Over Christmas and New Year my parents kindly invited our family to go skiing. My mum also generously paid for some private skiing lessons. I decided to go back to the instructor I had some lessons with the previous year. He's an excellent instructor and able to see very clearly and deeply not just how I ski, but also how I live my life. It's amazing how accurate the following principle is: How we do one thing, we do everything.
The instructor told me to let the snow take me somewhere without going completely passive. He observed that I force my skiing and that I like to be in control. I have been thinking about this a lot. How can I let life take me somewhere without forcing matters and without giving up altogether or going completely passive? On the slopes, when I manage to let the snow take me somewhere, the feeling is one of cooperation and collaboration, which is coupled with a sense of deep connection; it is about the skill, but it's also about the mountain and the snow. It's about working together, trusting and not fighting against what is. The skiing then becomes effortless, fluid and joyful. I very strongly feel that it is the same in life. When we let life take us somewhere and we participate actively in the process, it becomes effortless and meaningful. I'll invite you to do just that: Cooperate with life, let it take you somewhere and let go of some of the control and the need to force things. Walk with ease, joy and beauty into 2019.
0 Comments
From my observations of myself and clients, this year has been a year of deep rooted change and disruptions right to the core. Uncertainty and a sense of being lost have been some of the central issues of 2018. What is our purpose in life? What is the direction to move into? What is the sense of it all? These are questions that have been emerging throughout the year. It has been about more than just re-orientation, the foundations have been crumbling. Out of the chaos, the possibility of something new, innovative and incredibly creative has been coming up to the surface. My feeling is that destruction has opened up the space for something radically different and very fresh. The deeper integration of our different parts has also been enabled - being ourselves and expressing ourselves more fully.
Words that describe my intention moving forward are: ease, abundance, there is enough, trust, leaning back into myself, letting go (especially of control), allowing, being guided, peace, aliveness. I wish you all a very peaceful Christmas time and a great start into 2018. Thank you for your support and for being part of Equilibrium. Walk in beauty Sandra In January, I decided not to continue with my UCKP accreditation for Body Psychotherapy through the training organisation I had been with for almost 9 years. Because I was seeing my therapist at the centre in Cambridge I also decided to finish my personal psychotherapy. After some what's app messages to my therapist, I wrote her an email to say that I needed to take a break. After I got no reply from her, which upset me a lot, I decided to block her number. This was after what felt like an eternity, but in reality was after two weeks. Then in September, I decided to restart my work towards accreditation but through a different training provider and also felt the urge to go back into therapy. I knew I needed to contact my previous therapist, as things were left unfinished. In my first session, she told me that I never reacted to what she wrote in February. I insisted that I did not get the message. Of course, I did not get the message, because I blocked her number!
She ultimately supported me, but not exactly in the way I wanted her to. I have been thinking about this a lot. I often have had feelings of being unsupported in the past when in reality I have had a lot of support from amazing people around me. At times the support has come in different ways to what I wanted it to be - failing to see that it was there. I then, just like with my therapist, have closed myself off and decided that I can only rely on myself. That further isolated me and confirmed my belief that the only way forward is self-reliance. My commitment to myself is to open my heart and allow myself to deeply receive and feel held and supported by the people I trust - in whatever form it comes. We can only freely give, if we allow ourselves to receive. It's an act of courage and vulnerability. Join me. Walk in beauty Sandra September is one of my most favourite months of the year and I feel it's a good time to reflect. The change of the season is palpable - with the nights getting longer and the sun rise happening just a little later every day. With the autumn equinox on the 23rd of September (in the UK) the shift in season is clearly marked. At this particular moment, the sun crosses the celestial equator; and the Earth's rotational axis is neither tilted away from nor towards the sun. For me, it's a moment of stillness and contemplation, especially given the tumultuous energies during 2018 and especially during the last three months.
Reflecting on the year so far, I've been very interested in the more widely observed patterns and the collective energy. What is emerging across the board? What are the energies that are moving through us? Words that have sprung to mind and have been reflected back to me by various people are: re-calibration, reset, reboot, major shifts. I feel that there is a deep dismantling of the old, especially long-term relationships, both intimate and business, including organisations and communities. For myself, I have had two major changes this year - related to my training as a body psychotherapist and to business - and in both instances, it was out of my hands and I was presented with the changes; i.e. it was out of my control and that is not an easy place for me to be in. My task has been to feel all there is to feel with regards to the changes, such as the hurt, grief, anger and betrayal, but staying away from blaming, including blaming myself, or needing to do something about it. My intent throughout this quite difficult time has been to stay vulnerable, to stay open and to trust the process - that out of the chaos and the dismantling something beautiful and very different can emerge, which would not have been possible in the old structures. It's also a great opportunity for healing the deeper places inside of me and to invite different energies into my life, such as lightness, space and excitement. If you are also in the midst of some fundamental and what might seem very destructive changes, trust the process. Trust that we are exactly where we meant to be and that the dismantling and collapsing of our lives and relationships is part of the process of creating something new, exciting and beautiful - with more vibrancy. This month I'd like to share something a yoga teacher colleague of mine (Dr. Alison Clancy) has written and I find very inspirational. She answers the question of why she practices yoga: "I practice yoga to help myself heal, to soften the harsh and often unforgiving internal dialogue, to empower myself and to experience the very best of who I can become. Yoga encourages me to develop an innate sense of curiosity with what I am attached and adverse to and challenges me to change towards becoming more respectful towards myself. Personal boundaries are laid down during the practice, and when I practice the art of yoga for myself, I begin to self-validate, resulting in an unravelling of my sense of disempowerment, as I no longer wait for or need the validation of others". So, let each of us make a silent self-pledge to come to yoga not to achieve, but to simply allow a natural process towards self-actualisation to gently unfurl before us. Then perhaps a perceived abject life can be potentially transformed, if and when we simply allow the practice to lead."
