We are part of nature

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” – Lao Tzu

I have been reflecting recently on our separation from nature, of our technological arrogance, of this online living and the increasing move towards a virtual reality devoid of connection to nature, as if we can survive without it.

Even some of my friends will ask to meet in nature, as if forgetting that we are nature, not separate from it, so it’s not something we go into, but a part of who we are. Only that many seem to have forgotten this and a whole generation are growing up believing online is best.

Admittedly, there was a time when I was lost and considered myself separate to nature. This to the extent, that when my brother and I bought our first house during my mid-twenties we ripped out the beautiful garden and replaced it with a simple lawn that required very little maintenance. I’ve apologised to the nature angels many times since!

It was when we were living in that house that I discovered yoga and Reiki. The mortgage hung heavily around my neck, so too the job I was doing to pay the mortgage, which pushed me to an edge of questioning what life was all about. There were other factors as many of you know from reading my books, but thank goodness the universe ushered in yoga and Reiki because I don’t know I would be here today if it hadn’t. Life is challenging at times and how anyone manages without a spiritual practice is quite beyond me.

These practices essentially woke me up to the fact that I had choice, that I didn’t need to live a life expected of me, that I had free will, that there is no rule book, no one way to live your life, even though society may tell you otherwise, and that all the physical, mental and emotional discomfort I was experiencing did not need fixing, it was merely highlighting that I was living a life out of balance from my true nature, and that actually what I needed was healing – to come back home to myself again.

And this is the thing; yoga and Reiki  (and Ayurveda, albeit that came a few years later), have been extremely abundant in the gifts they have gifted to me, but really the greatest gift has been the opportunity to love and accept myself in a way I never knew was possible, and to come home to a deeper layer of truth – my truer nature – in the process. It is an ongoing journey, there is more to us than we realise and the mind has a tendency to think it knows best, and sometimes we have to lose ourselves to find a deeper level of self again.

When I reflect back, I realise that our greatest harming is not what happens to us externally, but the damage that we inflict on ourselves internally with our separation from our own nature and the negative and self - depreciating inner narrative. I hated myself back then and was always trying to externalise my worth – it’s crazy to me now but these were the days when the number plate on my car seemed important, as if having a 3 or 4 digit number plate proved my worth and status - so it is hardly surprising that I had little respect for nature generally. If you are rejecting yourself, then you are rejecting nature in its entirety, given that you are a part of it.

Fast forward twenty years and life looks and feels incredibly different. One of Yoga Sutras of Patanjali reads:

ahiMsaapratiShThaayaaM tatsannidhou vairatyaagaH (sutra 2.35)

"In the presence of one firmly established in non-violence, all hostilities cease".

What this sutra is telling us that a regular dedicated and committed yoga practice (and this is not just an asana practice) can help us to develop a deeper sense of ahimsa, non-harming, or non-violence. This is the first ethical principle, part of the yamas, mentioned by Patanjali and underpins all the other yamas, this because of its importance as a basis for how we live our life and relate to ourselves and others and this planet.

This is certainly true from my own experience – ahimsa naturally arises the more we practice yoga, this is one of the fruits of practice. Thus not only has yoga gifted me a much more positive and loving relationship with myself and an appreciation of my nature - so that I am not harming myself as I once did with my internal narrative to say nothing of the eating disorder and depressive tendencies - but it has also gifted me a much more positive and loving relationship with all sentient beings and with nature generally, of which we are ALL a part.

Where once I thought nothing of killing an annoying fly or moth, for example, or indeed ripping out a garden, now I wouldn’t dream of taking life so easily, as if my life is more important. Of course this has its issues, I don’t even like pulling up ‘weeds’ because they are living and what right do I have to extinguish life, to cause harm. And I really struggle to witness the destruction of nature, the over development of Guernsey for example is a particular bug bear.

Just the other day a friend of mine was saying how he found a car stuck in his field of daffodils. The driver had wanted to take a photo of the flowers and had thought that driving into the field would make this somehow easier. The person got their photo of daffodils but they made a mess of the field in the process. It makes me question our current levels of sanity, that a photo, one presumes to go on social media, is taken at the cost of destroying nature. But I shouldn’t be surprised, there are plenty more examples on Guernsey of land destruction, just look at the new Equestrian centre, let alone the new golf course.

The thing is though, we have to be careful because the more we believe ourselves to be spectators of nature, the more we destroy it because we think we can live without it, and the more we ignore it, the more nature will bite us back. It’s already happening - our food no longer has enough nutrients in it to support our health and vitality, this to the extent that life expectancy has gone down, meaning our children won’t live as long as our parents, sperm counts are down and children’s hormones are so messed up they don’t even know what sex they are anymore. We don’t see it, but we are essentially killing ourselves with this ongoing separation.

Someone sent me an article a few days ago, here it is, advising that micro plastics have recently been discovered in human blood and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people’s bodies. The impact on health is yet unknown, although there is a sense that this could explain puzzling increases in some health problems including inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer in those under 50, and declining sperm counts. If this carries on then one assumes that we will become extinct as a species and all from our own doing.

I am a great believer that we need to be the change we want to see in the world, that we need to expand our consciousness and become increasingly conscious of the way that we are living and the choices we are individually making which have an impact on the collective. It seems to me that the more we love and accept ourselves as we are, the more we drop into our own nature, the more we appreciate that we are a part of it, not separate to it, not a spectator of it, but nature itself. Maybe then we stand a chance of changing things for our children and their children and generations ahead.

I was inspired a good while ago now by the Mac Macarthy who set up Embercombe in Devon, and introduced me to the concept of the seventh generation principle - the law of Seven Generations advises on the wisdom of considering the impact of any decision on those born seven generations hence. Indigenous cultures made decisions based on this premise, around a fire, from their heart. Mac’s book, The Children’s Fire is really worth a read here.

We have to be careful what we are creating and where the motivation comes from – head or heart, ego or spirit? I have a sense that if looked after ourselves, if we improved our collective relationship with our selves, if we opened ourselves up spiritually, to the reality that we are more than just this body and mind, if we lived more joyfully from our hearts, then we might create a more loving, kind, sustainable and respectful relationship with all life.

Instead we seem stuck in this drive towards more online living, towards more of the “all about me” culture that social media encourages, to seeking happiness through the external and material, to our patriarchal conditioning around power and control, to our obsession with chasing the buck as if money makes it all OK, as if we can buy contentedness and inner harmony.

It feels increasingly that we are lost as a specie, that so many lives are lived on a treadmill that has not end, like hamsters stuck on the wheel, going endlessly round and round and becoming increasingly exhausted in the process, living for retirement that may never come, of being slaves to a system that is increasingly demonstrating its brokenness, education, health care, they’re no longer fit for purpose, life has changed beyond recognition even in my lifetime.

