notice, and be honest about what isn’t working in our lives and maybe if enough of us do this, if enough of us say that this isn’t working for me, this pace, this technology, this automated world we now live in, then maybe something will change, and maybe we won’t be so overwhelmed, and anxious and depressed. And this really, is the only thing we can control - the choices we make and the way we think and relate.

And always there is the spirit, faith and digging deeper - as I wrote earlier - into trust.

So if you’re navigating anxiety be assured that you are not alone. Feel into it. Notice it for what it is. An emotional state. A mental game. An imagining. A need to be in control yet not managing to feel this. A worry. Whatever it is, notice what underlays it, the fear. Fear of dying. Fear of suffering. Fear of criticism. Fear of rejection. Fear of abandonment.

And when you have identified it, reassure your mind that all is well. Thank it for trying to help you. But let it know that it isn’t working anymore. And breathe. Find your roots. Imagine them from your tail bone down through your legs and take nourishment all the way up to your centre. Then come to your crown and imagine spirit flooding in and down to your centre. And breathe here. At your centre. Be in your centre in the here and now. It really does help to change things.

This too shall pass.

Love Emma x

Emma Despres 23/10/2022 Emma Despres 23/10/2022

Partial solar eclipse, anxiety and caring too much

We’ve a rare partial solar eclipse arriving on Tuesday, from 10.03 to 11.49am, when the sun will be partially obscured by the moon. Eclipses are potent. They change things. The ancients knew this and recorded through stones, so they knew when they were happening, pretty impressive really, way back when.

Here the internet tells us, how life has changed, and most will be unaware, and yet may well feel something different in the air. If you’re reading this before the event, you’ll have the awareness, and might be able to consciously feel into it. It’ll affect us whether we’re conscious of it or not however.

I’ve got a couple of Reiki attunements today, here from home, a Reiki Master and a Reiki Level One for a teenager, and I can’t help thinking what perfect timing, to increase one’s vibration and awareness of Reiki, just before an eclipse, to let go of the old, to allow more of the new in - creating space.

I’d love to say that we’re evolving as a humanity, I really would, and I have had many a discussion with people about this, because maybe I’m a little bit more cynical than most, or maybe because of my passion for neolithic stones and their vibration, and the manner in which they shift consciousness and try to expand on the perfection of nature, harmonise it, rather than destroy and control it, I see things differently. I don’t feel that we are evolving.

I feel that we’re descending into more chaos and darkness. And yes, maybe this is needed, like the birth canal, to shoot us out the other side, but, but, but, I also wonder if we just continuously feed more of the illusion under the guise of being spiritual. Because this whole notion of spirituality follows in patterns. I’ve commented on this before. Yoga was big. Mindfulness was big. Cacao was big. Shamanism is now big.

We follow trends and don’t always commit, don’t always allow ourselves to go deeper still in any one practice, instead we flit off to another, which promises us the love and light and joy that we’re still not feeling, because we don’t do the deeper work - we maintain the superficial. This is really where I see us. On the superficial. Flitting around. An impatient culture, wanting change but not prepared to do the inner work to create the change.

The Yoga Sutras tells us to practice. That it is through practice that we will experience what it is we seek. That it is through long term practice, without interruptions and with a positive attitude too. We have to commit. We have to go inwards. All the rest, well its all more of the superficial. All our flitting from one group to another, from one circle to another. It’s all external. We want someone else to fix us, still viewing science and the doctor as God, expecting the latter (and the former now I think about it) to know us more than we know ourselves. In this way, we give away our power.

The moon has a clever way of bringing up our patterns. The moon will cover part of the sun on Tuesday. That’s unusual. This is what makes it potent. A shift in forces. Things not what they seem. An extraordinary event to challenge our sense of safety and security, take us out our comfort zone of knowing that the moon does this and the sun does that, and it does, each planet has its pattern, and sometimes their patterns combine to create a new vibration, to change the energy and the forces that flow towards us here on planet earth.

