Up against it, lessons to learn, the mystery of the feminine
Well that was definitely a very potent solar eclipse we had on 25 October, followed six days later by Samhain, representing the cycle of death and regeneration, of the dying of the old and the birth of the new, where the veil between worlds is thin and there are doors opening and closing simultaneously. The eclipse merely added to this energy.
In between all this, and perhaps with perfect timing, I launched my latest book, From Darkness Comes Light, which was a death of sorts as it turned out triggering old patterns around vulnerability, which caused a momentary drop into the darkness, ironic perhaps, given the content of the book, and yet a gift from the book. As this allowed me to dig deeper still, to see what still needed healing, of the old wounds and patterns of behaviour that are now unhelpful that pop up when I am feeling vulnerable.
Of course the eclipse bubbled in its additional triggers and the lessons have been pretty nonstop ever since. I know many of you have been experiencing this too, being challenged in many ways, to allow you to see more of your older patterns, which require healing - lessons finally learned perhaps, so that these patterns are not repeated again and can drop away now.
For me the doors were definitely closing too and uncomfortable as this process can sometimes be, I am also aware of its necessity. The publication of the book was most definitely an ending to a chapter in my life and brought with it a closing door. An incident happened soon after that further played into this, which asked me to dig deeper and to see the theme, still around vulnerability and being on the receiving end of attack and unfounded criticism. I’m grateful to the individual who brought this in, for it helped enormously to see what was no longer aligned in my life and let that door close without pushing against it.
I realise that I am now done with mental health as a healing focus, and especially being a facilitator for those who wish to perpetuate their victimhood, who are not prepared to take responsibility and blame others for their life situation. I am grateful to Guernsey Mind for all the wonderful clients they have sent to me for Reiki and indeed yoni yoga over the years, and for providing much needed work during the pandemic, but it is time now time to allow that door to close, and to step into the new, whatever that may bring, but away from mental health as a focus of my healing work.
There were other doors closing and lessons to learn. Ironic really, and yet, not, that one of my last proper blog posts was on the mother wound and the effect of patriarchy on our feminine energy and how we really need to reclaim this, if we hope to move away from the control and power dominated society that we currently live in. And yet there I was, still doing and pushing in a masculine way, allowing my mind to lead the show, because it can be very strong at times, caught up in the patriarchal energy of outcome, productivity and achievement so deeply ingrained in my psyche that while I may be aware, conscious of it, I still allow it to control me - another irony.
Of course there are times when it doesn’t. When I hear the voice of my heart and my soul. But when life is busy then it is easy to kid myself that I am hearing my heart, when really I am only hearing my mind and all it demands of me with its focus towards outcome, achievement and productivity, and usually follows a pattern already lived, because this is the nature of the mind, it requires safety and therefore follows a path that is already tried and tested. The heart, on the other hand, asks only that we be true, and this often means that life is lived on an edge, of not knowing and no certainty, but of deep trust and faith instead.
The universe tried to get me to see this, but of course the mind was too stuck in its ways. And as much as I tried to listen to my heart, because it was aching and demanding my attention, I couldn't get clarity, because I was too caught up in the noise of the mind. What I did know though, was that my body, my heart, were both screaming out for rest, to stop, for a change in direction, but my mind was determined to just keep on going - and this, despite my awareness!
When space did present itself in my life, I was grateful, my heart especially, but my mind quickly filled it with the demands of jobs that it believed needed doing, of something that needed producing, of something more to achieve, another box to tick. I could see this clearly, I was conscious of it, but I couldn’t stop it, the pathway so ingrained that it was difficult to change it. It became clearer that we have these Samskaras, habits then, grooves, that might begin healthily, as a way to protect us, keep us safe, but that become unhealthy when we keep repeating them, knowing that they are now outdated and causing us suffeirng.
I was aware, for example, that daily sea swimming was making me very cold, and I was taking half the day to warm up, which was challenging my adrenal glands and stress levels, but my mind was so used to fitting this into the day, it was a habit I formed about 13 years ago now to help ease feelings of depression, and I clung onto it, because of that, because it was what I always do, because a part of my identity is tied up in it, and also, in fairness, because I enjoy getting to the beach daily, looking for beach treasure and enjoying the calmness of that environment. But, whether I needed to keep swimming, during the colder months, is another matter entirely.
There are so many things we do, pathways we set, whether it’s yoga or working to at the gym, running or following a particular diet, that begin healthily and that enhance our wellbeing, but that over time create our suffering because a part of us has changed and we need to change the way we practice yoga or work out, or exercise or eat to accommodate the change within us. There’s this wonderful saying that if we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we have always got - the wisdom comes in knowing when to make the change, when to honour the heart and soul and body and let go of the bind of the mind.
