On clearing and cleansing...

I have been working for a while now on feeling “enough”: that I am indeed enough, just as I am, in all my glorious imperfection. Sometimes I get it and feel pretty invincible. Other times I lapse into believing the myth of fragmentation – that I can only feel whole with the input from someone or something else; a myth that is dangerously comforting in its familiarity. And whilst signing up for a My Word Goddess Reading for 2017, I thought I’d take another look at this year’s. Last December, I was introduced to the Goddess ISIS. My word for the year was REMEMBER. Both were incredibly on point. Because, just as Isis is famous for, over the course of 2016 I have been re-membering my true self as well as remembering who I was always meant to be. The year has been about subtraction, about shedding the falsely acquired beliefs and habits to unearth the divine blue print beneath.

Not only does Isis tell us that we were never broken, that we have always been perfect and whole, but she also embodies the empowered feminine and the capacity to feel deeply. She therefore reminds us to acknowledge and accept the depth of our emotions. She also shows us how to create the life we desire rather than simply opposing what we don’t like – she creates as well as renews.

So yesterday when I woke up feeling I had had enough of not feeling enough and that it was perhaps exactly this comforting familiarity which was preventing me from moving on, I decided to channel my goddess, Isis, and to take action. To ‘feel deeply’ and to acknowledge and accept my emotions by finally giving a voice to my mind gremlins. This is something I find very hard to do. So I indulged them, and wrote out one big, fat list of “I am not…..enough”. It pretty much extended into every aspect of my life: intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical. It wasn’t pretty reading. But the exercise felt perversely good – I was clearing out the mistaken beliefs, releasing them from my head, consciously disowning them.

Next I wrote out the exact opposite (with a little heart after each for good measure). Again I took the lead from Isis, creating what I want in life rather than just opposing what I don’t like. And to seal out the crap and draw in the good, I did some EFT or ‘tapping’. (This is a new tool to me which I was introduced to by the Law of Attraction guru, Natalie Jenkins. As I recently learnt on one of her online courses, it can be used both to release and clear mistaken beliefs, as well as to assist in manifesting affirmations. I did both.)

The universe was clearly working in harmony with me yesterday because the focus for that afternoon’s restorative yoga class was clearing and cleaning out anything that no longer served us. And that night? The almightiest rainstorm I have ever witnessed! A spectacular light and sound show that lasted for about four hours, wiping out all of the power in the house and vicinity as though commanding us to watch, enthralled and humbled.

Drawn to its magnificent energy - watching didn't feel like enough - I had a sudden urge to get in it, to be at one with this natural and cleansing spectacle. So I stripped off and stood under the heavens with hands raised upwards to receive and legs rooted in the shallow pool that used to be the lawn. I allowed myself to be soaked and purified by the incredible downpour; I roared in harmony with the thunder as the trees around me bent forwards in submission to the mighty power of the storm. It was AWESOME.

And the best thing of all? My two girls, aged 7 and 5, came to join me. Well after their official bedtime. Here we were, three naked humans in the dark, in the howling wind and torrential rain, unleashing and merging our feminine voices in response to the thunderous masculine. We shared our natural wildness in a moment of pure, uninhibited joy, communing with the tremendous forces of Gaia.

It is the unbridled and serendipitous moments like this one that remind me that clearing blockages doesn’t always have to be laboured. When you've done the hard work, then comes the fun. I’m so glad I indulged myself and allowed the girls to join in. It was a rare, spontaneous bonding experience that none of us will forget in a hurry.

And just in case yesterday’s monumental efforts of journalling, affirmations, EFT, yoga and a family rain dance didn’t do the trick, I have consciously chosen to release the notion of unworthiness from my life this December. To let go of lack and of the sense of not being enough. After all, they’ve had more than their piece of the pie. It’s time to move on. Next year is about feeling WHOLE, PERFECT, ENOUGH.