The antidote? Nature. Embracing our own nature. Being kind. Growing our own. Slowly it down. Realising we have choice. Making different choices from the heart. Doing the work to love and accept ourselves. Treading more lightly on this earth. Taking responsibility for our actions. Doing what we can on our small patch to make a positive difference. I don’t have the answers, but I do know that the way we are living is not sustainable and that it has to come back to the individual to affect the collective - that each of us can be the change we want to see in the world if only we choose more consciously and open up to greater love in the process.

We are not our thoughts and feelings!

This is quite some wax, full moon approaching on Saturday, in Virgo, albeit I’m not so up there on planetary alignment etc, it’s challenging enough to follow the moon such is its nature to do what the sun does in six months in a two week period!

This full moon is definitely packing a punch, ramping up, encouraging us to go deeper still. We might find physical pain appearing, highlighting where we are holding old feelings and thoughts from our past, especially from childhood, which we have repressed or suppressed maybe because they weren’t validated, or we didn’t know what to do with them, had to be ‘brave’, leading to confusion and fragmentation.

It’s been a ride that’s for sure, but a helpful one too, as we let go of what we are holding onto, so it makes space for the new to come in. I am reminded at this time of that wonderful quote from Rebecca Campbell (started below), which certainly seems relevant in my life now as I have processed another layer of the past which was negatively impacting my relationship with myself and the way that I choose to live my life.

Sometimes we do have to destroy all we have created so that we can begin again and both Beinspired and I are going through changes to find a new way which is less burdened by the past and by what has passed. Also, less driven by what other people think and the conditioning which tells me that things have to be a certain way, not least personally but in livelihood too. I am reminded that there is no rule book, no one way. And that we each have our own way, if only we can hear the gentle whisperings of our heart which nudge us until we truly start listening.

I am reminded also how we are the prisoner of our making, how we allow our mind with its relentless thinking to jail us, keep us constricted and limited, caught in past patterns of relating and being - often driven by a subconscious need to avoid previous pain. Yet pain is our friend if we can be with it and not collapse into it. Pain highlights where we need to do the work, where we are out of alignment with our truth, where we are limited and limiting ourselves - as Kahlil Gibran writes, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” We have to feel the pain on the way to breaking through to then other side…I think The Doors wrote about that!

I am also reminded time and time again that we are not our thoughts anymore than our feelings and it is indulgent to lose ourselves in them, especially our feelings, leading to patterns of victimhood and judgement (both to self and to others). Sure, we might feel lonely, depressed, empty, angry, weary, but this is not us. These are emotions that move through us, so I am not suggesting that we deny them or repress them, they are very real. What I mean though is that we stop identifying with them as if they are us and preventing them their movement.

Thus we do not identify as a lonely person, anymore than a depressed person. Instead we are a person who is experiencing feelings of loneliness and depression. This is important. Why make ourselves something we are not? Why restrict ourselves to being one way or another. Somehow we have to find a way to let go of the mids-identifications, and allow our energy to flow - emotions after all are simply energy in motion, or not, as the case may be.

When we go into our emotions, when we let them move, whether that be through Reiki or yoga or Ayurveda, for example, then we will feel so much lighter, there will be space, we will stop misidentifying, we will realise that we are more than these feelings. Often there is a thought attached to the feelings, a way of relating, a pattern. These thoughts and feelings will get triggered from time to time by situations in our life - the universe draws these situations to us to trigger us so that we can become much clearer on what needs healing and letting go/moving on.

Thus, if we keep finding the same old patterns coming up over and over again, the same thoughts around not having enough money for example, which triggers a feeling of anxiety and insecurity and cause us to grasp and hold on for dear life, then we know we have work to do, that we are holding onto a belief from our past, a fear, which is causing us to lose our centre and also causing us to keep repeating more of what we have done previously - overworking, doing jobs we don’t enjoy but at least appease our fear of not having money, choosing relationships not based on love but on financial security etc, etc.

I could choose many other examples of patterns that keep us trapped such as fear of rejection or fear of not being good enough, both of which will cause us to make choices to minimise the risk of these fears being triggered, playing it small, giving more of ourselves than is necessary, making people dependant on us, over caring, all of these patterns of being just to avoid feeling our deepest pain, and yet these patterns and the way we live causing pain just because of the pattern and the underlying wounding being there in the first place!

We sometimes feel we have no choice. This is an interesting one. We can sculpture our life to such an extent that we stick ourselves in our routines, our mind feeling that it is then in control and less likely then to be triggered, but it takes an awful lot of effort to maintain this level of control. And furthermore, we deny our opt freedom, we tell ourselves this is how our life is and just learn to accept it, meanwhile our heart and soul are pining for our attention, “there its another way”, they try to whisper, but we are determined, stuck, seeing only one way and all the while suffocating inside, caught on the treadmill of life, living for holidays and retirement, anything to change the heaviness of the relentless nature of living so routinely.

To set ourselves free we have to have the courage to go deeper still. To notice our triggers and to follow the thread, to work our what is underneath it, what has caused us to lose our centre, what has caused us to enter our pattern, what is the unconscious driver that causes us to make the choices we make, to keep repeating more of the same.

This path of spiritual practice helps to set us free from all that is not real. Yet this process is not easy. It is NOT all love and light as new age spiritualism will have us believe. This too is a trap. I see it played out repeatedly, people try to do the work, but when the going gets tough, they give up, because they are still living in the mindset of perfection and Disney ideals, of THINKING and BELIEVING that life should always be just lovely and light and happy and if their experiences does not match this thought/ belief then they think there must be something wrong with them.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience and our humanness is messy! Life is one of cycles. Sometimes up, sometimes down, and sometimes somewhere in the middle, ‘middling’. This is ALL valid. We are in error when we believe it has to be one way or another. Just look at nature, it follows cycles. There is always a dance of expansion and contraction, expansion and contraction. This is how energy moves. We need to contract to expand into the more current version of ourselves. The key is not to get lost in the contraction but see it as part of the whole.

I am reminded how we are really our own worst enemy. We shouldn’t blame ourselves for this though, for the most part we have been taught not to like ourselves, to feel that we are at fault because maybe we see the world differently to the mainstream. Our education system, of which most of us have been subjected, teaches us to see ourselves and the world one way, it encourages uniformity and this notion of being right or wrong. If we grew up never quite fitting in, of being told that we are not quite good enough, not always getting A grades, not always winning races, then we can feel pretty crappy about ourselves and we can take this into adulthood.

Furthermore, when our life doesn’t go the way we want it too, when we suffer one failed relationship after another, when jobs lose their interest, we can blame ourselves, not realising that it maybe none of this was a good fit in the first place. But we need to know ourselves to know this. if we don’t know who we are, if we don’t recognise our own needs, then how can we find a good fit, or expect our needs to be met.

