The arctic tern is a bird famous for its migration. It travels on average 70,000km a year - all the way from the Arctic and Subarctic regions to the northern edge of the Antarctic ice. Last year Newcastle University tagged 29 birds and logged a record-breaking migration of 96,000km flown by a little bird weighing less than an iphone. (Article in the Telegraph.)
I find these birds incredibly fascinating. They see two summers a year and more daylight than any other being on the planet. I came across it in South Africa where Brian and I bought an artic tern made from a salvaged tin. It now hangs in our Peterborough studio. The art collective we bought it from is famous for its chandeliers made of recycled materials (Magpie Collective). Researching its medicine significance, I could not find much, but while looking I was reminded that it is about the personal meaning. While sitting in one of the most northern places I had been to (Trondheim in Norway) I was contemplating what home is, which is for me at the very heart of the bird's importance. We can get fixed on an individual place or culture, but what if we could feel at home in different places with different cultures - understanding and accepting different aspects in ourselves even? After all we are all humans, we share our humanity and even though there are differences, most of the time we have more in common than we can even imagine. What I personally take away from this incredible bird is its ability to be at home connecting to earth and sky no matter where it is in the world.
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I spent Christmas and New Year with my family and it made me reflect on what Jack Kornfield in his book "After The Ecstasy, The Laundry" said: "It is one thing to offer a multitude of prayers for the sick and the poor, or to undertake loving kindness and compassion meditations for thousands of sentient beings everywhere. It is another to bring these same practices to our own family and our closest community.... You can't teach the truth in your native town. They only know you by your childhood names." Family becomes the true testing ground of how far we've really progressed on our path and how aware we are. Family is the ultimate to bring out the demons and in that respect family is one of the most cruelly honest mirrors of ourselves. For me, it's about the small wins. The moments I can catch myself going into old dynamics and reminding myself that this is not true for me anymore. If I embody the change I've been working on, my family responds subtly differently. If I'm pretending to have changed, old patterns and wounds emerge within less than a nanosecond. It's small changes that matter. The moments where we can be vulnerable and open rather than hurt and reactive, where we can see our wounds and choose to act differently and where we can hold our family and ourselves in our hearts.
Last weekend I went on a CPD course for Body Psychotherapy and we looked at aversion, attraction and conscious goals. The movement and feeling that helped me to understand how to bring forward more of myself when setting goals was the feeling of being pregnant. My belly was loose, my hips were open and there was a sense that I was taking my weight more into my heels than into the balls of my feet.
My shoulders were relaxed and I was swaying from side to side while at the same time rubbing my belly. It had a soothing effect on me, which is quite the opposite of how I normally approach my goals: wanting to attack it, get on with it and be generally quite cut off from myself while at the same time being totally focused on what needs to be done. The swaying movement with loose hips and belly was a reminder about the natural process and incubation time of ideas, goals and life in general. The person I was working with remarked: “The pregnant woman does not need to go and find the baby. The baby is within her.” This felt incredibly profound and eye-opening to me. I did not have to search for the wisdom, the ideas and goals, but they were actually already within me. I just need to allow life to flow through me. I would like to encourage you to find your own movement that helps you to bring more of yourself into life and into the way you approach your goals and visions in life, so that whatever you're doing is coming from within you and is an extension of your authentic self. Since I have been doing a lot of driving lately, I have downloaded some audio books to listen to during my journeys. I have listened to hours of Dr. Brene Brown and I really enjoy her simplicity, depth and honesty in the way she presents her material. Simultaneously reading her book "The gifts of imperfections" this sentence stood out for me: "The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows." This sentence was a summary on how it's often difficult for us to experience joy, as we are afraid of losing it again. Not experiencing joy seems a safer place, because we don't have to deal with the possible loss of it later on. When we are fully invested in this emotion we are in a vulnerable position, which can feel uncomfortable and uncertain, but it's absolutely worth it.
Catch yourself when you are holding back on joy, since you will be missing out on life! This January we're celebrating Equilibrium Peterborough's 7th birthday. To mark the occasion and thank you for all your support, we have a special celebratory offer for you.
