Look deeply into nature and then you will understand everything better

‘Look deep in to nature & then you will understand everything better’
Genius Abert Einstein

Perhaps unbeknown to you, you are a flower.
We are all the same but different. …
Universally the same species, individually unique.
Growing and blossoming in our own time, yet all on the same journey of growth together.

We all have our moment of darkness, held tightly in a bud. The layers and walls that keep us safe and protected are a part of us, we have put them up. Yet they also keep us trapped, hidden in the dark within the claustraphobic environment that we have created. Within our bud, we live in the life of duality.. perhaps we are in the darkness, struggling to breathe in this way of life, needing the light but afraid to step out of our comfort zones, fearing what is on the other side. Yet we stay in this discomfort because it is also safe and protected.

But you are a flower. You are not made to spend your entire life in a tightly secured protected bud. It is deffinitely a part of the journey, but it is only the beginning of it. To grow unfolds from within, to unravel the layers that have made you feel protected and let them fall away. To get rid of the old and make space for the new. To uncover the beauty within and let the colour and fragrance of who you are underneath, show through.

Be curious and search for the light. This is where you thrive, this is where true inner beauty is seen.

Be courageous, watch yourself grow, let those old layers fall away because they are the walls that hide who you are. They are the walls that hide the light.

Surrender to what you are. Be curious about what you are. Be gentle and be patient, you are delicate. Remember you are beautiful, imperfectly perfect, incomparably unique yet a part of one which is life.

Life is a journey of growth as nature shows us.
Don’t live most of your life hiding, make space to grow.

You are a beautiful flower, allow yourself to vulnerable, allow yourself to open and be seen.

 

Divine

A Place of Divinity

is within you and me,

In the Heart it will be found

A Love so Profound,

A Love that has no words

as feeling as Free as the birds,

Go beyond the drama of the mind

there you will discover this one of a kind,

Let go of your fear

that’s not why you’re Here,

You are this Pure Love

Sent to Earth with a Gift from Above,

Your Purpose is to Share

You are Unique and so Rare,

Find Within you the Divine

For it unites the illusion of yours and mine.

 

How yoga can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves

‘Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.’

A great quote. Yet for beginners, this may seem a bit confusing and mind boggling..

How on earth are you supposed to find out more about yourself through practising some postures and breathing?

Ever been to a yoga class determined to quieten the mind and be in a peaceful space.. then find the person practising next to you has really loud distracting breathing? You can’t really ask them to stop breathing so you have the choice of being agitated and annoyed for the next hour or to change your perspective and just accept it and let it be.

Similarly in life.. we may expect things to go in a certain way but then outside circumstances change it, we either accept them and adjust or we end up suffering and hurting because we resist and let our emotions get the better of us.

Being on the mat allows us to be. A time to come to the present moment, bring awareness to ourselves, watch the mind and listen to the body.

Attempting to be present in the now is something we all manage to do for only a short period of time before we get distracted.. let alone a 90minute class! By watching how present or how easily distracted we are on the mat, we can then see that this may reflect how present we are in the rest of our lives, spending time with loved ones but thinking of work? Spending time in work but thinking about what to cook for dinner? If this is the case then you may be present physically but not as you, this is how you let life slip by because you’re never really there if you’re not really present.

Being on the mat brings this new found awareness into your life.

Watching the mind can prove interesting in yoga, especially when you come to postures that appear difficult. The mind might say ‘I can’t do that’ before even trying. How many times does this then also reflect in your normal life? The mind might be too busy concentrating on how much more flexible your neighbours are compared to you leaving you feeling inferior ; could this also be true that you then spend a lot of time comparing your life with other peoples?

One of my favourite reasons I enjoy practising yoga or meditating is so I can see where my mind is at. Everyone’s state of mind changes from moment to moment depending on what’s happening. I can wake some mornings and be fully present and peaceful, other times my mind will be thinking of past, future, day dreaming and distracted and that then tells me that I need to put some extra work into achieving peace for myself and doing less.

It let’s you come to know yourself in a new way, listening and allowing you to help yourself.

How much do you listen to your body? Do you find that you will attempt the full posture instead of a variation because everyone else is doing that, even though your hamstrings might be yelling for you to stop pushing yourself. Or do you find that you could push yourself further into a posture but you like to relax and play it comfortable? Again, these things can all reflect in how you go about your daily life.

