Nature and healing

What a contrast of weather this weekend, from dull and foggy on Saturday to blissful summer temperatures on Sunday.  We tried to make the most of it yesterday, such a rare treat to find yourself celebrating Mabon, and the Autumnal Equinox on such an incredibly beautiful day.

We managed a swim at high tide down at Petit Bot, bliss, only us, which again is a true blessing to living on this Island and awakening early.  The tides are high at the moment, which makes for a very quick entry, we swam at high tide on Saturday too, and probably because the air temperature was cooler than day, the sea felt warmer.  Needless to say it makes for a refreshing beginning to the day, and opportunity to clear our the nasal passages - who needs a neti pot when you have the whole ocean at your feet...or nose - before a lovely warm shower to invigorate the skin.

I cycled to pregnancy Yoga through the quiet lanes, it is lovely to be out and about on Sunday mornings when the roads are so much quieter than usual.  There were 3 new people at the class, which served as a good reminder to me of how nerve wracking it really can be beginning Yoga.  One of the ladies was particularly nervous and while the teacher did her best to out the lady at ease, reminding us all that Yoga is non-competitive in approach, you start where you are at and work with your breath to encourage ease to your body and mind, it did make me realise how easy it is to forget - when you have a regular Yoga practice - that we do live in this world of perceived good/bad, wrong/right etc etc.

Of course one of the many joys of Yoga is that it helps us to let go of these judgements a little, not least in terms of judging oneself, but also in terms of deciding if something is indeed good or bad, because often this changes over time.  It is the same with our practice, in so much as when we begin perhaps there are poses that we find more challenging, or that we feel we really can't do (whatever that really means) and yet over time that does indeed change so that we find it becomes our favourite pose and that we can practice it with some ease.  Yoga reminds us that everything is impermanent and subject to change and best to let go of this fixed mind and be open to all possibilities.

As for beginning Yoga, however, the judgement, especially to self, is so deeply grained that many may contact and express an interest in attending Yoga, but never mange to make it through the door.  They have limited themselves before they have even begun.  And I am not saying that Yoga is a boon for everyone, we all have a way of finding our peace and journey to enlightenment, but it does sadden me a little that we don't even give ourselves a chance, that life has already make us decide that there is no changing to be done, or indeed undone.  And some do bravely make it through the door, but spend the whole session comparing themselves to others that they never return again.

We followed Yoga with another trip down to Petit Bot to have a quick catch up with the family, the sun beginning to break through, low tide now, such a lovely beach when it is so quiet as it was yesterday!  And from there on to Lihou Island for the annual duck racing fundraiser.  So much fun, especially for the children and of course a great way of bringing everyone together.  I do love Lihou and the fact you feel like you are getting away form it a little. It was super hot and we walked around the Island and sat and watched the sea, a low pressure must be on its way as the waves are building.  The colours were amazing, such a richness to the light at this time of year.

Back on Guernsey and we walked around St Germain Nature Reserve trying to find some blackberries.  What a gem this place is.  The whole time we were there we only saw one other woman.  It is just so peaceful and so vibrant in energy.  It reminded me of an article I had read in the "Style" section of the Sunday Times earlier that day.  In it there was is an article entitled, "My choice" about a lady who chooses a natural approach to treating cancer.  It reads,

"When Bond was researching her book, she found several common traits among people who had managed to beat cancer on their terms - the ability to overcome the fear of death and dying being one of them.  "There are practical steps, like mindfulness and not getting caught up in catastrophic thoughts about the future", She says, "And being out in nature, where you feel part of the bigger picture".  One doctor told her that faith in what they were doing "creates a sense of relaxation, and that's when healing occurs.  If you're afraid, pumped full of adrenalin and cortisol, these conditions aren't conducive to healing".

Now I have heard this many times before, I know it to be true from my own healing, not from cancer necessarily, but healing nonetheless.  In fact only that morning the pregnancy teacher was talking about the need to remain calm while giving birth to prevent the fear taking control and causing all sorts of problems with the shift in hormone levels.  This is true.  And this is the joy of mindfulness, of breathing mindfully, of Reiki, of Yoga, of all these healing modalities that, essentially, encourage one to relax, thereby helping to create the environment for healing to take place.

But the other point that struck me about the article, that again I know to be true from my own experiences and that I try to impart on others, especially those experiencing depression, anxiety or a general shut down to life and its possibilities, is to get out into nature, because that truly does help to get our feet back on the ground and remind us of the bigger picture and our part within that.  And what better place than St Germain Nature reserve.  I tell you, there is something extra especially powerful about the energy up there, all that new life perhaps and the views of the fields and the trees and the sea in the distance.  So if you do find yourself feeling under the weather, and even if you don't, then take yourself up there and enjoy some quite moments.

