~ Charles Bukowski

Once upon a time…

Just four years ago, I was working full time as a Fashion Buyer buying Luxury brands, and had dedicated my life to working in the Fashion industry and delivering the best image, work and results I possibly could.  I was proud of my career and worked endlessly - really long days, weekends, and even on my holidays. I was ambitious, always networking, travelled the world and I took any opportunity to increase my responsibility and applied for every promotion that arose.  From the outside it was glamorous, it was glamorous on the inside at times too. I got to travel to so many countries, stayed at the best hotels, ate at incredible restaurants, visited some of the most beautiful buildings in incredible cities and the social interaction was constant.

But at What Cost?

But then something happened.. 11 years into my career, I started getting the nagging sensation that beneath the surface, I was feeling unfulfilled, tired and frankly empty. It was then I asked myself, is this really what I want?

Over the years, the need to work endlessly to keep on top of work whilst also trying to impress, whilst simultaneously hiding my utter exhaustion and despair behind closed doors, meant that I had to develop various strategies to be resilient to carry on.  These strategies and coping mechanisms that I became so proficient at did in fact serve me for a moment in time.  I continued to be rewarded for this through better career opportunities, promotions and more pay. But you see that’s where it becomes a trap - because this way of being and working has a shelf life when it comes to your health and wellbeing.

The reality is, beneath it all I was actually a sensitive soul who learned to hide behind a tough “go-getter” mask, but I learned to hide it really well, even to myself…

 Everything Always Catches up with you, Eventually…

Everything was kind of okay, until it wasn’t.  After over a decade of working this way, my physical, mental and emotional health started to deteriorate.  My emotions became more volatile, I would go to a yoga practice and cry a lot and not really understanding at the time where it was coming from.  I started getting very frequent colds or was always on the verge of one, I then received more serious signs such as flu, tonsillitis and infected mouth ulcers. I was suffering from insomnia and waking up suddenly at 3 or 4am feeling anxious about my workload and would often just end up getting up to complete the work that I felt anxious about. I started to wake up daily feeling permanently exhausted and wondered - is this all there is?  And what exactly am I working towards?  What do I want? And at the time I didn’t have the answers to any of it.

The Big Transition

I threw myself into a daily yoga practice as a means to escape.  80% of the time I was too tired to practice, but I forced myself to go to class, it was the only respite that I managed to get from the reality that I’d spent so long building.  After a couple of years of juggling endless work and travel with 5-6 yoga practices a week, a lot of reflection and truth facing, a lot of conversations with my trusted circle, several breakdowns, 3 Yoga retreats, a 200 hour part time yoga teacher training later, I finally plucked up the courage to quit my full time job. 

It was also sadly the time to end an 11 year relationship I was in at the time, and let me tell you that my whole world came crashing down all at once. I was lost, confused, grief stricken and simultaneously approaching my mid 30’s. I felt terrified of what the future may hold but my heart’s calling could no longer ignore the cries that something was just not right. 

I decided to save some money, take a leap of faith and not allow my life to be driven by fear, but instead from a place of abundance and love.  I wanted to search for a wild love I yearned for, a love for my interests and a love for finding people and work that aligned with my values and strengths. I knew in my heart that I wanted something more aligned with my Soul’s calling than constantly travelling, picking clothes and crunching numbers. I wanted to wake up feeling energised and not feeling the need to rush through my days, I wanted to feel a deeper connection with the people I came into contact with and finding joy in the simple things rather than extravagance.

 So here I am…

No longer a Fashion Buyer, but a Yoga Teacher.  I am still in love with creativity and beautiful things, but they revolve more around beautiful people, beautiful movement, beautiful rest and how to live a beautiful life behind closed doors with what you already have. Hopefully when you practice with me, I can offer you some insights and wisdom from experience, that building your life and calling around your true Soul’s values and purpose, and living your version of a beautiful life from a place of simplicity and self care is also possible for you too.

Does this resonate?

If you’ve read this far, I am guessing my story somehow resonates with you. I am also guessing that you are also a high achiever and you are too hard on yourself and you’re feeling pretty tired by all of it.  The first step is to create some space and time to come back to yourself to listen to your Soul’s honest whispers.  You are more than just your job or your work.  Your Human soul is valued far more than simply your productivity, and you will be able to guide your life back to balance and alignment.