So.. Let the yoga mat be your place of learning, enter with an open-mind and child like curiosity. There is no need to judge any of these things that you may discover about yourself. Observation is simply watching, don’t take it too seriously and put a judgement of it being bad or good. See it as a game and say ‘thank you for that lesson, I can now be aware if I do something similar in daily life.’

‘Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are’

Namaste!

 

 

 

Learn what Chakra imbalances you may have

Have you felt a lot of fear lately, find it difficult accepting love or cannot focus at all? Can’t find the answers as to why? Perhaps have a look and explore the Chakra system which is our main energetic system that affects our emotions, behaviours, overall mental and physical wellbeing. If you find one of these resonates with you, research on yoga postures or other things you can do to balance a certain chakra, it may help!

• First Chakra Blocked – Root Chakra / Muladhara

  Overly fearful about security and survival, ungrounded, flighty, fearful, feeling of not belonging anywhere, weak constitution; or overly practical, lacking dreams and imagination, plodding, habitual, tied down, difficulty letting go; fear; problems with bones, feet, legs, colon, elimination, weight.

• Second Chakra Blocked – Sacral chakra – Svadhistana

  Emotionally cold, low-energy, low libido, difficulty changing, difficulty experiencing joy, holds back; or hyper-emotional, overly sexual, overly focused on physical pleasure; guilt; problems with reproductive and urinary systems

• Third Chakra Blocked – Navel chakra – Manipura

  Lack of confidence, difficulty manifesting desires, lack of self-esteem; or misuse of power, dominance, over-reliance on will (potentially leading to physical exhaustion); shame; problems with digestion, hypertension, fatigue, adrenals; diabetes, allergies

• Fourth Chakra Blocked – Heart Chakra – Anahata

  4th chakra blockage is especially significant because it is in the middle, uniting the upper and lower chakras. Among other things, blockage can manifest as loneliness, lack of emotional fulfillment and difficulty accepting or giving love, lack of compassion; or as unhealthy relationships, “loving too much,” love manifesting at a low vibration, or a lack of sense of connection to the divine or to nature; unresolved sorrow; problems with heart or lungs; asthma

• Fifth Chakra Blocked – Throat Chakra – Vishudda

  Inability to communicate ideas, problems with self-expression (expression of own truth), problems with creativity; or uncontrolled, low-value, inconsistent communication, manipulative, deceptive of self or others; problems with neck, shoulders, thyroid

• Sixth Chakra Blocked – Third Eye – Ajna

  Lack of imagination, lack of vision, lack of concentration, blocked or clouded intuition, can’t see “big picture”; or distorted vision, delusional, distorted imagination, misuse of intuition; or overly reliant on logic and intellect; problems with vision, headaches, nightmares

• Seventh Chakra Blocked – Crown chakra – Sahasrara

  Spacy, ungrounded, impractical, indecisive, difficulty with finishing things, no common sense, depressed, alienated, confused; or cut off from spirituality, plagued by sense of meaninglessness; or delusional, grandiose; problems with brain, cognition, mental illness.

 

 

New Year rituals that benefit us

Happy New Year to each and every one of you beautiful souls.

I haven’t written a blog post in months… and yup I feel it. It feels great to be starting the New Year with a post!

I love writing and sharing with the world, if my post helps, inspires or plants a seed in one persons life.. that’s what makes me feel fulfilled.

So beginning the New Year in 2016, let’s take a look at how we can make sure we create a beneficial year for ourselves.

I watched a video the other day and It really hit home with me, a ring of truth. In the past I always assumed that rituals where a religious act and performed only by religious people etc.

In the video it exclaimed how actually, every single one of us have rituals, we just either aren’t aware of them or we brush them off as a habit (good or bad). We have rituals of the order we get up, read the newspaper in the morning, check Facebook first thing when we wake up, have a morning coffee and biscuit, have a cigarette break.. and so on.

As humans we are known to be creatures of habit.. its natural. But do we ever question our habits? These habits are our rituals. Yet what does smoking, scrolling on Facebook, watching the news; what does any of that really benefit us? The truth is our rituals in modern society don’t benefit us, the news only highlights negativity, smoking kills us and social media amplifies the ego and has us wishing we lived someone else’s life.

