The more I work with women, the more I witness the frustration that women feel when they are unable to relax, let go and TRUST, in other words SURRENDER

On some level we know that part of being placed here in a feminine body is to be open and receptive to love, to not harden ourselves against the world and live with suspicion and fear.

Unfortunately the reality is that most of us women were conditioned to fear rather than trust, hold on rather than let go, dim our light rather than happily, confidently unashamedly beam it out into the world.

We hold this conditioning in our bodies, as rigidity, stiffness. The fearful voice, both conscious and unconscious, whispering to us messages like ‘ you are not good enough’ and ‘what will people think’ which causes us to shut down and close off.

Often there is an underlying (and usually unexplored) belief that it is not a safe world, it is not safe to shine our light, be sexy and confident and claim the love, the fullness, the depth, the magic.

Or perhaps we are disillusioned by life, by the pain we have felt, the pain we have witnessed, the pain we can feel deep down inside and are afraid to visit because we fear it will be too over whelming if we ‘go there’.

How do we break free of this need to control everything and the total exhaustion that comes with that?

I truly believe that surrender is an ability we can cultivate.

We learnt the patterns of fear and control, we can also un- learn and re-learn the capacity to surrender.

Here are some pointers to help you on your path of learning surrender.

1.Make a choice

What do you really want?

To go through life shut down?

Sure it might feel ‘safer’ but it also sucks. When you are shut down, you are not open to love, either from yourself or anyone else.It comes to a point where you have to decide that you would rather face your fears, rather than go through life hard and closed.

Are you willing to let go and meet the fears you have around that? Are you willing to trust yourself, and trust life?

Making this conscious choice to ALLOW life to touch you deeply, this is the first step.

2. Clear the basement

We all have emotional baggage, we are not alone in that one, and yet if we keep that locked up, then we will never break through to the other side. It can be scary to be vulnerable, so you probably will need some loving help along the way.

Seek out the support that can hold you as you officially ‘go there’ and meet your fears of rejection, abandonment etc. For example tantra workshops, coaches, healers etc Be discerning of course, very discerning, and also be OPEN to attracting the exact people, practices and experiences that you need to heal enough to develop a deeper trust of life.

Unless you ‘go there’ you will be carrying around that baggage on some level, preventing you from realizing your potential as a woman.

3. Develop your base level of surrender-re train your body

This is where feminine practices come in…these practices take your awareness out of your mind and back into your body, the only place where surrender can be re-learned.

These practices help you to feel the more subtle layers of your experience, so instead of feeling fear and getting shut down by it, you can begin to experience fear as a kind of energy, an energy you can work with.

Feminine practices help you to remember your natural feminine ability to relax deeply.

They help you to develop a base level of relaxation that you can always return to, what I call your ‘ base level of surrender’. The more you cultivate that state of deep relaxation the more you will be able to trust the magic that happens when you feel relaxed and open.

Feminine practices also help you to tap into the wisdom and power in your vagina, your ovaries and breasts, and be nourished by this energy. Rather than going through life in a state of ‘coping’ you can tap into the potential you have as a woman to be radiant, fully alive and connected to the energy and the wisdom both within you and all around you.

4. Take it one loving moment at a time

Surrender is going to look different for everyone, honor your unique expression of surrender.

A surrendered you is a happy, loving and open you. Every breath is an opportunity for another small surrender, so just take it breath by breath, and enjoy the ride, the contractions and the expansions. It is all a part of your journey into a deeper relationship to you, and to life. And this leads to a deeper relationship with everyone in your life, especially your intimate partners.

If you do not know yet how it is to surrender to a man in a way that feels nourishing and empowering, you have something to look forward to. This is another beautiful aspect of the journey which usually only comes in a healthy way after doing the preliminary work with yourself.

In conclusion I would like to talk about surrender FEELS like; it might not be that same for you but hopefully this serves to inspire…

Surrender feels like a deep acceptance of who you are and your limitations, it feels like a warm soft belly that can breathe long and full of all the good things that life and love has to offer.

It feels like overflowing love, open, innocent, delighted, ecstatic.

