New Beginnings

Perhaps it is the recent new moon and solar eclipse, nature swinging into Spring slowly, or perhaps watching the seeds I planted some weeks ago becoming healthy plants, or partaking in rituals that acknowledge and celebrate this energy full of life that is bursting forth, that has brought with it a feeling and a sense of new beginnings and rebirth.

I find myself engaging, and more importantly wanting to engage, with new things, new experiences, creating and bringing forth something of myself that perhaps has laid dormant or unacknowledged for a while. It feels like I am on a mission of discovery.

Part of this sense of new beginnings comes with a sense of expansion. It has had me thinking: how much space to we allow ourselves to take? What is our relationship with this idea of taking space? Does it feel freeing, does it feel terrifying, uncomfortable? I have found myself reflecting and noticing all the ways I seem to be getting in my own way, creating obstacles, most of them imaginary, that stop this expansion from happening. I suspect, like most of you, I worry about the things I don't know, and then I tell myself what I can and cannot do, which, although it provides a sense of stability and certainty, it also fixes and limits me. And then I look at nature around me, the ever present teacher, and I witness the continual change and growth. Nothing is fixed! This last Christmas we were gifted with an Amaryllis which was a new experience for me. If you have never watched an Amaryllis come to being I urge you to do so!! Overnight it seems it transformed from a bulb into the most beautiful, intriguing flower. Every morning I have been waking up excited to come downstairs and meet the Amaryllis and be a witness to its growth. Imagine if it ever thought of itself as only a bulb!

Often in my practice I intentionally work with acceptance but usually I focus on the things I might be finding difficult and challenging and work with accepting what is. Recently it occurred to me that as a concept this applies to both the negative and the positive, however I rarely, if ever, think of this in relation to accepting the positives, and I think I am not alone in this. We seem to be more familiar with making efforts to be more patient, more compassionate, more welcoming, to the things that negatively challenge us. But what about the things that positively challenge us? When the possibility of allowing the fullness of our power emerges? How do we respond then? Accepting and allowing the whole of ourselves and our whole potential sometimes can be easier said than done, depending on the narratives we have been gifted over time about who we are and where our limits lie.

Yogic scriptures tell us that our true inner self is a part of the cosmic whole, a drop of water that is part of the ocean of life, which in essence makes us the ocean. But how often to we allow ourselves to think we might be the ocean? Not in grandiose and misconceived ways but in accepting of our potential whilst staying present and grounded with what is.

Each of us have beliefs and ideas about who we are that can be equally helpful and also can get in the way and limit our experience of life. Perhaps being able to notice these might be the start of the work of allowing the life force that is within us to express and manifest in its fullness. Eric Schiffman talks of yoga being the practice of developing awareness and beingness in what he calls the 'feeling-tone' of who we are rather than the labels we have been given by others and ourselves. When we start to have a better sense of this 'feeling-tone' then we can challenge these ideas and allow ourselves to experience our reality outside of those fixed lines.

I have recently come across a creative practice called re-wilding your life which you might want to try. Its intention is to cultivate practices that support the thriving of your life. It involves recalling feeling in tune with your natural way of being and reflecting on the places, the activities, the people that perhaps encouraged these feelings. Also to consider what might be constraining your natural way of being. With that awareness to allow your imagination to construct your inner garden- what kind of a garden are you? Perhaps draw this, or take photos of gardens that resonate with your own one, or make a collage and let it come to life. Make it vivid and present so that as the practice suggests, it can reconnect you with your 'feeling-tone' when you walk into the wastelands.

Our minds can be a powerful tool, a positive and creative one if we use it as such. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that he alone can be his worst enemy or he can be his best friend.

So let's take this new beginning, this new seasonal cycle of Beltain, and connect with the power of its potential, to allow life to manifest within us and without us.

Come and join our next yoga day retreat Finding Wellness: Our Emotional and Thinking Self as we explore the ways we can allow ourselves to expand and experience our potential.