The wishes of the soul are springing, The deeds of the will are thriving, The fruits of the life are maturing. I feel my destiny, My destiny finds me. I feel my goals in life, My goals in life are finding me. My soul and the great World are one. Life grows more radiant about me, Life grows more arduous for me, Life grows more abundant within me. ~ Rudolf Steiner
Hello World. It has been more than two years since I wrote here. I was away from this world wide web, deepening, quieting and tending to myself as life threw a deep curveball in my way.
In the years that flew by, I discovered I could hold both grief and joy, bitter and sweet, disappointment and delight. I could simultaneously traverse losses and gains, trials and triumphs, exertion and relaxation. With understanding and practice, I can choose to rest peacefully in duality. Because life is neither black nor white. It is a whole lot of gray.
My go-to medicine are deep breaths, yoga, music, and stillness.
I discovered the art of deep rest so I can stay fully awake. I learned to play a musical instrument as I endeavor to fine-tune my inner instrument. I root deeper to rise higher.
I am held. We are held. Beyond measure. Beyond time and space. So much has changed, yet many things appear to remain the same. There is beauty in impermanence. Thank God for impermanence!
Going through an international certification in Rudolf Steiner Early Childhood Education is aligned with the life I choose: Conscious, impactful, soulful. My work with little children in a Waldorf school artfully and beautifully integrates all my tools and practices, gifts and talents. I feel completely in my element. Who and how I am on the yoga mat and in the classroom is coherent with who and how I am off the yoga mat and outside the classroom.
Life is strange and ironic. I did not plan. Or rather I could not plan. Faith is trusting Creator has a plan and we can only surrender. If change is the only constant, how can we invite more ease and peace into the process? Resilience is a practice, just like everything is a practice. How you do anything is how you do everything. How you move on the yoga mat will show you how you move off the yoga mat.
In the grand scheme of things, we are a mere speck of stardust in the cosmos. Yet every star aspires to radiate its brightest light. Isn’t it its right to shine? The questions are: How we are committing to living a life of consciousness. How we are showing up. How we can raise our frequency to match the vibration of the work Creator wants us to do.
We live in potent times. How fortuitous we are alive in this new Golden Age. How do we cultivate courage, strength and resilience to fulfill our destiny in the best possible ways? This practice begins in the early years. You know what? I don’t have any magic to gift. I hold the children – and everyone – in a way they discover their own magic. You own your magic. The power is all yours.
If you are open to it, I like to work with you, one on one, to live your most radiant life. Together we deep dive with my tools and practices as a therapist of Inner Child Integration, yoga and energy medicine. This is a heartfelt invitation. Planet Earth is a much better place when we connect and thrive. Please reach out here.
Every moment is an opportunity to begin again, to exhale the old and inhale the new. Is this moment today, or will it begin one day?
Having danced and flirted with spirituality pretty much of my adult life and finally fully stepping into it five years ago, this year probably goes down as one where I integrate all my knowing and knowhow. The seeds I planted and garden I dedicatedly tended to blossomed. From teaching soulful yoga classes and leading women’s circles to bringing my multidimensional healing approach to special children and being in a space that offers insights and answers to a broken education system that consequently create disconnected adults.
If I could sum up 2021 with images, it would be a teacher training that wrapped up an illuminating year of deepening into The Work I am called to do. This is how I live my one precious life and this is how I believe we can raise conscious children.
This is the year I fully grasp we are spiritual beings living out a human experience.
In this training, we were asked to pick an object from a nearby park. We were to share a short story with our findings from nature. I returned to classroom with a lone flower from under a majestic tree. She was radiant in her shapely red petals, not unlike a joyful dancer wearing a wide-brimmed hat and alluring dress. This is her [life] story:
Far far away, long long ago, there lived a little good girl. She did what she was told. She lived up to other people’s expectations. One day, a wise woman asked her, what would you do if you only had a day to live? Indeed, what would she do? She put on her favorite hat and crimson dress that billowed beautifully in the wind. Outfits she saved for special occasions. In the woods where she felt most at home in, she danced like no one was watching. She sang like she did not care how she sounded. She was free to be who she wanted to be.
What would you do if you only had a day to live? This is a powerful question that clarifies, and may I add, horrifies.
In the new year, may we birth a life that is longing to live through us. May we show up every darned day with honesty and authenticity. May we embrace every part of us wholeheartedly. This is the best gift we can give ourselves.
I caught my first light of the day in many years. It was a cloudy morning with the spectacular aura of the sun casting an otherworldly glow on quiet waters. I watched the waves lapping onto shore, so gently and softly, with nary a care for the whirlwind of ominous news outside. It is a poignant moment to be alive. Never have I felt so much gratitude for good health, mine and those around me. We are navigating turbulent dark times before the dawn of the New Golden Age. Have you noticed? Light shines brightest where it is darkest.
As birthday season rolls my way, I am tending to ask big, open questions about turning my vision of my best life into one inspired real life I want to rise to every morning; about staying on this soulful path with vigor and lightness of the heart with every breath I take. The sun in the boundless sky spoke with her incredible aura that early morning. Planet earth needs our light more than ever. Every one of us is a lamp holder.
It was my first sunrise out of doors in many years only because the early morns’ are sacred bhakti time. I light an incense at the altar, say my prayers, then sit in silence, in a still-dark room lit by the soft light of a selenite lamp. The ambrosial hour is the time I devote myself to a practice that has seen me through storms, heartaches and back to my center. The yogic lifestyle I chose now holds me steady as I root deeper into my work with little children in a school that has all that I ask and stand for. Who knew one day I can integrate all my practices and tools, gifts and talents in a manner I never imagined.