I also began to notice how we define ourselves by what we do, how we can limit ourselves because of this, and - as I have mentioned in previous blog posts - how we can care too much at times about what other people think. of us to the extent that we don’t follower heart, but live accordingly to other people’s expectations of and dreams for us. Also because we wonder who we might be if we let go of such and such an identity, or do things differently and what that might mean for our lives generally. In short, we get used to living a certain way to the extent that we don’t think it can be lived differently until a change is forced upon us either through illness or through life events.
Furthermore, we become so used to always doing, for example, that we don’t realise how much we are doing, because it becomes our norm. My norm has always been to do and to achieve, to study, to obtain certificates, to fill any available space for fear of not doing and being perceived as being unproductive or lazy, and/or a failure. When I dug deeper, I realised not least the depth of my conditioning, but the fears that drove my behaviour, not around worth per se, but around fear of safety, a fear that has been drilled into all of us since the moment we are born, because of our fear around our security
It is the fear which motivates so much of our behaviour, makes us into good citizens, whatever that might mean - it is the ultimate control, the hold that patriarchy still has on us. Furthermore, I am the result of the society I grew up in, of what it might mean to be an equal and empowered women, a worker, a busy bee, to always be doing to to create an outcome, to produce an end result, to have something to prove my worth and validate my usefulness in society.
Even with this awareness it has been challenging to change these patterns, to stop, pause, take time out, cease the incessant drive towards doing and productivity. I could see my patterning very clearly around exhaustion and I knew that I was treading a thin line. All around me this was being highlighted, through friends and students and clients, who have embodied what happens when we do too much and push beyond what we can hold, and the resulting immune-compromised illnesses, dis-orders and conditions which arise and which are challenging to heal.
When we keep pushing and doing, when we hold on to unresolved aspects of self, when we stress our bodily systems, and we find ourselves living in a way that is out of nature to us individually, it is understandable that something has to give - the inner tension of trying to hold so much, of this being our norm and yet always stretching us, causes disharmony within the mind and body and causes dis-ease. It doesn’t help that our society itself asks us to live a way that doesn’t always feel natural, that asks more of us than we can give, that leaves us depressed, stressed, anxious exhausted and at times, empty.
I began to notice how many people keep telling me that they don’t know how I managed to do all that I do. Yet to me it doesn’t seem a big deal. I do it, all of it, because I have always done it all. Yet when I think back, I can see how crazy it looks. Each time I have had a baby I have thrown myself into further study; an advanced yoga therapy course with Elijah, a Yoga Nidra course with Eben. This is because studying is a safe space for me and when life throws me new challenges and uncertainty then I study!
With Eben I did raise the stakes though, not only studying but I chose his arrival into the world to finally get on with publishing not one but two books within the space of about six months. What was I thinking? Was I mad? Probably. Yes, the books were written from the heart but the mind controlled the timing and the pressure to get them done then. Is it any wonder that it was about that time that I started suffering a skin condition which reflects not only the internal pressure of always doing, but indicates a lack of love for self because of all the doing.
How can we possibly truly love ourselves when we do so much. It is like we are the work horse and the person who whips the work horse simultaneously, our minds pushing our bodies.. Is it any wonder that we get to periods of our life where we crash. It’s not sustainable. Something has to give. And we can only hope that at some point we might wake up to the fact that we are really giving ourselves a very hard time. The trouble is, this too is normalised. Most people give themselves a hard time. Most people make choices which aren’t always kind to them selves, but they do it because it is expected of them, because we are a society which doesn’t place a lot of value on self-love and self-appreciation, and doing nothing and resting.
I heard my friends and students and clients making their own excuses, just as I heard my own excuses in my mind. But I was starting to hear another voice too, one that I had consistently ignored because this is who I am and this is what I do. Or am I? And do I? This voice, talked of simplicity and quietness, of just being, of the basics, of good food to eat, not rushed, of playing with children, not rushed, of watching the birds in the garden, not rushed, of lying in bed and chilling out, not rushed, of a day spent pottering, without plans, not rushed. My soul has been craving, longing for me to notice the imbalances in my life. My heart literally hurt with the pain of living a life out of balance.