And deeply Ok

It creates the kind of relaxation that reflects a sense of TRUST, in ourselves, in life.

It also feels like ‘fuck it’ I do not have to try and be anything, I am good as I am, I am worthy, I am strong enough to soften fully into this experience in the moment, this moment that life has designed for me. I trust the perfection of this and know that I am wise enough to choose to be in environments that nourish me, therefore I have nothing to fear, I trust myself and I know when to say NO and I am able to say YES too. I am open and permeable and I feel SAFE, and I check in moment by moment to see where I am at, I notice when I have tensed up and I take a nice long deep breath, I remember that I am safe, loved, held, supported and i come back to surrender.

I hope these words have served to inspire your own journey to experiencing the beauty of surrender.

There is a lot of talk these days about the Sacred Feminine.

And it is my opinion this is a damn good thing, yes indeed, she does need to be brought to the table in our conversations, in our thoughts and actions, to dance floors and to bedrooms and community gatherings and, yes please!!! the halls of parliament….

But who, and what, exactly is she?

Well, where to start? Most of us have been raised in a world that values logic and reason and results that can be measured, ideally in a laboratory by men in white coats…
Well guess what! The Sacred Feminine cannot be accessed through any of these means.

She is a mystery, a mystery that lives though our bodies, a mystery that cannot be measured, verified or validated. She is so obvious that we could forget to honour her; we could get so stuck in our heads that we forget to feel her in us, as us, dancing into existence through us.

She is the most natural thing in the world.
Indeed She is nature itself.

She speaks to us in our natural urges to nourish, to be nourished, to feel, to connect, to love, to be loved. She shows her face sometimes as a ferocious love that will do anything required to protect what is most important to us, or as a wildness that lives to express itself through our feelings, yearnings, movements and emotions.

And sometimes she is felt as a knowing that defies logic but is undeniable, a knowing that churns in our bellies and rumbles in our wombs and informs us when we are doing something that is just oh so wrong for us; or a glow that shines from within when we are walking the path of our deepest truth.

Yet none of this can be put under a microscope, or bottled, or sold or scientifically validated or categorized…..

But does that mean that SHE does not exist?

What many women are finding, in the playgrounds of their own bodies, in the deep intimacy of solo and shared lovemaking, in the wildness and intensity of their authentic emotional experience and in the increasingly popular Sacred Feminine circles where women come together to explore, embody and celebrate the Sacred Feminine within them…

What they are finding is that the Sacred Feminine is very much alive and well, in fact it kind of feels like she is waking up, stirring from a deep slumber, stretching her limbs, shaking us up and beckoning us to hurry up and get out of our heads and listen!

She is asking us to hurry up and do less and feel more and trust ourselves and trust her.

And so despite the completely illogical lunacy of it all (luna-moon-take note) getting a sense of the Sacred Feminine is surprisingly simple.

Our quest to know HER is all about listening.

To find her we need only to sink deeply into the wisdom of our own bodies, we get to know her intimately when we allow and embody our natural feminine qualities of receptivity, authenticity and compassion.

Quite simply our ability to know what the hell the sacred feminine is rests purely in our ability to feel her and become a vessel for her expression.

And this comes with a warning label; for when you let her in, nothing will ever be the same again….

Amongst other mysterious phenomena, life will never again be boring, sex will never be 2 dimensional, emotions will flow majestically and you will forget to apologize for who you are…. your emotional energy will be become a strong power that activates and clarifies, you will not dance in a conventionally sanctioned manner; it will be wild it will be delicious and the dance will come from deep within, people will notice that you have ‘something about you’. In your daily life you will know what to do from somewhere very much other than your head, you will feel unexplainably intimate with life, you will be filled with a love and wonder that rips you apart at the seams, and you will have signed up, better or for worse, for the adventure of your life….

And what do we do to receive this bounty? The following are points of guidance, they are signposts pointing the way to the living breathing undulating experience of the Sacred Feminine, to knowing her, feeling her, loving her, being her…. When you follow these guidelines all confusion drops away, she becomes closer and more real to you than anything else.

Feel free to interpret them as you wish, explore them in the living laboratory of your everyday life, add to them as you feel, and live them as you dare……

Be open and available to what you feel in your body right now.

