The Power of a True Companion

To be in a close and sustained relationship with another that provides a clear mirror and crucible for burning through all that you are not is one of the greatest blessings of this temporary dream we call life. There is not a moment in life that I am not cognisant of this gift that life brought me in the form of Martyn, my husband. We have been together for 19 years and there's not a day that goes by that I am not filled to the brim with gratitude for him and for our relationship. Life in many other ways has brought great aloneness, challenges and heartbreak in my life. Life lessons that required me again and again to chart my own way, to walk through the darkness towards my own light. It has not been easy. It is still not easy. To have no path, to have no-one else to rely on in that sense. My life again and again goes through cycles of birth, death and re-birth, sometimes faster than a breath that causes such whiplash. Sometimes years upon years in the making that it feels never-ending. Much of it goes unseen to the world, except to those…

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Am I Enlightened?

Am I enlightened: I have no idea. I used to think I knew, I used to think I had some idea. I used to think it was important, I used to think it mattered. But now, now I feel I haven’t got a clue, and to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t care less. I certainly experienced a shift of perspective some years ago, a change of life that certainly blew the cobwebs out! Ken Wilber once said he's “enlightened enough” and that seems like a good enough answer to me. Enlightened enough to see through (most, certainly not all) of my egoic bullshit finally. Enlightened enough to see my true nature shining through. Enlightened enough to recognise that I’m not who and what I once thought I was. Enlightened enough to see my Humanity, and enlightened enough to see my Divinity. But I couldn’t care less how enlightened or un-enlightened you think I am or not. And I couldn’t care less about how enlightened or un-enlightened I come across! What I do care about is life and how life feels to be lived. That tangible direct experience OF life. What I do care about is people and the diverse human…

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Walking Through Trauma Fields

I want to share what's been going on with me recently, mainly so that people who've been working with me, or following my journey and work over the years can understand where I'm at right now. I've always aimed to be as open and transparent as possible, but more importantly because I see the universality of this process that I find myself in too. And so I hope this blog post can be helpful to others, to encourage us all to lean into what life calls of us rather than trying to find a way around it or even try to bypass it altogether. I encourage you to open up further instead of withdrawing and closing off from a painful process or part of yourself. It's the opening that leads to greater strength and clarity, greater freedom and grounding in one's Self, greater acceptance and love. But I also recognise we are each only able to open when we're able to open, just as the fruit falls from the tree when it's ripe. So this transmission of words is to all of you that find yourself in a position of ripeness. A position of life asking to meet whatever darkness…

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The Shifting Ground of Relationships

I was reflecting the other day on the fact that I had a massive shift in 2015, a shift that the consequences of which continue to unfold and deepen still today, so much so that I’m unrecognisable in so many ways. That change required those closest to me, those that interacted and related with me intimately to change in those relationships too. It’s not something that could be avoided, and it wasn’t their choice if this change occurred or not. But it also wasn’t my choice too. Life changed the game and asked me to step up to something different, and that different was unfamiliar and out of any sense of comfort zone, for me and for them. The game changed and with it we all had to learn what that meant. In some ways I want to say sorry, sorry that it’s been unexpected and often difficult. I’ve required of them more than most. To radically shift with me, with life. It wasn’t something I asked for, but it’s something that happened. I know they didn’t ask for it, I know they didn’t maybe want it at times, and I bow with the acknowledgment of that. I bow to…

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Time For Another Change: Divine Light Transmission

Tldr: I'm dropping the term 'Shaktipat' in favour of using 'Divine Light Transmission'. I go into why below but I know there may be some questions and judgements that come up around this, I ask that you take the time to read... or if you'd prefer I have a video of me reading this post on YouTube - HERE -- Along this journey since I started BeyondImogen.com back in early 2016, I've come to several inflection points where I've found myself pivoting or changing directions. I think it's a very natural part of life and of growth, and I always hope to do it with Grace, authenticity, transparency, love, and care. While some might find making pivotal changes easy and with a blink of an eye, for me the process generally seems to require time and patience while a certain change of direction unfolds - I'm more of a slow and steady kind of gal apparently .¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is one of those points, and I tell you, each time it happens I see it happening and feel it deeply in my heart looooonnng before any readiness or action takes place on the surface level. But I finally feel like the…