The mistake we often make is THINKING that other people can meet our needs, forgetting that they are having a hard enough time knowing and meeting their own needs. Our parents, for example, are just trying to survive in an unforgiving and hard world, and yet we can hold onto so much angst about the fact they didn’t parent us better, but for the most part they were doing their very best just as many of us are trying to do our very best now as we parent our own children -sometimes it flows and sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes its fun and sometimes it’s just day after day of hard work, but this is life, neither good nor bad, just sometimes a little bit boring and other times a good laugh.

so stabbing ourselves in them heart for our perceived wrong doings, giving ourselves a hard time over and over again, being our own worst enemy, feeling guilty, well it doesn’t really solve anything. It just lowers our vibration and suppresses our spirit and makes us feel really rather crappy about ourselves and this from someone who hated herself to the extent that she used to hit herself, starve herself, attempted to cut herself and even thought it might be a good idea to kill herself such was her feeling that the world would be better off with our her in it (if you are interested, maybe suffering with depression and low self esteem yourself then you maybe have a read of my book From Darkness Comes Light).

It’s been a long journey to let go of all that crappiness and learn to love and accept myself and realise my worth. And there are layers. Always there are layers. We are onions. We heal and peel one layer and then another reveals itself. And this is what this moon is gifting us. Another layer. I hit it and I’m sure some of you are hitting it too.

Urgh, the heaviness when we bring up another layer from the past, because while it feels familiar, the vibration is heavier, and this is the indication that the past has come up to be cleared. This is when we might seek help, be that Reiki or Shen or shadow work so that we can move it through us. Not to say we can’t do it on our own, but personally I have always appreciated others helping to hold space for me, so I don’t get lost in it, wallowing in my own self pity and allowing myself to become a victim of it, rather than just gently moving through it and letting it go over and over again.

It is only when we let go internally that our external world truly changes. Sure we can try to change our external world but I’m pretty sure we will find ourselves up against the same old rubbish in time, the same inability to be in an intimate and loving relationship, the same self-depreciating inner narrative, the same inability to stick with a diet that sustains us, the same old over and over again. It’s not easy doing the inner work, but it’s really such a gift for our heart and soul and a balm for this planet with all its chaos arising from people seeking their validation of worth through the accumulation of money and power, all external living which is some reason celebrated in our current technological and “me, me, me” society.

This because to really make changes, they have to be internal ones. If we keep living from our past experiences then we will keep repeating more of the same. And this is why we are drawn to spiritual practice, because spiritual practice, if truly practised, changes our internal landscape. But it’s not easy. It’s messy. That’s my point. But we have to keep with it.

The Yoga Sutras reminds us time and time again to practice, to choose one approach and stick with it, none of this modern day butterfly approach to practice, where we flutter between one practice and another, dipping in and out of offerings, never truly committing to one particular path, so that we never have to go deeper into our self. It’s indicative of our modern day online living, swiping away that with we don’t want to look at - we do it with our own minds and hearts.

Certainly my experience reflects this. I have studied yoga with a number of different yoga teachers over the years, dipping in and out. There has been change of course, mainly because of practising every day on my own for over twenty years now. But it wasn’t until I met my teacher, Louise, that things really began to change. This was maybe 5 years ago now and I have practiced with her on a one-to-one basis since then, sometimes weekly and sometimes monthly, depending on her traveling schedule.

It took me a long time however to let go of the way I used to practise yoga, the more hardcore athletic body orientated and slightly masculine and superficial approach of vinyasa yoga, which of course had its benefits, but it started limiting me, keeping me trapped, my mind trapped, in its need to make things certain and known, to follow a certain methodology, to make things right and wrong.

Of course this approach is never going to free the mind, it’s just going to feed more of its neurosis, the ego loves it of course, and the body, but the body was also restricted, being forced to practice in a way that didn’t allow it it’s own freedom and intuitive nudges, that kept reinforcing old movement patterns.

Many of these movement patterns had been developed based on the thoughts/feelings that were repressed and suppressed and stuck in the body. So in many respects I was just reinforcing my trauma, the body keeps score, until it doesn’t anymore, until we find the courage and strength to change the way we relate to it and move it, to set it free of what happened previously.

This scares people. We might move our body on a yoga mat which suddenly brings up an old memory, or touches an edge and we find ourselves crying. Students then think there is something wrong. There’s isn’t! This is the gold! This is the release. Every emotion that is released has a thought attached to it. When we let go of both, there is so much more space, not least in the physical body but in the mind too. What was bothering us drops away. Old patterns of relating to ourselves and others positively changes. We have ideas. Our creative flow flows again. All because of space - we need to give our body and mind space to be, space to allow the breaking down of the old and space to allow the new to enter in.

Talking of space, I visited my yoga teacher in Findhorn in January and I was reminded how important it is to give myself space to be without the family, and space to practice with a teacher in person so that they can get their hands on us if needed. This made all the difference and caused me to truly trust the practice in a way I possibly hadn't’t been previously, simply because it is radical and my mind has had to let go to keep on keeping on with it. There is no methodology, nothing to hold onto, nothing to make it known and certain, only this beautiful opportunity to go deeper into my body and listen to it and allow it, beyond the noise of the mind and the pull of the feelings. This is yoga though and it takes time, it’s not a quick fix approach to healing and spiritual growth.

The Yoga Sutras remind us that the practice needs to be for the long term, without interruptions, with a positive attitude, with enthusiasm and thoroughly, this if we wish to experience the fruits of the practice - namely entering a state of yoga where the mind is contained and we can access purusha, our eternal Self. The butterfly approach to practice is unlikely to lead us to this place simply because of not giving ourselves the opportunity to deepen into any one practice.

Practice gives us space to be and the space to be gives us the opportunity to hear, it is simple really. We increasingly notice our unhelpful mental chattering, the endless nature of the thinking mind, but this gives us the opportunity to detach from it too, to become the observer, watching our thoughts without becoming absorbed into them. So it is the same with our feelings, watching and observing them coming and going without being lost in them.

This moon is gifting us this opportunity to see what is and isn’t flowing in our lives, to see where we need to let go of our mind thinking it is running the show, to allow something far more beautiful and aligned to enter in instead. Remember, if we always keep doing what we have always done then we will always get what we have always got. Sometimes even changing the route we take to get to work can make all the difference, or trying a new activity, or practising a yoga posture in a more gentle and introspective way.

As I believe (but obviously this doesn’t make it true) we have to be the change we wish to see in the world. The moon is encouraging these changes and as difficult as it is, I am grateful for the light into the shadows to be clearer about I’m holding onto, the fear of safety and rejection that has driven many of my choices these last however many years, let alone caring too much what other people think and taking it all too personally in the process, let alone the extent to which my mind and its tendency to over identifying with thoughts and feelings has been my own worst enemy getting in the way of our greater freedom and capacity to give/receive LOVE.

So the more we can let this all go, the old patterns of holding on, the thoughts and feelings that got trapped along the way, the greater the freedom and love we begin experiencing in our external world too, and that is worth celebrating - it makes all the inner work worth it. This is Spring after all, we are being gifted new beginnings…but first we must let go of the old to create the space…and then be conscious of our choices and what is driving them, love or fear?…having the courage and strength to begin anew.