Every morning, I rise purposefully to show up for myself and the children at a space that understands and embraces spirituality like how I live my multidimensional and multifaceted life. Every day, I harness my practices and tools, and my gift of spiritual sight. I deepen my understanding of fate and destiny, karma and dharma as I live out my own and hold up high the lamp for sentient beings of our future. Our souls have chosen one another, to walk together, into a new dawn.
The thing is, like many people, I did not know what was going to happen. Or what life will throw at me next. The truth is, I need tools and support like you do. As recent as last year, I was knocking on doors that shut on me. His Holiness the Dalai Lama famously said not getting what you want is sometimes a very good thing. Who knew the planets conspired to walk me through a serpentine path to the perfect door that is for my highest evolution. I have realized, more than ever, what comes is always right and perfect for me. I was unprepared yet fully prepared for this work.
Somewhere in this vast wide world, there is a school for young minds that tends to the body, mind, heart and spirit with ancient teachings and wisdom that I am no stranger to. At where I teach, education is the training ground to living a fulfilled life led by a heart-brain. It is the heart-brain, where faith and trust are located, that allows the transformation of impossible relationships into heartfelt ones. The ego is always fearful, the heart only knows love. The last nine months shadowing a special child and witnessing her grounding into her physical body has lent many precious insights.
Special children and the different – LGBTQ – incarnate to teach the world inclusion and oneness. More than anything, they teach us what it takes to be human. The soul is genderless, colorless and beyond polar differences. There is no separation at a soul level. The perfect version of us already exists beyond the limitations of the physical body. It is the heart, the bridge between body and spirit that can bring compassionate consciousness to create harmony. The higher dimension heart-brain is far more superior than the logical head-brain. The higher our existence, the more we should be led by the heart-brain.
The other thing is, we have to consciously choose our choices and walk through it, sometimes with gritted teeth. Bidding farewell to a way of life or habits that keep us stuck can be intimidating and nerve-wrecking. It can be scary as hell to be deeply honest with ourselves. It is too easy to turn back, numb out, dumb down and return to old ways of being because comfort zone is, well, familiar, comfortable and ultimately debilitating. It is not at all easy to tear down false walls and strip down masks that have a knack of adhering like a second skin. Change is the darnedest thing. For some, even taking a different route to work is unthinkable. Do you feel the whole world is against you when you are, for the first time, heeding the call of your soul and mustered enough courage to show up like you never did before.
Dear ones, standing up for your beliefs may feel like the loneliest thing you have ever done. It feels downright awkward and inconvenient, and you may suspect you have gotten it all wrong. What price then is the easy way out?
In ancient times, our nervous system was built to protect us from predators in a treacherous jungle. Fast forward hundreds of years later, living our most authentic selves in an urban jungle may be wrought with all manner of risks. Fighting with and fleeing from our fears and truth wreaks roller-coaster havoc on all the systems that run the body temple.
You see, the strength of the nervous system goes far beyond the tricky manipulations of the head-brain. Great courage and great strength lie in the realm of the nervous system. It takes more than sheer brute strength to defy the expectations of others. Science has shown us by improving the vagal tone, we can find greater ease in leveling up and standing up for this one unique you. The good news is, we can cultivate these qualities on the yoga mat. And we have to consciously choose to live the yoga – union of the mind, body and spirit – off the mat.
It is all in our hands. This one holy life that is wholly ours is in our hands. We are the master of our joy. In the end, it is really only just between us and God.
You have to do differently if you want to live differently. I am right here to support you with a one-to-one program that builds the foundation to navigate the change you long to live. Ask me about the program that integrates breath and movement, energy healing and coaching at connect@globeskimmer.com. More information on the work I do and am so in love with is available here.
I am so thrilled to be able to offer one-to-one movement, on top of energy medicine, for the special child. Send me an email to enquire about my compassionately conscious multidimensional approach to working with special children.
Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths. – Rumi
Beloved hearts,
How is it going in your part of the world?
I have been back in the studio, teaching “live” at a lovely riverside space. After teaching Yoga for Nervous System virtually for a year, I have almost forgotten how wonderful it is to connect in person. You know what, the mandatory face mask and social distancing do not separate us. We are connected like the web of life that binds us all. I love what Edward Lorenz so poetically wrote, a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle and a storm subsequently brews in northern Europe.
More than 18 months on, there are ever-changing dos and don’ts, and restrictions are abound around the ups and downs of a viral outbreak that is still wreaking havoc globally. Covid is the reason we consciously and conscientiously live our best lives simply because there is so much life has to offer.
The recent passing of a prominent figure in the Kundalini Yoga community has gotten me contemplating the close shave with death a few people near and dear to me had in the last year. What and who have I lived for? Are there longings and regrets I want to tend to? What are my last thoughts and words when I exhale for the final time? There are big questions with little immediate answers. The immensity of life simply demands an introspection just as proportionately profound.
When Grim Reaper is a hair’s breadth away, there is an urgency to spend more time doing things that truly matter, with people I want to walk to the end of the world with.