Let the process unfurl and open up to the journey. Walk in beauty Sandra One of my most favourite quotes is about the paradox of trying so hard to stay afloat that we drown and the moment that we let go of struggling, we actually float: "To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float." This quote for me is about trusting that life unfolds the way it needs to and at exactly the right speed. It's about trusting - even though life can be painful and confusing at times - that I'm exactly in the place where I meant to be. It does not mean for me that I don't have agency or that I don't have any power at all, but it does mean to me that I'm not entirely in control of life and the way it evolves. I do the best I can do and then trust the process and the unfurling of my journey.
Walk in beauty and with trust. I went skiing over Christmas and New Year with my family. My parents generously paid for a private session for my husband, but on the day, he did not feel up to it; he definitely has a bit of a love/hate relationship to this somewhat unnatural activity. I decided to take the lesson myself and just loved it. However, it was interesting to see that my patterns not only show up in general life and while I'm doing yoga, but also in my skiing!
The instructor said to me: "Sandra, let the snow take you somewhere. You are cutting the corners short." What the instructor meant was that I needed to go with the snow and allow myself to be taken somewhere rather than forcing my skis into a certain position in order to control where I'm going. He wanted me to work with the snow, not against it. I know this lesson; it's not something new, but it is incredible to think that a skiing instructor, who I had known for less than hour, picked up on my deep-rooted patterns just like that! What I took away from it: Allowing myself to be taken somewhere by life - maybe even somewhere new - instead of needing to plan and control everything and thereby getting incredibly exhausted. This does not negate my sense of agency and the power of my influence and self-determination. It reminds me, however, that life is a co-creation and not a solo act. Let the snow take you somewhere and notice how that feels. Walk and maybe even ski in beauty. Every summer for the past five years, I've been going to Saeter, a small village in Sweden, where I've been teaching five-day retreats together with my friend and colleague Helena Atkinson. Helena is not only a yoga teacher, but also a linguist with a keen interest in literature. This year we've combined Forrest Yoga and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". I enjoyed taking the themes from Alice and bringing them into Forrest Yoga. We picked several intents, but one quote really stayed with me. It's the following:
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.' 'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. 'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.' Through my work as a teacher and therapist I often see that people isolate themselves, because they feel that they are alone in their issues. Frequently, there is a believe that everybody else has sorted their stuff out and that there is something wrong with oneself. However, coming back to the Cheshire Cat, we all carry our madness. We all have our problems and work on our process. It's good to know that we are not alone and there is a community of mad people where we can be heard, seen and supported. Walk in beauty and in your madness! In Forrest Yoga when we call in the Four Direction, which is a way of calling on the support of the allies in the East, South, West and North, the element of water is located in the South. The qualities of the South are innocence, trust, healing and playfulness.
Like any of the elements, water can be on the one hand a very gentle and persistent force bringing about change slowly and being crucial for survival. It follows the path of least resistance as it flows down the mountains. Over time it shapes and softens rocks. On the other hand water can be incredibly powerful bringing about transformational changes within seconds and minutes. Torrents of water in flash floods for example transform the landscape forever and can create devastation and death. I invite you to bring the qualities of water into your life embracing and enjoying the quieter transformational changes, as well as the rapid, immediately powerful and more dramatic ones. Allow both softness and strength to be present within yourself and flow with what is. When I was on holiday with my husband we did a lot of cycling. Our holiday destination was somewhere hilly and windy and at points it was hard going. On the third day of cycling - which is usually the most difficult - I had a mental block. I kept looking up that hill we were climbing and I was mentally devastated after 10 minutes into our ride. Needless to say that I was not enjoying myself at all. I was in full blown struggle mode and my husband definitely knew about it...
I continued... mainly because I did not like to what I perceived as give up. After one hour into the ride, something suddenly shifted and instead of looking ahead I started to look to the left and the right. My therapist used the words "saying yes to the moment", which resonated a lot with me and describes what happened very accurately. Instead of wanting to be somewhere different, doing something different, I decided to say yes to what was- even though it was tough. Miraculously, the ride became incredibly enjoyable and I was rewarded with a very long downhill bit in the end, which was wonderfully liberating and freeing. So, instead of looking ahead and imagining the pain to come, look to the left and right, truly commit what is there instead of thinking of wanting to arrive. Arrive in the moment and say yes to what is. Enjoy the view. |
BlogYoga, well-being and mindfulness... always walk in beauty. Categories
All
Archives
September 2022
|