But first start with where you are, you don’t need to have it all figured out.  Moving from this confusing place takes time, consideration and a lot of soul searching, first you need to come back to ultimate self care.  Sign up to my mailing list and I will send you my free guide which will give you 5 achievable steps to re-connecting with your Soul’s purpose, plus some other bonus material in the weeks to follow that may help you with your upcoming contemplation whilst you are on this journey ;)

LOVE - A Life-long Study

What amazes me about life, is that even though we know that love is probably the most important fundamental human experience we need for optimal wellbeing and abundance in life, it’s not something we dedicate a lot of time to learning about.

Who Taught You How to Love?

Who taught you about love and how to love? Your version is probably a combination of what you witnessed and experienced from your primary caregivers, and what you’ve seen and heard in the media, movies and novels. Plus throw in your own experiences so far to date, and you definitely have some form of foundational knowledge on how to give and receive love.

But you see, this probably isn’t not enough for you to understand this vast, rich and deep topic and this foundational knowledge may contain flaws when it comes to giving and receiving love in a healthy way. What if what we saw in the movies isn’t realistic, or it’s an illusion, or what if your primary caregivers didn’t know much about healthy love either. What if the celebrities relationships you hear about are fabricated stories or simply don’t relate to the lives that the majority of us lead?

Love is Multi-Dimensional

Now I’m not just talking about romantic love here, I‘m talking about all kinds of love from erotic love, parental love, Motherly love, Self love, to general Human and Earth love.

Rupi Kaur’s poem above are just some of the many touching words I have found on the topic of Love since I started delving deeper and researching about 5 years ago. I won’t be able to share all of it in this blogpost, but i’ll share some highlights that I’ve been sharing in my weekly Yin Yoga classes on Zoom and that have left an imprint in my brain.

The 5 Love Languages

According to Gary Chapman, he believes that in romantic relationships we have one of five primary love language preferences when it comes to receiving love. Those 5 Love Languages are:

1. Words of Affirmation⁠

2. Quality Time⁠

3. Receiving Gifts

4. Acts of Service⁠

5. Physical Touch⁠

After reading this book, I personally was able to practically identify what my primary language is when I receive love (the one that starts to make me feel empty if I don’t receive it). I was also able to identify my Partner’s primary language. Now we know on days when we get overly busy with life, and we have limited resources for each other, we know what action to take to sustain each other’s love tank at a healthy level.

Gary Chapman also wrote books of the 5 Love languages for Singles, Children, Teenagers and Men.

The Plot Thickens

But of course true and deep love extends beyond 5 love languages. Sure - it REALLY helps to speak the right language to your partner, your friends, your family if you know it makes them feel amazing. But I also recently read a book called “The Road Less Travelled” by Scott M. Peck. And he wrote some outstanding words which I will quote and paraphrase here.

“Genuine love requires an extension of oneself.

Genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy.

When I genuinely love I am extending myself, and when I am  extending myself I am growing. The more I love, the longer I love, the larger I become. 

Genuine love is self - replenishing. 

The more I nurture the spiritual growth of others, the more my own spiritual growth is nurtured. 

I am in fact a totally selfish human being.

 I never do something for somebody else but that I do it for myself. 

And as I grow through love, so grows my joy, ever more present, ever more constant”

Self Love

He implies starting at the very root of love - which is starting with yourself. You have to extend and nurture yourself, it takes a lot effort and doing what makes you feel uncomfortable of course. When you do this for yourself and you truly understand what self love means, you then extend this behaviour and way of being to others. You can’t just self love and not love others, and you can’t just love others and not truly love yourself. This is what would be called unhealthy, or an unbalanced perception on true love.

He also refers to a beautiful Greek word that I’m glad I learned about.. And that word is;

“Cathexis”

— the charge of psychic investment, or the investment of emotional significance in an activity, object, or idea.

In other words, in order to “cathect” something or someone, it really requires an ongoing investment of time and care. Not just for one year, or two years, or even for a decade. But rather, for a love that lasts, we are looking at eternity.

That’s why Friendships fall away, lovers are no longer lovers anymore and relationships with family can become estranged. Because we stopped “cathecting” them.

