Hello beautiful,
Our earth is calling to us.... this is a reflection to share with you.
We are two months (and now 15
days) into a new year and for me it has been such an unexpected detour in my journey that it is great to reflect and of course share. Here are some of my highlights so far;
I ran out of money (Dec 2018)
I guess you could say in one way I started the year with a fresh canvas.
I started saying yes to any work that came my way which ended up being gardening, private cooking and cleaning.
I am now in the beginning of a journey as a Zenthai Shiatsu therapist.
I seem to have stopped this “ideal” journey to “success”
I am exhausted from saying YES to everything but I am in gratitude for what has come to me.
I am breaking patterns and opening more and more to love. Love of self. Love of our planet and love for you.
Just to give you some context into the above points before we jump into the title (I am sure I can bring it all together at the end). Pursuing my dream of just of working solely for myself and following my heart by teaching yoga, mentoring, running workshops and creating Wolf & Owl caused me to not focus on my foundations (security, health, nourishment…. The basics) and I ran out of money. I suppressed that stress, believing the “universe will take care of me” (which it has), until one day on a Zenthai course, something shifted, the dam broke, I literally vomited and crapped all that fear and suppression up (and out) and I was left to deal with the reality of asking my family for a loan. This challenged me on so many levels and I am truly grateful for it, although I there are times I am still emotionally dealing with the earthquake it caused (think I’m blah blah age, I should be blah blah blah, people must think I am blah blah blah) which is all the bullshit the mind tells you to distract you from just experiencing life as you are right now.
Even with that incredible beautiful realisation reality meant I had to start generating regular income and I just said yes to whatever came my way, including cleaning jobs, gardening jobs as well as keeping on going with my yoga teaching, organising retreats, Wolf & Owl and now Zen Thai Shiatsu sessions.
Funniest thing is I am working for a “wage” I am mostly happy with (and getting better at asking for more) and I am working solely for myself.
There are many things I have learnt and expanded into: I will clean for money (not having been the most reliable in my own home) and I am actually very thorough. Gardening is fabulous except in 30+ degrees. Cooking for other people in other people’s kitchens is fun when there is a horse that comes to visit you for a carrot feed.
What I have learnt to love about these jobs is that I am actually happy in service to people (bottom line, I will only work with kind people) and none of these things cause further damage to the earth. Also through these challenges and detours in life, I continuously find another part of myself, more willingness to just live, to stay simple, to love what is true for me and to constantly check in with my values. A side benefit I will only touch on and may follow up again at a later time, this work has thoroughly connected me to my female ancestor lineage, in a wonderful way, something I am truly grateful for.
I am also totally aware without a shred of doubt that this to is not permanent (thank the goddess).
Cleaning for other people means I get to choose what products I use and you probably guessed it but I make them all myself. I will not work with chemicals. They make me feel sick and they make our earth sick.
These are the 4 ingredients I use for everything I have come up against so far:
Baking Soda
White vinegar
Trust worthy essential oils i.e non synthetic
Non toxic liquid soap.
All of these except for the EO I buy bulk and they WORK. My favourite EO's to use are any citrus, tea tree, eucalpytus and peppermint.
YOU WILL NEVER NEED TO GO BACK TO TOXIC CLEANING!!
What all of this has created is working 7 days a week. To fit in what I need to support my basic needs (cleaning, gardening, cooking) and do what I love, Wolf & Owl, Zenthai and teaching I have ended up on a service bender.
My own self service has taken a real back seat and not in a good way. My yoga and meditation practice is good. It is synonymous with my work so it gets done, but often not FOR me. I often find my practice is little about what I am really needing and more about what I feel I should teach.
It’s the basics like showering, putting on deodorant (because I will not buy and I haven’t made any up). I have been relying on stimulants, my sheets could probably be washed more and I don’t know how to slow the F down.
When I look at this I see it as a micro of the macro. My earth (my body) has been neglected and our earth is being neglected because we are all too damn busy. What is left is chaos and depletion.
For a while now I have been reflecting on that great word SURRENDER. If you practiced yoga sometimes we find this in shavasana. The death pose. Death is about surrender, returning to softness, dissolving (my current fav word along with magnificent) TRUST and letting go. Shavasana is experiencing that whilst we are still alive and conscious.
The other part of surrender is what do you surrender into too? It is always the earth, the floor, the couch, the bed, your friend; these physical objects are all related to earth. Earth is there to hold us. The ground beneath us will nourish us, hold us, show us unconditional love and teach us to trust. It is an interesting idea to ponder, what is your relationship to earth?
Do you stop to notice the earth beneath you?
Do you have a two way relationship of giving and receiving?
What are your beliefs around surrender?
When you lie on the ground, do you feel like you are able to fully surrender? I haven’t……yet, I am so interested in this I am working with it daily…. How much can I “consciously” let go, how heavy can I let myself become. At the moment there is a very noticeable feeling on holding on. I am yet to even feel what solidness beneath me truly feels like. When we are asleep we do not notice this as we return to the unconscious, so being asleep doesn’t count my beloveds.
In yoga, tai chi, chi gung and other ancient practices we work with the elements of physical life, earth, water, fire, wind and ether or space.
Earth is where we always need to come back to, to return to our foundations, to restore, to rest. From this we get the strength to grow. From our connection to our foundations we RECEIVE energy. We build FIRE again and we begin to flow and to be able to GIVE. I also believe that in the act of surrender we also give. Whether it be with the earth or a human being, when we gift our vulnerability and softness it is a treasure to an authentic other.
Self Service is Earth Service. Practice lying down and seeing what you can surrender to. Notice where in your life, do you need your own self service and what does that look like.
I feel like so many of us need to be taught how to rest and reconnect, we are fighting against the mass consciousness and family programing, (and I am not talking about escaping to your book or Netflix, although that does have a place too.) most of our fellow society is walking around depleted and filling up on rocket fuel which in the long run just pollutes us more.
Depletion can often begin by looking like a rapid almost egoic mania of “I am so busy”. We should know this as a dead giveaway by now. The martyr in us becomes addicted to that very sentence and we become a hipster record on repeat.
First the craziness is fun and we have that slightly hysterical laugh and pride. Then the tension that comes is reflected out to our community and loved ones. We often fall back into our familiar patterns of what gives us maximum energy for minimal effort. Until one day we break (thank goodness) the body short circuits before it truly melts down. Of course we can get off this hamster wheel with practice. And what is waiting for us that costs us nothing but a moment. Earth. Her unconditional love is waiting for us to surrender. So my sweet sweet friends, contemplate your relationship to earth, to self-love and compassion and the ripple effects of this in your relationships, your community and our planet. If your one of those souls who needs to book out your calendar to surrender this month is the last month for the early bird special in my upcoming retreat Walking in Beauty, Living by Grace. Come to New Zealand with me or join me there.
I'll keep you updated.
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