Explore yourself, relentlessly and enthusiastically,

Allow the energy of life to flow through you in unexpected ways,

Receive love and let it touch every single part of you, deeply,

Give love, let it spill out uncensored and feed everything, including you, 

Be yourself, even when you would rather present a more ‘pleasing’ picture,

Shine that incredible light that comes from very deep within, even when it feels hard to own,

Own your shadows too; those icky bits of you of which you are deeply ashamed; (bring them to the table too….)

Honour and express your needs, keep on determining what they are,

Connect to your wild nature,

Follow your heart out of the comfort zone and beyond,

Make the most of your capacity for pleasure, own it, explore it, grow it and honour it as a gift from HER,

Inquire into what leaks your energy, and find another way,

Nurture yourself and the life around you, meeting both as sacred and precious,

Embody tenderness,

Trust the intelligence of the body, and as the beautiful American poetess Mary Oliver suggests in her exquisite poem”Allow the soft animal of your body to love what it loves…,”

Be both patient and persistent,

Allow life to teach you in both painful and pleasurable ways,

Invoke your authentic voice and give your greatest gifts, whatever that might look like for you,

Remain connected to both your inner world and present to the external reality,

Manifest beauty and harmony,

Invite in ease and flow,

Dance and sing your heart out, often

Honour divinity as a felt experience, unfolding moment by moment and steer clear of concepts about what spirituality ‘should’ look like,

Find the courage to be your totally imperfect self without shame,

Call up the devotion to ‘stay with it’ and keep opening,

Have the willingness to explore the rich terrain of the body and to surf the waves of the emotional tides,
Say yes to feeling lost and yes to the invitation to come back home.

The Sacred Feminine is there for you, in you, here are the questions she is asking you;

Are you accepting the invitation to feel?
Are you saying ‘fuck it’ and diving in anyway?
Are you getting drenched in the beauty of your being?
Are you doing what you want to do or what you think you should do?
Is your life a divine dance with the beloved?

With this recent surge in Sacred Feminine hype comes the potential for a vast array of bullshit, projections and misconceptions.
If you have developed a concept about what the Sacred Feminine is that makes you feel like you are somehow separate from ‘it’. If you think that you need to do something, or be something, to experience or earn ‘it’.
Then please throw that out and go back to square one.

Square one is-How do you feel, in your body, right now?

This is radical, this is beautiful, this is surprisingly challenging…yet it gets easier and yummier the more we give it a go.

We need to give it a go. Life on earth depends on it, and it would be a bleak place to be without the juiciness of the feminine. As woman ( and men!) we have a job to do, a joyful job, a labour of love, a path to dance on, a mystery to embody and unravel.

Act now and heed HER whispers,

One moment of felt truth at a time….

This is an article for every woman who yearns to live as her most radiant and deeply connected self.

As a teacher of Wild Sacred Feminine Arts and the proud resident of a womans body that yearns deeply for physical, tangible, embodied fulfilment… life has taken me on a little tour of the kinds of practices which facilitate the process of a woman’s body to blossom.

And before I hand you some little parcels of wisdom from my journey I would like to mention that as women we truly are like flowers, and we are designed to bloom as such, not just for a limited time, but in ever changing manifestations of our essential essence….Yes we grow and change constantly. But like the flowers that we are, if our roots are well tended and the conditions are good, then we will be all set for maximum bloom. I have found the following practices to be invaluable in nurturing the conditions that nurture our unique and radical blossoming as women.

1.Goddess temple time

Every juicy woman I know is dedicated to her goddess temple time and the self-honouring practices that she dives into at this time !!!

Feminine practices are practices which work with our feminine energy( our ‘Shakti’), activating it, building it, honouring it and channeling it.

Goddess Temple time is the time we create sacred space dedicated to US, to doing whatever we need to do to meet our own needs.

It is the time when we give our rich inner world the attention that it needs and allow the flow of energy within us to run free, replenishing us and cleansing us and preparing us to meet the world from a place of fullness.