Choosing heart-centered living means I show up for Me with a capital M, even if it sometimes means going against the expectations of others and societal conditioning. Allowing the heart-brain to lead is an extraordinary path of fulfiling the highest destiny in this finite human experience. We are gifted tools to navigate happiness and grief, love and loss, certainties and unknowns, synchronicities and inconveniences. There are sunshiney days filled with rainbows and unicorns, and stormy moments of fire and hailstones.
You know what I am coming to. Yoga is the answer. I write this as a seeker who sought the answers to equanimity pretty much all of my life. Yoga works. The ancient teachings of yoga makes even more sense in the current tumultuous world. The way I like to practice and teach yoga is how I live my life, cultivating a sensitivity of the sensory system so we are in touch with what it is to be living optimally physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
On my mat – and may I add in the school where I teach little children – there is freedom to make mistakes. In fact mistakes are very welcome. I like to invite the courage of curiosity. I welcome unknown answers in unknown realms. This is how we open the higher centers of intuition, by welcoming curiosity and fearlessness.
On my mat, we exhale, inhale, let go, let in. With every breath, we surrender more and more, trusting we are safe and lovingly held so we can journey deeper. With every breath, we breathe purposefully, listening in to the goings-on on the [yoga] mat, to the beatings of our little hearts. The heart that knows it all. We allow the unraveling and becoming in the quiet. We turn inside, connecting, integrating, aligning, one breath at a time.
This is how I intentionally rise every day. This is how I live light and be the light. There are no shortcuts living a life I want to call whole and holy.
How are you living the fiery heart of the bold and courageous lion this Leo season? How are you harnessing the fullness of this one precious life? What do you want to birth on this expansive 8/8 day so you can live your most potent life?
May this New Moon in Leo ignite your mojo and passion to live the life you always dreamt of. May the surge of light waves from our spiritual sun inspire you with courage and strength to follow the calling of your heart. May you know you are safe and protected as you pursue your highest existence, led by the brain in your heart. Sending you lots of big-hearted sparkly love. Roar!
Join me for in-person Yin + Crystals by Candlelight and Himalayan Sound Bath at The Wise Life Co. I am taking a pause from teaching Yoga for Nervous System virtually as I return to the little children in school at the end of summer break. It is all about carving out an even wider berth of breathing space to tend to Me. Spots for private classes and healing sessions are limited and by appointment.
“OK, so yoga is just… you breathe in and out like this, then you start doing slow karate.”
My yoga journey returned me to my memory of a young lady fresh out of school with disposable income to explore the vast wide world of spirituality. Books, workshops and yes, yoga. I did not get yoga. In fact, I did not like yoga at all. It was too slow, too long, too painful. The promise that wisdom and all of life’s answers can be found working-in, on the mat, was impossibly nuanced for a goal-getter who relished the adrenaline rush of a sprint uphill. More than 20 years ago, a walk in the jungle was a work-out counting the steps and beating a previous record.
Unsurprisingly it was the intensity of Ashtanga yoga that later reconnected me with the mat. The practice that took my breath away opened the world of svadhyahya, or self-study. Long story short, in the fervent search for The Teacher who did not exist, I left the practice that broke a shoulder and found much more. I have shown up dedicatedly on the yoga mat for 10 years now. Every morning I rise and sit on my magic carpet. I connect up and tune in. I pray, chant, move my body and sit in silence. Swathes of silence so I hear all that is going on inside, in my blood, veins and bones, and the incredible chatter in my head.
Have you heard this noise in your head? It is deafening in the quiet of the ambrosial hour. My magic carpet is a great illuminator. I create space in my body every darned day so I have room to step many steps back and breathe when the external world is fiery.
You see, it took a loooong time before I arrived in this space of a soft, quiet life. The more I pour myself into the physical practice of yoga, the more I appreciate its subtleties. Yin yoga is more than an antidote to our masculine, task-oriented lifestyle, or prescription for “issues in the tissues”, so succinctly put by Bernie Clark. As a teacher and energy medicine practitioner who is passionate about self-empowerment and self-healing, the slow practice that eluded my youthful insolent self now returns as the perfect meditation tool to tune into the intricacies [Y]inside.
Yin yoga is the art of deep listening. How we navigate the sensations on the mat is how we listen to the stories inside that are longing to be heard. We want to cultivate this sensitivity on the mat so we can bring this refined awareness off the mat, into our lives.
You know what? I am not concerned with you touching your toes or attaining the perfect symmetry. I wish to know if you, blessed with this beautifully complex gift of a human body, can touch your core to find your way h[om]e, to your unique you.
Come join my new in-person classes at The Wise Life Co., to live a little lighter, a little more tenderly. Come own your magic:
Yin & Crystals by Candlelight
Tuesday, 7 – 8:15pm
Come join this 75-minute class where I will take you through the art of deep listening with nourishing long-held Yin poses paired with crystals. Does it sound magical? It is. The crystals speak to me and my hands are guided to place them on and around your body. It is all intuitive and curative. I want you to know my classes are never about nailing the perfect asana. I like that they are rooted in self-empowerment, with self-inquiry and self-understanding paving the way for courageous, heart-centered living. The way I like to practice Yin is gently, contemplatively, centered in the practice of surrendering with grace to find our way h[om]e. In a cozy, candlelit space supported by the vibrations of crystals, I will guide you to navigate sensations on the mat to listen in. Do know this relaxing secular practice is accessible to all levels of practitioners.