Here’s the quote:

“In order for the new to arrive, we must first allow the old to shatter. Sometimes this happens on its own. And sometimes it requires that we do the smashing. To tear apart what we’ve built because things have changed, including you. To admit that while it was once aligned, now it no longer is. This smashing requires both courage and faith. Courage to let go and faith that the pieces will come back together again in a way that was more aligned than it was before” Rebecca Campbell

Obviously I am always very happy to work with any of you individually to look deeper into your shadows and help you bring them to the light. Spiritual Life Coaching is brilliant at helping to make real life changes, but even a single Reiki session can create this change, and obviously private yoga is brilliant at looking at stuck and restrictive movements patterns.

Happy full moon!

Love Emma x

A grandparent's perspective on homeschooling

By way of background, we offer the following:-

To be honest, we were not over-enamoured at some stages with Emma’s choices as regards raising initially Elijah and then Eben.  Maybe that is the same with all grandparents, who in our case raised Emma and her brother in a more traditional manner as was expected in the mid 70’s.  Her leanings to a more ‘alternative’ view to life was also rather counter to our beliefs (in the widest sense) and prejudices, as two full time working parents, albeit Jill did not resume work until Ross was 4 and settling in to school. Like most of our peers at that time, we were struggling to make ends meet in a period of 14+% interest rates.

Looking back Elijah was ill prepared for school and on reflection (hindsight is a wonderful thing), as much to do with us as grandparents, as Emma.  We were recently retired when Elijah was born, and as with many parents Emma and Ewan had to work, so we were delighted to provide the childcare, along with his paternal grandmother.  We became very close to Elijah but, being in our mid-60’s at that stage, did not have Mum’s groups etc. to take Elijah to, so that he could become used to children of his own age.  Jill tried various activities with him, but it soon became apparent he was a shy, gentle, but also an increasingly anxious little boy. 

We were undoubtedly over-protective but that said and as Emma has already stated we were all very slow to realise that these traits in Elijah meant the normal route in to ‘big school’ was not going to work. The experience of picking him up from a respected playgroup - where we saw him in the window looking for us absolutely crying his little heart out - at age 3 (we believe from 9. 00 in the morning, without them calling any of us, was cruelty in the extreme and still breaks our hearts when we recall it).  We then resumed our previous routine until, at almost 4 he was tried at another playgroup, closer to home and much smaller.  The leaders were very understanding and Elijah endured it but never really settled.  Therefore starting school was always going to be a challenge, and we cannot fault any of the teachers he had who were brilliant in trying to settle him in to school.  So, in many respects as Emma said, ‘home-schooling’ picked itself for him.

So:-

When our daughter first told us that she was taking our eldest grandson out of mainstream education and home-schooling him, we met the news with disbelief and quite a long list of adjectives describing our incredulity!

Our background, and indeed our daughter’s, was Education.  Both of us had started our careers as Primary School teachers and enjoyed passing on and stimulating learning in our classes.  

We encouraged both our children to embrace school and Emma, in particular was a diligent student, driven to succeed.   Whilst she would freely admit that she was not really ready to leave home and Guernsey for University Education (and found the initial terms hard), she flourished, academically at least.  Returning to Guernsey, she then continued studies, albeit in the Finance Sector.

So, with this background, you might imagine how this revelation was shocking to us.  We were particularly anxious from the social aspect, being removed from his peer group.  However this was mis-founded as Elijah was not an overly ‘social’ child.  He did not like noise or large groups and worked far better in a one to one situation.  

However, during Covid we had supported Emma with the school home-centred study.  So, to an extent we had already supported the home studying path at least a little.

Initially, we were loathe, determined even, not to assist what we saw as a crazy decision.   We agonised, as we had been very involved with Elijah’s upbringing thus far and came to the realisation that we were essentially ‘cutting off our nose to spite our face’ by our stance and (somewhat reluctantly) agreed to look after Elijah for the day on a Wednesday and then Friday morning.

We fumbled around a bit with the best way to proceed.  In many ways this was made easier for us as Elijah needed to ‘de-school’ and thus we focused on practical experiences, such as mowing, collecting pine cones, woodwork, rock pooling and so on. 

One dilemma for us was that of becoming Elijah’s teachers, rather than his grandparents and we found it a difficult path to tread.  

We determined to do our best for him and split the ‘teaching’ so that his grandfather, Ron, took on the Mathematics and practical aspects of his learning, such as woodworking, whilst his grandmother, Jill, concentrated on project work incorporating English, Geography, History and Biology, supported by Ron when necessary.   She also cooked with him and did some craft work on occasion.

So we settled into a loose routine of sorts whereby we embraced the opportunity to give Elijah experiences as they arose.   For example we had the option to take a sea (and all things fishing) loving child on one of the local fishing trawlers to see the equipment and have a short ride to see the sonar working.

Many have said it must have been easy for us both trained primary school teachers.  Well no, Ron had not taught a class of children full time for over 30 years, and Jill for over 40 years .  In that time education has changed so dramatically and we are in awe of teachers today, the pressures on them are immense, far more that when we left teaching.

As previously identified we focused on more practical activities, and do you know what, we are converts.  Elijah learns for himself when he wants/needs to, admittedly a lot online, but is that not the future anyway?  He reads well and, like his grandfather, he’s really not interested in fiction but anything factual he positively inhales. He reads and understands the most complex instruction manuals, directing ‘Baba’ (Ron) on how to set up the drone  received at Christmas.  Are we worried about his future academically?  No we’re not because he is now a very much more confident and relaxed young boy, keen to learn what matters to him.  Will he be ready to take exams, who knows?  We don’t but we are  pretty confident he will find his way in the world and will be a far more self-confident young man than had he had to persevere in a school environment which despite the best efforts of good teachers he found all too overwhelming.

After many trials and tribulations with our daughter over this, we are in in tune with her and have vastly different views on education provision than before. 

Clearly it is not easy to home school for several reasons, and not available to the majority, nor indeed suitable for the majority.  Emma was very fortunate that we had just retired when Elijah was born so could provide a fair amount of unpaid child-minding.  She and her partner also had no mortgage and they both had jobs where they could be flexible with their hours.  Nonetheless there have been significant challenges, not least financially. Expensive holidays are a thing of the past, and they have a ropey old car. 

We are also only, really, at the start of the journey - what does the future hold?  We have no idea, but at this moment in time we do not worry because the children are thriving where they were not before and are far more at ease and confident.  For us that is a price worth paying.

PMS and menstrual awareness as a conscious spiritual practice

Identifying the problem

My story with menstrual awareness as a conscious spiritual practice began in my twenties with a PMS diagnosis.

I had been experiencing two weeks of misery every month and I knew that I had to do something about it. The bloating, weeping, anger outbursts and constipation was one thing, but the increasing bouts of anxiety, paranoia, depression, acute self-criticism, self-loathing, discontentment with life and feeling uncomfortable in my own skin were another.