That can also, and quite often includes ourselves. We can stop putting the effort in and can suffer from self abandonment issues when we are no longer in pursuit of our own interests or we are not emotionally invested in our own boundaries and what is our truest essence. If you are not invested in yourself, can you truly invest in others? Perhaps to a certain extent, but it’s not a healthy way to love. If you can’t even treat yourself with the same respect and care in which you treat others, this eventually causes an imbalance in your life.

The Cosmos

I feel I can’t discuss the topic of love, without bringing up the topic of the cosmos and the Universe. I always find it helpful to remember that this life is more than my mind and my body. And I am part of a network of nature, and to truly love means to exist in harmony with what I am a part of.

In fact I learned last week that even though the universe is billions of years old, the universe is in fact still in its infancy. And human life as we know it, is just a tiny fraction of the universes total lifespan. We are in a rare and unique moment in time. Our universe gives life and living intelligence only a brief window that provides a safe haven for us to even exist.

As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe, as measured from its fiery birth and beginning, to the evaporation of the very last black hole;

“Life as we know it is only possible for 1 thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth of a %”

YEP - you heard it. If that isn’t a reason to wake up to the blessing of life as we know it, and how able we are able to deeply feel and to love, I don’t know what is.

Your Words Matter

Finally, we now know according to neuroscience and especially with the placebo affect, that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our thoughts. Affirmations can be powerful in anchoring is what feels important to you and what serves as your value. There are days when we can all feel neglected and we struggle to see all the love that is right in front of us regardless of our situation. So for those days, I will leave you with these words in case they can help.

8 positive affirmations to assist with Self-Love

• I am doing my best every day

• True love starts within

• I accept myself how I am and cultivate self-love.

• I am enough, even when I’m not doing and just being

• I am worthy of love.

• I am grateful for every day

• I believe in my dreams

• The best is yet to come

More to come on this, but until next time - Belinda xxx

2021 has been a big personal growth year.  From suffering some of the hardships that a continuation of  the pandemic brought – financially, mentally and emotionally, I was drawn to transformational coaching from a dear Friend Dan Morgan.  I found these sessions to be painful and revealing and enlightening all at the same time. 

So as 2021 draws to a close, I want to share with you the 10 life lessons I learned this year, in case some of them resonate with you too.

1.     It’s ok to ask for help – No human being ever made it only truly operating alone.

Not only is it more than ok to ask for help – your success and ability to thrive actually depends on it. You are made of 37 trillion cells, you are a complex being.  Nobody teaches you how you are wired or how to properly take care of your mind, body and spirit.  This is mostly something that needs to be learned as we move through life.  You NEED help with it, from others, from guides, from loved ones.  Asking for help whether it be from a professional or a trusted loved one, will help you to THRIVE in life, instead of being deprived

2.     You are on your own timeline, no-one else’s.

It takes a constant daily grounding to ask yourself, “what do I need and want right now?” Not “what do I think I need because I feel pressured from others, or where do I think I should be”?

3.     The word “should” is an overused word.  Should according to who? What? Why?

Every time you use the word “should” in a sentence, and ask yourself, why “should” I…?  Often the pressure we put on ourselves are more of an expectation from others, society, peers, family, and if we strip it back, it may not even be what we truly want, or where we truly want to be anyway, if we dig deep and ask ourselves the question.

4.     Get to know your values.

Not the values others have installed into you, or even what they were 5 or 10 years ago, because life changes and so do you.  I did a value re-alignment exercise and realised that what I was channelling my mind, heart and energy into, and what was keeping me awake at night and causing me anxiety, was a value that was previously important to me, but as of 2021 was much lower on the list.  This was a wake up call, why the agony and stress over something that frankly, is not my value to bear the burden of anymore?

5.     We carry our inner child in our minds and hearts, even as adults .

Our inner child shows up in our belief systems which often drives our reactions and our behaviour.  Our inner child is there to protect us with various coping strategies and so that we can navigate through life what we believe to be safely.  But as an adult, it can be highly helpful to get to know yours, because when your mini me shows up, you can ask yourself, are you there to truly protect me, or are your past coping mechanisms holding me back?

6.     Make time for what truly matters to you– no but really. 

We think we do, but often the things that matter the most to us, we actually don’t invest the time we want to into them.  Is your relationship or your family important?  Invest the time.  Have a lifelong dream to learn a hobby?  Make the time to learn it.   We live in a busy world where so many things compete and demand our attention. It’s up to you to apply the discipline and boundaries to say no to what doesn’t warrant your time, and yes to the things that you truly care about

7.     YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING – not a robot.  So don’t expect yourself to act like one or function like one. 