2. Invite in your sexual self

One major difference between a standard yoga practice and this kind of juicy goddess temple time is that within Goddess Temple Space our sexuality and our emotional energy are welcomed and celebrated and explored and channelled .

To be a blossoming flower we need to spend some time in the mud; we need a time of the day where we can totally dive into and express our ‘negative’ emotions and allow space for the expression and healing of our sexuality. This time serves as rich fertilizer for the soil from which we can expand and blossom.

3. Full body prayer

Women’s bodies are incredible vehicles for prayer

-In other words, the feminine body has the potential to be a portal for radiance and aliveness that goes way beyond our personal selves.

When our body remembers that it is a part of the universe, connected to all the elements of the earth and the great love that pulses through all, then we blossom, pure and simple. It is not something we can understand.

This kind of prayer is not about making requests to a higher power it is about embodying the goddess within us.

It is about letting the breath take us out of our mind and into the deeper layers of our awareness.

Whatever ‘practice’ that you do, the big game changer comes when you let it take you out of your worries and fears and into your greatness. And then the radiance reflected in your body will reflect the expansive state you have opened yourself to.

3. Back bends

I do not mean back bends that you push yourself into; I am talking about the kinds of movements in which your whole body opens up to the sky, whilst staying strongly connected to the ground. When we physically open the space of our heart then something in us remembers to open wider, our breath deepens and we begin to feel hope and joy and desire to LOVE and be loved in our fullness, we connect to our open heart super power.

Heart opening movements accompanied by deep flowing breath as well as other techniques like the Taoist technique ‘The inner smile’, have the power to effect out physiology and, in turn, change our mood completely.

4.Breast massage

Our soft feminine bodies, what a wonder they are, so full of life and yummy tenderness, this is very much personified in our breasts. I highly recommend to give your breasts some touch every single day, whether you just place our hands there and rotate, or your take some time listening to the kind of touch your breasts are asking for…

The more activated your breasts are, the more your body will blossom, there are good hormonal reasons for this, but why not do some breast rotations now and notice how you feel afterwards.

5.Grounding

The earth is the ultimate source of yummy nourishing feminine energy.

If you go a day without contact with her, your blossom will be less blossom-y for sure…you are a flower, make sure you touch the earth everyday and bathe in her waters as regularly as you can. Consciously ‘fill up’ from HER incredible spring of aliveness, the Tao Tantric Arts are full of practices that allow us to connect to and refill form the natural elements. As someone who has the pleasure to share these practices I find that most women find them feel deeply wonderful and so natural.

6.Jade egg Practices

Your vagina is connected to your brain, it is also connected to your over-all sense of well-being

Whether you are sexually active with a partner or not, the jade egg helps you to awaken the different areas inside of your vagina this awakening dormant energy and charging up your essential energy in the process.

You can insert your jade egg during your goddess temple time to uplevel the whole process and bring more awareness into your sexual organs, as you will see, this brings more energy into everything that you do.

7.Honouring touch

Just like a flower, the feminine body is also here to be adored and what better way to do this than though soft caresses! Touch yourself with honour and invite others to do so also, this does not have to be sexual.

Touch can be a kind of prayer, a deep appreciation.

The body responds to loving touch by softening and opening and in turn our radiance shines forth from this deeply surrendered state.

So..dear beautiful flower you..i hope that you hope this article has helped you to become more excited about the incredible potential of your feminine body and empowered you to explore this yourself.

There is so much beauty to experience both within our pain and our joy and to become a open channel for life force is not only a service to ourselves but also to the world…

So BE the flower that you are , and be DEDICATED to creating the conditions to nurture this, to nurture YOU and the blossoming of your OWN UNIQUE FRAGRANCE.

The world needs YOU to be your most shiny self loving self !!!!​

We were not designed to settle with a life that is ‘just ok’, we are here to experience our own version of YES!

If we are really honest with ourselves we can see that we are at our happiest when we are stretching beyond who we thought we were and into a larger, more expansive, creative, confident and juicy version of ourselves..

But does that mean we need to drag ourselves, kicking and screaming in the direction of growth?? Does that mean we should be bullying ourselves out of our comfort zone and beyond?

