My Heart Breaks, I Pray for All

What is going on in the world affects us all on many different levels, both seen and unseen. For me, what's currently happening also feels a touch personal, closer to home in some small way. I made the mistake of going on social media today, barely a moment in and I realised this was not the place to be, not for me, not right now. Especially during a retreat, the very thing I advise people against during a retreat! So here I am instead, on beyondimogen.com - my little nook of the internet. I'm not sure if this post will ever make it elsewhere. -- I am horrified by what is going on in the world on all fronts. The divisiveness, the hate, the lines we have drawn in the sand, too many to count. It all feels impossible. How can we make our way through all of this? What is to be done? Today is the anniversary of my grandmothers death. She walks with me closely still to this day. In someways closer than ever... but that's a story for another day. My grandmother's family were Ukrainian Jews, my grandfather's, Russian Jews. The current war between the two was…

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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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Energetic Blocks: An Entry Point of Further Wisdom Learning

I often get asked about how to resolve blocked chakras or knots of stagnated energy in the system. My current hypotheses based on my experience working on the energetic level both with myself and others over the years is that I see energetic 'blocks' less of something in your way that needs to be gotten rid of or fixed, and more that there is a contraction of energy, or an unknown/unseen aspect of our experience where there is something we have not been (yet) able to meet with open hearted and loving curiosity. To me 'blocks' are actually where life is calling our attention to. An entry point of further wisdom learning. Contractions where our natural free flow of energetic movement is hindered somewhat for a time. It's not a mistake, it's life's conditioned response and actually a way of protecting us until we are ready and able to move through and be with that particular thing; When there can be capacity to hold it in a bigger context of Self, a bigger context of unconditional love and acceptance. We can learn from these blocks if we don't demonise them from the get-go as something that "shouldn't" be there. If…

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Self Love Bottoms Out in Unconditional Acceptance

You may feel unworthy of love, but let me remind you that you ARE love. Love courses through your very being. It is the fabric of your existence. To say you are unworthy of it is like saying the sky is unworthy of being the sky because it has clouds in it. Just because life shows up in a multitude of ways, some of which we deem 'bad' does not make you unworthy of love. In fact it makes it all the more necessary to discover the underlying truth of that love that pervades all, that is the groundless ground of it all - the bedrock of existence. It becomes all the more vital to discover the ground of your love so that you don't get caught in the belief that this or that thought or action IS all there is to you. Make no mistake, your messy humanness IS part of your divinity. It's a part of your story, your path, your love song, just as a knot in a tree trunk is part of the tree. But the thing that courses through your veins and through your very being, IS LOVE. So you might ask how do I…

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Am I Enough?

It's hard to believe that we just have to be ourself and that is enough. It's enough to include all that we are and exclude none of it. Most of us feel that life requires the opposite of this, and so to have that recognition "that I am enough" feels like a miracle, a miracle that we doubt all too easily as not being true. But it is it nonetheless, that we get to be who we are, entirely ourself, no bells or whistles and this is enough, this is it. It's a wonderful realisation because at the end of the day that's all we've got anyway. When we've been stripped of all ideas and ideals of everything we think we 'should' be and left naked standing here as we actually are. We never think that which we are could be loved, or maybe even liked if we show the entirety of ourself. We feel that for sure we have to work very hard to not be this or that part of ourself. But life teaches us that if you learn to love all of YOURSELF, you are free. And in that freedom, those that gather around you, will love…

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The Oak That Grows

By Grace there has been a fierce love of life,  love of love, love of truth, planted in the heart as a tiny tender seed. That seed grows in the soil of mess and muck, where unmet and unseen feelings of life live. Where the hardship and sorrow, fear and loneliness, doubt and confusion, lack of self love and self acceptance are abundant. Yet that hardy seed still grows. Not in spite of, but because of. It finds its roots, its stem, its leaves in amongst depression and grief, hopelessness and despair, and it used them as fuel for a it's tender blossoming fruit and flower. That seed grows into a mighty oak. And that oak knows the true meaning of unconditional love and acceptance. That oak knows its Self. Its fruition may have been hard won, fought in the mud and messiness of life. But in that messiness was found to be true harmony. It was found to be all. It was found to be Self. It was found to be HOME.