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The Intensity of Change

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t feel grateful for who and what life brings my way - like this view yesterday... just up the road from me, not far from where I was born. I’ve had a rough week of strong stuff coming up and that’s okay, I truly welcome it all. There's a lot of change and a lot of growth happening, both for me personally and collectively too. Growth and change can be intense and uncomfortable to integrate and hold space for, to let go of the old and welcome in the new. It requires everything of you, and requires you to suspend all sense of knowingness and certainty. No matter how many times I go through this, it doesn't get easier, or should I say the process doesn't get more comfortable. Yes I may have less resistance and more acceptance, compassion and understanding for the process - so on a deeper level it does make it easier. But it requires patience as it inevitably gets messy and sometimes downright ugly. There are so many people who are having such a difficult time of it right now and yes there will always be those…

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Loving Boundaries

"Love sometimes looks like having strong boundaries" Story time... Boundaries are something I've always struggled with, in fact it's probably been THE number one struggle in life for me. While it's almost unrecognisably night and day compared with how it used to be, I still do struggle with it because that conditioning is so well ingrained. But luckily life shows up in ways to test where I still have trouble standing in my healthy and necessary boundaries. And so boundaries is a topic I've shied away from writing about up until now, not because I don't want to (believe me I've started to write about boundaries countless times!) but mainly because it's such a big topic for me that I didn't even know where to begin - posts ended up rambling and jumping all over the place. I think it's also difficult because I'm still walking it, I'm still living the learning and growing from it. It's raw, it's intimate, it's a big unknown because I'm not talking of a subject that's all wrapped up in a neat bow, it's woven throughout the fabric of my story in ways that I'm sure I haven't yet gotten the big enough perspective…

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Conversations & Questions: 19/09/19

Post-Awakening Integration &  Releasing Old Conditioning   Q: I’m fearful of what will happen as I continue on this journey of awakening. It’s coming up right now because working with you these past weeks I finally experienced a shift into Unity Consciousness and see the integration deepening as well. But the fear is mainly there because after my initial shift into non-duality a year ago I had a pretty traumatic time of instability and integration where I couldn’t function in the world very well. I don't want to go back into that unstableness and overwhelm that came with that first major shift. I’ve felt this sense of “My God what is coming next, what if it’s like the other time?” And while it’s not been like that at all this time so far, I still have a little bit of fear of “how will this be?” I feel I can't make plans because I don't know how I will be in the coming weeks and months and this scares me. That you will hit against a major period of instability is an assumption and definitely not a certainty at all. What I can say is that you will go through…

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How Would I Describe the Work That I Do?

When asked recently "How would I describe the work that I do?" I found it a very difficult thing for me to answer because in many ways I can't define it as it feels too fluid, it is what's called forth in any given moment. It changes person to person, session to session, moment to moment. But also I AM the work - my work is a reflection of me, of the work I've done, of the work I'm doing, of the lessons I've learnt, of the experiences I've been through, of who I was and who I am right now. But many people assume the Divine Light Transmission is the focus of my 'work'. It certainly seems that way as that's what goes out most publicly to the world (If you don't know what I'm on about take a look at the 'watch' page), that and my writings. But the Divine Light Transmission for me is a modality, a tool albeit a powerful one, but much like how meditation or yoga, therapy, books, techniques and workshops are too. Yes it's a part of what I do but it's a tool, certainly not the wholeness. For me the work and…

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Wisdom Encounters

Every encounter that we have throughout our lives acts as a mirror back to our Self. In this way I can’t help but be grateful to all those I have met along this journey, this pathless path. As difficult as it sometimes is to admit, I especially have enormous gratitude to those encounters that have shaken and disturbed me to the core. Even when I'm kicking and screaming like a small child not wanting to take its medicine, the wisdom of life knows better. Always pointing me back to something inside that needs to be seen, or hasn't yet fully been accepted or fully inhabited in myself. Even now I’m not immune to old behaviours, conditioning and habits that are yet to completely play out and be integrated and synthesised. Although less and less frequently, I hit into these pockets of un-mined gold as they become unearthed by an interaction or a situation. I always say better they come out into the light of consciousness, than stay hidden in the depths of the shadows. And so I welcome them, these trials, this grit of life, because I know now the wisdom that they bring if one stays open and willing…