I loathed the menstrual cycle and the physical, emotional and mental discomfort that accompanied it. And while it was a relief when menstruation itself arrived and the inner pressure would ease, the bleeding was an inconvenience that needed to be managed, as life continued at its normal busy pace, working my way up the career ladder and playing competitive sport.

Eventually, the uncomfortable monthly feelings became so intense, I knew something needed to be done. I wasn’t sure exactly what could be changed as at the time I very much bought into the paradigm that we are the way we are and that is just our luck in life, but I was - thankfully - still open to options. This is often the case; it is not until our situation becomes critical that we begin to take responsibility.

Taking responsibility

Until that point, I had taken very little responsibility for my health and wellbeing, always looking to the doctor (as a god-figure on his/her pedestal) to give me a tablet to help manage any health concern. PMS is often misdiagnosed because doctors are more likely to look at the nature of symptoms rather than cause. It is no surprise perhaps that I was prescribed anti-depressants as an attempt to manage the depressive element of my monthly suffering.

However, I didn’t want to take anti-depressants. My short encounter with them previously had left me feeling woolly, so I was encouraged to find another way. My brief research led me to Carol Champion, a local nutritionist, who felt that I was experiencing PMS and was confident that she could help me. I was so relieved just to have a name to explain how I was feeling.  I was even more relieved when I read more widely on the subject, and realised that my hormonal imbalance was at the root of things.

It was Carol who also helped me to realise the value in taking responsibility and reaching out for holistic health. As she rightly said, people will spend more money on their car than they do on their own health and wellbeing. Certainly I have no qualms in paying for treatments and supplements/Ayurvedic medicine, which support my health and wellbeing and would much rather do this then pay the £65 or so to visit the doctor for 5-10 minutes to be given some pharma which treats only the symptoms.

While the healthier eating and supplements helped ease the symptoms of PMS, I kept overlooking the cyclical nature of what it means to be a woman, always trying to ‘fix’ the second half of my cycle to make it like the first half. I was ignorant to the fact that us women are not linear in nature. We are not supposed to feel the same all the time, that instead we need the yin and the yang, the ebb and the flow, the waning and the waxing, to feel whole.hy

Patriarchy

My whole life had been based on achievement, such is the nature of our patriarchal educational, cultural and societal framework. I always needed to achieve; either academically, in the work environment or on the netball and volleyball court. I was also a perfectionist, which didn’t help matters, because I would give myself a very hard time if I didn’t live up to my high ideals, which meant I was giving myself a hard time pretty much all of the time.

Being self-critical underpinned much of my life during this time. I was also very good at holding onto my emotions, to the extent that I didn’t express them, especially not in front of anyone else if I could avoid it. But these bottled up emotions expressed themselves through the menstrual cycle – that which we repress has to find a way to express. The menstrual cycle is a gift in many ways, not least because it allows us to release these pent up emotions (anger outbursts, weepiness, etc.) but because it also allows us to know more of our own truth in the process. But we have to pay attention and embrace it rather than reject it.

This was a significant perspective shift for me because I had not appreciated until then, the extent to which our conditioning, with its patriarchal underpinning and its emphasis on left brain logic and linear rationality, had caused me to live my life as if I was a man. I thought I had been living as an empowered woman, yet it became increasingly apparent to me that this was not the case.

While women’s true power comes from their intuitive, empathic and creative potential, I was using none of these facets. I was completely out of touch with my intuition, and although I might have considered myself empathic, the separation from my emotional body meant that I lacked a certain degree of compassion for myself and for others. I was also ignorant to my true creative potential, and while I longed to write, I did nothing about it, because it wasn’t part of the route to ‘success’ as it was sold to me at that time – as equaling financial gain.

Instead, I lived under the illusion of the empowered woman, but in reality I was a woman trying to make it in a man’s world, wearing suits and stepping increasingly into a rational and logical mind-set so that I could literally ‘make it’ like the men. I was continually trying to prove that my sex was in no way a limitation to me achieving success – that I could be as successful as the men, whatever that might mean. After all how do we evaluate success?

Well in this society success is judged on financial gain, the more money we appear to have, the more successful we are perceived by others. Of course this is ridiculous, many people might appear wealthy but live in constant debt, and at the end of the day, we all know that having money doesn’t equate to happiness. Sure, better to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy, but life is not just about money, albeit it is becoming increasingly the case as we settle more fully into this technological and scientific age. 

My attempts at ‘success’, as sold to me, came at a cost. My masculine/feminine energy was totally out of balance and my menstrual cycle and the various symptoms that accompanied it were highlighting this. My body showed it too in its athleticism and the manner in which I worked hard to keep fit and strengthen it, as if I was indeed a man. I saw weeping women as weak. Women needed to be strong, and to be strong, they needed to be like men. This is the illusion and I totally bought into it.

Embracing my menstrual cycle

As I woke up to my reality, it encouraged me to embrace my menstrual cycle, to use it as a form of spiritual practice and an opportunity for deeper healing. Inevitably, this took time. I slowly tried to let go of my conditioning around what it means to be a woman in these times, but also to begin to notice the subtleties of patriarchy and the impact this was having on the way I chose to live my life.

Women have been sold the story that to lead empowered lives, they need to have it all, the career, the children, the home, etc., but the reality is that they end up in a constant state of exhaustion, rushing around and feeling pressured into ‘being’ someone. There is another price to pay, not least to their health and vitality, but in their relationship with self.

There is a feeling of never being truly present to any one thing, rushing from children to business meetings, shopping to making dinner, play dates to time with partners, endless laundry to be done and packed lunches to be made, trying to squeeze in a yoga class or a swim, not even sure who they are anymore beyond all the various demands placed on them. The loss of sense of self is perhaps the greatest compromise in the quest to live an empowered life.

We should never underestimate the pain that arises from separation from self, from not knowing ourselves. We all come into this world as souls with a gift to share and a mission to complete, being in service to something greater than our ego self. But we forget this and get lost somewhere along the way, which takes us down a path that doesn’t always align with our deepest truth, leaving us feeling disconnected and alone, often in pain, which will show up in our lives in all sorts of ways.

With all the rushing to be someone other than who we truly are, many women have very little time to notice their menstrual cycle, beyond the pain and discomfort that it brings. Many who use certain contraceptive methods are numbed from their cycle completely. Some will be brought to it because they are trying to conceive, but even then, people often try all sorts of techniques to distance themselves from it, using allopathic and symptomatic approaches to healing, which do not necessarily get to the root cause of any imbalance and loss of wellbeing.

All the pain and tension, the anger and frustration, the discomfort and suffering, is a gift for women if they can turn to it rather than away from it. The body is constantly trying to get our attention, to make us aware of the parts of self that we reject and don’t want to look at. The gift comes in reclaiming those fragmented parts of self and allowing more of our beautiful wholeness, loving and accepting the self on a deeper level and embodying our potential in this lifetime.

