Last night I dreamt I was in a car careering much too fast down a street, narrowly missing parked cars and having to hold my breath and hope as I swung into oncoming traffic at the T-junction ahead. I woke up with a start. But then I laughed, understanding the message straight away.
Slow Down.
A few days ago I finished a book which feels like its been writing itself through me for the last three and a half years. I had expected to feel elated, but I felt strange and disjointed. There was some grief at the ending of something profoundly intimate and personal; some fear at letting it go into the next stage of its journey. But mostly there were internal barriers to taking the next step. My plan was to read it through before sending it to friends who had offered to help, but in front of the screen my mind went blank. The car kept stalling.
I actually never set out to write a book. The need to write came more as a conversation between my heart and my mind. By articulating my heart’s deepest, and emerging, knowing through a language my mind could make sense of, and by reading these words back to myself and digesting them through life, I found myself more able to live this heart-knowing into my life. A heart wisdom embodied through a labour of love.
So although I never knew exactly where it was taking me, I learnt that when things became flat and uninspiring, I had taken a wrong turn. For a while I would keep trying to push, but when I finally surrendered, something new emerged. An insight received, an understanding embodied. A new door opened.
But when a few days ago the finish-line came in sight, I slammed on the accelerator and rushed towards it. The last chapters still half-baked, I put a full-stop down and said it was done. My mind shouted, I’ve got there! But nothing moved. The car had stalled.
I could have pushed harder, I suppose. Drunk coffee, written goal-orientated plans, set ultimatums, listened to motivational talks. But I had spent two years learning to listen and receive instead, so I grudgingly stepped back and made space.
I went to a yoga workshop where we practised digital pranayama to control the flow of air. We followed this using intention alone, inviting the skin of the nostrils to move down against the flow of air as we inhaled; inviting the skin to move up as we exhaled. Everything slowed down, and rather than taking a breath, I felt myself respectfully receiving it. Rather than dumping the exhalation, I was reverently giving it back.
Receiving with respect, giving back with reverence.
Then came the dream, and I finally realised that having got this far being guided by the Universe, by a dance unfolding between heart and head, I had unknowingly contracted into old patterns of pushing and striving.
Seeing this clearly and smiling with forgiveness, something finally relaxed back into the flow of life, and I returned to trusting the ongoing conversation which has supported and guided me for so long.
With ease and joy returning as well, the car is slowing down, parking even. So that I can walk down the street and smell the spring in the air, hear the birds and feel the ground.
So that I can look around and soberly see what this world looks like when we take and dump while careering to the finish-line, so afraid not to get somewhere, be someone, have something...
So that I can choose to slow down instead, receiving with respect and giving back with reverence, trusting - and then feeling - that everything I’m searching for is already here.
If you’d like to join me on this ongoing path of slowing down, listening and receiving, I am currently taking bookings for my daylong and weeklong retreats. These are opportunities to experience the book-to-be’s invitation to live from the heart. We practice yoga, meditation and communion with nature in loving community, held within both silence and sharing. Find out more here and contact me to reserve your space.
I look forward to walking alongside you!
Feathers into empty space
There is no loss, only change.
The things I thought would stay forever were already transforming, slipping through my fingers, even as I held on to a dream that never was.
And the things I know are here to grow keep asking me to stay, but step back and further back as they learn to breathe on their own.
So much I believed would die remains, until a sweet surrender lets them go, falling like feathers into empty space.
While the future is always already here, waiting to be woven by hands no longer fretting and fussing with holding on and pushing away.
No part of this mystery has ever been mine to keep.
Thank you 🙏 for your beautiful words Ayala. They resonate deeply with me as I found myself pushing through marking student scripts today, with a lack of ease and enjoyment. A task that had to be done. Afterwards, I did a beautiful yin yoga 🧘 flow focussing on water 💦 element, inviting me to surrender to the breath and let go of tension and pushing. The result - deep relaxation, stillness of mind and body. This is how I wish to live and celebrate my life x ❤️