You are a real living, ever evolving complex organism.  Find beauty in the nuances and complexities of life, anyone who expects you to act like a robot (company/partner/family), are placing an unhealthy expectation onto you, and it’s not sustainable nor is it realistic.

8.     Being successful can feel empty if you are only successful in your work. 

“Being successful” should also be a goal for other areas in life that truly matter.  How successful are you at making time for the things or people that you really care about?  How successful are you at being present and listening to the people that you value?  How successful are you at creating boundaries where they are needed both in your work and your personal life?  How successful are you at taking care of things in your home and behind the scenes for mental clarity and peace?

9.     Pets are life – no seriously. 

My life wouldn’t be the same without my cat Mochi (that’s him in the photo above). Pets come with a whole lot of responsibility, but one that is so worthwhile and that’s changed my life for the better.

10.  Make time for love, and I’m talking TRUE LOVE. 

True love meaning, being present with the people that we love.  Cultivating and nurturing healthy loving relationships. I still stand by love being the most powerful and Earth shifting human experience we can ever have in this life. I’m not sure if it’s up there at the most important for you, but I guess it wouldn’t be far from the top, so if this is the case, how much time do you spend on learning about, and also giving and receiving love in a healthy way, and learning about this hugely important topic that you probably mostly only learned about through the movies and also how your parents and family loved?  We should all be experts on love, after all it’s what we yearn for.  Yet is surprises me how little many people seem to truly know about it, and how little time they invest bettering this oh so important skill.

It took hours of deep diving and being supported during this transformational period of my life, but I’m glad I learned the above life lessons and now they are prominent in my field of awareness, I practice them and stand by them daily.  I hope some of them resonate and can help you too.

I will take this opportunity to wish you health, love and abundance in 2022.

Hugs,

Belinda

I reflect often on what life is really all about, and sometimes you just find a quote or a poem that nails it (hence the above by Rupi Kaur).

Whilst it feels amazing to achieve goals and to see progression (we are human after all, so we are hard wired that way), sometimes we can experience life just simply being, and enjoying existence. I think it’s easy to feel guilty when allow ourselves to be in a state of being instead of doing in this “busy” society we live in.

My personal yoga journey has taken me through many different phases of experiencing my mind and body and the relationship between the two. When we make time to experience this in the “self” on our mats, those lessons and reflections then start to cross over into every day life too. I’m not sure when or how I would have had the time to reflect if I hadn’t made time to practice.

In fact let me list just a handful of my yoga “phases” I’ve been through over my 11 year journey so far:

• Thinking yoga was too “spiritual”, so not wanting to try it

• Assuming I wouldn’t be able to do yoga because I’m not flexible

• Deciding to finally try it, because I felt physically incompetent

• Wanting to be more flexible

• Feeling weak and wanting to improve my strength

• Experiencing crazy knee jerk reactions in the mind when feeling any type of strain on my physical body

• Avoidance of certain poses because I “hated” the sensations felt

• Avoidance of going to classes I deemed “too advanced” because it made me feel bad about myself because I compared my practice to others

• Developing an obsession for hot yoga, and breaking down in tears one day as I didn’t see an improvement in my overall strength after doing back to back classes

• Realising that whatever was actually going on in my head that day would unravel on my mat - i.e if I felt distracted I would lose balance, or if I felt sad I had to practice with my eyes closed

• Realisation that it created space for me when I felt complete overwhelm

• Realisation that little by little, my body was becoming 0.1% stronger and 0.1% more physically capable each time I practiced

• Running to yoga every day as a form of escapism from dealing with emotions and complexities in my life that I didn’t want to face

• Wanting to achieve poses, finally cracking some of them

• Wanting to show the world what poses I could do

• My ego pushing me too far and injuring myself in yoga

• Feeling the disappointment of an injury that took 1 year to fully recover

• Not really caring much for yoga poses anymore, and certainly not caring about the ones I couldn’t do

• Experiencing yin yoga and going weekly and experiencing a much higher quality of sleep

• Wanting to improve my mobility and active ROM

• Slowing down my practice and realising that I still had so much strength to develop and I couldn’t control my body as much as I thought