Self-Reiki
Saturday 5:30 – 6:30pm
I am also teaching self-healing techniques with the beautiful and gentle energy of Reiki. With Reiki, everyone can have the gift of healing hands. Did you know? Reiki, the most mainstream energy medicine today is a safe and simple way to self-heal. This universal energy is known to promote post-surgery recovery, induce a deep sense of calm and balance, and relieve conditions ranging from insomnia and anxiety to eczema and muscle tension. With consistent practice, Reiki heals beyond the physical and brings balance and harmony to every aspect of life. Reiki is the perfect foundation to deeper energy work.
In this guided class, I am going to show you how to connect and awaken the body’s innate ability to balance and restore itself with the energy of Reiki. This hands-on practical session empowers you to self-heal with your hands and leaves you relaxed and recharged. This gentle and soothing session is suitable for all ages.
I am right here waiting for you. All you have to do is to register here.
Yoga for Nervous System still happens online every Saturday morning. Personal Reiki workshops, Inner Child therapy, Akash and Angel meditations, and energy healing with Light beings and Tibetan singing bowls are by appointment.
There is nothing quite like a dip in the ocean to wash away the stuff that does not belong. Or an amble in the woods to leave behind a busy world. When traveling was unrestricted and easy, I traveled for pristine waters and spectacular mountainscapes. Oceans where I could swim with turtles. Mountains with cold misty air to wake up to. You know remote places to watch the moonrise and count the uncountable stars in a night sky lit only by celestial bodies. Those were soulful nights of silent commune with the stars. I remember those moments like yesterday. I hold them close and allow them to hold me right back.
If you could travel again, where would you go?
I long for the mountains in Nepal. There is magic in this Land of Mountains. When I spied the distant Himalayan mountain ranges from the little plane to Pokhara, I saw snow-capped peaks that have probably witnessed the tumultuous evolution of humanity. Those rocks must be older than present-day earth. You bet their shrubs weathered countless storms too. Perhaps reaching the peak is not about conquering the destination, like yoga is never about touching the toes. It is the journey of connecting with our Great Mother and remembering this precious human incarnation in our physical bodies to fulfill our longings.
Most of all, I remember my retreat at a mountaintop organic farm in Kathmandu.
It was pretty darned magnificent to teach and practice Reiki and yoga in nature’s sweet embrace. The Kingdom of Heaven was above us, below us, inside us and all around us. Away from the hubbub of modern-day distractions, sacred moments were seen from the eyes of the heart. We city folks found ridiculous amount of thrill in harvesting perfectly ripened peaches and tucking into delicious farm-to-table produce. I tended to my dream of running my own retreats since my days as a travel and wellness writer. It was a dream a lifetime in the making. I cannot wait for the day I can return to lead Self-healing Journeys in the Himalayas. Will you consider joining me?
You know what were some of the best parts of Self-healing Journeys? It had all that I held dear to me, from yoga mats handwoven by disadvantaged women and assiduously planned nourishing plant-based meals to heartfelt connection with locals and seva for the underprivileged.
If you put your heart against the earth with me, in serving
every creature, our Beloved will enter you from our
sacred realm and we will be, we will be... so very, very happy.
~ Rumi
You see, my heart always worked for something bigger than an identity defined by the multiple roles I play at home and at work. Not so long ago I ran a little Fairtrade shop working with impoverished communities in Cambodia and Laos. There is so much I want to offer to this world during my finite time on earth. When I breathe my last, I want to know I have been true to every part of me. I want to create, do and be what matters to me most.
I tend to my vision of teaching villages of little children in the Asia I am still very much in love with. I show up every day, living the best of me, in a school with a spiritual pedagogy that is in line with my own beliefs, esoteric practices and potent ancient teachings I was schooled in. The stars align, heart and soul journey deepens, and life purpose clarifies.
Just like this another summer solstice arrives. Rudolf Steiner likened the cycle of one earth year to the full respiration of a human. Solstice, meaning the standing still (stice) of the sun (sol), is akin to the pause between exhalation and inhalation. Without this breathing space, the threat of hyperventilation is real, literally and figuratively. Steiner also spoke of summer solstice as the union of the soul of the earth and the spirit of the sun. It was a time of enlightenment for the ancients, where in the attainment of cosmic heights they could receive the Light and meet their higher “I”.
Remember, Creator wants us to pay attention. We live in amazingly pivotal times. We have all the cosmic support we need to step into our highest evolution. We have potency to heal from our physical ailments, karmic patterns and what is holding us back from living a glorious life.
It is our birthright to shine like stars know how to shine.
If not now, when?
As we transit into the next half of 2021, I like to be intentional on living my higher “I”. With so much brilliance and light streaming onto earth, this is the perfect moment to pause and illumine a new season. I like to ask:
What is emerging from the seeds I have planted?
Where do I want to direct more of my energy to?
What do I want to walk away from?
How have I been moving on the yoga mat and consciously practicing yoga off it?
How am I observing my breath and wellbeing with awareness and curiosity?
How can I check in with my heart more ?
How can I carve more pauses into the daily grind?
What is on my not-to-do list?
I am reflecting and feeling a lot. These days, spending inordinate amount of time swimming in the sea turns out to be the perfect panacea for farsickness. I float on my back watching the clouds weave their poetry. Have you heard this lovely line from Thich Nhat Hanh?
A cloud never dies.