So perhaps its to be expected that we may be feeling more anxious than usual. Like we know, but don’t know. Like the earth isn’t quite so stable. And all our attempts to make it so are null and devoid when it comes to nature. Natural disasters happen. Weather patterns change. There are some things we can’t control despite our best efforts to make it so. We live in a society that has been structured to maximise power and control for certain individuals, and the rest of us slaves to this system. It allows us a sense of security. We know where we’re at. But it comes at a cost because it is illusionary and doesn’t necessarily accord with our soul.

It’s not that the ground drops away, because it doesn’t. But life events happen that make us lose our grounding anyway. Covid did this, powerfully too. But we clung back to old routines and ways of being, we craved the norm, the same structure, power and control, amassing our fortune, feeling safe and secure. And yet, this can still be taken away. The financial markets have sent many a person into a spin lately, increased interest rates challenging people, let alone the increasing cost of energy, all of this throwing light into the shadows of what we believe to be safe…everything changes.

So, anyway, its perhaps not surprising that so many are currently feeling intense anxiety. It’s that time of year. I blogged about this recently, about everything being up in the air, about this being the Vata time of year, an excess of air and ether, both of which can create a feeling of anxiety, a groundlessness, as if one is without an anchor, cast adrift. People have literally been saying this to me too - that they feel without an anchor. Life is still up in the air it seems.

Anxiety is a horrible feeling. I have blogged about this too, and I write about it at length in my new book which is coming out this week. Incidentally, if you’re not already signed up for my Launch Squad, I’d be so very grateful if you could help me out by going to Amazon on Thursday and buying the e-book From Darkness Comes Light at the special price of 99p! Yes, a whole 99p. And if you get the book on Thursday you’re entitled to come along to my ‘Mind Your Mind, Yoni Yoga for Mental Wellbeing’ class next Sunday 30th October for free and stay on and enjoy a cup of tea and cake, with donations to Guernsey Mind.

The impending release of my book has created some anxiety for me. It is a very honest book and it brings up a certain vulnerability. I feel anxious for my family, because it’s not easy for them, me writing about my life and sharing so openly with others. My inner journey, the issues I have had to navigate, have no bearing on them, they have always done all they can to support me, but it’s only natural that they might feel exposed too and I might feel exposed for them.

It was a difficult book to write, and it certainly pushed things here at home, writing books consumes one’s attention, and the content asked me to did deep and do the inner work that was unresolved. This took me to layers of anxiety that I didn’t know existed, and the publishing of the book has done the same. There are always layers it seems and levels to our awareness and what needs to be released in any given time.

But generally, there is an anxiety in the air and you too may be feeling it. To me it feels like we are being asked to go into it and enquire into the nature of it, so that we can release it. I have noticed my own patterning around it, when the feeling arises, there is usually something going on, a conversation that needs to be had, a confrontation, an exposure, something that challenges a core belief or a way of being that is no longer helpful, aways there is an underlying fear.

I touched an underlying fear myself last night, which I didn’t know was there until I felt into it and asked myself what was creating the anxious feeling I was feeling - it was a fear of letting people down. I can see how there are times when I give too much of myself and compromise my boundaries and my family time, because of this fear, and how I need to now own it and put into practice more of my sense that we shouldn’t really care, not because we’re not caring, but because we need to care more about our self and value our self.

It’s not easy, but there has to come a point where we say enough. Where we have to take back our power and say no, that such and such isn’t working for us, that we have allowed a certain way of being to manage a fear. If we can go to that fear and let go of its hold over us, then it sets us free. This is the path to liberation, and it is very much centred in the heart. Love for self ultimately.

I find anxiety such an interesting feeling to work with. I haven’t read anything about this new moon and there are still a few days to feel into it, but I would encourage you to feel into any anxiety that it is bringing up for you, any sense of being groundless, of fearing the unknown, and of fearing your own inner power. Also, how much we each of us feed a system that is illusionary, that takes us away from ourselves and gives us a false sense of security. Can we hold ourselves truly? Can we stand on our own two feet and retain our centre, regardless of what’s going on? Can we live in accordance with our heart, regardless of what our mind says? Essentially - can we trust our intuition?