But talking of healing, I was reading Pema Chodron's wonderful book, "Living Beautifully" in between activities yesterday and there was a bit that struck me as it seemed to fit in nicely with my thought processes at the moment about how people can often get stuck in their spiritual practice, or their healing too.  You see it regularly, people moving from one modality to the other, from one perceived wonderful healer to another, hoping that by seeing said wonderful healer, their whole life will be changed, their problems resolved and all done for them by someone else.  Nope, not going to happen.  All that does happen is you spend an awful lot of money searching for the miracle cure, that is actually within yourself, if only you could stop giving your power away to others.  Only it is more than that too, and Pema knocks it on the head when she writes:

"Wanting to escape pain is the reason that many people start on a spiritual path.  It can be a good motivator, because it drives us to look for answers. The problem is, most of us spend our entire life going from one promise to another, never staying with the pain long enough to learn anything from it".

I was reminded of this again last night at the lovely NCT RSB Yoga session with Anita where we held practice contractions, basically sitting against a wall without a chair so that your thigh muscles burn and scream at you to move away.  The idea is that you breathe into the discomfort, as you would do during a contraction, and accept the pain (and fear that sometimes goes with it) rather than running away from it, as this will often make it worse.  In fact this is another one of the joys of Yoga really, that you stay with what is arising, be that your thighs screaming at you, or your hips in pigeon pose and you breathe and over time you notice how the sensation changes, pain changes, it transforms into something else.  And then it is over, it happened, time to move on, impermanence, just like nature, everything changes, more warm weather today, next week it will no doubt be cold again, today leaves on trees, next week they could all have been shed. 

I shall leave you with Pema's wonderful words:

"May we all learn that pain is not the end of the journey, and neither is delight.  We can hold them both - indeed hold it all - at the same time, remembering that everything in these quixotic, unpredictable, unsettled and unsettling, exhilarating and heart-stirring times is a doorway to awakening in sacred world".

With much love x

Heal thyself

So the full moon has now passed and soon we will be celebrating the Autumn Equinox on the 22^nd September when we experience a time of equal day and equal night.  The purpose of celebrating the Autumnal Equinox is twofold; firstly we want to give thanks for all our blessings and achievements, and secondly we want to project for the ability to maintain that which we possess – it does no good to manifest a goal if you cannot hold onto it.

For those of us who established a goal at the beginning of the year then it should now have manifested, or at least be well within our reach.  Technically, this is a time to give thanks for all the blessings we have received throughout the year.  And what a year too.  It may just be in the lives of those around me, but there is certainly a lot of change happening in the next few months, house moves, country moves, job moves, new babies, the whole works.  This is definitely a year to be reminded of the impermanence of everything.

I have noticed that there is an awful lot of illness too and with that the opportunity for healing.  I keep meaning to write an article about this, in terms of my experience of illness and healing, which is personal to me I guess and may be of no interest to anyone else, but I do find the healing process fascinating nonetheless as there is so much out there to help us, although ultimately we have to do the work and this can be hard work indeed.  It is like Louise Hay's says, "If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed".

This is the reason yoga can be so healing and yet also rather confronting as it provides the opportunity for healing, well, at least, the opportunity for us to be deeply honest with ourselves, which is often the precursor for healing to take place.  That and letting go, only that sometimes we don't know what it is we should be letting go of.  Nature can be helpful in this respect too, spending time alone in it, that is.  Walking in nature, sitting in nature, just being one with nature.  Sometimes this helps to provide the clarity one needs to know what is going on, deep down, on a soulful heart felt level then.

Last weekend we got to enjoy the nature of Jethou.  Now that was really rather special.  Jethou is a private Island beside Herm.  The owners kindly opened it up to raise funds for Les Bourgs hospice and we managed to get tickets to go and visit.  What a lovely island, so many different eco systems, I could quite easily lose myself there for some time, although of course I wouldn't really be losing myself, if anything I would probably be very connected to the self, because the Island has that kind of energy, where you can simply be with yourself without the distraction of the rest of the world with all its business and noise and concerns.  Well worth a visit if you ever get a chance.

Anyhow I am very much thankful at this Autumn Equinox, 31 weeks pregnant today, the little bean is growing well, a miracle no less, there are blessings wherever we look.

With much love

x

Those grooves, those hips!