I used to read Facebook any time I was bored, needed time to pass.. sometimes i still fall into that trap. It’s addictive. The same as we can fall into the trap of eating at a certain time because its a ritual. The thing is we don’t connect with ourselves with our modern day rituals, we actually do the opposite. We don’t question if we are hungry, we just look at the time and say it’s time to eat, we don’t listen to our bodies. We don’t question if we really need that coffee today because its a ritual.

So here I am sharing with you small quick rituals for you to do, that will benefit your life instead of wasting time and spending it doing something unworthy or damaging for your health

1.Wake up and instead of going on your phone, actually make an effort to stay off it for the first hour. Technology takes up energy from you (not what you want waking up). Instead, think of 5 things you are grateful for. You can think in your head or say out loud.

2. Dedicate 10-15 minutes of your morning to meditating. Once you begin a practise and stick to the same time it gets easier, like every habit. It’s a great way to begin the day in peace, tuning in to how you feel. For example some days you may find it difficult to focus on meditating, this tells you that you’re mind is busy and agitated so you may need to have more time to calm. Other days you may fall asleep, this tells you you are to go to bed early. The body will always give us signs to show us what to do, but we have to make the effort to listen.

3. Go for a walk on your lunch break. Go experience the outdoors, use your sense of smell, touch, hearing and be grateful that you have those senses.

4. Stop for a minute or when you’re on the toilet each time take 3 deep breaths and concentrate simple on your breath.

5. Write in a journal about your day. This gives you a time to reflect on what happened, what made you feel happy, angry, sad, emotional. It gives you and idea of the things that trigger these feelings and perhaps how you can deal with them. Also it’s always good to know what makes you laugh. diaries can hold great memories too.

And there you go.. 5 rituals that benefit you. Rituals need some self-discipline to begin with, especially to replace old rituals. Habits/rituals are forms of addictions but once we replace them, we soon forget about the old ones. You will slowly see your life start to transform for the better.

We are responsible for the lives we create, if we put in the effort we can manifest our dreams into realities.

Lots of love

Sian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why we yearn for love

As a teenager i used to yearn for love..I felt if only I had a partner, then I would be complete. I would have someone to be mine. Someone to accept me as I am, and to then love me.. what an incredible feeling to just have someone to share your life with..

I know i’m not the only one who had these thoughts, dreams, illusions..

I still have those thoughts some days.. I wonder to myself, wouldnt it be nice to share my adventures and stories with someone. The truth is I am a hopeless romantic, I think perhaps I love the idea of love, more than love itself.

Now when I have those days, I realize I am exactly what I need and if I’m yearning for love then its yearning for more from myself, from within.

I dont need anyone to be mine, I have myself. I dont need to belong to anyone else, I belong to myself.

Someone told me once – We’re always longing for someone to hold our hand when we have another one right in front of us. God made us perfect, complete, whole.. he gave us two hands for us to hold our own.

When I have thoughts recurring over love and seeking it outside, I question what do I want from those thoughts.. what are they telling me that I need to give to myself.

Sometimes its a hug.. sometimes its a foot massage.. sometimes its a few compassionate kind words.

Whatever it is, that aching, that craving and wanting.. its coming from you, for you.

It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to be desired, accepted, loved.. it makes us feel valued. But what happens when that gets taken away from us.. do we suddenly become worthless?

If we value ourselves, we no longer feel the need for other to value us.

Love is a beautiful thing, to experience in all its glory and truth, we must first love ourselves.. Otherwise we simply desire to be desired. love to be valued. Love to be made to feel better about ourselves.. that’s not what love is.

Loving and valuing ourselves takes effort, patience, compassion, kindness. It takes dedication and work, it takes unveiling all the masks, undoing, getting to know whats underneath.. confronting.

People say love yourself first before you can love another. I get it. Its all beginning to make sense to me. Now I’m simply on that path to really feeling.. and yes it takes a whole lotta patience, compassion and kindness. But I feel my heart slowly cracking open, its not happening overnight but i slowly feel my walls breaking down. I know it in my mind and I am beginning to feel it in my heart but I am working on feeling it fiercly, passionately and lovingly.. like the person that I am.

