I think there is too much emphasis in modern day culture on being in a relationship. Terms like better ½ & significant other, like we are not enough unless we are in a relationship.
Surely the most important relationship we have is the one we have with ourselves?
After all there is no one we will spend as much time with as we do ourselves.
Why not make that space a safe, happy space to be in? And yet many of us say & do things to ourselves we would never say or do to anyone else.
One of the best things I ever did was to start to notice that inner critical voice that was vicious & unkind whenever it got into its inner tirade & just stop. Over time that voice quietened & it was SO liberating!
We spend more time with ourselves than with anyone else, surely we should make that space a safe, kind, gentle place to be?
And you can. Just treat yourself like a friend. And if you find yourself saying or doing things you would never say or do to anyone else, just stop. You deserve more. You deserve better. Be kind to yourself & treat yourself like a friend.
We also have a tendency to expect unconditional love from others. And yet isn’t this conditional? Here’s the thing, the only unconditional relationship we need is the one we have with our self.
Think about that: the only unconditional love we need is the one we have with our self.
I’ll be honest I haven’t always been good at being kind to myself. If there was an Olympic event for being judgmental, unkind, pretty much abusive to myself I’d be a gold winner. But I was also capable of really loving other people. So I just didn’t buy into the whole you can’t love someone if you don’t love yourself.
I loved other people passionately, I just didn’t really like myself that much, even on a good day. There was always a nagging doubt because I didn’t feel good enough, that I would get found out. And so I sabotaged myself for not feeling good enough.
The thing is if you don’t like yourself, you never really truly believe the other person does, ultimately.
But now something inside has fundamentally changed & now I do feel good enough. Since I started recognizing that ugly critical voice inside my head, this awareness helped me silence that voice. I began to like myself. I was way kinder to myself, far less judgmental & vicious. That place inside my head became a much more enjoyable place to hang out.
My life is not sorted, or fixed & that’s the point. I am still very much single 5+ years after my divorce. I don’t own the house we live in. I have big dreams for my business because I really believe in the power of what I teach to work & change lives because I live it: it has for me.
And I know it’s possible for others to reach this level of happiness & contentment because if I can, anyone can. I accept the journey and believe that happiness is less about what’s going on outside, more about what is going on on the inside & it’s really liberating.
As Marianne Williamson says; The word loves us when we choose to love the world.
That’s not to say I don’t have blips & setbacks. I do & sometimes I can flip them easily into opportunities & possibilities & something beautiful manifests. This is the result of becoming more conscious of the thoughts & the frequency with which I was vibrating & shifting it into a higher vibration. And sometimes I struggle to flip it & it takes a few days for the lesson to present itself. And sometimes I miss the lesson until a few days later on reflection it becomes apparent. but on the whole life flows with more grace & ease.
Understanding the science behind it all has really helped me to believe in what I practice & teach. Knowing the what & the why, the how just falls into place. I understand the power of energy, our thoughts are energy, frequency, information. Broadcasting information into the field. If we’re not conscious of what thoughts are going out, we are more likely to manifest what we don’t want.
So I trust the process: if I’m having a blip to be kind to myself because there’s a big lesson coming. The blips are like the ego testing my resolve, my belief in what I’m doing & how I’m being. Keep believing & the insights will keep presenting themselves. it’s magical. miraculous.
Recently I was challenged on my ability to secure a home we own for the kids & it hit me hard for several hours. I felt like I had failed the kids. The difference this time was I felt into these feelings & honoured how I felt. Then my resolve rose up again: I was going to do this. One day we will live in a house that we own.
Then a few days later I was challenged in my belief that for now I chose to focus my energy & attention on myself, my kids & building a business & serving more people. I felt judged for still being single. Again this sense of failing arose: I was a failure for not complying with society’s need to pigeon hole you into & judge you on your relationship status. I allowed myself to sit with the feelings & this morning whilst I was meditating it was very clear my path right now is to honour our journey. Together with a very strong sense of connection, oneness. A knowing, a belief that my path is what I am doing.
I felt such a powerful sense of being in love with my life. I have said for many months now that I feel better than ever. And I do. I find it amazing looking back on the past 18 months – 2 years. There had been some pretty bleak times when I was definitely not in love with my life. I was broken, lost. We had been on the brink of homelessness, house-sitting for friends living out of a bag in the summer of 2020.