But I could see no way out, because of the depth of my habitual patterning. This to the extent that when a gap finally presented itself in my life rather than resting into it, I did what I do best and signed up for an online course to study to be a spiritual life coach. I laugh about this now because as I watched the videos and completed the course content I realised that I’m already working in that capacity and have been doing so for some time, but clearly on some level, I felt I needed a certificate to validate this to myself let alone the world.
What was also funny was the fact that I have been questioning our current obsession with courses and trainings, let alone women’s circles and cacao ceremonies, which can all play a significant role in helping us, but can become yet another unhealthy habit, when we lunge from one to the next, a distraction almost, not least from going deeper within, but from truly owning our experience and inner knowledge and wisdom.
It’s crazy when you think about it, that we place more value on someone else’s experience and their ‘way’, than we do on our own. Sure, sometimes it can be helpful to be shown a way. I enjoyed reading Wim Hoff’s book, for example, where he shares his way, but that’s his way not mine and to replicate it means I’m not necessarily being truthful to myself.
Furthermore, we have a habit of aways thinking that others know more on a subject than we know ourselves. We have a fear sometimes of charging money for our knowledge and life experience, and feel more comfortable doing so only when we have a certificate to validate it. It’s a really interesting exploration by the way, the one of training and certification. I always think of a tiger being trained in a circus. At some point in its training that tiger has to lose its tiger ness because it is being trained to be something it is not…this leads to the question - does all our training just train us to be something we’re not too? It’s like the cosmic joke - all this external searching for what is only ever found on the inside.
Even with this knowledge, the pattern was well established and I still did the online course. Was it helpful? Well it helped me realise all this so in many respects it worked its magic, and was all part of the process. Would I do it again? No. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m done with courses, with online evening learning, of the need for certification.
However there was one further incident that was to make this even clearer to me because I was due to attend a Tantra course in the UK last weekend. I love Tantra and I really enjoyed the online Tantra mystery sessions that I joined online earlier this year. There was no certificate, nothing to achieve, just the experience of going deeper within and embracing Tantric practices to help liberate the mind, heal any body issues and help expand consciousness. It was exactly what I needed at the time. I am not a fan of groups but with it being online, it made it easier somehow, and I could switch off from the group energy whenever I needed, mute myself, turn off the screen.
Finishing the sessions I felt I might like to learn more, despite the fact I have already been incorporating Tantra into my life for some time and more so since Beltane. But the trouble is the Tantra School offers a seven-course step to achieve a higher Tantra outcome. I knew I couldn’t really afford it, not least the time away, because each course demands three nights plus any extras to allow for travelling, but financially too, I also don’t enjoy group sessions, especially not residential, but alas my mind was attached to the outcome of what I might learn, and it made excuses, convinced me that it was the right choice to make.
And maybe it is, but there is a timing to everything and clearly this is not the right time. But I didn’t know that then and I signed up, and hoped for the best, ignored the niggles of doubt around room sharing, experience, cost and time away, and tried to keep focused on the imagined Tantric outcome. Ha! As the course approached I realised I was running on empty but what could I do, I was signed up now, and it was taking place in Cornwall and Cornwall has lots of stone circles and menhirs and that was a rather exciting prospect, even though all I really wanted to do was switch off from the world, stop and rest.
And well the universe agreed, and what followed was hilarious really, because I was incapable of making that decision for myself and giving myself what I needed - a break no less. Sadly the break came in ways I hadn’t expected but this was the way to get my attention at least.
A week before I was due to attend the course, my car wouldn’t start. I was at a friend’s house at the time, it wasn’t ideal. E and the children had to come and collect me and while we managed to get the car to the garage it transpired that a piece of seaweed has wrapped itself around some part of the engine and the battery was virtually flat - nature really had intervened! What was also funny, was that my laptop battery was regularly flat too. My car and laptop were both reflecting my own flat battery!
Still, I kept going and the next morning, on my cargo bike now, a Saturday, I did what I usually do, attempted to cycle down to Saints for a morning swim, all the while feeling shattered and craving a morning in bed and lo and behold I had my first bike accident. It literally came from nowhere. One moment cycling down the hill with Eben on the back, the same hill I have cycled down at least 800 times without any issue, but today the bike just went from under me and the next thing I knew I was literally heart and hand planting the hard road.
I went into immediate shock as I attempted to free myself from the bike, which was laying over the left side of my body - the feminine side of the body funnily enough and has caused quite some bruising to my left hip and left ankle! I had badly grazed the heel of my right hand, the skin was hanging off, blood running out, and I suspect a cracked rib where the left side of my ribcage, literally housing my heart, hit the ground at some speed. Eben was fine fortunately, a very brave little boy only a scratch on his hand.