I hope this post makes you think about your desires.. what you long for.. what love means to you.. what you want from others that you could give yourself?

It all starts from within.. people say that all the time. now lets all go on a journey together and explore what that means..

Working 9-5 what a way to make a living…

Why is it that we buy into the 9-5 working way of living…

As 5 year olds in school we have great dreams of becoming astronauts, ballet dancers, actors and so on.. So why is it that we lose this drive, this passion to fulfill our ambitions.

Of course as we grow older our passions might change but even then we find ourselves settling for things on a much smaller scale because we no longer believe our dreams are achievable.

Growing up, we are surrounded in a society that has been set in a trap, we’re programmed with limiting beliefs that do not serve us, that ‘real’ life is hard and that dreams are just dreams.

From a young age in school we are taught that we are dumb or stupid if we don’t pass the exams they set us, even though we are all different with various IQ and emotional intelligence. Slowly our dreams floats away.. we are told we have to be realistic and not live in a fantasy land.

The truth is we are being tricked out of our lives. We leave school with a lot of fear, confusion, self-doubt and insecurities, mostly from comparison to others because we are expected all to do the same things and then compare ourselves for not being the same.

In my opinion, it’s all intentional, so that with these insecurities we can work for the system.

By working for the system I mean spending the majority of our life working to earn money, just so we can then give it back to the system by buying a big house, a nice car and the latest gadgets and materialistic things.

The marketing world makes us believe that by purchasing the latest gadgets, going on exotic holidays and owning a flash car – it will make us happy and prove our success.

We have bought into the statement that ‘Money buys happiness’. With the insecurities we have from leaving school. we have something great to prove so when we earn money, we want to buy things to prove our success, to ourselves and others. We want to own the latest gadget or newest car.. not really for ourselves but for what others will think of us.

That comes from that insecurity that was ingrained within from a young age. We constantly want more, because the marketing world will always bring new things into creation and to want to keep proving our success, we will always be buying more. We will never feel fulfilled with what we have, not whilst someone else has more than us.

And so we become slaves to the system.. spending fifty years of our lives working for money, just to spend it back on materialistic things that actually only bring us short-term happiness, so that we have to go back to working the long hours just to buy the next big thing.. a continuous cycle of dis-contentment and unfulfillement.

We are lucky to then have our health after we retire, all these things but our lives have passed us by.. Or many have a mid-life crisis from recognizing their deep unhappiness from being alive but not really living. More so, nowadays mental illnesses are on the rise within young adults from the self-doubt, fear of the future and simply feeling lost.

I ask you to question whatever your doing, question your intentions and what you really want out of your life.

Perhaps you say you want a lot of money, why? We all want to be comfortable but there is no need for greed.

Imagine if you worked your own hours, doing something you dream about and serves your passion.. that would bring you fulfillment, time spent working would be more like doing a hobby and you would have spare time to do things for yourself or your family. All you need is self-belief that you can actually create any kind of life that you want, know that any limiting beleifs that you cannot do that, are not real. Recognize the potential within yourself, within all of us.

We are the creators of our lives, its time we began to live up to it.

Follow your dreams and unleash your power

Feel the fear and do it anyway

Fear and Denial. That’s what I’ve been working with this week.

Through observing my behaviour and patterns, I have come to recognize that I keep dismissing my desires. Any time an opportunity comes up to create something for myself that I am passionate about, I get excited but then dismiss it with the excuses like –

‘Its not the right time’, ‘ I don’t have the time or energy right now’ , ‘I should just focus on something smaller for now’,

I think the truth is that I am denying what I want because I am scared. Scared to admit to myself and ask for what I want because then I will want to go ahead and pursue it. If I try to pursue it, then I am vulnerable because I am out of my comfort zone in the unknown, which brings up fear.

Fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of not being taken seriously.

I questioned why are these things important to me? I realized it’s only the ego they are important to.It is only my ego that will feel embarrassed, inferior or a failure. And essentially I’m trying to weaken the ego so what’s to hold me back?

If I know within that I have good intentions, that I will try my best and that’s all I can do. Then why let the ego create a false illusion of what might happen in the future because It is afraid of being damaged.

Does this scenario sound similar to you? Are you afraid of stepping out of your comfort zone to try something new for yourself? Are you afraid you will fail, look stupid or have people laugh at you?

