Scratching the Surface or the Itch?
If you have been doing the work, showing up and going inwards, but not getting the results you really want, the life that you feel is just out of reach, then my Chakra Life Coaching programme might be for you.
There is magic in your hands.
Enough to change the ending.
Rewrite the beginning.
The way it has been, is not the way it has to be.
Octavia Raheem ‘Sacred Rest’
People arrive in a yoga class for different reasons.
- My daytime students who are retired, want to keep their joints mobile, their muscles flexible and to be able to put their socks on, whilst balancing on one leg.
- My Wednesday evening students come after work to switch off, unwind and re-set their stress barometer to get them through the second half of the week.
- The Mums come for a break away from their packed schedule of the school run, working, parenting and plate-spinning.
For some, it is a welcome part of their weekly diary and that is all it will ever be. And that is perfect.
For others, it is a way into a sacred part of themselves that they can't access in the noise of daily living, and this is the most important role of yoga for me. The physical yoga is designed to prepare the body for stillness and the mind for some much-needed peace and quiet. The Meditation is designed to take you inwards to tap into those extra layers of the mind - the unconscious and subconscious.
As Yung Pueblo says in his book Inward:
A human is as deep as an ocean
Yet most of us spend our lives knowing only the surface
When we decide to dive deep within ourselves, we set in motion
The miracle of personal evolution
This is what I discovered through yoga and meditation.
If you are looking to yoga for some clues as to what makes you tick, what drives perfectionism, anxiety, fibromyalgia, migraines - stepping into a yoga class is a good place to start. Do your research and find a teacher who will offer an invitational style of yoga, which includes Meditation, Relaxation or Yoga Nidra (a guided sleep-based relaxation / meditation).
But if you want to do the deeper healing work, not just to soothe and settle your nervous system week in, week out, but to get in and underneath your personality and patterns, then your weekly yoga class is just the beginning.
Yoga is often the way in to doing some deeper work, but be careful not to spend years and years, waiting for the light-bulb moment to happen in class. The day you take your practice home and start to meditate regularly, read inspiring books and listen to personal development podcasts on the way to work - this day is the day you know you are ready for the next step - a deeper dive into the subconscious mind, and the secretive old programming, conditioning and beliefs that are driving your life in the direction it is heading - whether you like it or not!!
Four Modern Day Promises that don't stick
- Yoga is another exercise class. Yoga at the gym has become just another form of exercise. The focus is on performance, the teachers are very bendy and you feel like you are ‘not very good at yoga’. Most classes are 60 minutes long, not enough time to go past the physical body. There is no meditation or stillness long enough for anything real to rise up. You breathe, you stretch, you take the posture of Savasana for five minutes and it's over. Then you go home to the same life and forget about yoga until next week.
- Meditation apps that never become a real practice. You downloaded Calm, Insight Timer and Headspace. You have a streak of 9 days from last year. You've done the ten-day beginner course three times because you keep having to begin again at the beginning. An app is a fine introduction to Meditation, but it is not a practice. It is a way in to create the habit, but it's up to you to maintain the habit. The technology can make Meditation seem mechanical and just another chore, instead of something natural, fluid, easeful and enjoyable.
- Travelling the world to find yourself. I think we are all old enough and wise enough not to believe the glamorous photos on Instagram; inner work is not about travelling to far-flung places to find out who you really are. I LOVE retreats - I really value the time to step out of my world and into another one, where time seems suspended, and I can re-assess my life. But don't confuse that with running away from yourself in order to find yourself. As Mindfulness teacher, Jon Kabbat Zin says, "Wherever You Go, There you Are." You can't outrun your subconscious in an airport or on a beach in Bali. It has a boarding pass and a suitcase too!
- Energy healing that soothes but doesn't reach the root. Reiki, Sound Baths, crystals, aromatherapy oils. I know that these are essential to my wellbeing, and I make time for them and they do make a difference. Energy healing techniques work to bring your Energy Body back into equilibrium. They settle your body and mind, they down-regulate the stress response and they give you a taste of the quiet you didn't know you were missing. I use Sound Healing in One2One sessions with clients. I love it. But a Sound Bath will not find the belief your seven-year-old-self made about being too much. It will hush her. It will not hear her.
Why the benefits wear off
Think of a kink in an old hosepipe which stops the free flow of water - you can untangle the hose to let the water flow again, but once the kink is fixed into the hardened plastic, the hosepipe has a tendency to find the shape and the blockage again and again.
Every modality I've just described unkinks the hose for a little while. The body rests. The nervous system balances. The breath gets deeper. You get a good night's sleep. All of these are worth noticing and tending.
The hosepipe is your subconscious. And your conscious, thinking, planning, list-making mind cannot soften the tired old plastic. Until you buy a new hosepipe you are going to keep getting the same kink and blockage.
Time for an upgrade!
Your limiting beliefs —
'I'm not good enough'
'I'm not worthy of love, success, abundance' '
'People like me never have any luck'
'I have to do everything myself'
were installed before you had language to question them. They were absorbed, not chosen. And they live in a part of you that your intellect cannot access, so we use meditation to get underneath the surface layers and really start to scratch the itch...
If you have been doing the work, showing up and going inwards, but not getting the results you really want, the life that you feel is just out of reach, then my Chakra Life Coaching programme might be for you.
Read this list and see if any of these quiet but unavoidable truths feel familiar…
• You know what you want, but you feel stuck and unable to reach your goals.
• To the outside world, everything looks, you know, FINE, but something inside feels vaguely anxious and heavy. Your heart aches for something else / more / lighter / joyful.
• You know how you want to feel but you can’t create the circumstances required to access that part of you. You don't feel free to ask for what you want.
• You are caught between what everyone else expects of you and what your inner whispers truly desire. The old conditioning is there telling you that you are selfish to want what you want.
• You are questioning everything that you have achieved. You have jumped through all the hoops and have the material success, but it has not made you happy.
• You feel worn-out and worn down by the endless day-to-day tasks, the systems in place, world news or social media.
• You feel exhausted as you try your best to balance work and home life, parenting, caring for others, with a social life and, maybe a tiny bit of time just for you.
• You want to step into your full truth and authenticity but don’t know how to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
• You need someone to help you to find, understand and clear the fog - your repeating patterns and unhelpful beliefs which you know are sabotaging you on some level.
• You need someone who was once where you are now, has travelled the road already and has the tools to cross the bridge and show you the way.
The Life Coaching system that I have learned is about seeing the whole, complicated, messy picture and slowly peeling back the layers to find the few old beliefs that are actually running the show. They often come down to one or two themes that have been embedded in the psyche long ago. Themes like:
'I'm Not Good Enough'
'It has to be Perfect, no matter what'
'Avoid Conflict At All Costs'
'I have to do Everything Myself, because I can't rely on anybody else'
'I am not Worthy of anything unless I am being Productive / I'm Achieving / I'm Putting everyone first, even if it kills me'
'I am not able to Speak my Truth / I don't feel safe Speaking my Truth'
These programmes are pernicious, paralysing, sabotaging and not even true!
The key to making the leaps and bounds you are longing for, is to uncover YOUR old programming, acknowledge the beliefs - as they have usually been placed in your psyche to keep you safe in some way - release them and replace them.
That is what I am here to show you, teach you and guide you.
If you would like to know more, head over to this website to find out what's involved, how long it is, how much it is and how it works... there's a FREE 60 minute chat too if you have questions or want to explore it further....