Stepping into my power - by Sophie

On January 1st, this year, I made my New Year’s resolution – this year I want to step into my feminine power. I didn’t have the slightest clue how this would happen, I didn’t even know what it meant. It just felt as true as true can feel. When I said it to myself “my feminine power”, it surged like an electric current in my veins, the inner ‘yes’ was so loud, I felt fortified by steel, well, more like bamboo. I felt held, seen, certain, alive, joyful, terrified.

I walked down to the beach underneath the house we were renting on Vashon island near Seattle and looked out to the water and said it to the sea, “this year I want to step into my feminine power”. And an answer came back in the form of four sea otters (four!) slinking through the water towards me. They looked right at me, coquettishly, as if tempting me to join them, then swan away, flipping and rolling in the little waves. Then again, towards me, I swear, they were even winking. Then rolling away, playing in the water, batting eachother softly with their paws and rubbing their fur up against eachother. I watched them for twenty minutes, playing in the foamy water, until they disappeared out of sight.

In some native American teachings, otter represents woman medicine. The soft, joyful, playful feminine, the unbound, all-embracing, sensual animal. It felt like a perfect beginning to this process I had no clue about, but wanted, yearned for with my very bones.

And now here I am, it’s the middle of May, I’m approaching the middle of my feminine power year and yesterday I had a total meltdown. Snot pouring, tears flying, roaring at my husband, who was doing all he could with this strange, flailing creature. “I don’t know if I’m living into my feminine power” I wailed. “How do I know???”.

I sat with that feeling all night, and awoke this morning with it still alive. Just a little less snot and roaring. How do I know? How do I know when I’m growing in my feminine power? What does it look like? What doesn’t it look like?

I began to write – one of the main ways I get to my truth - asking the question, what do I want to see by Dec 2012 as the fruits of my quest? What does it mean for me to be in my feminine power? Immediately I got vague, confused, antsy and it hit me. That which might be totally obvious to everyone else, all these amazing treesisters, but smacked me around the face for the first time like a big wet trout. This isn’t the kind of shit you can write an essay about! Because this isn’t a process that I can control, or even get to with my mind. It’s not one to be understood, analysed, but to be met with something different, something new.

Trust.

Perhaps what this process needs is just to be nurtured and experienced, and trusted. Because perhaps something new is being birthed in me, something so new that I don’t even have a name for it, don’t even have words to describe it. Maybe this is a question of faith. Like Alice Walker says, a question of opening to the ‘absolute goodness of the earth’, not quantifying or analyzing her greatness, just relaxing into her supremely capable hands and allowing myself to be molded, unfolded, turned inside out and on my head. To allow myself to walk face first into the walls my mind has erected, and, still standing, look at them, allow myself to melt into puddles of tears of grief at their existence, and let that grief work its magic.

Perhaps it will melt the walls, help me to see the mental and emotional cement that has held them together for so long. Or maybe the tears will carve a way past the walls that I couldn’t see before. And maybe I’ll just be left sitting in even more puddles of tears and snot that I don’t understand one iota, but am invited to trust.

What if asking the feminine to work her way through me, asking to grow into my feminine power looks nothing like I expected it to look? What then? Can I trust when all is turned inside out and upside down? Can I trust in the process, and in the absolute goodness of the earth, knowing that something new is being born? Can I let her in – into all my dark places, and can I let the tears that come when she is there melt and carve me? Can I let her revolutionise that very place that my thoughts are formed – a place crafted in a more masculine paradigm which taught me that control, and analysis and looking out for me meant safety? Can I let her soften that place like butter in the sun, soften control into trust, and analysis into curiosity and ‘me’ mind into ‘us’.

Yesterday my panic was about not seeing fruits of my quest, about not knowing if anything is even happening to bring me closer to this elusive feminine power. And today I see that the answer, at first frustrating, then deeply relaxing, is that I just don’t know what it will look like. But I know that I’ve been surprised at myself many times already in these five months; surprised by new ways of behaving, surprised at times I said no, simply no, as a complete sentence, surprised by new little confidences, surprised that it was me my dear friend reached out to when her relationship began to dissolve earlier this year, surprised to hear the words of support that came from my mouth that helped her to rebuild it, surprised to have helped birth the TreeSisters Women’s Circle retreat this summer, surprised to be sitting here, writing this, feeling slightly more comfortable with the utterly unknown.

So, goodbye control and analysis of this precious process (at least for ten minutes). I will not make you smaller in these ways. But I will instead open to you, trust you and god, expect surprises.