• Realising that practicing 3 times a week is enough

• Realising that other forms of exercise and movement are very important for the body and we shouldn’t just rely on yoga

• Releasing all expectations of how I thought my practice “should” be

• Realising I don’t have to push my body in extreme ways when I come to my mat to call it a practice

• My time on my mat can be ANYTHING, a couple of wiggles here and there if my body and my mind doesn’t feel too happy, or even just childs pose for a few minutes

• Yoga has allowed my body to build the strength and mobility to move with a balanced sense of effort and ease

• Yoga continues to allow me to see myself fully and to understand my body better

• I am on a long lasting journey with the mind and body that will still take many more twists and turns, and unfold many more layers

So this led me to this movement medicine series I am sharing on Mondays at 6.30pm on Zoom. Not everything we do and experience has to be ground breaking achievement deserving credit and merit.

In fact, too much of that pressure can completely remove the joy of physical movement and can actually create a tension and stress around simply moving your body. We become self conscious and overthink something that is supposed to come completely naturally to us - MOVEMENT.

SLOW, JUICY, EMBODIED, DYNAMIC AND LOVING MOVEMENT

So join me, we’re moving in a way that builds strength and agility but still feels nourishing, and acts as medicine to our sticky spots and stressed bodies and weary minds.

Upcoming dates!

Monday 28th June @ 6.30pm

Monday 5th July @ 6.30pm

It’s easy during these days to reminisce about the good old days, when we had a different type of freedom, or it’s easy to allow the mind to wander to the future. Perhaps you are waiting for this to all be over, or fast forwarding to what the future may hold.

Your Thoughts vs. Reality

All that you experience within your own mind is not always reality per say, but your own internal narrative at that moment around what you believe to be a reality.  When your mind dwells on the past or drifts to the future, it is simply a version of a story happening which unravels as your thoughts. 

The varied stories can twist and turn and unfold in erratic ways which can cause us to list compare, label or list endless possibilities in our minds which can cause uneasy feelings.  This can then escalate to us experiencing reactiveness, emotional fluctuations and judgement, which can trigger various stress responses in our bodies . 

 If we struggle to remain present, it is common for people to also re-live past experiences even in new situations, unconsciously allowing history to repeat itself. If we allow our internal narrative and story telling to run wild into the future without conscious attention, we can often imagine many scenarios that may never even materialise.

Who can help with Mindfulness?

For years I have been following a spiritual teacher called Eckhart Tolle who is the Author of a best-selling book called The Power of Now, and he states that when we experience a situation through the narrative of the mind, this can be very limiting.

This really resonated with me. Also neuroscience research and studies are constantly providing evidence on how powerful the mind can be.  It can allow us to experience something in a completely different way dependent on how we perceive the situation. In fact our thoughts and stories can be so alluring and seductive, that we become captivated by them and they can do the opposite and instead, distort our view of reality. 

Have you ever noticed that what may drive someone up the wall, isn’t a problem to another person?  Or something that can upset one family member, we just don't understand why they took it so personally? We claim that we are wired differently – which indeed we are.  We all have completely different neural pathways that have each been shaped by our own experiences and journeys in life, these experiences shape our values, our stories and our own internal narrative.

 
Our own internal narrative is what helps us with our thoughts, it helps us to make key decisions, it enables us to navigate through life.  But Eckhart Tolle says that thinking can also keep us a small person.  What he means by this is that thoughts can be very limiting, they can be judgemental, fear driven and not always routed in truth. 

 
So now is the time to practice observing thoughts, observing mindless chatter, observing what happens when we allow our own internal narrative to run unconsciously.  Do these thoughts serve you?  Do they make your life better? 

What are your stories that live in your mind?

If you find your own internal narrative to be at times unhelpful, it’s the moment to invest time into re-wiring some of those neural pathways.  It’s time to make space for mindfulness in your life. 

I found myself in the earlier days of lockdown living in fear of the future, so I decided to meditate daily based on facing my fears (a side note that our fears are very valid, and of course they will be there because we care very much about ourselves, our lives and the people around us). 

It's important to own up to them, face them, address them and consider them. But know that our unconscious thoughts and fears are merely listing possibilities, and we have the ability to agree or disagree with what comes up. I found my fears to be causing anxiety, and I had no proof to back that my fears would even materialise.  So then I had to ask myself - is this helpful?