Thus, rather than turning away from our physical, mental and emotional feelings, we might instead turn towards them and take ownership of them, be responsible for them, and allow ourselves the opportunity to heal and transform in the process.

Our conditioning

As mentioned earlier, this can take time though, because there are often layers to our conditioning and our denial. Like onions, we have to gently peel one layer after the other to access our core and come to know more of ourselves and our potential (this beyond the idea that potential means ‘success’ or monetary gain, instead, more about who we are in essence beyond ego demands) in the process.

I had a lot to learn, and in those earlier days, despite becoming more conscious of my menstrual cycle, I was still rejecting the part of it that I didn’t like, namely the second half of it, when I wouldn’t feel quite so chirpy as the first half. I was still trying to make myself consistent, to the extent that I was constantly trying to ‘fix’ it, without truly listening to it. I became obsessed about healthy eating for PMS, and had by then started practising yoga to also help, often to an extreme.

In fact, two years into ‘healing my PMS’ as I frequently called it, I spent five months in Australia training as a yoga teacher and practising up to six hours of yoga asana a day, while living on a fruit-only diet. This stemmed from my need for the ‘yoga body’ at that time, which again, played into my patterns of perfectionism and meeting ideals. As a result, my menstruation stopped altogether and I couldn’t have been happier. I had achieved what I had set out to achieve, in so much as I then felt the same every single day of the month; I didn’t experience PMS.

Self-criticism

But obviously this wasn’t healthy. Back home in Guernsey, hormone testing showed that my testosterone levels were much higher than they should have been and my progesterone was at an all-time low. I knew that one day I wanted children, so when scans showed I also now had cysts on my ovaries, I knew that I needed to dig deeper, allow more of my self and heal generally.

Herein lay another lesson; that our menstrual cycle and hormonal balance cannot be treated in isolation. We all contain seven main chakras, spinning wheels of energy, and each chakra underpins a hormonal gland. When we are attempting to heal ourselves hormonally, we need to be conscious of the underlying energy and the fact that what happens in one chakra will affect another, validating that a holistic approach to healing is required.

I was aware that my sacral chakra in particular was blocked, the home of the uterus, ovaries and reproductive glands, and that the majority of my chakras also needed some tender loving care, especially my heart and solar plexus. These chakras bore the brunt of my endless self-criticism, as if each time I criticised myself, I was stabbing my own heart and disempowering my solar plexus. I was a victim of my self-depreciating ego and I couldn’t hear the ever-loving voice of my soul.

Healing is not without its challenges. I had a lifetime of conditioning to let go of and this was challenging at times. The achievement and perfectionist aspect of myself, to say nothing of the self-critic, was a pattern that was so deeply ingrained that I wasn’t always aware how much it underpinned my decision-making, even in my attempts to be aware of it. Our thoughts can become such a part of us, that we don’t realise that they are essentially separate to us – that we are not our thoughts.

We are not our thoughts

However, we have become so used to identifying with our thoughts that we believe we are them. Just as we identify so much with our external achievements that we overlook our inner essence. We don’t always question how we are living our lives, because we are often living from a place of expectation, so ingrained in us that we don’t even question it. When someone asks us if we are truly happy, we might look at them blankly, “Happiness? I didn’t realise I have a choice!”, not appreciating that we have a choice about how we live our lives just as much as we have a choice about the thoughts we buy into.

It took me a long time to realise all this and it was menstrual awareness that helped considerably. As I explained earlier, our menstrual cycle is trying to get our attention for a reason. It highlights where we are out of balance with our essential truth, where we are holding on and where we are not listening to or expressing ourselves, soulfully and/or creatively. Ultimately, it reflects how we are living and our relationship to self – we can only put our head in the sand for so long before we have to pay attention.

Not feeling comfortable within my own skin those last two weeks of my cycle was indicative of my life at that time. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin because I was living a life that didn’t fit. I was working in a finance job I loathed and that didn’t allow any creative expression. I was in denial about an eating disorder, numbing out from my mental suffering with cannabis and wine and giving myself a very hard time about all of it, leaving me feeling depressed, anxious and full of self-hatred.

No fixing

As I paid attention to my menstrual cycle, my life changed and my relationship with myself improved. As this happened, the symptoms of PMS eased too. I became increasingly aware of the cyclical nature of the menstrual cycle and what it means to be a woman, and stopped trying to fix any part of it or indeed me. This is ‘fix’ both in terms of making myself better (because I recognised I was already whole) but also not being fixed in an opinion or perspective either, as this too is subject to change.

I felt as if I was awakening to a greater part of myself. I began questioning why women are told that they should take synthetic pills and potions to numb themselves from experiencing the wisdom of their menstrual cycle. I wondered about the extent of patriarchy and it’s attempt to limit women’s inherent power of intuition and empathy, which is extremely powerful during pre-menstruation and menstruation itself.

Many women take synthetic contraceptives through fear of conceiving when they are not ready to do so and because they have been sold the notion that it liberates them from the binds of the menstrual cycle with all its pain and discomfort. It’s also used as a form of pain relief from certain womb conditions. Yet it’s a paradox, because ultimately, it distances women from their natural cycle and from hearing their innate womb wisdom, which was likely the cause of the problem in the first place. Further, it also causes a decrease in sensation, sensual, orgasm or otherwise, and can also lead to fertility issues and a loss of wellbeing through certain cancers.

Shame of menstruation

I wondered why I had never been told any of this. The menstrual cycle is not talked about in school beyond reference to sanitary products. It’s not even talked about between friends. There is still so much shame accompanying menses and menstruation, as if it is something that can only be whispered about, and usually with negative connotations, rather than something to be celebrated. Many women don’t know how to be with it, how to listen to it, and how to rest, literally rest, into it.

When we take responsibility for our health and wellbeing, when we make a decision to take action in the direction of our wellbeing, then the universe and soul will draw to us experiences that will help us to learn more about ourselves. While we may label these experiences as ‘bad’ and ‘negative’, they may well come in to help us awaken to some aspect of self that has laid dormant, awaiting our awakening. Back then, I resented my menstrual cycle and PMS especially, but now I try to navigate my life by it, embracing the wisdom of my womb and honouring it.

I began paying attention to how I felt from one phase to another and learning which phase might be more aligned for various activities, for example, whether to be out in the world, or to rest and retreat instead, whether to write or to edit. In the process, I began to recognise more of my own truth by increasingly opening myself up to the insights and wisdom that various parts of the cycle brought with it. You can read more about this in my previous blog about the wisdom of the menstrual cycle.

The moon!

I also found myself connecting with the moon. I have always been drawn to the moon, but I didn’t know the reason for this. As my relationship with my menstrual cycle deepened, so too my relationship with the moon, and this continues to be an ongoing journey. There is a recognised connection between the menstrual cycle and the moon, because of the moon’s inherent feminine qualities, and women’s cycles will attune with the moon if we also begin to work with the moon’s energies.