Or is there another way to do it? a kinder way to do it?

I feel quite privileged to be a professional hand holder ( aka a coach) for women who want to step out of the comfort zone (which they have begun to notice is actually quite uncomfortable indeed.) And I have found that NO we do NOT need to bully ourselves out of our comfort zones, but that often the best approach to making profound shifts and life changes is to get out of our comfort zone in what I call ‘ the feminine way’.

What do I mean by feminine? i mean the more YIN way…

‘Feminine’ as in flowing, receptive, not pushing, not striving, not should-ing…

It is a way of engaging with our fears with sensitivity.

It is a way to move out of our comfort zones whilst feeling safe, connected and grounded.

(Basically, It is a way to grow and expand that honors the little one inside of us who is totally shit- scared.)

A small note about the masculine approach (which often fails to address the little ones needs)

First of all..there is nothing ‘wrong’ with a a more masculine ‘yang’ approach. With this approach you PUSH your way out of your comfort zone, at certain times this may be the ‘kick up the arse’ you need. But…

If you bulldoze your way through your fear, you may well have to, at some point, backtrack and deal with the fallout (which sometimes shows up as actual trauma) that often comes as a result of not listening to those tender parts of us that need patience and love.

Here is my approach to getting out of the comfort zone WITH patience and love.

1. Get to know the scared little person

I notice that every time I am about to move out of my comfort zone, I freak out. I am sure I am not the only one..we all have our own version of the little scared person who lives inside of us.

I encourage you NOT to try and push ‘her’ out of the way. Instead, take the time to get to know her, intimately.

These are the kinds of questions you can ask your scared little self to get transformative insights.

• What are you really afraid of?
• What do you need right now?
• What do you need to feel safe?

2. Make a deal with your little friend

Once you have made friends with the little scared one inside of you, you can begin to explore how you can best work together and make the journey out of the comfort zone ‘ok’ for every part of you.

Once you have formed this dialogue you will begin to see what her fears are, and most importantly, what her needs are, and you can make a deal…for example..

Maybe your little one will feel safe about letting go of your full time job if you let her know that you will line up some other kind of income first.

Perhaps she will feel ok about moving into relationship if you make the deal with her to keep connecting in with yourself, so as not to lose your self in the relationship.

Do you get the picture?

Parameters, boundaries and action plans all help the little one to feel safe..as do kind words of reassurance and a compassionate approach.

3. Giant leaps and baby steps.

Life will always move through periods of expansion and contraction. It is so natural whilst in a period of expansion out of your comfortable old shapes and patterns , for there to be a period of ‘OH FUCK!!!’ (ie:the freak out).

And you might as well accept that and work with that.

Sometimes its time for a great leap, sometimes it is more kind to take a baby step, sometimes you need to curl up and whimper for a while…and that should be totally allowed as long as you notice when it is the time to get up, brush yourself off and walk on, perhaps in baby steps..

4. Don’t try and do it all alone

I am someone who feels compelled to constantly move out of my comfort zone, just cause I know that that ultimately serves me. But I don’t try and do that without support. I KNOW that need hand holders and midwives to assist my great leaps, and baby steps out of the comfort zone.

Women need support, from other women

and if we don’t get it, we suffer, it truly is as simple as that. Don’t try and expand without support systems firmly in place, find your sisters, your midwives, your priestesses, without support you will become hardened.

Get Good at asking for help!!

(You want to stay soft and receptive as you grow, this only comes when you feel supported by your sisterhood)

Do this for your self, do this for your sisters, and if you do not have someone who you can cry on along the way, get one!

So… if you have been one of those women who bully themselves for not bring ‘good enough’ or tough enough or whatever enough then I am happy to say

YES !! You can work on your self with LOVE!!!!

Yes you CAN let go of the ‘should’.

You can be a brave warrioress, an empowered woman doing her thing in the world AND a crumbling wreck at moments. It really is ALL ok!!!!

I find that for most women, we thrive in a tender and yet uncompromising environment. And that when change evolves in fluid, responsive way, in alignment with our deep needs as women to feel safe, nurtured and connected to our natural feminine flow, then the transformation we experience is deep and long lasting.