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Beyond Imogen

Martyn took this photo of me the other day and have to admit, I don't really recognise myself - and this was a bit of a shock at first.   So much has shifted these past years and months that the image that I once had of myself, is no longer there, it no longer fits.   Now I see a lioness, a strength, a power, a vulnerability, and an openness and it's beautiful to see. I see someone who is sitting in the pocket of who she is, finally comfortable in her own skin. That process has been amazing to watch and certainly very intense to live.   As I write this I get a flash of collective 'should' saying "You shouldn't say things like that out loud, you should be more modest and humble, you're being egotistical and attention seeking." But the truth is that to not acknowledge this is to dishonour life and the changes and growth that we all go through. To take a moment to really sink into this acknowledgement, to take stock of the shifts and changes in life is a good thing. It brings with it so much gratitude to life, gratitude to…

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In the Embrace of Love

One of the biggest helps for me to move beyond my conditioned responses and traumas and to heal and integrate them has been learning how to cope with strong and intense emotions - which for the record I was pretty fantastic at avoiding for most of my life! I would say that when all the strategies for avoiding no longer worked the only way to turn was through and into them. It was a case of let go or be dragged but turning into them was definitely the last thing I would have originally thought would be of help, go figure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For me this was learning to hold emotions and energetic arisings like you would a small child in a loving embrace, to pull them closer and say, "It's okay you can be here. I don't need you to change or be gone, you don't need to be fixed or healed. You can be just as you are for as long as you need. You are also free to leave if and when you're ready to as well." It was Adyashanti that first introduced me to this idea of embracing not running away from difficult experiences. To lovingly hold…

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Healing Our Traumas

Many of us have experienced trauma and hurt from abusive, harmful or dysfunctional relationships of all descriptions and types in our lives. I bow at your courage to try and move beyond it and heal. Equally if you're not quite there in your journey that's okay, I honor that too. I feel conversations about this topic are so vital so that we can explore these sorts of things together, both individually and in a broader sense within our communities and society at large. This is where I think healing happens, through open dialogue and exploration and I believe a lot of healing needs to happen overall as the world seems to have a lot of traumatised people who in turn perpetuate and carry on this cycle. Shutting the conversation down isn't the answer, opening it up is, even though it opens up those wounds. Those wounds need to be seen and given some TLC to be healed so that the cycle can finally come to an end. But it doesn't mean it's an easy topic to talk on, the courage and vulnerability it takes to even go into this subject from any angle (and as reader or writer) is not…

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Buckle Up!

I find it funny that the further into this journey of life I get the less and less 'spiritual' I become. Granted, I never self-identified as particularly spiritual, but at least outwardly I certainly was a card-carrying member of the 'spiritual seekers brigade'. I was brought up surrounded by spiritual types, I meditated from aged 6, I went to a spiritual consciousness-based school and university. I worked for companies where every single employee was a meditator and spiritual seeker. I've lived in spiritual communities and Ashrams. I've lived like a monk, albeit a married one, but a monk nonetheless (and I still do pretty much live like one). For a while my focus was well and truly on the abiding recognition of awareness, consciousness, the absolute, the silent awareness at the heart of all experiencing. Seeing that the kaleidoscopic arisings of the content of life was just that, an arising, a happening, a dream. And while I find this to be true, the primordial ground of life as I know it.... but also there IS a life as we know it and that's not to be ignored or denied, it's to be LIVED. So now I find myself focusing instead…

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My Role

There's so much focus on enlightenment and awakening in the abstract. In the projected ideas and ideals of what people, seekers, see in their idolisation of gurus, teachers and enlightened sages. In the goals and focus of wanting never-ending bliss and happiness, and superhuman abilities and powers because they think that's what it's all about. The person becoming bigger and better, the person becoming enlightened. But what is enlightenment really about? What happens when someone awakens, how will their expectations match the reality? This is what I'm interested in, exploring this, the lived experience, the embodiment of awakened living. Not the projected and imagined experience and the constant trying (and failing) to match up to this - but the actual lived experience. That lived experience can't be codified, it's a moment to moment exploration without rules. It's a free-fall through the groundless experience of life. As a spiritual mentor I'm not interested in making promises, I'm not interested in creating students who feel they need to learn from me, I'm not even really interested in 'awakening people' as a goal. I'm interested, or rather I find myself being called to be totally present to those that find themselves knocking on…