My car broke down on Saturday afternoon, on a hill, on a corner.  Thankfully it was a one-way road, there are small mercies.  We got it going again only for it to break down a little further along the road, by Waitrose, on a busy Saturday afternoon, where's the luck.  It wads quite an experience actually, because I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.  The pregnancy hormones don't help of course and I could feel the anger and frustration moving in.  Thankfully E took control of the situation and while we had to spend an hour in Iceland carpark (another novel experience), before we knew it the car was whisked away by AA and we were left to walk home on foot.  The funny thing is, I had only just washed my car a matter of hours earlier.

Anyhow the whole experience has been quite a blessing.  No car means no rushing around and means learning to accept the kindness of others and ask for help in getting around when necessary.  Funnily enough two lessons I have been struggling to learn the last few months, but which will no doubt set me up perfectly for the months ahead when the bean arrives and I find that I can no longer rush around, nor do it all on my own.  Funny how the Universe works!

I do find that it is rather marvellous really, how the Universe does encourage us to learn. Look at Kerry Katona, bankrupt for a second time.  I read an article with her recently where she said we need to learn from our mistakes of the past and move forward into the future.  I wonder if she has now learned her lesson or whether she will be declared bankrupt for a third time in the future.  Not that I am judging, only that it seems obvious to me how the Universe does indeed create the situations for us to learn from old mistakes, and if we keep making the same mistakes, it will keep providing us with the opportunity to learn again, be that in our relationships, our careers or our lifestyle choices.

Essentially it is all about breaking the patterns.  And sometimes the patterns are very deeply ingrained.  You can think of them like grooves, the more you keep repeating the same movement, the deeper and more ingrained the groove will become.  Changing the pattern is the tricky bit, because more often than not the pattern is deeply ingrained in the mind.  And the mind is a tricky thing, very powerful.

That is one of the reasons I have always found Yoga so enlightening and helpful.  Not only does it awaken us to the grooves in our life, but it helps us to reprogram so that we, essentially, make different choices and create more positive grooves than support us rather than hinder us.  After all, we all want to be happy and yet more often than not we, yes us, we are the cause of our own unhappiness. if someone else talked to us the way we talk to ourselves, well they probably wouldn't be our friends.  All that judging, about the way we look, about our ability to do this or do that, and all the fears we create too, let alone the limitations, who needs an enemy when we are more often than not the biggest enemy we will ever meet.

We looked at this a little last night during class, about the concept of "ahimsa", the first of the yamas, the ethical principles of Yoga as set out by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra.  Ahimsa means non-harming to self and others.  More often than not we will consider the non-harming to others aspect of this yama, in terms of our relationship with others, without also considering the non-harming aspect to ourselves.  This is the very ground of the practice, the foundation from which all other choices evolve.  How enlightening, and yet how scary to let go of any effort to harm the self...

As Cyndi Lee says, "Letting ahimsa be your guide means, at the very least, don't be a nuisance.  We often think of ourselves as nuisances to ourselves, but if we take a closer look we might see how we get in the way of our own happiness, how we create our own suffering, through habitual pulling and pushing.  This tendency to engage in personal tugs-of-war shows up frequently in seated poses, especially forward bends and hip openers".  For those of you at class last night, or those of you who practice forward bends and hip openers in your own practice then this probably rings true.  These poses can often take you to the heart of the matter - it is often said that the hips contain our ability to manifest the expression of our heart throughout the world.

So I am without a car, which can only be good for my hips as I have to walk quite a bit instead!  This is a joy in itself, okay so the rain is not ideal, well not when you have to walk into work, but it is a lovely opportunity to embrace the seasonal change, the leaves turning brown and falling from the trees, the hedgerows of ripening blackberries, the changing skies with those wonderful autumnal clouds, that smell, ah yes times they are a changing.  In fact we have a full moon this Thursday and the autumnal equinox on Saturday, where we experience an equal balance of night and day.

So let the change flow, tap into the grooves, see what isn't working ad let it go, you can do this through your Yoga practice, by practicing those seated and hip opening poses that challenge you, by breathing through them and changing the attitude with which you do so.  meditate too, that is so powerful in helping us to recognise the mental conditioning and changing the way we "see" things.  Yoga Nidra too, such a powerful tool with the opportunity to establish a Sankalpa and let go.  And then of course just getting to a Yoga class, making that step, well that starts to change things in itself.

Happy week everyone.

xxx

Yoga Body, Buddha mind, a wonderful weekend in London

Wow, that was the most inspiring and enlightening Yoga workshop I have attended.  For me, Cyndi Lee is a true inspiration, her teachings resonate on every level and I can only aspire to be as effective a Yoga teacher as she is when I am a similar age.

She has helped to answer a lot of the questions running through my mind, not least on the Yoga mat, but more so on the Buddhism that has attracted my heart and mind for many years but has only recently manifested into a practice and way of living, and even then, it is of course a work in progress.