The practice helps. And that’s where I am off to now. Let’s see what the moon does and what the eclipse helps to create. If it’s love for self that is truly lived, caring about ourselves, trusting in ourselves and our intuition then maybe the cynic in me can quieten down a bit!

Love Emma x

Emma Despres 19/10/2022 Emma Despres 19/10/2022

The magic of Sark!

What a treat - dolphins playing near Herm on our way to Sark, there’s nothing quite like watching a pod of dolphins playing in the waves to lift the spirit, a real bonus as we travelled over to Sark for the autumnal yoga and wellbeing retreat.

Sark held us well as it is always does. Not least offering glorious sunrises, but the delight of the dark night sky and the stars shining brightly, I even got to watch the moonrise as I trekked over to the dolmen on Little Sark on my own on Saturday night.

I’m biased I know, I love Sark, but it really is the most wonderful place to retreat, to de-stress, unwind, let go and just go with the flow. You can’t help but connect with nature, the weather, the sea, the wildlife, the elements. It re-centres, re-aligns and re-energises and this is just the land, let alone the yoga.

Obviously I’m biased there too, but since restricting the group size and making it more intimate, it has become an even more enjoyable experience than it as already, certainly for me as a teacher, it allows me to get more involved in each student’s practice, and to manage the space more easily. I’m hopeful that the students feel the benefit of this - I have a sense that they do, as the students were all really committed and the group energy was wonderful.

I have a sense that retreats to far flung destinations need to drop away, not least because of then impact of air travel, and the stress of it, but because of cost in this current climate. And really, why travel far for a retreat, when we have Sark right on our door step, with its hassle free travel (high seas aside!), a wonderful hotel (thank you Stocks) in that amazing Dixcart Valley, and a short commute to the yoga space. We even have the benefit of Lynn-Marie’s healing hands for massage and Reiki. And of course there is Caragh’s chocolate shop too. What’s not to enjoy about any of that?!

I’m really grateful to all the students who joined us last weekend, all of them were returnees, which is credit to both Sark and to these retreats, people do really benefit. And those of us facilitating benefit too. We had a great fun staying at The Old Forge, the boys, E, Katie, Adam, Steph and Sunny too. The boys adore Sunny, we all adore Sunny, and it was an added bonus that Elijah’s pal, Etienne and our friend Faye, came along and hung out with us over the weekend.

We walked, swam, enjoyed the fact the island was super quiet, and the views stunning. We had fun in the sea at Dixcart, and Eben loved running around with Sunny. I got to indulge in my passion for neolithic stones, I love the Goddess statue there and of course the dolmen. I never bore of Sark, there is always so much to do, and actually we took it really gently this retreat and only made it to one beach - well two if you include Le Creux, for a swim right at the end, it’s like swimming in a crystal bowl (or how I imagine it to be!).

Thank you to all of you who joined us and helped to make this another special Sark retreat with lots of memories made and laughter had. I certainly felt the benefit and had my usual two-day post Sark crash! Guernsey always seems so busy and frantic energetically after the beautifully calm and spacious energy of Sark! It really is a magical island.

I’m already looking forward to the next one - our first women’s-only (sorry men!) Yoni Yoga retreat 12-14 May. You can find more information here.

Love Emma x

MAY 2023 RETREAT

Emma Despres 16/10/2022 Emma Despres 16/10/2022

Oh, that moon and shadows

As I expected, the minute I gave up my attachment to my 'delayed/lost’ bag, and started replacing the more practical items, it appeared. The process itself, though, did take me on quite an inner journey, and I shouldn’t have been surprised really, given the potency of that full moon and spending so much time in its rays in stone circles. Full moons have a habit of shining a light into the shadows and certainly a couple of shadows have revealed themselves since.