And I will leave you with this reminder..

..the real reason we leave our comfort zones, is to enjoy a life which is more expansive and fulfilling…so remember to be EXCITED about the space beyond your comfort zone, and know every little baby step is a bold and wonderful movement to embodying your greatest truth.

Recently I have become super fascinated with SHAME!

And I want to speak about it, in fact I feel I MUST speak about it, for my healing, for the healing of all woman.

Why? Cause it needs to be spoken about. When we don’t speak about what we feel ashamed about then we keep the shame well and truly alive.

And why am I excited about blogging about shame?

It is because I want women to be free, and I can see with absolute clarity that shame is a weapon that our small self, in cahoots with the negative forces in this world, use to keep us down.  In other words…that part of us that self sabotages our growth and freedom and happiness, and which is mirrored in the world we create around us, keeps our ‘stuff’ locked in, and inaccessible, by covering them with shame.

But there is a way out of the game of believing our shame…

When we feel ashamed we feel small and worthless, and it is incredibly debilitating. When we feel shame about our bodies, and who we are, then shame holds a strong power over us, sucking our life force into its shadowy grip.

Shame robs us of our feeling of self worth. There are many kinds of shame, some we inherit, some we create over and over again through our inner self critic’s unkind dialogue. And sometimes shame is subtle and sneaky.. there are so many ways that we can come under the power of shame and consciously or unconsciously play the shame game.

I feel that we need to speak about shame, so that we can disempower what we feel ashamed about and empower ourselves in the process.

Have you had something that you felt really really awful about and you kept it to yourself and then when you finally did speak about it, sure you felt exposed for a bit, and it hurt, but then after that died down, you felt totally liberated?

Yep that is how it seems to work.

What we own and meet with love is drained of shame

Here are a few more pointers to how to stop playing the ‘ shame game’.

Be there for yourself uncompromisingly.

Shame is all about telling ourselves that who we are/what we have done/ what we feel, is unlovable, unacceptable and wrong.

Yet when we dedicate ourselves to the knowing that every single part of ourselves is inherently OK, judgment transforms into compassion.

As the midwives of transformation that we are as conscious evolving women, loving self acceptance is pretty much the most potent alchemical tool we can use. Unconditional love melts shame, it might take time, but it will, and we can cultivate this for ourselves. But it helps to ‘get to know’ our shame first.

Notice when you are ashamed

When your voice goes all funny, when your shoulders droop, when you have trouble keeping the gaze of another. These are all good telltale signs that the shadow of shame is present.

Feel it in your body

When we feel a feeling that we absolutely do not want to feel (it could be numbness in your sexual organs, it could be your desire, it could be your longings and achings and fear of exposure….) whatever it is, if we turn away from it, shame has done its job of leading us away from meeting and loving a part of ourselves…

So here is a trick, instead of turning away, explore it, become fascinated. How exactly does it feel? Is there a story line it is attached to? Hold a loving space for yourself to feel the shame and feel beyond the shame,

Be there for yourself, without compromise, invite the shameful feelings in for tea, feed it sweetness, unbridled compassion, take it into your embrace as the lost outlawed shunted traveller that it is. Give it a home in your heart.

 What is the shame telling you?

 Once shame is accepted you can investigate what the shame is telling you…is it an indicator that you are doing something out of integrity OR, as is often the case, it is showing you where you do not accept yourself the way that you are..

Share it in a space of love

Sometimes it is too hard to ‘go there’ and feel and investigate the shame so we can call in back up. My backups are nearly always sisters on the path who have a capacity to hold me and love me as I am.  If you do not have one of these yet then call them in or hire one (she/he could be a healer/teacher/ psychologist/friendly maternal toilet cleaner). (Or join the Nakedly Unashamed community of women now!)

One amazing sister who I have had the privilege of spilling my heart and guts to on occasion, shared with me the following story.

At a moment when she had received a hurtful careless comment, she had gone to the mirror and looked at herself and watched herself cry.  She opened her heart to herself as she did it, she did not shame that broken piece of herself, that hurt aching part; she met it and she loved it,  she asked what it needed.  It needed love!  She gave that love through her simple willingness to see it and meet it with compassion.