Yet if we give in to these fears then we will never move forward, forever thinking ‘What If?’

Deep within ourselves we know what we want, sometimes we are just to scared to tell ourselves it and ask.

I think our purpose is to fulfill our passions and desires, otherwise why would they be there? They are god’s gift to us.

What we do with them is up to us. But fear.. fear is just an illusion, it is what prevents us from looking or searching for our desires, it is our excuse for acting small and inferior because we are afraid to risk things to become what we desire.

I am challenging myself to give up fear, knowing that it is only a limitation. I transform my energy to focusing on what I can do, what I can create, focusing only on the positive with affirmations and visualisation of what I want to create.

Like attracts like, its the Law of Attraction. Eliminate doubt, there is no space for that.

Great things come from the unknown..

Recognizing the power behind your thoughts

Recognizing how your thoughts create an impact on your life is essential for everyone, especially if you find yourself suffering from unhappiness, discontentment, depression, anxiety and stress.

All of which are the outcome of negative thought patterns.

The good news.. we can change our thought patterns into positive ones, creating a positive life!

Our thoughts create our reality..

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, you may well ask.

THOUGHTS  =  EMOTION  =  SENSATION  =  ACTION/ IMPULSE/ BEHAVIOUR.

Let’s say for example,

The kid’s are fighting (scenario)

‘These kids never listen to me, I can’t cope with this right now’ (thought)

Overwhelming feeling of stress and anxiety. (emotion)

tightness in the chest, shorter breath and muscle tension. (sensations)

shouting at the children, crying and perhaps smack them. (Action/Impulse/Behaviour)

Another example,

You’re with your partner and he’s talking to his really kind and beautiful friend. (scenario)

‘Why is he with me when he could do so much better, what if he leaves me because i’m not good enough.’ (thought)

Overwhelming feeling of panic, jealousy, anxiety. (emotion)

Heavy feeling in the stomach, adrenaline, fast heart beat (sensations)

Act needy and insecure with the partner, controlling and demand the partner not to see her again. (action/impulse/behaviour)

So, you see how easy it is for our thoughts to affect our reality? Creating and shaping our lives and the situations that arise.

Bring awareness to your thoughts and recognize the power behind them, this way you are taking control of your life and choosing what you bring into your reality and what you attract.

Tuning in with your thoughts

Thoughts.. We have so many running in and out of our minds on auto-pilot that we aren’t even aware of most of them..

We have variations of thoughts, some pop up completely random, some we think regularly (like lists of things to do), some are memories from the past and some are illusions of the future.

Most of the time we don’t even know because we aren’t even aware of our thoughts, they’re running in and out without a pause to observe or contemplation.

With awareness and observation of your thoughts you get to know yourself better and can make significant changes to improve your life..

• Taking notice of the voice/tone you speak to yourself in.

We all have a critique up there in the mind, bringing awareness to how we speak to ourselves can be shocking for some people. Also bringing awareness to the tone.Let’s say you’re answering a question in front of a class and getting the answer wrong, the critique within might pipe up and say ‘ well done stupid, you just made yourself look like a right idiot.’ Noticing how you speak to yourself is crucial as it can be really damaging for your self-esteem and confidence.

• Noticing if you honour yourself and listen to yourself,

Bringing awareness to your thoughts can help you tune in and listen to yourself. Let’s say you’re really tired and run down, all you want is an early night in, then work calls and asks you to work a shift and before you even know it you’ve said yes. Inside you’re screaming no and can’t think of anything worse, but you felt compelled to say yes to please others, to make others happy even if that means you suffer. That is not giving yourself the love and care you deserve.

• Noticing how you interact with others, are you judgemental/critical?

We all fear judgement from others, that is why we do what others expect from us. We care about what others think of us, whether they know us or not. Bring awareness to your thoughts and you will notice the judgements and labels you put on people just from their appearance or actions. You may decide you don’t like your mum’s new boyfriend because the first time you meet him he is very quiet and appears rude by not making an effort. This would be your judgement, probably without considering how he would be feeling, perhaps scared,nervous or overwhelmed. Usually through judging others we make assumptions which aren’t accurate and lose the chance of connection and new relationships.