Even when we did move into somewhere we could call home, where we were safe & part of a community, my mental health was so fragile because my menopause symptoms were at their worst: I was having panic attacks on my dog walk, my happy place, how could that be happening? I was standing beside the verge of the bypass willing myself to step into the path of a lorry. They were dark times.
But I used my mindfulness training to challenge these thoughts. Reminding myself my thoughts are not fact, I don’t have to believe everything I think. As soon as I acknowledged the thought I could choose to stop believing it. And this worked for the panic attacks within 2-3 attempts. The suicidal thoughts took longer, maybe 9-10 times.
Point is, by acknowledging the thoughts I could stop believing them, so I stopped thinking them & my energy wasn’t going there. So my actions, behaviours, what I was experiencing was changing, my life was changing, I was manifesting a happier healthier life by changing how I was thinking.
Finally at the age of 51 I really like myself, I love myself. Not in a narcissistic way. I just don’t beat myself up like I did. I’m kind to myself & it’s so liberating. Life is really good. And this is what self-care does, it creates self-love & self-worth.
Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy fame once said: Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
And you do. When you love yourself you send a really powerful message to the Universe: that you believe in yourself & believe you are worthy of receiving & you feel full inside. You’re in love with life even though it’s not perfect because you know the journey will be interesting & full of insights & lessons & growth & healing.
I have always loved what I practice & teach & I know it works. I have always believed in them but even more so now because I have seen more profoundly in the past 6-12 months, as I have turned to my practices more & more, how they can change your life, your being.
Yoga & meditation calm the nervous system, taking us out of survival mode & into creation mode. Activating the vitally important rest & digest response to balance the stress response from an over activated sympathetic nervous system.
This is really important especially in the menopause when our body is already in physiological & hormonal stress. This is why the menopause often calls for us to turn inwards to calm the nervous system, activating the PNS. Practicing yoga & meditation are an excellent way to activate the rest, restore, healing, create response to support your menopause journey. They have been central in my own meno journey.
A practice I have committed to frequently to over the past 15 months or so is cleansing the chakras. According to ancient wisdom we have 7 energy centres chakras, Sanskrit for wheels, along our spine. These energy centres correspond with different systems in the body, each with their own glands, hormones & energy.
The lower chakras often become blocked with stress, trauma or abuse. If they are blocked energy or life force, prana which flows through the spinal column through these centres can’t follow smoothly or easily.
Balancing & cleansing & aligning the energy centres of the body is a really powerful practice. It creates a deep sense of wellbeing as your energy or prana starts to flow, your body is working in alignment & balance just as it is perfectly designed to do. Instead of drawing from your energetic field in survival mode, you are in creation mode & boosting your energetic field. Life starts to flow because you are resonating a much higher vibration.
And life feels good, regardless of what you have or you don’t have, there is a profound sense of happiness, contentment, connection & belief. And being in love with your life is so liberating because it doesn’t matter what is going on in your life because you are in love with it. And your happiness is no longer dependent on what’s outside. And there’s a sense of freedom. And abundance.
I have no doubt that cleansing & balancing my chakras has been a huge part of getting this beautiful sense of self back or indeed discovering her.
This is why I am delighted announce: Chakra Cleanse on 14th May 2-4pm.
Practice a beautiful yoga practice to balance, align & cleanse each of the chakras, find out more about each chakra, rest in savasana at the end meditating on the energy centres all accompanied by a live sound & gong bath.
Sound is energy. If you think about it you can feel the beat of a deep base in your body, that’s the vibration & this can be extremely healing energy. I had been to several before lockdown. The first time a nagging ache that randomly appeared & disappeared (which I now know is a random meno symptom) went for months it was phenomincal. I was hooked.
Last week I returned to the sound & gong bath. My daughter asked me if I had to take my swimming costume when I told her where I was going. I explained that the beautiful, magical, mystical & ethereal sounds have beautiful healing qualities & it’s just an amazing experience.
So of course I am SO delighted the chakra cleanse practice will be accompanied by a beautiful sound bath, crystal bowls for deeper cleansing of the chakras. It will be a very special afternoon. If of course you don’t live close but would like to join us, just let me know I’m sure I can help organise accommodation. contact me via the contact page!
In the end my meno journey has been like a re-birth: I believe it broke me into a million pieces to let the light in. Inviting me to take self-care even more seriously so that I could heal & grow & create a life I love.
But I probably wouldn’t even have said that a year ago. it’s a journey of reawakening, just choose you.