Learn from this amazing woman, we are all teachers and healers to each other on this crazy path of life.  We have an awesome capacity to love, we need to direct this at ourselves.

In the words of the Buddha; (I have paraphrased but you get the gist….).

‘You will not find anyone in the whole universe more worthy of love than yourself’

Did you get that? In other words…

Our hearts are big enough for every single damn bit of us, and we can extend the space to hold the wounded parts of our sisters too

This is the revolution we are living.

When chunks of shame become lightened and freed through our clear seeing and radical love, we become more whole, more alive, more real.

There is more space, more depth, more love.

And isn’t that what we hunger for?

Mine the depth of your being and you will find yourself free of the shame game and shining in the light of your own hard won truth.

Join your sisters in the Nakedly Unashamed Shame- Free challenge beginning on Jan 4, its FREE, it will be a container for you to explore shame and how to live shame free! Join here

Or if you need some one one one support then i would love to help you…

My deepest wish is for all women to live without guilt, fear and shame.

Contact me now for a free 20 min Skype consultation if you are interested in one of my coaching programs
 
 
 

Read my fabulous article on Elephant Journal Here

Is it just me, or has it been super intense of late…

Actually I know it is not just me…I witness in the many people that I encounter, that this is a time of challenge for many, whether you are feeling it physically, emotionally, financially or mentally…you are probably feeling it.

Feels to me like spirit is asking us all to pull our socks up and live to a higher level of integrity. The patterns we have been playing out in the past do not have a place in the future that we are collectively creating. In the process of becoming collectively more conscious these patterns are being illuminated for us to see clearly, to heal the issues under these patterns. And create a new story. 

It can feel all a bit scary…for me anyway..but some part of me knows that good things are being birthed, we are not being punished; we are being refined, we are being upgraded, we CAN pull our socks up, it is time…

And in the process of this upgrade I feel anyone who has any degree of awareness and sensitivity is experiencing some pretty dramatic phenomena playing out… Our own perfectly designed dramas eliciting the releases and realisations that are needed to facilitate this shift.

Oh how tempting it would be to ignore rather than explore the nature of our experience as we are being challenged…(anaesthetics in many forms being the preferred survival tactic for many…)

Yet a fully engaged relationship with our experience is likely to be the only way out of the particular patterns that we play out…

If there was ever a time when we need to learn healthy and loving ways to meet ourselves and our experience it is now…

The parts of us which are being poked…. are the parts of us looking for our attention, the circumstances which arrive and the emotions which are erupting are unlocking aspects of ourselves that previously lay beyond our conscious awareness.

You are a vast being, you have aspects of yourself in which you are very developed, exceptional and wise. And you probably also have parts of you that are deeply entrenched in a sense of fear and separation. Your deep unresolved issues keep you playing out stories from the past, rather than living in the way that you truly want to be living. It is a time when all this can come to the surface to be seen and accepted.

The wise parts as well as the confused and scared and stuck parts….You are all of it , and none of it, accept it all as it appears. Then from a place free of shame you can be in a position to survey the bigger picture.

SHE does not mistakes

Whatever shape your challenges have come in, no matter the mental stories that they create, know that ALL of it has a part to play …whatever higher power you resonate with, understand that it does not make mistakes, this whole drama is not random…your pain is not for nothing…( I promise!)

The next step after acceptance of the different aspects of you is to extend the field of your acceptance into every aspect of your story and understand that truly ALL this is a part of the plan…there is a bigger picture, we are all walking ourselves out of a intricate and magnificent maze of illusion.

Through engaging consciously with the process that life has designed for US (in the form of the challenges that life is bringing to our attention) sooner or later we walk out of the maze into a new realm. In the process we become an instrument of the divine, birthing new ways of being, new levels of seeing.

 Staying on track

 As I navigate my life, as a deep diver, brave enough to explore my reality (and if you are reading this you probably are either doing this or you are ready to). I for one am looking for ways to ‘stay on track’ when my mind takes control and I fall into overwhelm.