My adventures in shamanism - by Frances

"Do not be fooled by the idea that demons are external to us. We are seeing our own mind projected in living colour all around us. Train yourself to see things this way. Generate love and compassion toward whatever demon appears - without or within. When you finally understand from your own experience that there is no need to cater to the concerns of the ego, you will no longer cling to hopes and fears, or gods and demons. You will see that the source of your pain is clinging to your ego. You will rest in the limitless expanse of awareness - your true home. And you will be free" 

~ Lama Tsultrim Allione

The quote above deeply resonates with me, particularly the idea of cultivating loving kindness for the ‘demons’ that live inside of us. Although I must admit that I’ve had pretty tangible experiences of ‘demons’ that felt like they were outside of me. Perhaps things aren’t as they first appear.

In this blog I’ll tell a little about my past experiences with different kinds of ‘demons’, how they effected my healing journey and how I’ve learnt to work with them through shamanic practice.

I recently got back from a three week trip to the US, where my interest in shamanism remerged. I travelled there to train with Lori Lorenz and her work with EFT and Trauma, with Melisa Noel, who had recently become my personal EFT therapist of choice and my supervisor.  I had noticed that my sessions with Melisa in the weeks prior to leaving were naturally going down a more ‘shamanic’ route, due to what was emerging during my personal work, and also with client work. I was interested to see what would happen during our time together in the US.

First I explain a little about how I stumbled into shamanic practice. The world of shamanism rose unexpectedly (and totally uninvited) in my life many years ago, when I was in the midst of ME symptoms and feeling baffled as to how to heal. I reached the point where I would try anything. I first heard about shamanism at the Buddhafield festival, and many of my friends seemed to be having wonderful and wacky experiences with it, so I decided to give it a go.

I went to see a shaman in the Buddhafield healing garden. She went on a journey for me and along the way met a ‘little green man’ who had some advice for me. He told me I needed to let go of shoulds and oughts and honour my innocent playful inner child, who had been left behind.

It actually sounded like pretty good advice, but from a little green man?! Come again

Little did I know how strange things were about to get…

My next experience was soon after this, with an ex-partner, Richard. We had been doing some shamanic explorations together, both attempting to heal ourselves from CFS. It led to many bizarre and intense experiences. Far too bizarre to try to describe here! But I will write about one of the biggest experiences, as it came up again on my US trip, and I think it speaks volumes about the power (and potential problems) of shamanic work.

Richard and I were staying at a cottage in the countryside. One night he woke up with a sense of a presence in the room, and I woke up too, feeling very afraid. Then I literally ‘saw’ a being, a woman, sitting on top of me. She seemed both frightened and angry, and was stabbing at my solar plexus area. To say it was scary is an understatement!

Eventually the presence went away, I calmed down and we went back to sleep, a little shaken, but ok. This experience taught me a lot about the importance of proper preparation before going into this deep, powerful and mysterious work, and of finding an experienced mentor to support the journey.

Which is why, years later in Ashland, USA, when I ‘met’ this woman again, I felt a little frightened, yes, but also safe and protected, with my new shamanic mentor Melisa. We were in a session together, moving into some difficult emotions, when suddenly I experienced and ‘saw’ this exact same woman’s presence. This time she was moving through my body and out my head. She then floated around the room attempting to enter in the bodies of both me and Melisa. Melisa’s experience helped to guide us to be protected from this, while we looked into the woman’s reasons for being there.

Slowly the reasons for her presence unfolded. It turned out the woman was actually trying to get to a much deeper blockage in my solar plexus that came in from a past trauma, a time when I didn’t feel empowered. I instinctively felt this related to an incident in my teenage years when I was seriously physically attacked. So we worked with clearing this blockage out - it felt like a dark black entity.

So, she was actually trying to help me, to help me clear through a deep emotional and energetic blockage! I suddenly realised that this lady had become a healing ally for me, and our hearts opened up to each other. At the same time the black entity began to clear and an immense power came back into my being, a power so strong it felt scary at first. Then I engaged my heart, and I knew with my whole being that this power could only be used for love.

Phew.

Now, I’m very aware that this all could sound completely bonkers. In fact, I own that a part of me certainly thinks it is!

However, I have experienced a definite power in shamanism that most other healing approaches simply don’t get to. Particularly when there has been a trauma, an experience that doesn’t make rational or logical sense – like the physical attack I experienced as a teenager. Perhaps our psyche needs a more symbolic and mythic way for processing these memories. It seems that shamanic practice can also access deeper levels in our being, deeper than the psyche, deeper than we can understand.

