Finding our inner light through iRest at MichaelmasSummer is a time of great energy and expansion. Things get busy, exciting, thrilling. Perceptions shift. We are out there in the world with all of its summer energies soaking in all the experiences that come with it for our personal growth. It doesn't seem to matter how well one pans it the summer can often feel like a blur of busyness. So many amazing things happening. Our schedules are bursting with exciting event and happenings. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not (I know at times Im in denial!!) the seasons are changing. Summer is winding down and giving way to autumn. With this we are being invited to draw in and find the strength, light and warmth inside for the coming darker, colder months. Drawing in and taking time to find these things for ourselves, now, helps to stave off the winter gloom. It also invites healing, growth and a space to process all that has gone on for us so far. The energy that is carried at this time is strengthened by a long history of spiritual and cultural observances for the festival of Michaelmas. The feast of St Michael and all angels marked the end of the productive seasons and the beginning of a new cycle, in farming and in our inner life. In legend St Michael is the protector against the dark of the night and the Archangel who fought against Satan and his evil angels. Michaelmas is the time we sit at the edge of winter. The nights become longer and darker and the days get colder. The celebration of Michaelmas is associated with encouraging protection during these dark months. It was believed that negative forces were stronger in darkness and so stronger defences are required during the winter months of the year. Michael is often regarded as the highest of the Archangels a warrior and protector of people. He is said to hold the secret of the utterance by which the heavens and earth were created. Drawing in at this time and listening to the utterances within ourselves brings us closer to the creative power within each of us. It is a great time to reap and begin to unravel in how the seeds shall be sown for the next cycle of growth. I'm happy to say that I will be back teaching iRest Yoga Nidra meditation in regular weekly classes as of the week beginning 11th September. These classes will run for 6 weeks until the week ending 22nd Oct when we will take a break for half term. The theme over these classes will be an invitation to find our strength, light and warmth to maintain our resources over the coming winter. They will also provide a safe place for us to explore ourselves and our experiences. For details of these please see my website. Further to this on the weekend after the new day of Michaelmas I will be holding a workshop dedicated to the theme of drawing in and finding the light within. Most of us can relate to the notion of having experienced a sense darkness or shadows. Frankly at times these shadows can be quite frightening and really take hold of us and lead us into times of great darkness. This is particularly true during the winter when our inner worlds become a reflection of our outer worlds. The act of consciously connecting with our inner light helps us illuminate the shadows to bring us into a greater understanding of their inherent beauty and ability to guide us on our path as opposed to their tendency to drag us off them as they loom in darkness. It will be held at my house in Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, and will run on Sunday 1st October, 10am-4pm with a shared lunch. The cost is £45 for bookings made before 22nd September and £60 thereafter. This will be a small workshop and places are limited. Please make your booking by contacting me either via email [email protected] or through my online booking form. |
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Yoga & Wellness Weekend 7-9 July 2017
How many of us would like to be able to find ways to better keep their 'stuff' together when life throws us the inevitable curve ball? I'm sure most of us have developed strategies to try and dodge these things. Or have found ways to protect ourselves in these moments through defence and attack. Staying present and open to our experience can show us new ways of being. Ways that we have maybe only imagined before or thought were only possible for people like the Dalai Lama. We can find ways to better meet these moments and greet them with a certain level of gratitude. Gratitude? I hear you say...Yes because in these spiky, difficult or uncomfortable moments we can find the opportunity to further meet our true potential. It is because of this that it could be misguided to avoid or react to these moments and challenges. As through these we get the chance to grow. By grow I mean to go beyond our child or younger selves and develop strategies that serve us most in the here and now. In this article you will find 5 ways to stay calm in difficult moments. All of these have been taken from the Integrative Restoration (iRest) protocol. Every time one does an iRest meditation there is an opportunity to practice and build these skills. Eventually these skills we build will integrate into our waking life. Integration can be a slow process. It is possible to further support this integration by taking these practices and applying them directly to our lives. If this is something that interests you then I would encourage you to take a read through the list. Perhaps there is one method that particularly sings to you or feels like something you could really apply in your life. Make a commitment to taking just one, or a blend, of these methods and apply them for 40 days. This is the time it takes for a new habit to integrate into our lives. Take this further to 66 days for it to become and automated behaviour. It might help to keep a diary. Review each situation...what went well? What was not so good? What did you learn? or What can you apply next time? This reflective practice builds confidence and ability in our new found skill. Remember to stay positive and encourage yourself. There are no failures only feedback. Each moment and experience gives us an opportunity to know thyself just a little bit more... So without further ado....the list you have all been waiting for. 1. Connect with Your Inner ResourceGrounding into the Inner Resource is one of the greatest skills that we can develop in this life. The Inner Resource is the sense of security and wellbeing. A sense of comfort and ease of being. It exists within us all. We can find it in many ways. There can be memories of places, people or events, feelings in the body and objects. These external stimuli bring about in us an internal experience of connection with a deep calm, comfort and confidence. It is the internal experience. How it feels in the body and mind that we want to deeply connect with. The external stimuli merely offer us pathways to finding it. In the moment we simply, consciously make an effort to connect with the Inner Resource. To connect with a