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Before You Judge Another

Before you judge and condemn another no matter how bad or wrong you feel they may be, take a moment to see where they are coming from. Take a moment to listen, to feel. Take a moment to listen and feel where you are coming from too - no matter how justified your anger might feel in the moment... just take a moment, take a breath. We all have the capability to act in ways that are hurtful and harmful. We all have the capability to act out of fear, misguidance and misunderstanding. We all have the capability to lash out and act out when we're feeling threatened or scared, unheard or unloved. I don't believe that human beings are fundamentally bad. Each and every one of us is striving, however imperfectly for love, is striving for acceptance, is striving for happiness, is striving for peace, is striving for inclusivity and oneness. We are striving for the same thing, all of us. We may go about it in f****d up ways. We may go about it in ways that to the outside world don't match up to ideas of what that search should like. We may go about it in…

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What Life Asks of You

A video excerpt from the June 14th Sunday Zoom Group. The questions that were asked were: Are you always good with what life asks from you? Do you still like the change or development? Details of the Sunday Zoom Groups and other events can be found on the 'events' page. The YouTube link to this video: https://youtu.be/tg6saIOIzTo   Transcript of Excerpt I'm always sort of advocating and saying how important I feel acceptance is in life. That acceptance of what is. But what does that look like practically speaking, when life is sometimes asking something of you, as it invariably does. Asks you to drop something that's not working anymore. Or step up to something that quite clearly your life is moving in that direction. And then you get things like resistance coming in and you get the mind kind of analyzing and going, "should I do this? Should I do that?" But this is the way life is moving and so that question sort of sparked this feeling of you know, it's very well and good saying you should accept whatever is coming up in your life. But does that mean that you don't have resistance? That you don't…

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Peace Chaser

'Peace chaser' is what I sometimes refer to the phenomena of someone seeking for the outward to always be peaceful so that THEY can then feel like a peaceful and spiritual person (I was one of those trust me....big time...). Spoiler alert: It's a trap, it's a red herring, it's the opposite of freedom, of liberation. It's a gilded cage of maintaining and trying to keep hold of peace as a 'thing'. It's mood making rather than a sign of true spiritual awakening. True peace is not a 'thing' to be maintained, it's not a persona to adopt or a lifestyle to achieve. It's a natural misunderstanding, that yearning for peace and looking for it as an experience. It's not wrong - the intention is good, the search for lasting peace and happiness. It's where someone's had a taste that that peace (non-suffering) is possible and so there's a perfectly natural sense of "I want that, that's what I'm after - peace". But unfortunately it's trying to put the cart before the horse and create what the mind THINKS is peace in the environment rather than ACTUAL abiding peace in the heart. It's looking at peace as a prescription to…

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In the Fire of Life

I invite you into the fire of life where the light burns so brightly on all that is. The uncomfortable and unfathomable truth and rawness of this moment is inescapable and unyielding leaving no choice but to surrender. The fire burns bright tonight and with this the ground shifts beneath your feet. The stability that felt hard won is gone in an instant taking with it all sense of knowing all sense of certainty. Your heart burns bright cracking open with aliveness with all possibilities All that is all that was all that can be held in the infinite fiery embrace of this moment. Resistance is futile here for there is space for it all. Yes even resistance itself. The heart surrenders the fever breaks and with it rushes in a sense of awe and wonder that even this yes even this can be included in your story of life.

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The Gift of Love

To meet others we first have to be willing to meet ourselves. To meet ourselves doesn’t just mean to meet the bits we like or are proud of and ignoring those aspects that we wish weren’t there. To meet ourselves means to meet it all, embrace it all, learn to love and accept it all. How can we expect to be met and to meet others if we’re not even willing to go there ourselves. It not an easy journey, learning to meet all parts of ourselves but the process lightens the load and brings peace and freedom into the heart. We're then no longer in a cage of avoidance and denial, we're no longer afraid of what lurks in our shadows because we bring light to it all, we bring love to it all. We bring space so there’s room for it all. For some the idea of bringing all of ourselves, even our shameful dirty hidden parts out into the light of awareness all at once will feel like too much of a task, too big, too soon. Maybe thoughts will come like “It's too overwhelming. I don't know where to start. I don't even know where to…

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Conversations & Questions: 14/11/19

Q: Can you tell me how to get rid of attachment and aversion? It's not about eliminating (getting rid of) anything but seeing that it's all arising in you - consciousness. This is awakening. Experiential focus or identity is shifted from the foreground (phenomena) to the background (consciousness). When this is recognised to be true in your experience the need for elimination of ANYTHING disappears. All is accepted as an arising in you, and this is true freedom. From this, peace is found and suffering is eliminated. Suffering is the lack of acceptance of WHAT IS. Let me give an example to illustrate why this recognition is actually the most fundamental recognition of awakening. Just as the clouds appear and disappear in the sky, phenomena (thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc.) are appearing and disappearing in you. Is the sky any less the sky just because it has clouds, or a storm in it? No. Are you any less YOU if there's something arising in you? No. We become either attached or averse because we mistake the phenomena for ourselves. We believe we are good or bad, right or wrong if we have certain experiences (phenomena) showing up and so we try…