And so I turn to YOU - if you had something you wanted to release, what would it be? What have you had enough of? What sentiment is no longer serving you? How can you move one step closer to being the best possible version of yourself?

With the Solstice taking place in the Northern hemisphere tomorrow and Xmas and New Year round the corner, now is the time to start preparing to let go of mistaken beliefs, those that are no longer yours to carry. Being witnessed in your intent only magnifies it, so go on, please join me in conscious transitioning into 2017, and share what it is that you want to release in the comments below. Let’s make this end of year a powerful one! You owe it to yourself…

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Art by Christian Schloe

Subtraction...

So profound, so simple, so painful, so awesome, so true. If the journey of life and its ups and downs could be reduced to just one thing, this, for me, is it: "Awakening to our full power is a process of subtraction—subtracting out the toxic messages and beliefs that we’ve acquired and replacing them with beliefs that reflect our authentic and undiluted truth." Bethany Webster

Artwork by Christian Schloe

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On women and their mothers...

The “mother wound”. It’s kind of taboo to even write that let alone admit that it resonates. Because the bond between a woman and her mother is often considered sacrosanct – too important to be interfered with. But it is precisely because it is so important that it must be interfered with. Or at least looked at, to see whether it is allowing both parties to live lives according to their fullest potential or whether it is holding both parties back in an unconscious contract that requires them to hide their light and act ‘small’ to fit in or be accepted by each other. I have been exploring this concept having come across the amazing work of Bethany Webster who has made the mother wound the core part of her offering. It is both fascinating and challenging work which I hope to learn more about soon by following her online course. As a mother myself, I want to make sure that I can clear as much generational baggage as I can so that my children are in the best position they can be to become authentic, happy people. I believe this is the cornerstone to all female innerwork.

Generational baggage is even stronger for women because it is passed on physically as well as through the usual unconscious patterns of behaviour we inherit as children learning to navigate the world. It always amazes me when I reflect that I was already present in my grandmother’s womb. Yes, physically! As women we are born with a fully functioning set of ovaries and all the eggs we will ever produce throughout our lives. Thus I was already fully immersed into the matriarchal line as an egg in my mother’s womb as my grandmother was pregnant with her. Crazy, eh?!

And where does the wound come from? In a nutshell, historically women and feminine energies in both men and women have been oppressed. This has traditionally caused women to segregate and compete for available resources. The degree to which our female ancestors felt “less than” has dictated the depth of the wound that is unconsciously passed on through the generations. There is no blame in this because they simply did not have the tools to release the trauma this created. We do.

As part of a larger female collective awakening we are in a unique position to use our feminine energies and means of connection: movement, song, touch as well as meditation and reflection to clear this baggage. But it must start with the very difficult admission that on some level there IS a wound: our mothers may not have been there for us in all the ways we wanted her to be. Probably because they simply couldn’t be.

This acknowledgement alone allows us to free up the energy that was spent trying to fill the void in unconstructive ways – either through addictions, inappropriate relationships or work – and begin to give ourselves what we felt was lacking. Through parenting ourselves, we are free to become our authentic selves. We can begin to live our lives according to our own, unique set of beliefs rather than according to a book of beliefs we were handed as children by our parents, our culture, society as a whole.

This is necessary work. Because without a healthy relationship to our female ancestral line (however independent and modern we think we are!) we cannot have a healthy relationship to ourselves or to our children. We are the generation who can take an honest look at our inherited beliefs and take unprecedented steps to clear generational baggage by rejecting those that do not truly belong to us.

I therefore challenge you to ask yourself the following questions: Are you carrying negative stories passed down from before that are not truly yours to pass on? Are you caretaking inherited beliefs that do not actually resonate with your authentic self? Is the bond with your mother one that allows you both to flourish?

This is deep and scary work that goes to the core of how we see ourselves. But it is exciting too because it is liberating. It requires courage. I’m going to summon my Warrior to dive in – will you?

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