sense of calm, comfort and confidence. Live in wobbly moments these can be hard to find. We can helps ourselves in this by taking time to build and strengthen the Inner Resource with practice. Take a few moments now to close your eyes. Connect with your breath and become present. Then begin to enquire into how you can experience a deep sense of comfort, calm, confidence and ease of being. Allow whatever comes to come. Keeping focus on the enquiry - what do I need to feel truly safe and trusting of myself? When you get a sense of your inner resource, build on it, turn up the volume, connect with the felt sense in the body. When you are at the peak of this experience make a small gesture, perhaps touching the tips of two fingers together. This will create and anchor to this experience. A key that will help you unlock the inner resource in the moment. Keep coming back and building on the inner resource. Make the anchor gesture when you experience these feelings in your day to day life and these will add to the strength of your inner resource. The Inner Resource is unique for each individual. Yet somehow the experience of the Inner Resource is shared. We all have this place inside and it is always there for us to connect to anytime we need to. Taking time to practice connecting with this place everyday builds it's strength and robustness. 2. Find it in your BodyWhen we are in a sticky moment it is easy to get stuck in the fight/flight areas of the brain. This clouds our thinking and gets the mind racing. It fires up all our old coping mechanisms and we find ourselves reacting in the moment in exactly the way we don't want to. There is a little voice inside saying..."Hello, what are you doing? Oh not this again? Oh you've done it this time...etc. Regardless of this awareness we fns ourselves locked into an automated behavioural pattern. Taking a few moments to check in with the body can prevent all of this painful behavioural repetition. Simply stop, locate the feelings in your body, take a moment to welcome them, and enquire into their nature...there might be thoughts, beliefs, emotions or feelings. Stay with them and then take time to be with the one that is being the loudest or most obvious...can you name it?, describe it?, get a sense of what it is showing you?, follow it if its is changing, take a short journey of self-enquirey. Often when we can label our emotion and simply express what we are feeling, either to ourselves or the others involved, we ca create a huge pressure release. The time it takes to do this and hear ourselves keeps us in a calm, centred and receptive mode. We often find that the solution or the thing we need in that moment surfaces and we can respond to what is happening rather than painfully reacting. 3. Count your BreathPerhaps all of us have heard of this strategy. Perhaps because of its simplicity, or the number of times we have heard...."now count to 10"...when we are annoyed, we have neglected this strategy. Never the less it really can be a powerful tool in the moment. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly an emotion lasts for 4 seconds. Counting keeps the mind occupied and prevents us from thinking in a way that keeps an uncomfortable emotion alive. Secondly when we count the breath we are centring the mind into the present moment. This prevents old patterns form being activated. Thirdly it is pretty automatic in heeling us to deep and lengthen our breath which in turn soothes the part of the nervous system that starts up the fight/flight response and activates the part of our nervous system that helps our body heal and recover from stress. It also connects us to our heart and its inner wisdom. Really try this. To stop in the moment and become aware of your breath. Counting each complete breath cycle. Keeping centred and focussed on the breath and counting it. If you get distracted let these be there and still return to counting. Once you have got past at least 5 it is possible to notice the calm that is passing over us. Then from this point we can ground into the body and find the perfect response to where we are at. 4. Take a Step BackThis can be imaginary or it can also be done physically. Taking a step back puts us into a different state of awareness. One that can see a situation through more objective eyes. We begin to tap in to the awaring presence of which we are all a part of. Feeling assured and unindividuated helps us to connect with our calm and centred selves. It activates the part of our nervous system that helps us relax and it means that the problem solving parts of our brain can find solutions to situations that really work. Its the space where we can receive the divine messages of our guides, ancestors and our higher self. It is important to be sure that our stepping back is not a way of checking out of our experience. This is a way to develop enough detachment to it that we can look upon it with an objective and welcoming curiosity and openness. All the while we continue to remain with the experience. In the moment take a step back. This can be physical or imaginative. Sense into the back of the body or the background. Connect with a welcoming curiosity about this visitor, the moment and your experience of it. Become interested and observe it. As though it where on a table in front of us. What is its nature...How does it look? Feel? What is it showing us? When we develop this level of detachment to ourselves and our experience it creates the space for important messages to come through. Messages that guide us to living and meeting our higher selves and sense of being in life. 5. Be gratefulIt is in these tricky moment we can really become aware of the minds tendency to want things to be other than they are. Our judgements spring up, ideas of what should or shouldn't be. A resistance to what we are experiencing naturally arises. So to does the fight/flight systems. It may sounds crazy at first to welcome these moment with open arms. Even more far fetched to extend a gratitude to them. I know it seemed like that to me at first. Never the less I urge you to try this. In the moment pause all thought and just really focus on gratitude. Say yes please and thank you to this moment. For it holds the potential of being a most venerable teacher. In ding this we unlock this potential. We create space inside of ourselves that can hold this moment. Stay connected to it and our higher selves. Find the light or good in it and help it serve us and those around us. Bringing connection as opposed to separation. So there you have it. Of course this is not a definitive list. There are many other aspects of iRest that can be used to serve us in this way. For reasons of wishing to maintain simplicity I have laid out 5 potential strategies that we all have the ability to use in our day to day lives. I hope you are inspired to take on a playful experiment in applying one or a few of these to your everyday life. Good luck. Please do write and share on your experiences. I would love to hear from you.