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Unshakable Stability

Letting go of a specific image of safety and security is so tricky. But life calls this of us again and again when we get too comfortable putting our stability and sense of security into objects and ideas that in their fundamental nature can't provide that for us except temporarily.   Can you find your home, your safety, your energy and the warm embrace of love in something far more stable... your SELF?   It's to deepen and sink fully into that recognition and then all the other phenomena can and does come and go without the 'need' for you to depend on the ephemeral for any derived sense of stability and peace. Find that which is unchanging in your experience and it will lead you home to an unshakable okay-ness and acceptance of all that Grace presents you with on your path of life. True freedom.

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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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Own Your Power

Do not shrink into smallness Let yourself roar and feel fully into your inherent power. Your power is found in the courage to be you, to fully present ALL of you. To cease with the judgements and accept all of your wholly divine messy humanness as your own. To not second guess and hide yourself for fear of shame and judgement from others. To let them see you, really see you in all your glory, in all your power. Power is not an 'evil' blunt instrument that gets indiscriminately wielded around. Power has many faces. Power is found in full on vulnerability and openness Power is found in the soft tenderness of heart Power is found in the depths of sadness and heartbreak Power is found in all the bits of yourself you can’t yet met Power is found when living on the knife edge of exploration Power is found saying no in order that you follow your yeses In love and acceptance, there power resides. So don’t be afraid to stand in your power. Don’t be afraid to turn up to your life in a completely unapologetic way. Own your power, don't shy away from it.

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A Call To Be Present

When we experience a strong emotion or felt response to life there is a call to be present, a call to sink into it. It's not the moment to run away and avoid. It's not the moment to reject and try with all your might to change the course of life. Life is giving you a gift, an opening, the natural call to Self, the great unknowing by which all becomes known, accepted and loved. Don't be afraid, the call into the unknown is the call home, the call to the ground of your Being, it's the natural call of freedom and peace. In this moment attention is your true power, your place of healing. The only doing is the seeing, is the accepting. Tender loving attention embracing the aliveness of life.

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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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Acceptance = Love

In my travels it’s become very clear to me that to talk about acceptance is to talk about love, and to talk about love is to talk about acceptance. They are one and the same. They are the key to peace and freedom. They are the key to the recognition of your own nature. They are the key to everything. And they are happening right now, right under your nose – whether you recognize it or not.

When you fall in love with another person you accept that person, you accept their differences, you accept who they are. Similarly when you love an aspect of yourself, you accept that aspect of yourself. Equally, when you hate an aspect of yourself you are attempting the futile rejection of that part of yourself. In this way love and acceptance are seen as synonymous. (more…)

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Stop And Smell The Roses

Life is such and unbelievable gift, how often do you stop and smell the roses? Appreciate the little simple ordinary moments? Without reference to the past or thoughts to the future.

We miss the beauty of the moment so easily. Ordinary life has become so throwaway, so undesirable. Instead marked with the next glamorous instagram shot, the next big ‘experience’, the next enviable goal. Next next next. We miss the sheer joy of this extraordinary, but divinely ordinary moment.

Whether that moment be filled with anger, joy, sadness or bliss it doesn’t matter. Just the fact we are alive, that we bear witness to all of this. Oh the magnificence that (more…)

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Just for a Moment

Keep letting go that dogged determination of seeking whether it be experiences and pleasure-seeking better and more ‘stuff’ vaster and deeper knowledge more experienced and valued skills let it all go just for a moment and experience this moment. Experience what it is to live life as awareness unadorned with the commentary of the mind theres nothing to get rid of, no bad thought all must be held in the tender embrace of acceptance for the real blossoming of life lived in truth and freedom to be recognised as your birthright all along.

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Stand in Truth

I stand in truth. Can I accept that I may be judged, I may be questioned, I may be ridiculed? Can I accept that, can I be brave? Can I stand in my own truth, without qualification and explanation? Can I stand sure, knowing that it’s the right thing, it’s the only thing? Can I stand in truth, unashamedly without reason, and with no excuse? Can I stand up for mySelf, stand tall for the realisation of my very being? Can I stand up for the truth of my own reality that I know so well, so intimately? Can I live my life without the influence of shoulds and should nots? Can I say to hell with it all and be as I am? Can I stand in all my glory, warts and all, honest and vulnerable? Can I accept all of it, every aspect of me, every aspect of life, can I embrace it into my heart without exception? So I stand in my truth and in turn encourage others to stand in theirs. For it’s the most loving thing I can do for myself and others. Drop all the games, all the masks, all the pretences, all the…

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