Elijah and I travelled up to Findhorn to stay with my teacher, Louise, in her cosy loft, immersing in yoga and all that this beautiful place has to offer by way of wildness and beauty.

I stumbled across a quote a few years ago now, which I was reminded of as the dust settled after the new moon blast of insight.

It goes something like, ‘the thing that screws us up the most in life, is our idea of how it is meant to be’.

This is so true!

And of course inherent within this is the idea of how we have been conditioned to believe it is meant to be so.

That was one very intense new moon on Friday highlighting our tendency to self-criticism and self-blame. I was aware that my clients and students were being encouraged to find a kinder voice to talk to themselves, to shift the internal narrative to something much more positive.

In my own healing too, I was aware that we were being asked to question the various roles we have taken on and the way these limit us, so too to consider the stories we tell ourselves and the narrative and thoughts running through our mind.

These are interesting times as cosmic forces usher in more change. We are being asked to go deeper still, to seek out the wounding and harm done, to heal and set ourselves free so that our future is not based on what has happened previously and all the various conditioning and limited beliefs, which arose because of this.

I discovered the Scaravelli-inspired approach to practice quite by chance back in 2019. I had felt called to the Isle of Lewis to visit the Callanish stones and while there attended a yoga class at the Uig village hall where the teacher suggested I might like the teachings of a Scaravelli-inspired teacher called Sophie down in Littlehampton. So I went and visited Sophie and was blown away by this approach to practice which was so very different from the vinayasa practice that had shaped my life for many years. I couldn’t quite understand what had happened but I left that first session feeling a sense of mind-body connection, peace and aliveness that I had never experienced previously. I read and watched all I could of this approach to practice and in this way connected with Diane Long, who was primary student of Vanda Scaravelli herself. I saw that Diane was teaching a workshop in Findhorn with another teacher called Louise Simmons, so I made contact, knowing that I couldn’t afford the time away from my boys, but desperate to feed my immense curiosity in this practice. Fortunately Louise offered online lessons and was happy to teach me. 

Well what a year it has been - so many changes for so many and so many more on their way. The moon is definitely shifting things for us as it nears towards its 18.6 year major lunar standstill in June/July.

Well that was another potent full moon asking us to let go and move forwards in our life. It wasn’t comfortable for many of us because of the courage needed to do the letting go an the faith needed to overcome the fear of stepping forward into the unknown. It reminded me a little of a quote from one of Rebecca Campbell’s books:

It would appear that we are being asked to release and let go whatever is holding us back and is unhealed from our past, at the exact same time as being asked to step into our future self. It is discombobulating and a little overwhelming as I know some of you are feeling too.

I have many talented clients who are keen to offer Reiki or other holistic and trauma-based therapies, teach yoga and/or write books, but let the imposter syndrome get in the way.

This is a syndrome which essentially tells you that you are not good enough to offer whatever it is that you are wanting to offer, that you don’t know enough, aren’t clever enough, expert enough, knowledgeable enough, that you don’t have the right qualifications, that you won’t be able to do a good job, that compares you to others and concludes that there’s too much competition anyway and that you will never be able to make a go of it etc.

In Ayurveda mung beans are highly revered as they are full of goodness, are easy to digest and they are brilliant at drawing energy downwards to assist in digestion – great for those struggling to eliminate. 

The practice will help us to increasingly let go of things we no longer need - including behaviour patterns, mental conditionings, limiting beliefs and ways of being - which are no longer helpful. These will drop away gradually. This is the benefit of a regular yoga practice. We put in the time and effort but we begin to feel lighter, there is more stability, clarity and joy in our lives.