This then led me to create a grounding meditation for all of us who are experiencing mental fluctuations. Perhaps you are struggling to separate your own stories from the potential truth, or you simply want to return to the present moment. Please find the link to the video on YouTube, or alternatively you can catch it here below. 

Eckhart Tolle also asked a key question which has stuck with me, and that I ask myself when I am not being present with what I am doing.  When my mind races ahead and spirals into thoughts that don’t make me feel good.

“How would I experience this moment differently without the internal narrative?”
 

For example, during these days when we are longing for human contact, longing to be outside for longer than an hour and longing to have the freedom that we may feel we previously had, is it helpful to only dwell on how it was before or how it will be in the future?  How can you experience it differently without judgement on whether what you are currently doing is good or bad, better or worse, if you like it or don’t like it, etc.

Change is Constant

As human beings we need to develop awareness and acceptance that the only constant in life is change. These days are not to be compared to the lives we previously had, and unfortunately with so many plans being disrupted, most have had to let go of what they envisioned to be the near future in 2020. These days do however offer us a different experience of what we expected from life. Are you someone who is able to seek opportunities from external change and adapt?

There is no doubt that these days present challenges to all of our front-line workers who I admire and respect so much. There are so many people who are not only having to work doubly as hard, but that are also at high risk of contracting the virus because they still have work to keep everything running for the rest of us so that we can get healthcare, eat food and get our deliveries.  I also realise that everyone who is staying at home is also experiencing this in a different way, and some certainly face more challenges than others, especially if you are larger families in smaller spaces, or have children to home school or elders to take care of.

But for a lot of people, there is no more daily commute, we can ponder a little longer over our morning coffee, we can wear comfortable clothes all day, we can watch the trees blowing in the wind and watch the clouds change shape outside when we take moments to glance up from our computers.  There are no options outside to stop us from going to sleep at 9pm or waking up at 8am if we desire. We have more time to rest, more time to find balance, or perhaps more time to workout or learn a new skill if that’s what you are craving.  There is time to video call family and friends, time to enjoy being in your home, time to enjoy living life in a simple way and taking pleasure from the smaller things. Or god forbid, time to be in stillness.

All of this can be overridden in a moment, if we allow our internal narrative to unconsciously label, react, compare, or dwell in the past or fast forward to the future.

So if I were to ask you five questions right for only you to answer, they would be this...

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Belinda's 5 Magic Questions:

 

How can I experience the present moment in a different way if I do not compare it to the past?

How can I experience the present moment in a different way if my mind does not fast forward to the future?

When and what am I doing that helps me personally to live and be in the present moment?

If it's something not accessible to me at the moment how can I adapt it to my current situation?

What am I grateful for at this present moment in my life? 

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I don’t have all the answers, but I know these are questions are a reminder to myself to be mindful about how I live my life, so that I don’t spend my days living in the past or the future, which is a huge missed opportunity on the present moment.

Can Yoga Help?

In Yoga we practice bringing the mind back into the present moment time and time again by bringing our awareness to our physical body through asana, transitions and most importantly the BREATH.  The hope is that we can observe our own internal narrative which is different for everyone, and we can practice also deciding which internal narrative and stories serves us, and what does not. 

All you need for this is your wonderful body, some willingness and an open mind on a yoga mat. Then over time, you take all of this insight into your own inner landscape, and apply these learnings in the big wide world out there in what we call LIFE My friends.
 
 
Namaste, I love you.

Belinda

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If any of this resonates with you and you want to explore movement and mindfulness more, come and wiggle on your mats with me live via Zoom at the following UK/GMT times:

Wow, to be privileged enough to spend 6 weeks in Bali, everyone told me over and over how lucky I was. To have the opportunity to travel, to further my studies by completing another 200-hour yoga teacher training, and then taking two weeks at the end to have a vacation.  But most “privileged” have the choice potentially to do something like this (privileged meaning a roof over your head, enough money to buy food and all amenities you need and savings in the bank, which is probably at least 80% of anyone reading this blog post). It’s an agreed upon reality that we have to settle, work full time, get married and have children and save money in our 30’s. That’s a perfect option for many and this option is great if it’s truly your dream life, some of it was mine for a while and I was happy with it for years, until one day I wasn’t. At several touchpoints throughout our lives we genuinely have choices, even if it doesn’t feel like it immediately. So, if you are someone who is “privileged” in the context I just described, you have exactly the same options. I’m not indifferent to anyone else, it was also a risk for me walking away from everything that I had previously known.  I had the same fears as everyone else would have. I had no guarantees; no certainty and I was taking a leap of faith.  So lucky is a questionable word, maybe decisive is a better word for just making the final call to do it. However, one thing I can say is that I never have lived my life based on a fear of what won’t happen, but more based on what potential opportunities could happen.  I saw this as an opportunity to take a break, to further my studies and to reflect on the life choices that I’d made so far, and potentially what life choices I wanted to make next.  That happened to be the life choice I made at the time and so far, I haven’t looked back

One blog post wouldn’t possibly be able to sum up my Bali experience, so I’ll start with a re-cap and perhaps seed out more of my learnings later.  I expected this journey to be a deep soul dive, a deep moment of reflection of who I am, what type of life I want to live, what my values are and what really matters to me, along with my highest reason why in everything I do. Well what can I say, it definitely delivered.

I was lucky enough to train with the deep and beautiful soul Meghan Currie – a creator, a leader, an artist and a true space holder.  She helped me to enhance so many valuable life skills including listening, not running away, practicing non-judgement and S L O W I N G   D O W N. We all run around so quickly like our life depends on it, and quite often it does and I was most definitely one of those people.  But this fast pace of life we all live, is it making our lives better?  Is it making us happy?  Is it improving our relationships with others? Is running around this way truly adding value?  Is it allowing more for what is important to us?  I can’t answer for anyone else, but I had my doubts that it was for me personally.  I’m trying my best to slow it down where I can, because I no longer see the value in running around trying to complete as much as possible. Because in doing that throughout my 20’s and early 30’s, I might have been highly productive, efficient and showing up for anything and everything, but the downside was that I eventually lost myself.  I lost my spark, it dimmed my flame and I found myself wondering who I even was anymore and what I was even working towards and why. Everything was a priority but I seemed to have no time to prioritise what was actually fundamental to me living a better quality of live. I needed to take a moment in Bali to decompress, re-calibrate and to re-route my sat nav to alter my course.

I was also blessed enough in Bali to be mentored by other incredible souls Jenny Sharada (a fellow Sister and the wisest woman I’ve ever met), Lindsay Maycock (an Anatomy specialist and an absolute hoot), Matt Corker (Coaching & leadership expert), Jackie Jaipur (A grounded beautiful soul who makes important things happen), Brandee Lee-Johnston (an inspiration and beautiful inside and out), Emma  (a highly creative and loving soul who is onto big things in life) and Maria Herminia Diaz (a true supporter with a huge warm and loving heart). But it doesn’t stop there. I also went on this journey with 41 other beautiful souls that were each seeking to re-route their courses in some kind of way.  Each had their own reasons for being there and we were all completely different human beings, except one thing we all had in common. We all wanted to unravel and heal in some kind of way, to just be unapologetically ourselves, and to give and receive love.  I’ve never felt so much love from 41 people that I’d only just met. Over the weeks we laughed together, cried together, held space for one another and even though the training finished at the beginning of December, we still send each other messages of support and love and are following each other’s journeys. I have 41 family members all over the world and it couldn’t feel more soft, gooey and wonderful.

