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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Lurching Through Life

We go lurching from one action to another all in the name of trying to pin down and find a sense of stability, find a resolution. All to avoid or fix the strong feelings and sensations arising in the body-mind. If only we could slow down or even stop in those moments, find our centre, find our inherent stability of Beingness and then observe what action comes about from this. Not an action based out of reactivity and fear but an action based from the quietness and centered-ness, stability even, of Self. An action that isn't impeded by the conditioned mind, an action that is natural, spontaneous and correct for the moment. Trying to 'get away from' is the source of so much suffering, quite often the thing we're trying to get away from isn't half as much trouble and suffering as the act of trying to avoid the feeling or sensation arising around it. We jump from moment to moment constantly chasing or being chased, never realising that what we seek isn't over there but here... in this moment, in the heart of this experience should we take the time to look, to BE. What it actually takes is…

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To Be Held

Sometimes you just want someone to hear you, to see you, without needing to fix you or explain away your pain and confusion. To hold the space, the pregnant silence, the love for all that you're going through. To not project into the void of uncomfortableness and fill it with solutions, comparisons and stories. To be okay with just having the space be about you and only you. To create a refuge and safety for you to go through what you're going through. To compassionately be there for you, to listen to you and not make it in any way about them. To give you space without any needs or any conditions or any time limits. Sometime you really WANT this. Sometimes you really NEED this. We all do. And that's okay, that's not bad or wrong. Let it sink in... WE ALL NEED TO BE HEARD AND HELD SOMETIMES. When you do receive this gift of space freely and wholly given, it lights up your heart, it lights up your world. The healing that comes from this act of being held, this act compassion and tender love is immense. But it's not always easy to find it in those…

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Finding A Crack

It's those moments where we are hardest on ourselves that actually call for the most kindness, for the most understanding, most forgiveness, the most self love. But sometimes that feels like an impossibility, the moment feels too heavy, too overwhelming to bring kindness into the equation. It feels like too much of a leap and too far to go. In those moments where self love and compassion can't be found maybe it's possible to look instead to the ways in which we're being unkind and too hard on ourselves and loosen the grip just a little, for just a moment. Let some space, some breathing room into the moment. Take a momentary pause and feel the relief and space and peace that that brings. Sometimes it's not a case of completely flipping the script, sometimes it's just the case of simply finding the tiniest of cracks to what is already there. Those cracks can be found anywhere and are waiting and willing to be found. Sometimes the kindest thing that can be managed is to find that single crack in life to take a momentary respite.

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Scars

I wear my scars not like armour that I'm proud of or a badge of honour that I boast about, but as acknowledgement and reverence for what I have experienced. For the lessons I have learnt and as a reminder of what I have gone through. I'm neither proud or not proud They depict the humbling life showed me. They are just a part of me A part that I once tried to hide A part that I was once ashamed and avoidant of A part that I have now learnt to embrace and love. My scars tell a story But it's just that A story. They don't define me.

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Some thoughts on World Mental Health Day

There's a tendency to avoid dealing with the subject of mental health in some spiritual traditions and teachings. To poo poo inner work and growth, to try to meditate away 'negative' emotions, reactions, thought patterns and conditioning. But spirituality and spiritual awakening is not a panacea, it is many things and in some ways a lot of the "problems" of the mind do in fact disappear. But in some ways post awakening the work and cleanup becomes intensified and it can become even more important to address and give attention to anything that's still arising. This can be when some of the true work begins, because the strategies that have stopped you from looking beneath the covers of the mind dissolve. It is the embracing not the running away that allows one to look at where the stored traumas, memories, reactions, conditioning and energetic imprints are having an impact on the current moment, your current experience of life. So in some ways it's only then that you can truly move through and on from the issues or patterns that may have plagued your life. We all know someone, or maybe ourselves that have experienced mental health issues, and yet it's…

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I Have a Secret

I have a secret to tell... I sound like I know what I'm talking about but in truth I live entirely in the unknown No stakes to place No walls or ceilings or floors to hang on to life is a free-fall of continuous newness It's a leap of faith and trust and it's the ever present continuation of acceptance I have no opinions and no agenda nothing to rely on or anything to lay claim over I see life as a gift and all the content that shows up in it part of that gift Most people are so quick to try and pin down life to make rules to live by find positions to take and opinions to have But to step into the unknown is to step out of the mind of conception and into the realm of Grace into the realm of Self into the realm of awareness logic will do you no good here

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Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off

Sometimes life brings you to your knees. Floors you with it's strong wisdom. Shows you where the shadows still lie. Where the aspects of yourself are that still go unmet.   It's a calling that when ignored screams and kicks and shouts to be seen, to be heard.   It's a gut punch of a moment one that takes the breath away and leaves all else quivering in its wake.   All else stops.   So you stop with it close the eyes and listen.   Listen to where life is taking you. Listen to what life is showing you. Listen to your heart, to your soul, to your Being.   No more strategies No more solutions No more resistance No more avoidance Just simply what is.   And in that silence all is found.   All the mess all the heartbreak all the mistrust being met fully.   All the darkness comes into the light.   The opening of yourself so vast that the edge is never met The melting of all the hurt and violence into acceptance and love.   Love wins out.   And so you pick yourself up and dust yourself off and on you go…

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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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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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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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