Not least sentimental attachment to objects (did I mention I lost Eben’s blanket…for a day, what a stress) but confusion that the universe would separate me from the rose quartz and clear quartz I’ve carried on many a dolmen visitation these last few years, let alone the fact I popped the bag in a bubble of Reiki energy with symbols too, for protection. But then, I realise that I’m on a couple of Reiki 21 day cleanses, having undertaken a number of attunements recently, so of course, Reiki was working its magic in helping me to awaken to a few patterns and learn from them.

The principle lessons were of faith in the goodness of humanity and of trusting in the universe. Patience was thrown in there too, the Runes were right about that, and while on some level i knew this to be true - that I needed to be patient - this awareness didn’t stop me getting myself into quite a state, now three days into the bag not turning up and no one from the UK baggage handlers updating me on the situation.

It was this lack of communication that sent my mind into a total spin and triggered an old core belief, that I discovered when I dug deeper into the acute anxiety mode I found myself (by then) in. I knew it was a pattern, because I had felt exactly the same when my friend, Marie, died last year. Obviously one cannot compare the loss of a bag to the loss of a friend, but at its source loss is loss and can trigger the same emotional response, one of feeling totally out of control, because there is absolutely nothing we can do to change the situation.

It was this feeling of being out of control that was really bothering me about the bag. I wasn’t in control. I had an email address but no number, there was nothing I could do, no one to talk to, no one to ask for help, bar my family, who were amazingly helpful and did what they could (and my mum especially, who even retrieved the bag from the airport and waved all my clothes before delivery it home!) . Really, it was an opportunity to surrender, the full moon has all been about surrender after all, but for whatever reason i was struggling with that.

Arriving into Kirkwall in Orkney my bag hadn't made it with me then either; delayed flights and close flight connections made the whole journey rather stressful, but at the same time I knew it was all a lesson in surrendering to it, come what may. It was OK on the outbound, borrowing clothes from my friend and patiently waiting for my bag to arrive the next day, distracted by cairns and stone circles, but back here, on the return leg and with one day becoming two, becoming three and a Sark retreat ahead and all my leggings in my lost luggage, well I wasn’t doing so well at the surrendering!

But there was something else at play, something deeper still, that underlay this feeling of being out of control. This I discovered, when I dug even deeper into this ridiculous stomach churning anxiety I was feeling, was a very old core belief, probably laid down in childhood, around the world being essentially unsafe and people essentially lacking goodness. I know this isn’t true. I’m not normally a catastrophist, I try to see the good in humanity and I am aware of the support of the universe, but for whatever reason, a strand of the old core belief is still there, deep within, and clearly there are some situations, around loss it would seem, and feeling utterly out of control, which trigger it.

The anxiety was crippling. I feel very sorry for people who feel this feeling all the time. Anxiety is horrible. I felt nauseous and restless and agitated, totally on edge, emotional and unable to sleep at night. Fortunately it only lasted a couple of days, but it is a feeling that has popped up a few times this last month, clearly it was trying to get my attention, and all the travel a perfect opportunity, with leaving the children, tight flight connections and two Sark retreats too, plenty of opportunity for my faith being tested and my ability to trust, let go, and surrender, hmm.

Yep, I’m not sure I did that well with the test. I mean I got it eventually, Sark gave me the space to see it clearly, bag retrieved by then. But this was of course after the anxiety had set in. Urgh. Its something I write about in my new book, because I used to get anxious, but I developed ways of avoiding having to feel it, including various OCD tendencies, an eating disorder, smoking cannabis, drinking wine, over exercising and keeping busy!

Over time, as my mind has been positively impacted by the yoga, Reiki and Ayurveda, the thought pattens that led to feelings of anxiety - because of my mind’s imaginings, and the fear that accompanied this - have changed and the coping mechanisms gradually dropped away. But clearly there was still something there, some fear around loss of control and the world being a scary and unsafe place and people inherently unhelpful and uncaring.

[It does concern me though that we are becoming an increasingly automated and online society, lacking in personal touch, face to face communication, customer service and care. We are also becoming increasingly greedy, higher prices for less service, hidden charges and always this emphasis on the bottom line, still putting profit before everything else. What concerns me is that people make this all happen, they work for the companies and make the decisions that essentially put in place all these hidden charges, automated systems, and pressure for online living].