So this overwhelming amount of love got me thinking – why as human beings are we not always kind to one another?  Anyone and everyone can vibrate higher when they are accepted for who they are and when they feel they are cared for.  The ultimate fear in human psychology is abandonment and being rejected.  When this happens, it causes so much pain and trauma, yet we do it to one another all the time.  From taking out our issues on loved ones, to putting a partner down or belittling them, to making colleagues feel rejected by dismissing their ideas or gossiping about them.  It’s true that there are people in this world who are not good people and some behaviour is unacceptable, but reacting with even minor aggression or low-level behaviour back to them is not helpful.  We don’t have to shower them with false love, but we must just continue to show up as who we want to be in this world, and to radiate love and care in a way that is authentic to us.  Most of us are carrying around scars which limits our love and affects our behaviour in some kind of way. We walk around with those scars are even though we think the wound or wounds are closed, quite often they are actually still open.  As soon as someone does something we don’t like, it’s like someone scolded our open wound. I don’t have all the answers - except if you are wounded (we all are in some kind of way), do the work on yourself. Go on the journey, it doesn’t have to be in Bali and it doesn’t have to be a yoga teacher training, we don’t all want to be yoga teachers!  But I think so many people are turning to a yoga practice to heal and address some issues they have in some kind of way. Because it feels like we don’t have so many other options out there apart from therapy, and this general pace of life certainly doesn’t seem to be doing it for us either.  Be kind to yourself and create space in your daily life to reflect – what are you carrying that is holding you back from living your most authentic life? Who do you need to forgive so that you can be free? Are you living life by your values? What are your values? Where do they even come from?  According to who?  Are they even yours? Truly yours?  Why, and why again?  I’m sure you have the answers as to why your values are your values, and that’s good, but be an open book, be curious and ask yourself where they come from and why it’s so important to you.  Quite often we’re carrying around values that are not even our own, and if that’s the case we are just trying to live someone else’s life in some ways, which isn’t necessarily the path to eternal bliss.

Breathe, meditate, create space for yourself, even if it’s only a few minutes a day.  We all spend hours on our mobile phones. Put it down for a few minutes - you won’t miss that 15 minutes extra scroll time on Instagram or Facebook.  Think, reflect, open your mind, commit to being a student forever, learn about your past, see your open wounds and try to understand what has left scars, work on healing them in any way you can.  Most of us need help doing this, so if therapy is not an option for you and you are not someone that needs to take medicine, then seek to gain knowledge from those that carry wisdom and kindness over aggression or poison, people that can help to support you in some kind of way. Take up a yoga practice, treat yourself to a retreat, learn breathing techniques, read books, watch youtube videos of wise leaders. Some things we do need to pay for, but so much is also free through the internet.  Do it for yourself and for all of those around you, and the world will be a better place

Wherever you are, I send you love and light and hope you give yourself permission to be who you want to be, to heal over time, to treat others as you wish to be treated, and to treat life as one continuous journey.

I truly believe that change is good for us as human beings.  We are complex souls and we like challenges, even if they bring hard times.  It seems to be the way that we are wired and because we are such an intelligent species, ease can become boring for many.  I recently decided to walk away from my full time exciting fashion corporate career, the biggest decision I’ve had to make in my adult life so far.

When arriving at this decision, I had a harsh realisation that I had spent many years wishing away months of my life, telling myself that when that work stint was over I’d be ok, when that project was over I’d be ok, when I’d finished covering that person’s sabbatical I’d be ok, when I didn’t have to do 2 people’s jobs anymore I’d be ok, until one day I woke up and realised I’d wished away my late twenties and early thirties. I would always hope that I would come out at the other side finding stillness and time for some R&R, but it never quite came.  At that point I felt compelled to show myself compassion, make a change and build a life that enables me more flexibility and more balance. 

My choice as a result of was to move into a freelance life working on a project basis and teaching yoga.  Scary, uncertain and a risk with no guarantees.  But also new mysterious and refreshing.  People had their doubts, people around me were concerned that I hadn’t thought it through, but something in my gut was telling me to go for the new thing, and that I was ready, even if I wasn’t “ready”.  What does being ready even mean?  Financially?  In your head?  In your heart? I think in the end, you can’t always have all the boxes ticked when it comes to feeling ready for something big. So you have to go with what feels right according to what feels most important to you at that time.

For me, the only place I was ready was in my heart, so I went with that.

Closing the door on one chapter, and opening the door to another brings new energy and new excitement.  As long as you are open and receptive to what might come your way.  I had very little expectation when I quit my job, except I had the expectation to focus on myself and my needs and I expected things could be tough, bracing myself for the worst, to survive a storm, starting over and not knowing what the future holds.

It’s only been just two weeks into my new freelance life and it’s taking funny twists and turns in ways that I hadn’t expected.  I am so excited to live life fully being present over the upcoming months, to savour every moment irrespective of where I am or what I’m doing, knowing that I’m focusing on my own self and development for the greater good, and so that I can somehow share it with you through warmth, compassion and creativity. 

What seems like the end, can often be the beginning.  It really depends on your perception of it. 

A few more days in London my loves and then I’m off to Bali on the 5th November to do some soul searching and to find inspiration, and I can’t wait to update you more on what’s next and what I want to share you.

Belinda