In many cultures, the menstrual cycle is viewed as sacred and it has been seeing a revolution here in the western world. There is now increased menstrual awareness, with more women talking about it and an influx of women’s circles like the Red Tent movement, where women are encouraged to come together and talk about menstruation, celebrate it and all that the cycle can reveal to them.

It works two ways. Menstrual awareness took me to the moon, but the more I connected with the moon, the more I allowed the ebb and flow of my menstrual cycle and the inner journey this took me on to reclaim those denied aspects of self. Now I embrace the full range of emotions that I might feel during my cycle, the last two weeks especially, in an effort to better understand and absolutely allow them instead. This has been key.

I now know that the latter stages of the cycle can be extremely transformative, bringing insight and wisdom about our repressions and imbalance not only in the way we are living our life, but in our relationship to self – whether we are in our flow, allowing our the creative expression of the deep feminine, or resisting this and giving away or denying our power in the process.

Letting go of the rational brain

The problem for many is that the menstrual cycle does not speak the same language as the rational brain. The information that flows to us through the menstrual cycle is reflective and intuitive, arriving through emotions, dreams and insights gained from each. It comes from a source of darkness to enlighten us. We may not have been taught how to access this language, we have to learn this all by ourselves, which means getting our rational brain out of the way. For many, this is a stumbling block.

That which we ignore, the intuitive nudges and guidance available to us during the second half of our cycle, will have no choice but to keep attempting to get our attention. Whether it’s through PMS, menopausal tension or perceived lunacy, if ignored, in the same way as bodily symptoms, will often result in illness. The body is constantly trying to communicate to us, and if we wish to avoid illness and dis-ease, then we would do well to listen; the menstrual cycle is no different.

Free menstrual cycle and moon cycle practices

For more information on the menstrual cycle and the moon cycle and how you might work with both, please have a look at my FREE online course, here , which includes access to free yoga, mediation and relaxation practices to help you deepen your relationship with yourself and your cycle and the moon and her cycle too.

The benefits of Yoni Yoga

I can also highly recommend attending my drop-in Yoni Yoga classes on a Tuesday evening in St Martin’s Community Centre (upstairs) which incorporate and weave together a variety of Tantric practices to help heal and increase awareness of the sacral and heart chakras especially, but the other chakras too, as one cannot be treated in isolation.

Lots of women have experienced trauma in their sacral chakras whether that be from birth, sex, menstruation, rejection, abandonment, difficult relationships with mothers especially, and our inherent lack of love for self.

Our hearts too are often overlooked as we increasingly live from our heads as we have been taught. We can spend our whole lives then, living a life that is not bringing use any joy, until we take responsibility, take back our power and do something to heal and make positive changes in our lives. Certainly yoni yoga has helped me enormously over the years to free trauma and learn to love and accept myself as I am.

Often all we need is the time and space to be with ourselves in a loving and compassionate way, encouraging an inward reflection (eyes are generally closed) and an opportunity for much needed proper rest.

Reiki too for healing and flourishing

I hope this helps - do get in touch if you need more help as Reiki is also amazing at helping to get to the root cause of our loss of wellness, such as PMS etc. We can go deep into your body and release repressed emotions and the held effect of traumatic experiences. For me this has also been life changing, and you can read more about this in my books, Dancing with the Moon, about my journey with IVF, and From Darkness Comes Light, about my journey with depression. Go here to learn more about Reiki/to book.

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is a holistic approach to healing, which focuses on the root cause of any loss of wellbeing rather than merely treating the symptoms. Originating in India thousands of years ago, the word Ayurveda is made from two Sanskrit roots ‘Ayu’ which mean life and ‘Veda’ which means knowledge. Therefore, the term Ayurveda means the knowledge or science of life.

Ayurveda uses a combination of diet, herbal medicine and lifestyle choices to promote wholeness and vitality. This has helped me enormously with healing PMS. Please go here for more information and to book.

It’s definitely your birth right to flourish.

Love Emma x

The wisdom of the menstrual cycle

Menstruation – new / dark moon phase

Roughly Days 1-5

In ancient times, a woman’s cycle was honoured and celebrated and menstruation was ritualised. Women of all ages came together in sacred circles and moon lodges – this inspired the Red Tent movement. Getting your moon (period) was seen as a beautiful gift.

Unfortunately, patriarchy had other ideas, threatened by the power and magic that these women held within, which was magnified when they came together. Thus, what was once seen as beautiful and pure became stigmatised and considered shameful instead. Many women still buy into this notion and see menstruation as an embarrassment, a hassle, a shame, a burden and sometimes even a curse!

A women’s cycle has become little more than a reproductive cycle, but the fact you’re reading this might mean you know this needs to change. It is time for women to reclaim the sacredness of their cycle and recognise, own and work with the wisdom that it contains.

Menstruation presents a time to retreat into your inner cave, like the Red Tent, taking yourself away from the world and tapping into your blood wisdom. This is DAY ONE of the menstrual cycle when you are at your most intuitive, so you might gain clarity on matters that have been bothering you during the rest of the cycle. Things might slot into place with the letting go that accompanies the outward flow of the menstrual blood, essentially shedding what is old to make way for the new to come in, with the new beginning of the menstrual cycle.

Take time out to rest and settle into the wisdom that this time brings. Youwill likely want to retreat from the world too – this is not a time to put yourselves on the stage if you can avoid it. You will also likely feel antisocial, delicate, in need of alone time to just be. Try to keep your diary relatively empty if you can. This is a wonderful time for guided relaxations and gentle yoga such as yoni yoga.

The insights gained can be uncomfortable. Sometimes there may be a rush of rage with the first blood as everything that has been bothering you comes to a head. The intensity of your emotions will ease as your blood flows. Flow with it.

Often your unmet needs become more apparent, especially if you are a giver, always holding space for others. Eventually you will get to a point where you cannot give or hold anymore, and this may result in an eruption as you express your need for your own needs to be met. If you don’t express your needs then you may find yourself frustrated and irritated.

As you become clearer about what you need, you may also become clearer about what you don’t need, and this is a fabulous time to let go as the blood flows, of anything no longer serving you in your life, whether that be relationships, jobs, thinking patterns or the way you relate to yourself.

Furthermore, many women experience pain around the time of menstruation. This is hardly surprising when you consider that the lining of the endometrium is literally shedding away – it’s a big deal! But the pain is also a messenger, literally drawing your attention into the body and away from the outer world. You are encouraged to rest and retreat, perhaps taking a short break from your other responsibilities if that is possible.

Sadly, we have been conditioned to overlook this pain, seeing it more as the curse of being a woman than a nudge of wisdom. So rather than rest, you may be more inclined to take paracetamol and carry on life as normal, battling your way through the day, drinking wine to comfort you, or binging on carbohydrates, rather than taking yourself to a quiet space, nurturing yourself with blankets and pillows, lighting candles, playing gentle music and listening to what with your uterus (womb) is trying to say to you.