I watch the white puffs transmuting and transforming incessantly, completely open to possibilities. I watch the rush of water toward me and surrender to the crashing waves. It is beautifully peaceful when salty water washes over my head and I allow my body to be submerged in the serenity and quietude beneath the crest. There is a heart-opening sense of freedom when one stops resisting the waves and dives headlong into it. They say never turn your back to the waves for it will pull you deeper into scary, uncomfortable places. Trusting our hearts could be unfathomable when the mind demands control and surety. Yet not knowing how things will turn out is the only way anything comes out at all.
In the end, everything passes over. Nothing is permanent. Neither the waves. Nor the clouds. Or that debilitating fear that keeps one stuck. Emancipation is found when one drops the resistance and trust the waves to take you to unknown depths.
There is medicine in the deep. Can you trust it?
Yoga for Nervous System happens online every Saturday morning. Reiki workshops, Inner Child therapy, Akash meditation and energy healing with Light beings and Tibetan singing bowls are by appointment.
In the school where I teach, we spend time in nature every morning with the children, barefoot on earth, playing and weaving nature’s bounty into floral arrangements for the kitchen table where we draw, paint, sew, cook, make bread and eat together. Or we are gardening in the backyard, tending to a garden that flourishes quickly in this heat and humidity. Just last week, we harvested blue pea flowers and oregano from our garden for pancakes and tea. Getting my hands and feet in dirt, immersing in the soul of the earth have replaced long jaunts in the forest since 2021 began.
A day at work begins in the Teachers Room reading a Rudolf Steiner verse and message from the angels. In the classroom with the children, we connect to what matters when we light a candle, then honor all that is and who we truly are in a circle, with soulful poetry and movement.
This year of change is one I witness the fullness and alchemy of my physical and metaphysical practices. There is a sense of completion yet everything has just begun. There is so much I want to bring to this world. All that illuminate and nourish me, the movement, esoteric knowledge and epiphanies, I bring them to school. I love to cradle the soft faces of my children and whisper “I am here with you.”
When I see little souls, I see their gifts and lessons this incarnation. I see the inner child wounds of their guardians. I see spiritual beings exploring and living this tricky yet beautiful human existence with wonder, guilelessness and innocence.
As conscious educators we connect them to a divinity on this earthly realm that is not unlike their true home. We must not forget where we came from. We are of light and galaxies, multidimensional and multifaceted. Peel back the veils of amnesia and we see heaven in flowers and crystals, dragonflies and clouds, mountains and oceans. I wish for children to know their greatness and be true to their longings. I wish for them to know they possess more courage and resilience than fathomable, that they can be everything they want to be. I wish for them to live the best of their infinite potential like I rise purposefully every morning living the heights and depths of me. I am sooooo deeply humbled I touch heaven and earth every darned day doing what I love. I wish the same for every sentient being walking this path that is sometimes crooked and breathlessly heartrending. Life can be as magical and lyrical as you wish it to be. ✨
One of the greatest takeaways in 2020 was how connected we all are. In a pandemic-strained world, time zone difference disappeared, yet distance and absence made hearts grow fonder. We realized we need one another. More than before. Staying at home so much tending to the sacred space inside was as sobering as it was clarifying. It was a year of epic growth for many of us. Never mind workshops, retreats and travels were canceled, and the life we had in mind had to be postponed. In face of mortality, the tumultuous year that passed was about counting the blessings and taking courageous, purposeful steps to live out our longings and dreams. Life gave another chance to master our demons. We were called to deepen into our heart space, into what we hold dear. Trust what the universe has organized for us. Trust we always receive exactly what is needed for our evolution. Life is as perfect as it can be.
I personally know many who forged new paths, one from the depth of their hearts and souls. The heart tunes in. More than the head brain, the heart brain is our navigational system. It knows truth that the rational mind is unable to intellectualize.
Will you take the leap of faith even if your destination is not within sight?
I had high intentions to begin 2021 with a weekly online Meditation with Angels, a natural progression from the illuminating Akash meditation – a journey into the soul records – I had been guiding virtually on Zoom. It appears for now the Divine has other plans. Destiny is calling. There is nothing left to do but surrender.
I feel so very grateful to integrate all my tools and practices at a school with a curriculum centered around developing the body, soul and spirit. The epitome of holistic education was ahead of its time when it was founded in 1919 in Germany and may I say it is ever so apropos in this Aquarian age. This multidimensional and profoundly spiritual approach to educating big souls in little bodies has everything I stand for. How I nourish my heart, body and soul is how a consciously spent day in textbook-free class is filled with the arts, nature and esoteric wisdom. The day begins with soulful poetry and ends with a gratitude song honoring another spiritual being living a human experience. Will the future of planet earth remember how we connected with Father Sun and Mother Earth in classroom and therefore see every living creation as being inherently beautiful and equally worthy? Will they follow their heart’s wisdom as they recall how we valued their every artistry and imagination? It is my vision for humanity, as it is the school’s.
To say the least, it is a soul mission manifested, in complete alignment with heart work that is rooted in self-inquiry and self-empowerment. Working fulltime with little children and shadowing special needs ones with soulmates who understand my heart as I see theirs bring forth the best in me, parts of me I did not know exist and qualities I have been dedicatedly cultivating on and off the [yoga] mat. I am filled with awe and humility witnessing and living my highest potential every darned day. Words are hardly adequate to express the depth of my gratitude.
Have you heard this achingly tender rendition of a Whitney Houston classic? It landed in my phone as I was contemplating the circuitous yet graceful unfolding of my journey.