Big love Bequi Mae Find out more about iRest or the classes and workshops I run please click the links.
This weekend I was blessed with the opportunity of sharing the Summer Solstice with some very special people as I took retreat with my teacher James Reeves.
Taking time out of our lives can really give us an objective perspective on them. Time to reflect, accept, welcome and feel into all thats been stocked up for us in our subconscious. Pausing when we have been too busy to fully download messages from the 'big giant head' so to speak. Keeping to a daily practice can really benefit us in may ways. Offering a daily download, an opportunity to touch back in the who we really are. Feel that calm and peace of being Awareness. For many finding time can be a struggle. I was practising meditation and yoga for years before I really managed to maintain a daily practice. I found that it really was the point at which I decided to fit my life around my spiritual practice that it clicked. Joining a weekly class, half day or day retreat is a great way to refresh and renew and feel the support of other people on a journey. Taking more time to dedicate to yourself and your spiritual practice always reaps rewards. Though it can some times be followed by a bit of a shake up. These are always positive and just what you sensed you needed but lacked the inspiration to do. What ever you do do it and keep doing it. Let things unfold and expand as they will. Whether you make it to the mat, so to speak, or not know that our spiritual practice is a moment to moment experience of unfolding. there is no point saving all your bliss and awareness for your practice alone. Find it in the every day, in the everything that you do. It might sound crazy but it leaves us feeling far better adjusted. Maintaining authenticity and our sense of being moment to moment is the real practice of iRest. Thats not to say its easy but its possible and definitely something worth you time. iRest offers us a process of working with the feelings, emotions, thoughts and beliefs that limit us so we might dis-identify from them. It helps us create a safe place to explore all of the banished parts of ourselves that are waiting to be listened to. Bringing about a new awareness of our true selves.Taking us to a place where we can discover who we really are and what we are really about. To uncover our purpose in life from the level of our heart, free from the conditioning of what we think we should be doing. Working with this process helps us develop an ability to remain awake to our true nature, not just in our practise but also in our everyday lives. Our limiting beliefs, assumptions, expectations and misperceptions dissolve. We are able to live in a more authentic life. This sees stress, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and addictions fade away as we begin to find a safety, security and trust in ourselves that we had forgotten was there. This is a progressive path, each time we sit and practice iRest we are adding to our well of understanding. Bequi Mae The practice is simple yet profound. It is a way for meditation to do you rather than you doing meditation. There is little effort and great learning. As one becomes more practiced the things we learn in the meditation integrate in to everyday life and create a greater sense of ease and wellbeing. Building mindfulness as well as other tools to help ease the stress of day to day life and find a way to experience the truth of who we really are. Often the best things in life are the simplest. Sometime we want the answers to our problems to be as complex as we feel out problems are. Yet the solutions with the greatest simplicity offer the greatest healing. Welcoming each moment just as it is, witnessing, without attachment or aversion, is one of the simplest acts but one we seldom take time to do. In this unconditional state, old un-resolved events and the emotions or beliefs we associate to them are finally be heard. Like a small child clawing for attention, once seen and heard, runs away merrily knowing it has been acknowledged. This process can need to be repeated for the same thing over and over as deeper layers are unpacked. Others only need to visit us once. This is a key part of iRest practice. As we fully meet and welcome the events in our minds it frees our energy and attention for other things. We can turn to a deeper inquiry to find our true nature. Welcoming is the beginning, middle and end and the essence of remembering what we are as human beings. |
AuthorBequi Mae is an inspired writer creating pieces that are designed to invite us to a deeper level of enquiry Archives
September 2017
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