Notice the flow of the menstrual blood as this can indicate whether you are in your flow or not. If you are out of flow with your truth, then the chances are, your blood may not flow well too; it may stop and start and be inconsistent. Notice also the intensity of the flow. If you have been very stressed and under pressure then this can show up in the flow, to the extent that the blood can flow too intensely, be very heavy.

If you are under the weather, worn down and tired, then perhaps the blood flow is scanty and low in energy itself.

Essentially, menstruation is a time for resting, journeying inwards and tuning into your intuition. It’s also a time to let go of anything that has not served you, resetting and starting anew.

Please note that this phase can be likened to the inner winter, a little like the winter solstice, when you wish to hibernate and retreat from the world and go into our inner dark space.

Follicular phase – waxing phase

Roughly Days 6-12

The follicular stage comes next, post bleed, when your energy levels return and you feel like you are ready to come out of your cave and re-enter the light of the world again. Oestrogen levels are rising and you have potentially gained more clarity. Now, with your increased energy levels and sense of wellbeing, there isn’t so much to complain about.

However, you still need to be gentle with yourself, as you gain strength each day, your own cycle now waxing to the fullness and juiciness of ovulation, a bit like your own full moon.

Some will literally experience their cycle aligned with the moon, but not everyone, it depends on your individual nature and constitution, and also your stage of life (more on this below about the white and red cycles).

The clarity gained during menstruation can be very helpful. You may have a clearer idea of the direction to take. Perhaps you have been procrastinating, or not believing in yourself and menstruation highlighted this. You are growing in strength so it’s a time to not only consider, but also prepare yourself for your next move.

Please note that this is like the inner spring stage of the cycle, when you are emerging from hibernation and coming out into the world again. After the inner winter phase, you are likely to feel your energy levels rising, you may feel more social and active. Like spring, inner spring brings a sense of hope and optimism.

Ovulation – full moon phase

Roughly 12-16 days

During this time of fertility, you may feel magnetic. People often say that women are at their most attractive during this phase. A well-known research study from 2007 actually showed that topless dancers earn more when ovulating than when not ovulating. Interestingly, the effects of the contraceptive pill, which eradicates peak ovulatory sexual response for women, also affected how much topless women earned. Those on the pill, consistently earned less than those not on the pill.

Other research has shown that men consistently find women more enticing when they are ovulating; their smell becomes more obvious to men and their face becomes more attractive too. Women are said to take better care of their appearance than at any other time in their cycle. Studies have also showed how a partner’s behaviour changes too, known as ‘retention behaviour’. It basically means that a partner gets a little more angsty and possessive of his/her woman!

Another study showed that a woman’s voice gets a little higher at ovulation in response to hormonal shifts and she will sway her hips a little more while walking. While a woman’s smell also changes, as referenced above, a woman’s sense of smell changes too. It would seem that ovulation triggers a heightened awareness of the world around them. No one understands the reason for this, but it could be that women can make a better judgement about a mate at this time of the cycle. This highlights the fact that women might find themselves more discerning and in touch with their truth at this time in their cycle. 

It is the time to try to create and shape your life according to your vision now that you have a stronger sense of clarity and increased energy levels to support it. You naturally feel more communicative and are better placed to ask for what you want, to put yourself on the line and begin to turn your dreams into reality.

On a physical level, vaginal discharge may be heavier and more slippery (think stringy egg whites)  than at any other part of the cycle and you might also experience pain, often one sided, an indication that an ovary is releasing an egg. You might experience feelings of heightened sexuality too.

This is in the inner summer time of the cycle, when you naturally feel more like getting out there and enjoying the extra light and feeling of brightness. This is also a time when you are likely to be drawn to being more visible, open and collaborative with others. 

Luteal phase – waning moon phase

Roughly 17-28 days

Post ovulation, during the luteal phase, you may feel a waning in your energy and general interest in life as you are drawn back deeply into yourself again. As progesterone levels rise, you might start feeling increasingly sensitive and vulnerable. You might also feel confused and lacking in clarity, angry and full of rage.

You may become increasingly picky, so while this is a good time to edit writing or music, for example, this might be the time when you give your partner, family or people around you a hard time for doing everything wrong – at least wrong according to your higher standards.

You might be especially hard on yourself too. Nothing feels quite right; your clothes might feel a little tighter, your job might not flow so easily and things which don’t usually bother you, bothers you. 

This is a good time to tick things off the ‘to do’ list or finish up a project. Journalling and freely expressing yourself through writing or some other creative outlet is ideal at this time. Because you may feel more irritable, it is not the best time for important conversations. If you’re feeling frustrated about something, take note of it, but consider waiting until after the luteal phase to speak your mind as you may feel differently then.

Physically, there are likely to be changes in your vaginal discharge. Sometimes you may get a watery discharge that might have you thinking that your period has started, but then this will ease. You may get nothing, or perhaps if anything, a slight burning sensation and dryness the day or so before menstruation.

You might also experience cramps, anxiety, interrupted sleep, insomnia, nervous tension, mood swings, forgetfulness, irritability, anger, headaches, water retention, swollen breasts, bloating, lethargy and/or drowsiness. Your temperature may rise, and sometimes you may feel sexual, as if it’s the body’s way of easing the tension created by the increasing progesterone levels and the ‘on edge’, ‘holding on tightly’ feeling this can give. This may last up until the end of the cycle. 

The premenstrual period, especially in the day or two just before menstruation, can be likened to the dark moon of the moon cycle; the day or two before the new moon and the new cycle begins, when the night is at its darkest. This is a time when the veil between that which is seen/unseen and conscious/unconscious is thinner, where dreams may be more vivid as the messages try to filter through to you. This is a language beyond the rational mind and you might overlook them as nothing more than a ‘good/bad dream’.

However, if you pay attention, you will find that you have access to parts of your unconscious that you cannot access so easily, parts that are perhaps not even available to you at other times of the month. You are more in tune with that which is most meaningful in your life during this time and more prone to tears over this too.

Anything that arises for you during the pre-menstrual period, as painful or uncomfortable as it may be, you must pay attention, because whatever it is, whatever is being revealed, requires your resolution.

Then you move into menstruation, a time when women can potentially enter a more expanded consciousness, an altered state of being, that is both insightful and potentially healing. The key to this is both respect for, and awareness of, the changes that take place during your cycle. It is in this way that you come to recognise that your changing moods each have a role to play in helping you to live a more fulfilled and creative life. 

For various yoni yoga, meditation and relaxation practices to support your menstrual cycle, please see the free video and audio content on the website.

The in-person yoni yoga class takes place every Tuesday evening in St Martin’s Community Centre, 6-7pm, all women of all ages and levels of experience are welcome. - this is an invaluable practice for anyone navigating menstruation and/or fertility issues. All welcome.