Have you noticed the pared down yearend festivities everywhere? Simplicity lends a muted (or somber?) tone as it is a beautiful reminder of an inner divinity that is beyond external “stuff”. We are so much more than our material existence and a security built on what is outside of us.
Is it ironic we began a new decade locking down and in, rebuilding our inner foundation in this Year of 4. This extraordinary year of lockdown – if you have not heard, “Lockdown” is declared Word of the Year by Collins Dictionary – is one to breathe deeper into the body temple. This gift of a heartbeat, this life is a sacred gift to be savored deeply, truly, with heart and soul eyes wide open. The place where we meet our divinity is also where vulnerability resides. It is the heart-opening Fish pose that reaches the depth of our being so we experience our own vastness in our physical and spiritual heart. Touching, feeling and seeing this true core renders a fearlessness to navigate change with openness.
With external gratification largely beyond reach this year, the Thanksgiving that just passed had many of us reflecting on all that we already have. There was bemoaning of what could have been, yet there was astounding room for growth. The wise saying “In is the only way out” calls for a literal interpretation. There has not been a better time to dive into the art – and heart – of happiness. We are being shown an opportunity to return to the center when the sun is shining at its most radiant and when the moon is singing a sorrowful tune. We are being asked to relax and breathe more profoundly into our hearts amid economic hardship and all round pandemic fatigue.
Like an asana practice, challenges in 2020 ask us to choose the journey over the destination, self-inquiry over achievement. We have a choice of spending three minutes tuning into nuances of a yoga posture or mindlessly going through the motion wishing the timer will go off sooner.
Amid the mayhem, loss and rage, the attitude of genuine gratitude is a state of mind that supports the nervous system and turns everything into enough. There is plenty to be grateful for. I am grateful for dedicated students who show up for class week after week, pink hued skies, nourishing heart connection with my chosen soul family, and soul resonance that transcends the divide of oceans and mountains.
This year of traveling within and in my backyard has unlocked answers that were just under my nose. Spending so much time in nature reminds me of the cyclical nature of life, of resilience and impermanence. Nature teaches grace, adaptability and interconnectivity. This big year is asking us to choose evolution over dogmatically clinging to the outworn and known. It asks for a new way of being, letting go of what was to make space for what is to be. The conscious mind and eyes may not always see the path ahead but trust spirit knows. This year is also asking for letting go of control and putting in the work to overcome and rise above our old selves.
Faith and diligence are required from us.
I am grateful to close this year with two in-person energy healing sessions at Pure Wellness. We will be reflecting on this big year of change and meditating on our vision for 2021. We begin with gentle movement to connect and awaken our inner landscape before we lie back to receive the wonderfully restorative energy of Reiki and crystals. We are so blessed to be tapping into potent cosmic energies to clear inner and outer clutter, rebalance and reset. The sheer amount of high frequency light streaming onto earth will be extra-illuminating and catalytic.
This is going to be a cozy, energetically charged circle with limited spots.
Dec 23, Wednesday, 6pm and 8pm.
Book your spot here, and feel free to reach out at connect@globeskimmer.com if you have questions.
I look forward to setting the intentions of renewal and reimagining a very near 2021 with you. Sending you lots of love and wishing you peace, joy and inspiration. May every one of us shine our brilliant light like never before.
This time last year I was at my favorite place in Bali, way up in the tranquil, far-flung north where black volcanic sand lends a deeply curative energetic vibe I appreciate. With nowhere to go now, nature walks at home ground are longer and more contemplative, the pause a meditation. I am relishing the forest baths and awe walks. Awe walks – meditative-like rambles where one looks for wonder – put things in perspective. The immensity of nature reminds me of unseen depths beyond the perception of the outer eye. I have found illumination in taking in the veins of a leaf, the unfurling of a flower petal, seeing old things with new eyes. The Creator is a consummate artist. There is beauty and poetry everywhere. Divinity is omnipresent.
Sometimes the known and certain are no longer best choices. I am taking time to venture off the usual paths. There is something purposeful about intentionally taking a different route to learn to relax into the unknown. Leaning into the possibilities that there will always be a way, though not the plan I dream about, is at once scary and exciting.
If I could name one thing this tumultuous year is teaching me, it would be to be fully present to what is. Right here right now is a wonderful place to be. We live in wild unprecedented times with no reprieve in sight. There has never been so much polarization, rage, chaos and all the uncomfortable emotions you can put a name to. I have never asked these many questions about the wisdom of pain, loss and suffering. Can things possibly get any worse? When my mind wanders to an anxious uncertain future, I find my breath to anchor into the present.
The peace of inner stillness allows us to understand everything is at where it is supposed to be. Serenity at the home in our hearts translates to peace outside. This practice of staying in the present is a conscious decision. It is choosing to return to the breath at every moment of awareness so it becomes a habit.
Our breath becomes us. We are our habits.
We come to realize that the universe mirrors back to us perfectly our beliefs, our intentions, our sincerity. What is the product of the map of reality you carry inside you. If you want to change your experience, you need to change the map. – Alberto Villoldo
When we take time for self-care and build good habits, recovery time to the center is quicker. When we carve out space to nourish our inner cosmos, we build capacity to tune into our inner teacher for guidance. This is the teacher who is in touch with the truth of the soul. Owning this truth – the truth that no external voice can tell you – is potent seed for authentic, courageous living.
Truth alignment births fearlessness. Authenticity vibrates at a higher frequency.
This is why we practice yoga. We practice not to experience zilch challenges and pain. We practice so we can stay in that shakiness and be the phoenix that rises from the ashes, stronger than before.
