Co-vid 2020 - what a wild ride, things are changing so fast and the things we used to take for granted have melted away - we are left with ourselves - some in isolation - some in close proximity to family - or ones not so close. It can be challanging times.
Rumi says - “Carry your heart through this world like a life giving sun”, and so even in this time of change I am choosing to do this.
I am choosing to see the light in all of this - and not only to see the light but to become it - to be the light for others who are finding it hard to see. I trust life. I trust my heart and I trust this process. I don’t know where we are going but I know we got this. If we stay together, if we keep gathering, if we keep connecting. We got this.
And so as life dissolves around us there is letting go on multiple levels…….
Having been forced to give up the beautiful SOUL studio this week by landlords (unfortunately they are choosing fear during this time - I have no judgement - just sorrow!) - I have symultaneously been creating new ways of keeping the SOUL tribe alive, online classes, online events, and one on ones have filled my days alongside packing up the studio and cleaning it with love and gratitude for 15 years well spent. I am so filled with awe in how much love I have in my heart for these years, for meeting every single person who walked in the door - over 100,000 of you - bringing your hearts, your love, your fears, your burdens and laying them down in the name of healing and community. In the name of love and of surrender. Dancing, singing, doing yoga, eating together, playing together, laughing, crying - we gathered in community to re-remember how to love.
I am so grateful.
And now - we get to the real practice of what we have learnt - the practice of - letting go………….stepping into the unknown - who knows if we will return. This is the hero’s journey and we are all on it at once.
The time is now for us to choose - we can choose to let go of how things where with ease and grace or we can choose to struggle to keep things in our comfort zone.
We choose fear or grace.
We choose fear or love.
As we let go of being able to roam freeing - we choose fear or love
As we let go of our jobs and financial stability - we choose fear or love
As we let go of our workplaces, businesses and maybe even homes - we choose fear or love
As we let go of loved ones - we choose fear or love
As we let go of life as we know it - we choose fear or love
The choosing of one or the other doesn’t change the circumstance but it does change our relationship to it and therefore the state of our hearts and our actions. One is the slippery slide to hell and the other is choosing to believe in heaven. Where do you want to live. I know where I would rather be. Heaven and hell is in our own hearts - we get to choose what is inside.
This is the great transformation - the evolution of our hearts - now is the practice of REAL YOGA, we find out what we have learnt on the mat. How to find balance, how to breathe, how to stay in uncomfortable places and not shrink back. How to stand up for ourselves. How to soften. How to surrender. As we dissolve our selves in order to be-come a new being.
We are renewing.
The laws of the universe are shifting. We have to start over – like learning to walk again with gravity sideways. It takes surrender; it takes patience. We have to let go of what we think we know, in order to become something or someone new. A new earth. A new body. A new human being. I am truly hoping that after this I have super-powers!!
As I write this, a butterfly just emerged out of its chrysalis on my table and I am reminded of the way the caterpillar must completely dissolve in order to reform as a butterfly. I wonder how that caterpillar feels as it lets go of every cell of its caterpillar form, everything that it knows, in order to feel what it is to have wings.
The practice of letting go helps us open to possibility so that something new may emerge.
So as we dissolve my friends - know that I am here for you, reach out if you need support. We are on this journey together, you are not alone.
Below I share with you my final moments at the SOUL Titirangi studio (for now) and a simple letting go meditation for you to remind yourself now - in this moment even as your read this - to practice letting go - lets begin……
Lie on your back ………or settle in your seat where you are sitting
‘Begin with your breath – allowing it, feeling it, resting in the rhythm of your natural breath. Letting go of any holding of your breath. Letting go into the way the breath is moving you. Allowing your awareness to rest lightly at the back of the neck, letting go of any hidden tensions, letting go of the tissues of the back of the neck. Letting go of holding onto the skull as you begin to move the skull gently side to side, loosening, letting go, finding freedom – from the jaw, to the throat, to the base of the skull and down to where the shoulders begin.
Here you can allow the shoulders to open to the earth, letting the weight of them sink into the support of mama earth, (this is when it is good to be lying down), creating space between the ears and the shoulders, between the shoulders and across the front and the back of the heart, letting go of each and every rib, widening your heart basket, allowing the front ribs to soften and the back ribs to melt and spread in all directions, the whole back can begin to connect with mama, melting and spreading in all directions like syrup, becoming a fluid self like a great lake feeling out its edges onto the earth, nestling into mama earth.
Now letting the whole weight of your pelvis be supported by mama, allowing your limbs to be supported by mama. Letting go. Allowing the whole weight of your whole self to be supported by mama. Letting go.
I love you. You are safe. You are loved.