However, I am also a very practical person. I’m very aware of the importance of staying grounded and real about what’s going on, especially in shamanic work when it’s all too easy get lost in fantasy (after all, it’s very difficult to know what’s ‘real’ and what’s not in these mysterious realms). It can be helpful to watch to see that the ego isn’t getting involved in any way.

According to Melisa, these kind of shamanic experiences always come for a reason, often because they can deepen the person’s healing potential.

So, with her guidance, and lots of light-heartedness and discernment, I am feeling drawn to bringing a more shamanic approach into my client work. It will begin in a gentle way at the moment and only if it naturally arises. I’ll also bring gentle, shamanic style guided meditations/ journeys as part of both Living from the Heart retreats this summer, to help people access their own inner wisdom, healing and strength.

I’m interested to see how this journey will unfold, and how it will benefit my healing practice. And I’m especially interested in what can happen when I hold all of these wild and wacky experiences, as Tsultrim Allione recommends in her great quote at the top of this blog, in a space of love, compassion and awareness.

Going on retreat to support healing and wellness - by Frances

I started going on retreat when I had Chronic Fatigue eight years ago and have received many benefits from my time on retreats all these years. I found that when I gifted myself a few days in natural surroundings, away from my daily life and took time to simply be still and meditate that healing experiences would arise.

Often this happened through the surfacing of lots of old emotions, that could sometimes lead to a feeling of a ‘crash’ for a couple of days, as they came up and out. Then I would be filled with energy and come back into my daily life revitalized and refreshed. I often found that after retreat I could build up walking capacity from half a mile to three miles in a week.

My first retreat was in Scotland, it was two years into being unwell and I now see it as the beginning of my healing journey. My boyfriend at the time had told me that when I went on retreat emotional stuff would come up, but that still felt quite alien to me, and I didn’t really get what he meant. I remember a particular moment very vividly that showed me the power of retreat.

I was sitting by a big, beautiful lake and it was a clear day. There wasn’t a sound, no one was around and it was slowly moving towards dusk. After about an hour of sitting there feeling peaceful, I suddenly felt a deep sadness welling up inside me and I began to cry as memory after memory arose about grief around an old relationship.  I could literally feel it moving through me, and afterwards I had a tangible sense of ease - a feeling of lightness in my body and mind. The beauty of my surroundings, and knowing that I was safely held, with the support of the teachers had allowed a layer of emotion to finally come up. I say a ‘layer’ because ten years later they are still coming up!

Retreat was especially helpful when I was in the middle of Spiritual Crisis – when everything felt like it was going terribly wrong – that too was happening, much too fast. Being in place of stillness, acceptance and compassion in the countryside was so nurturing and healing. It nurtures who I really was and helped me to recover a natural state of wellbeing.

I have another vivid memory, again of a lake. At the time I remember the fear of feeling like I was balancing on the edge of sanity. I was oscillating back and forth between fear of falling apart and ecstatic states of total peace. Threaded all through it was anxiety that I had gone too far with spiritual practice and was losing my mind. Then, by the lake, a deep sense of reassurance arose in me, a sense that it really IS all ok. Having all that space around me, both physically with the vast expanse of water and symbolically being away from the business of my daily life gave me a chance to come up for breath, and discover an equanimity is fundamentally always with me now.

Now I’m inspired to create a similar space for other people to experience – to be held in a way that encourages integration, healing , peace, stillness, grounding  and relaxation.

Recovering Wellbeing Retreat

29^th June-1^st July 2012

Barmoor House, Hutton le Hole, North Yorkshire.

More info available here: www.theintegraltherapist.co.uk
Email: sophiejanemortimer@yahoo.co.uk
Call: Frances on 07769962085. 

Why I love Women's Circles - by Sophie

Living from the Heart is faciliating a Women's Circle weekend retreat this July, and recently I was reminiscing about all the great women's circles that have inspired us to create this retreat. Here is my blog about why I just can't get enough of women's circles...

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead

Ok, I confess, I’m a circle junkie. A circle floozy, if there’s a circle happening, I want to be in it. Opening circles, closing circles, sharing circles, volunteering circles, I’m even trying to muscle my way into my best friends Mum ‘n’ Baby circle… if I could just find a willing infant…

Looking back, it was at eleven and first went to ‘big school’ when my love of circles began. I had three best friends and we were inseparable. We’d ruled the roost together in primary school, we’d take on the boys at football matches and win all the handstand competitions and we knew every square inch of the school field like the back of our hands. But now we were little fish in a big pond, we weren’t anyway near as cool as we thought we were, and we needed to stick together.