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Transgressing The Prescribed Spiritual Path

In my life journey thus far I've had to transgress two* major spiritual paths/groups/movements that were both whole-life encompassing - Guru, lifestyle, friends and family, home, job, it felt like a lot could and would be lost. It's was for sure a very difficult thing to navigate but I feel it's important to share and talk about as I see a lot of people dealing with this, particularly in the realm of spiritual organisations. Over time I've actually come to see that it's a totally normal and healthy part of 'spiritual' development (I say spiritual lightly as I actually believe it's not spiritual, it's LIFE). Moving beyond our seemingly secure boundaries of experience, paradigms and conditioning - the known. It's a hugely vulnerable place to be - the unchartered territory of our life, where we let go of the known and step forth into the openness of the unknown. "You're losing your way", "you're falling off the path" these were ideas that were offered up and I became fearful of, that I would 'miss my chance' for enlightenment and make a wrong turn/decision. Choose the wrong door, and therefore closing the other doors forever. Take an irreversible action. Being judged…

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The Elephant in the Room

GETTING PERSONAL There's so much of my spiritual path/story that I haven't yet shared on this blog or social media. Not because I feel the need to hide it, I'm not particularly attached to privacy even, but because I'm still living it each and every moment. The implications not yet seen, the fullness of understanding not yet known. And yet the more I walk this path, this world, the less and less the need to understand, the need for certainty seems to matter to me. These days I find the words are there less and less. The *need* to communicate less and less. But somehow these last few weeks it feels like there's an elephant in the room that I've not been addressing, in the past few months its been somewhat stopping me from publicly writing more than a few snippets here and there. More and more my private writings seem to be addressing this. There's been a shift in my focus, but somehow to talk of it I feel the need to contextualise it with my story a bit more. Two and a half years ago I experienced a life shattering shift (just over a year after the first…

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10 Years Ago Today…

10 years ago today Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died. I remember the day clearly, we were in the Dominican Republic on a holiday marking our 1st year wedding anniversary. I turned on the TV (probably the only time I did) to see it on the BBC news tick-a-tape completely out of the blue - “THE BEATLES GURU DIES”. At the time we were living in the epicentre of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation (TM) moment in the US; Fairfield, Iowa, the place we had called home for the last 2 years, and would go on calling home for the next 7 almost 8 years. But TM was much more to me, it was something that shaped and formed my whole life, my formative years, something that I had inherited, 20 minutes twice a day, as natural to me as brushing my teeth, I never knew life without it. I learnt TM when I was six years old, I had attended the Maharishi School in the UK, I had worked and lived in amongst TMers, both in the UK and the US for most of my life. My mother was a TM teacher from the 70s, almost all of my friends were TMers, I…

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Raw Unadulterated Living

I have gone from living the (American) dream... good job, beautiful house, wonderful friends, two beloved cats, more stuff than we could ever want or need, plentiful money, gorgeous and loving husband - I wanted for nothing… and now I have nothing (except the husband of course 😜 I’ve still got him thankfully). We have no home – not even a real base, we move from house sit to house sit every few weeks, new place, not knowing anyone, not knowing the area, living out of a hand luggage suitcase. No money to speak of – most people would be shock at how little we live on right now, no possessions - I literally mean it when I say all we have is a hand luggage suitcase each that fits all our stuff, no friends or people we hang out with (because of the said nomadic lifestyle) – just us two 24/7. Nothing really that we need or have to do, no purpose or meaning, no ambition and drive, no desires. And yet I'm the happiest I’ve ever been. So happy I could cry sometimes with overflowing gratitude and love for life as it is. This lifestyle isn’t for everyone,…