Self-care is an inside job goes beyond that organic veggie bowl or indulgent spa time. It is the art of taking time to:
Edit your relationships, choosing more supportive and uplifting companionship
Understand what it is right for you, not what will please others
Set healthy boundaries to honor your energy, space and truth
Tend to your feelings because they are valid
Reduce busyness to have a life
Relinquish what no longer serves to create space and move you deeper into you
Streamline your material possessions to live light in every sense of the word
Change is successful and lasting when triggered by a significant crisis. A new way of being begins with taking full responsibility for our feelings, actions and reactions, eyes open wide. Life is an effective teacher. The year 2020 sets us on a path of discovery along stupendous peaks and valleys. The year of locking down unlocks a vast world of inner journeys to ask the imperative question: Is the life you have been living the life you want to live?
Recently in class, I was speaking of transiting into the last quarter of the year with the shedding energy of fall: We will be winding down and decluttering the body and spirit most of the season. On the mat we move for a life of greater ease off the mat.
Nature speaks of slowing down and the change of seasons with poignancy. The rustle of fallen withered foliage under my feet. The delicious scent of the forest after a rain. Have you noticed the dewdrops? I have been rather enchanted by these iridescent pearls that shimmer in the light. They murmur softly, almost inaudibly, then disappear like the shooting star that went too fast.
pitter patter
little by little
dew kissing
earth
Speaking of fall and shedding, I am a fan of letting go. My relationship with stuff – what I want to hold on to and what I allow to own me – has changed profoundly. Life is so much more full and fulfilling when:
Who I truly am is not defined by the external, certainly not by cultural, familial, societal conditioning and expectations, and the judgment of others.
I am present to what is, not teetering between the baggage of yesteryear and what-ifs of tomorrow.
There is space – and choice – to be present to what is showing up for me.
There is space and choice to joyfully surf life force.
This is why I practice what I practice. I practice because (1) Letting go is a constant work in progress. (2) I am imperfect.
The practice of yoga is far from achieving perfection, or getting to the destination of the full posture. Burn the goals and to-do lists please. Yoga is part undoing and part reconditioning by extending consciousness and grace to every maneuver. It is one of the most intimate ways you can develop a relationship with you, the most important person in the world.
Asking how I can ease into the asana is also asking what else I can let go of to experience the life that wants to live through me. There is such an art to feeling and understanding your own unique alignment in the forward fold while simultaneously honoring well-meaning postural cues and turning off the picture-perfect image magazines and Instagram have sold us.
Looking back, I have had so-called “perfect” alignment forced on me in my early yoga days. My teachers probably wanted me to fit into the “look” of the asana, never mind every bone, tendon and holding pattern of repressed energy is as unique as a snowflake. It is like carefully crafting a social media post to present to the world your perfect little life. Or rather the success you want others to believe you have achieved. You can believe it if you fake it enough.
In Twisted Roots, a juicy two-sided Yin pose we practiced this recent Saturday, most of us found little symmetry on both sides of the physical body. One side is almost always more open than the other. Our bodies inform us of our incredible asymmetrical truths. All we have to do is to listen to the language of the sensory body. Coming into the alignment that is unique to you is a nuanced, compassionate practice. Life is indeed so subtle and transient, blink and it passes you by. Self-realization is a gift from self-observation, a practice that is possible from slowing down and going Yinside. Pardon the Yin pun. 😉
One of the greatest gifts of freeing myself from a yoga system that was centered around the interpretation and personality of one man is fully anchoring into my own body and coming into my knowing and intuition (read full story here). This unfolding is beyond my dreams. I did not see it coming yet I was fully ready, trusting the stars are aligned and this is perfect and right for me. My new practice is filled with infinite possibilities. The new me trusts the mastery of my heart.
I know I have nailed that perfect pose – and life – when my inside feels spacious and free. I know life keeps coming in miraculous unexpected ways and all I have to remember is the daily practice adds up to real lasting change. And alignment.
Practice makes possible.
How are you practicing to fall into alignment with your heart, body and spirit?
P.S. I want to share with you this blessing of a birdsong that brings so much joy every morning, post sadhana. Alignment begins at first light. 🙂
P.PS. Yoga for Nervous System happens every Saturday morning, 10am (GMT +8), livestream. Together, we rest, digest and heal so we can live our highest evolution. Yoga for Nervous System is a secular practice for every body and creed. Come as you are. Come practice with me.
When the city I am living in began to ease lockdown measures a few weeks ago, I made a list of the mountains I can possibly spend time in. Bhutan. Ladakh. Nepal. My partner and I spoke of taking our journaling workshop into a full-on retreat. We cannot wait to be back in nature, nourishing ourselves with long walks, soulful conversations and deep contemplation. The seemingly insurmountable mountain that now stands between us is fear. The world appears to be going crazy with closing borders and curtailing movement, alongside shutting down livelihoods and fundamental human rights to freedom. The impact on poverty and inequality is incredible.
You see, fear is a perfect control and terribly disempowering. While gripped with anxiety, we have forgotten interconnectivity is our nature. Separation is maya, an illusion. An Alaskan oil spill still wreaked havoc in the food chain and impacted lives oceans away a decade later. The volcanoes, valleys, mountains and seas that divide us actually sustain us. “We are one” is not a spiritual refrain. It is our nature.