We found a circle of four Hawthorn trees at the back of the field, safe from the snowball fights, the bullies, the lipstick wearing gangs of girls and the scary teachers. We each learnt to navigate through the thorns and found our own special perch, and that is where we would sit together every single break and every single lunchtime, laughing, telling stories, eating our packed lunches, hidden away from the evil big kids, safe in our little tree circle.

Maybe I’m just yearning for days gone by, but I don’t think so. I think there’s a magic in circles that draws us in. Especially circles of women. Since my tomboy days of yore I’ve been part of many amazing circles of women - eight women who spent a year celebrating the pagan festivals, a shakti group for yoginis exploring tantra, a Vagina Monologues group, a Buddhist women’s group and many ecstatic dance circles. I love it! I can’t get enough of the thing that happens when women get into a circle.

It wasn’t until a few days ago that I began to ask myself what that magic was. I was at a talk with one of my feminine leadership heroines, Jean Shinoda Bolen (the author of the fabulous ‘Like a Tree’, which is an amazing read). I had asked a question about how to navigate the growing pains I feel in my body as the earth creaks and moans under the strains of our excess.

She answered by talking about circles. In her words,

“We’re all in this together. Circles. Every woman should be in one.”

She went on to talk about circles as a healing force, not just for the women in them, but for the whole world. That circles embrace the feminine values of relationship, nurturing and interdependency in a world that can tend to favour hierarchy, conflict, and exploitation of resources. Her belief in their power has birthed a vision to take the circle process into United Nations accredited organisations and has led to the creation of her organization ‘The Millionth Circle’ which aims to connect circles all over the world together, so that they can know themselves as part of a larger movement to shift consciousness in the world.

The millionth circle have created some guidelines for circles: creating a sacred space, speaking from the heart, listening with compassion, inviting silence, keeping all that happens in the circle confidential. As I read them, I see how women have been doing this instinctively for eons, that it is a totally natural experience.

Circles, with their very shape, connect us to the cycle of life, to the seasons, the sunrise and sunset, the moon and stars that make up the vast ball of the sky. They have more space than any other shape. In them, we can go on entire journeys, without ever leaving our seat. We are in the womb, encased in a rare safety, all equals, all connected and yet invited into our individual genius and deeply inside into intimacy with ourselves.

The suffragette movement was born amongst groups of women gathering covertly around a common ideal, as was the civil rights movement. In the recent (fabulous) film ‘The Help’, the African American maids only begin to rise up against the injustice done to them when they are invited to a meeting together, and sitting in a circle in a living room, one by one they share their tearful stories until the sun rises. The Chipko women of India, in the 1700’s gathered in circles around the trees in their village that to be cut down by the local maharaja. They walked together to the forests, held hands and wrapped themselves around the mighty trunks, holding on until many of them lost their lives. From Native American Grandmothers to 1950’s housewives’ Tupperware parties, we’ve been at it for as long as we’ve been around.

This account from a woman living in Kenya speaks beautifully for the power of circles. This is her description of being invited to a Masaii women’s fertility circle ceremony in the midst of the Loita Hills.

“We gathered for three days under the full moon. As the women arrived, they were welcomed by other women, through a singing call and response exchange. They were then walked to the ritual circle, where all of the women joined together in prayer, song, breath and healing.

As the night went by, the circle grew larger, stronger and more potent. The power of the circle was revealed, as woman after woman felt moved to express herself and release in whatever way she was moved to do so. They continued to midwife, chant, breathe and pray, as the power of the raw energies inside them found its expression and release.

As I witnessed the ceremony, I felt and recognized in my body a deep ancestral remembering of the experience of circling, one that I believe is held quietly in the core of each and every woman. From the cave paintings to the fire hearth, the power of the circle has been deeply imprinted in the cellular memory of our bodies and psyche.

I will be eternally grateful for this experience; for it reminded me of the ancestral inheritance we all carry within us, and just how transformative it can be to be witnessed and supported by a community of women.”

I join her in her final words…

“I have kept in my prayers all of the women across the planet who are in need of support. May they find a sister, a sacred space to be held, seen and celebrated…. Maybe even a circle!”

I'm so excited to seeing what will arise from our circle this summer, and I invite all of you to join in the fun - for more info about our circle see:
http://www.theintegraltherapist.co.uk/events/event/a-womans-circle/

With love,
Sophie