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Two Years On…

It’s been almost two years since I had the Shaktipat Transmission that led to a massive awakening and fundamental shift in perspective and I just now feel like I’m getting the hang of this groove - the groove that has no particular way of being in its expression, anything can and does show up in my experience of daily life. However to say that this doesn’t have some general overarching characteristics and themes isn’t to say the whole story. When I had the transmission the immediate aftermath and reaction was good - for about two weeks - joyfully experiencing, pervasive and expansive silence and insights into the nature of existence, the nature of life, were bountiful, it was like an excited child exploring its new world for the first time. Then the first wave of 'detox' from the personal small self came, it was as if that joyful inquisitive experiencing of the world turned bad, the mind ‘attacked’, doubts and questions of whys and hows were abound. My mind was trying to ‘get it’. Every concept, every word, every experience was questioned for its validity in my experience, so much so it became distressing. I remember the best advice that…

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The Lion Roars

Wow I feel like a lion has been unleashed. This brutal honesty in service of truth that cuts with the precision of a well known blade is quite a surprise to me. This sharp intellect that can spar and duel with words unknown to me, spilling out like nobodies business. There’s still a tendency that’s been around all my life – that when confronted with an assertion by someone, to shy away, to back down without even looking, to assume that they must be right… "who am I after all? I know nothing." But I’m finding this tendency more and more untenable. There’s a nauseating energy, I guess we would call it adrenaline, that surges in me and so this hiding, this backing down from looking to my own experience doesn’t last. It’s like I cannot NOT look to see if what is being said is true – no matter how much the tendency to hide from that looking still shows up. And so I find myself, for the first time in my life, facing full-faced to what life is showing me. Responding to the assertions of others, looking at the fabric of what they are saying. And… well then the…

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The Attachment of Relationships

The image of relationships and enlightenment don't normally go hand in hand. The stereotyped image of the 'enlightened monk', shunning the material householder life is something that’s been around in spiritual traditions for a long time. So out of this there comes the common misconception that you can't be in a relationship and be successful on the 'spiritual path'. But being in a relationship doesn’t necessarily mean that awakening can’t be there too. The relationship doesn’t have to go, only the attachment to the relationship has to go. Don't get me wrong, the result of that dropped attachment may actually be that the relationship ends. Ultimately that’s what was meant to happen, and all attachments do eventually fall away - what's left is what’s left, maybe the relationship will be there, maybe not. My own relationship has taught me that relationships in themselves aren't some obstructive thing that stops you from realizing your own nature. Having said that, I lived through the often painful dropping of the attachment to my relationship with my husband Martyn. We found ourselves at an impasse after he had a spiritual awakening that in the wake of he felt he could no longer be at the ashram where we were…

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The Collision That Changed Everything

Two years ago today I collided with the Self, setting in motion the falling away of life as I thought I knew it to be.  I was smacked over the head with the realisation that who I took ’Imogen’ to be was false. There was in fact no identifiable 'solid' form of Imogen that could be found. It’s been quite a journey, a journey to realise that what I sought was always here, looking out at the unfolding of an apparent journey. Although I now see that that collision was ultimately a fleeting experience it was so dramatically felt that it changed everything. It changed my casual interest in spirituality into a search that left everything else in its wake. The abiding realisation of non-duality came about a year and half later. It’s been a constant learning and discovering of what it looks like to move in this life as a passenger rather than believing the illusion that I'm the driver. I’m still discovering the implications of this realisation and while all this may sound so far off and mystical, know that what I’m pointing to is in fact your very nature and you’re never NOT this. It’s just a matter…

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Gratitude to Life’s Teachers

I'm so deeply and profoundly grateful to the life that has put me in the way of some amazing lessons. Lessons that have come from many different sources and many different teachers. I see now that these teachers have each come forward at the perfect moment to ultimately teach me that I am beyond all teachings, that I am the One that they point to. To Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, for giving me TM from an early age, that allowed me to experience transcending on a daily basis throughout my formative years. This gave me the understanding that all of life is unified consciousness and that there are infinite possibilities within this. Without you my whole foundational paradigm could have looked horribly different. To Amma, for flooring me with your presence and for opening me up to a the possibility of a world outside of TM. To Wayne Liquorman, for showing me how much power there is in a teacher's unspoken presence; and for introducing the profound realisation that all of this suffering is from a false sense of doership. To Adyashanti, for guiding me into the present moment silence of the Self. For encouraging me to love my wounds and…

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