I notice that when I am ‘ in the thick of it’ and feel like curling up and escaping from it all…that I am looking for an escape from the intensity from my feelings, and I am also looking for a way to escape evolving. Curling up and whimpering is totally fine for a while(in fact I recommend it especially if you can curl up somewhere out in the nature) but ultimately I find my way through by remembering the bigger truth. That I am an expression of spirit, in human form, this pickle that I find myself in, in terms of being a vulnerable human running around in particular circles, is superimposed upon a bigger truth.

 The truth that I am free already… completely superbly whole… ultimately I know exactly what I am doing, nothing is wrong, and despite this fear/ anger/ misery/ apathy and frustration.. I am in fact a superconductor for the divine, I am balanced between heaven and earth, I am connected to everything, and I am an instrument for healing as I traverse this path of self healing.

 What else to do in the midst of what can feel like a complete mess but try and find that thread that connects us out of the head fuck and into an experience of the bigger truth?

The way that my body and mind can truly comprehend the bigger reality is through embodying it; through experiencing myself as energy and intelligence; so much more vast than the limited mind and its fixations.This not a mind trip, it is a reality; I AM actually made up of energy. And when I get out of my head and into an awareness of this then my story does not feel so hopeless, it is seen to be what it is..a story…a story created with a purpose, to bring healing and awareness.

Constant reminders to self…

 How I would love to offer you, and myself, the magic potion to make all our pains go away. Instead I offer you what I offer myself… constant reminders to self!

That you are ok as as you, you haven’t irreversibly fucked up, you are not really stuck in a ditch never to find the way out of the maze… you are plodding along in the direction of exactly where you need to go and you deserve oodles of compassion and self care along the way.

Hand on belly and heart

These reminders are best accompanied by a physical gesture. Go on and do it now!

Place one hand on your belly and one hand on your heart. Once you have fully ‘arrived’ in your body whisper to yourself the higher wisdom you need to remember right now.

Sweetly coax yourself back into a space of loving compassion for where you are and what is going on. From that loving place open yourself to receive the higher truth that life is asking you to come back to right now. Or just breathe…that’s enough too…

A channel between heaven and earth

 In lieu of that magic balm, I leave you with one more practice that helps me stay on track…

 No matter how tender I am, I make a point of finding a bit of nature and do Chi Gung. Chi Gung is so simple that you can have a go even if you are feeling phenomenally resistant and is therefore perfect for when you feel disconnected and heady. Through Chi Gung present moment awareness and inner integrity become places of focus for the wayward mind and simple gestures of connection offer reference points for the physical body to align with.

Heaven and earth alignment is a simple practice to bring us back into alignment, back into ‘super conductor mode’ rather than’ crumpled and lost mode’. Here is how you do it;

Go out into the nature, bend your knees a little and tuck your pelvis in so you feel grounded. Spread your hands above your head as If you are embracing the sky, connect to the quality of the sky, spacious and infinite, open up the crown of your head to be filled with this open sky quality. Then bring your hands together and imagine you are bringing the vastness of the sky down through your body, bring you hands all the way down to the earth and connect to the quality of the earth, solid and supportive and nourishing…let your mind connect to the vibration of mother earth, and once you feel this connection imagine that you are drawing this energy up with your hands up into your lower belly. Then rest there, feeling your body in perfect alignment between earth and sky.

To feel aligned with the part of you who is infinitely wise is to connect to the quality of the sky (the heavens). To feel in touch with the earth is to connect with that part of you who feels supported by life and is ready to face the challenges that come with gifts of growth…

It is so important for us to have a cosmic bat belt full of practices that show us back to a view of the bigger picture, enough so that we can breathe a bit and allow the next step to evolve out of a healthy space.

May you keep on reminding yourself of the higher truth whenever you ‘forget’. May you honour your unique path and may your journey be gentle and kind and supported, with an eye on the bigger truth as you. Life is asking you to pay attention.Stay with it!

 ….Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things…

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Do you need some extra support ?

I would love to hold space for you to get a better view of the bigger picture and to access the gifts wrapped up in your challenges..I offer individual Skype sessions and coaching programs-feel free to contact me now about either.