As I attempted to pick the bike back up, trying to put on a brave face for Eben’s sake while feeling physical pain, I still looked down the hill at the sea below and wondered if I should carry on as planned and get in it! It really highlighted to me the depth of my habit around sea swimming and while a part of me wondered if it might ease my shock and the bruising to my body, the other part was only suggesting it out of sheer habit and because I wasn’t able to complete my morning mission of getting in the sea!
And while I didn’t make it down to the sea, I did still carry on. Somehow I managed to get us home and into a bath, trying to ease the shock before collecting Elijah from his appointment. And then we did what we were always going to do. E was away so the boys and I went for a walk as planned, out to the fairy ring, me hobbling and trying to pretend that everything was normal. We went into town to see Father Christmas arrive. I even held a Reiki Level Two the next day. It was probably only after that finished that the reality hit me.
Not only was I physically hurt but my heart was screaming out to me. It had hit the ground, been cracked open and I needed to listen to what it was trying to tell me. Of slowing things down, of making changes, of loving more of myself and knowing that I am worth it. It talked of areas of unforgiveness, not least to others but to myself for my perceived shortcomings in various areas of my life.
I realised the extent to which I gave myself a hard time when I really didn’t need to, how we are so often just up against our inner critic, that voice that I’m not so used to hearing these days, but is still there in even more subtle ways, that holds me up to my perfectionist tendencies. I almost laughed out loud at the ludicrous nature of it. My poor heart, no wonder it had been aching, I had been holding all this stuff inside that I didn’t know was there in the first place- another sign that things are ready for change, that my heart wants greater freedom, hoorah for that!
Cracked ribs are painful, so too hands that have lost skin. But even then it didn’t cross my mind to cancel the Tantra course, although upon reflection this would have been the sensible thing to do. I could barely wash my hair let alone lie down, how I expected to give myself oil massages and dance and shake on the Tantra course is now quite beyond me. But hindsight is a wonderful thing and at the time I just couldn’t see. Instead, on I went, packed my bags, got myself organised, still struggling to sleep, to move, to be at ease.
I pulled a Rune the morning of my flight. It was movement reversed which basically said that movement at this time is not possible but not to worry, whatever is due to us doesn’t pass us by. I was confused. Of course I was going to be moving. I had a flight to Exeter to catch and a drive down to Cornwall. I was definitely going to be moving.
But alas not. The universe had been trying to get my attention, to get me to stop. There had been the car and then the bike and now the plane. Much to my surprise, after two hours of sitting at the airport my flight was cancelled due to fog in Exeter! I honestly couldn’t believe it. I was shocked all over again! And you know what I did? I re-booked to make an attempt the next day, even though I would have missed quite a bit of the course and arrived late, disturbing the group energy. I was struggling to see what was becoming so clear to those nearest to me.
But alas, I finally saw what was happening. A friend helped me because I was so far in it that I couldn’t see it and he had to be direct too, for me to truly see it, and the blood wisdom that followed helped, making it very clear that I needed to stop. With that I suddenly realised the extent of my patriarchal conditioning and the fact that I am my own worst enemy, my obstacle into embracing more of my feminine. That I don’t necessarily need to go on a Tantra course to access more of my feminine, that there are other ways and these ways are presenting themselves to me if only I can get out of the way and just live it.
And really this is the lesson I have been learning - an expensive one at that! That it is one thing to have awareness and knowledge, and quite another to embody it. But often one does have to come before the other. First we need to see it. Then we need to understand it. And then we need to live it, create new patterns, new habits so that the old unhealthy ones drop away. It doesn’t happen over night and does demand a degree of awareness but it is possible.
Furthermore, when we know that doors are closing to us then we need to learn to settle into the uncomfortable void, a space that arises between the door that closes and the one that will open next, a space of transformation, between death and rebirth. But it is here, in the mystery of the energy, that amazing things can happen, if only we can rest into it. This to will take its time and we are encouraged to exercise patience, compassion and gentleness and kindness to self.
So that’s where I am at. Resting into it. Stepping back. Getting off line a little more. Getting to bed a little earlier. Creating little more space. Listening a little more to my heart. Enjoying the void and the uncertainty and trying to get out of my own way. I’m grateful to the powers that be, for the answered prayers that are being ushered in. There is always the potential for a strengthening of faith, when it feels as if we are up against it, and I have dug deeper into this and into trust, because the universe, the Goddess, well they intervene when needed, always our prayers are answered, always we get what we need, just not in the way that we expect it!
Enjoy the full moon!
Love Emma x