Anyway, the lessons have been learned, I have seen the bigger picture and the manner in which I allowed an old mental pattern and outdated and unhelpful core belief to be triggered. Now I’ve seen it, now the shadow has been brought into the light, I can let it go, or at least be more conscious of it in the future, so I can catch myself quicker, before I enter into a ridiculous and unnecessary state of anxiety, which was simply brought on by my mind. The mind is so clever and yet so dangerous at times.

The fear of loss of safety is huge. Funnily enough, it’s something I have been studying lately, in the body, how we hold onto these patterns, I have a tendency to hold onto it in my knees and thighs, and working recently into my knees and thighs with my yoga teacher, it’s perhaps no surprise this has all come up at the same time. The body keeps score after all, and as we explore deeper levels, well the old patterns start to pop up to be cleared, not only from the muscle memory of the body, but from our mind too, releasing us from our crap and enlightening us - literally lightening us - in the process.

It’s never an easy process as those of you going through your own healing crises will know. But it is a necessary process as we let go of our past and aren’t so restricted by it and the core beliefs we have taken on about ourselves and the world, which keep us literally tied to the past. I find it all very fascinating.

The Sark retreat was amazing, but more on that another time.

Love Emma x

Emma Despres 12/10/2022 Emma Despres 12/10/2022

Orkney stone adventure

I have just returned from THE MOST AMAZING time in Orkney, making a dream come true and finally visiting Ring of Brodgar. It didn’t disappoint. This is the most powerful stone circle I have ever visited and to spend a full moon at it was just one of the most gifted coincidences, which I will never forget, not least for the 40+mph winds, but the solitude and the energy, and all the learnings that came with it.

The island itself is beautiful, a soft undulating landscape which creates a very feminine energy. The place is positively littered with tumulus, cairns, brochs and menhirs making it a stone-lover’s place to be. The stone circles though, of Brodgar and Stenness were really the draws for me, I love stone circles and these are the most northerly in the world with various astronomical alignments and an energy that is like no other I have ever experienced previously.

I was certainly pleased to be there and the whole trip, the turmoil at leaving the boys and the guilt that this brought up which asked me to dig deep into patriarchal wounding around the notion of ‘mother’ and the anxiety that came with tight flight connections that had me almost miss onward flights and for my bag to get delayed in transit on two occasions (and still delayed even now), the stepping outside my comfort zone to walk Ring of Brodgar on my own in the wind and the rain, by moonlight, my friend too cold by then to join me, and the energy that greeted me, to say nothing of the peace that comes from living without WIFI in a pod in the the middle of nowhere for 5 nights, well it certainly all took me on an inner journey.

I learned a lot. Especially that our children survive without us and that their dad can be pleased of a break, that it is absolutely OK to take time out for ourselves, that this doesn’t make us selfish, or bad mothers, or any of that patriarchal crap, that standing stones are just incredible and that latitude makes a big difference to the moon’s transit across the sky, that chanting the Śraddhā Sūktam (for faith) from the Rig Veda over and over again can literally strengthen faith and remind us to trust in the bigger picture, come what may, letting go over and over again, even if that feels uncomfortable and edgy and we have to surrender to that - which was ultimately what the Aries full moon was all about - surrender and faith.

And I’m still digging into that now. Returning home without a bag (still lost in transit) and a charger to my phone, an iPod broken, car brakes needing fixing, and on it goes…but it was ALL worth it. It was an incredible five night break, and while there is so much more I could write, I don’t believe words will ever be enough to share my experience, that it really was between me and the earth and the moon and my stone friend. And actually, that’s probably how it should be. And even that awareness has made me stop and reflect about what is said and what isn’t, about just ‘being’ without having to share. But I couldn’t help sharing a little bit, and the photos, which speak more than the words.

From Standing Stones of Stenness to Ring of Brodgar

Love Emma x