Bring a friend for FREE: January 2015 Come to any class at the Peterborough or Huntingdon centre during January 2013 and bring your friends for free! The 'friend for free' offer is open to anyone who hasn't visited the Peterborough centre yet, or who hasn't been to class for more than 6 months. Visit as many times as you like - the only question now is who you'll bring! Looking forward to seeing you at class! I have been reading Tara Brach's book "Radical Acceptance" and what has stood out for me is the notion of the "sacred pause". We usually keep ourselves extremely busy, so that we don't have to feel and really be with that is, because being present can be very uncomfortable. When we take a moment and simply pause to feel how we are and what we are experiencing, we are creating a space and thereby we are creating choice. The pause can be as short as a couple of deep breaths, but it can also stretch over several months. It is a way of creating room to be with the experience and not to rush into the next thing, properly sensing what is actually happening in that moment in time. Tara Brach states: "Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so".
Next time you are getting overwhelmed and you feel swept away by feeling and the situation around you, take a sacred pause and notice how you are and what you can sense in your body. I wish you a happy and healthy 2015! Last weekend I taught several workshops in Berlin with the theme of "spinning the straw into gold" or how we can use our difficulties for our personal growth. Doing yoga will not make our problems go away, it rather redefines the relationship we have with them. The philosophy is very much: "What is in the way is the way." When we engage with our obstacles in a wakeful manner, we can use them as an opportunity to uncover more layers in our process. Frequently, we just want our issues to go away quickly, so that we can "get on with our lives". However, when we investigate our problems, stay with our difficulties and feel into them more carefully and with an open and curious mind, we can transform and shift on many different levels. We can ask ourselves what is this situation teaching me. What is this problem asking me to let go of? What are the lessons I can learn from this?
People and situations are really there to teach us and difficulties are our allies on our path of spiritual growth. The teacher training has been a very transformative and intense experience and I would like to say thank you to everyone who contributed to making this a big success. Thank you also for sharing the space with the teacher trainees who are now fully fledged Forrest Yoga teachers and who came from all over the world to take part in the training. For me personally, the training was an opportunity to explore a different side of myself that is not so serious and has a lighter and more playful quality to it. I feel that as human beings we have a choice of what facets of ourselves we nurture and foster and which ones we decide not to invest energy in. Being German, the older sister and generally from a family that promotes ethics of working hard and being busy all the time, I have neglected the aspects inside of me that are more creative, care-free and playful. The training has given me the opportunity to explore the side of myself that actively takes part in life and enjoys it rather than just endures it. Even though the hours were grueling, I managed to find lightness, delight and joy! After having handed in all my course work for my Body Psychotherapy course last month, I'm about to have my last weekend with my group in Cambridge. I've felt for the last three months that I've been in a state of major transitions where endings are very prevalent. I'm finishing my course after five years of training, I'm ending my relationship as it is now with my psychotherapist whom I've seen for six year and I'm redefining my work. However, I'm not very good with endings and tend to move on to other things very quickly. I normally don't allow myself to feel what happens in that space where I need to let go of something, as I am too busy to plan my next project. Endings can be very painful and often feel uncomfortable. I feel more at home with beginnings and going deeper, but I have a harder time to create space around when courses, projects, relationships, etc. finish. My intent is to stay in feeling during this important period of transition, as I know that being spacious around endings is absolutely vital to live an authentic life and to be able to honestly connect to the people and the environment around me. After five years of training, the final deadline for my body psychotherapy course is the 13th of June where I need to hand in documentation about my training, two case studies and an essay about what creates suffering and what aids healing. I have been thinking a lot about this theme and for me it is the disconnect from ourselves that brings about suffering. When we can't be ourselves and we try to become somebody different, we suffer. In other words when we are not embodying our spirit, problems arise. We often try so hard to be different - look differently, behave differently and ultimately be different. However, we can only be ourselves and if we can be invested more fully in our current situation and wholeheartedly accept and see reality as it is including our faults and mistakes, we can find some peace and balance in our lives. Allow yourself to let go into who you are. |
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