I loved the meditations, the teachings, the sharing, and of course the practice.  It was so liberating to be treated as yet another student and not to experience the usual warning alarms that come with being pregnant. Instead I was left to tap into my own innate wisdom and decide for myself, and indeed for the bean, what felt right in terms of practice on my mat.  Very kindly, there was little that I could not practice, for the sequencing was, on the whole, pregnancy friendly.  Whether I shall live to regret practicing as strongly as I did, handstands and all, remains to be seen, but it was so empowering to be able to just do what felt right in that moment.

It is fascinating this pregnancy malarkey, in terms of the amount of fear that comes with it.  Not least the worry that one experiences in terms of whether everything is okay with the growing baby that you cannot see, but also all the fear surrounding you from midwives and indeed other people, all the things you are told you cannot do any more, even if you feel that really, you can.  All the messages out there about what is right and wrong.  Honestly it is draining and probably one of the reasons I am trying my hardest to step back from it all, all the books, all the tales of birthing and beyond, all the concepts of parenting, all the information that is now available at the touch of a finger.  So much for our own innate wisdom, I can't help feeling that we are just getting further away from all this.

The same goes in life generally.  And I guess that was one of the joys of the weekend, to remember what this Yoga malarkey is all about, and more importantly what this yoga teaching malarkey is all about - a commitment then to an awakened existence, to help others also awaken and manifest as enlightened beings.  To touch in and live and experience life through your own wisdom, more clarity, less confusion, so you are less inflicted by your fears and concerns - less attachment and aversion, less suffering, more happiness, happier world.

The physical practice of vinyasa, which really means 'to place in a special way', that every cause has an effect, is wonderfully awakening, present moment and liberating.  Each afternoon I left class buzzing, eyes wide own, calm and very centred.  It is fun, a joyous experience seeing what the body can do - what the mind, then, enables the body to do, to move beyond the limitations of the mind, to address that "I can't" attitude, which shows up on the Yoga mat all the time, and therefore shows up in life too.  All those negative tendencies that we adopt throughout our life, that prevent us from living as fully as we may like...or as we can, if only we would allow ourselves to.

It was wonderful to be free and anonymous in London too, to walk lots, to enjoy some yummy vegetarian food, to have a hotel room all to myself (small pleasures) and to be able to look around the shops, albeit lacking in pregnancy clothes in London as much as in Guernsey!

A huge thank you to Cyndi and indeed to my travelling partner, fellow yogini and friend, Jackie, for a fantastic weekend.

With love and much gratitude.

xx

Shiva dancing

Wow what a week, Shiva has been dancing in our lives again, so much destroying and letting go, no doubt to enable us to re-create and with that grow.  My whole being feels as if it has been tossed and turned and shaken upside down and all around in a washing machine.  Phew.  Talking to friends I know I am not alone, change is most definitely in the air, never felt it so strongly in such a short period of time.

The changing season is most definitely in the air and having enjoyed the most amazing summer I am personally ready for the change.  I just love the autumnal weekends with crisp sky and that beautiful Autumnal light, blackberry and apple picking for wholesome pies, let alone all the tomatoes and beans and the butternut squash on their way.  Exciting times indeed!

I had the most lovely Sunday yesterday, waking to feel the autumnal shift in the air, a gentle bike ride to morning pregnancy Yoga followed by a lovely sunshine filled walk through the St Andrew's lanes with a dear friend, putting the world to rights and helping to vocalise the events of the past few days. We picked beans up at E's sister's allotment, such a gentle energy up there, before pottering in a garden centre and swimming in the sea at Cobo at high tide.  We enjoyed a glorious sunset last night having eaten down on the west coast, the perfect end to a lovely calm day.  Nature abounds with beauty.  Thank you.

So the schools return this week and with that, a routine to life appears again.  For me personally, it is an exciting week of Yoga as I am off this weekend to London for a final training course before the bean arrives.  I am just so excited to be going to spend the whole weekend with a dear friend and Cyndi Lee, one of the most inspiring Yoga teachers in my life these days.  Such great timing, I just can't wait to absorb the energy and wisdom of her teachings to enhance my own practice and my teaching too.

Talking of teaching, the Autumn schedule begins in earnest next week, that is also exciting, due to changing personal and work commitments there have had to be some changes which sees the classes moving to St Martin's, at least for now, will be strange having hiked up to St Peter's for the last 5 years or so.  So there is more change you see, even in my world of Yoga teaching!

The new moon appears on Thursday, I am hopeful that this will bring some degree of calmness after the turbulence of the last weeks or so - that certainly was a very powerful last full moon!

With much love and gratitude.

xxx