All things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.– Chief Seattle
Locking down is akin to shutting out the emotional body, numbing out in order not to feel. Nothing ever goes away. Energy merely changes form. Unprocessed emotions and dis-ease held in the tissues manifest as physical ailments. If your neck pain could speak, what would it say? What if cancer is but an alert system signaling you to listen?
As a practitioner of spirituality, everything has become a practice. The time I spend slowing down on the yoga mat extends to a life of greater ease off the mat. The intense moments when I intentionally surge energy on the mat relates to how little I need external stimuli to uplift myself outside of the mat. I thrive on the electricity I have generated within me.
This is potent invincible living.
This is how I show up for myself so I can show up for the world. Fearlessly. Purposefully. Come practice with me, live stream, Saturday morning. I have created a sweet little clip on Yoga for Nervous System for you. It is a secular practice for all levels of practitioner. Call it Yin Yang, or Energy Medicine, if you wish. We will learn to rewire our nervous system, the matrix of electrical energy that runs and fuels our existence.
“I wanted to drop you a line to say how much I enjoyed your class. It’s been about 20 years since I had done Hatha yoga so I was concerned if the class may be too advanced and whether or not I can keep up. It was all good – different – and I’m already looking forward to the next class.”
“It was a really good class. I really felt cleansed.”
“Love how you explained the benefits of each movement.”
The world needs more light, more of us to be in our centered adult self. See you on the mat.
Love has no gender. Compassion has no religion. Character has no race. – Abhijit Naskar
The year 2020 probably goes down as one we will always remember. The Year of 4 (2+0+2+0), four being foundation, the structures we lean on to hold our lives together. Clearly, fear-based programs, lies, hypocrisy, pretensions, imbalances and narratives that no longer serve are illuminated, pleading for reexamination and recalibration. Conscious ones are fully comprehending humanity is asked to deconstruct in order to construct. Would you heed the call to honor what has been starved for attention? Would you begin to chip away and shed what and how you were taught, and thought, was The Way?
Global and personal events that unfolded in the last month had me thinking about equality and empowerment, issues I hold close to my heart. How can we collectively play a part in creating a more equal world. How can we empower humans, especially the marginalized, to hear their own voice so they can step into their soul[ar plexus] power and be heard.
I recall my littlest returning home from school many moons ago enthusiastically sharing a day of fun with his “Malay” and “Indian” classmates. Strange, I thought, where did he pick up this newfound racial vocabulary. I did not care to educate my children in this manner. They did not know humans can be segregated racially until our outdated education system informed them so.
We are one big human race with no color, creed and gender divide. Certainly the multi-religion altar at home reflects Love is the religion. Love is the answer.
As one of the 7.8 billion humans coexisting on planet earth that is more connected than before, how can we embody qualities that contribute to peace and unity. We are complicit if we do nothing. Silence and shame are insidious weapons.
Energetically, silence relates to the throat center and shame resides in the sex organs. They are sibling centers: We take in the sensory world through our sex organs upon birth, before words found us. Our bodies can attach to racialized and sexual shame in the environment, from birth, and adopt and grow into these constrictions as if they were our true identity. The throat relates to how we emotionally speak for ourselves, how we can embody and be in resonance with truth. What is safe to say, and what we have been taught or are allowed to say.
Short of taking to the streets, what choices and decisions can we make on a daily basis that are based on universal love, genuine understanding and compassion.
There is a lot of work to be done to clean up deeply rooted shadows in the psyche individually and collectively. As spiritual beings living a human experience, we share a global responsibility to be the change we wish to see in the world. The Work begins at individual level, at where we are.
One of the best things I did was a Teacher Training in Children’s Yoga that had me working on my inner child wounds before my teachers Sat Sarbat and Satmukh saw guardians of children fit to go out and shape little minds. Inner child work is confrontational, unsavory shadow work. It is necessary to visit deep dark places to break free from habitual patterns and a belief system that perpetuates an unending loop of self-abuse, self-sabotage and self-inflicted pain. If we can change our own patterns, we can change our children’s, and the world’s.
How different will the world be if we turn our attention inward and grant ourselves permission to shed layers of cultural, familial, gender, religious and societal conditioning and indoctrination that have no place in our true identity.
As a spiritual teacher, my question is, how can I empower you to rise into your power. This is nervous system work. We are the strength of our nervous system. We are a complex power-generating circuitry of electrical energy. We have incredible self-authority to cultivate, manage and direct this inherent electricity to alchemize and transform our state of being.
This is it. Yoga for Nervous System. All my years of dedicated practice on and off the mat have come to a landing in my own body and soul that is aligned with my truth and a life that wants to live through me. It is as if the last few years prepared me for this becoming.
I will no longer teach the system, Kundalini Yoga as certified by Kundalini Research Institute. It was the life I knew and chose for many years. They were some of my most heart- and mind-opening years. I honor those pivotal years and welcome leaning deeper into my own knowing and power. I welcome the simultaneous sense of liberation and discomfort and insecurity of change, for it is in this state that life rearranges itself. It is in a state of disruption that new neural pathways can emerge and new energetic patterns form. True for the nervous system. True for a life authentically and consciously lived.
Yoga for Nervous System is all about tapping into our inherent electrical energy to feel our most magnificent pulse and live radiantly alive. I am riding the tumultuous wave of the Year of 4, dismantling all that I knew and rebuilding from Ground Zero. I begin again and again, supported by the strength of the nervous system I have cultivated. My practice is my commitment to a life aligned with what I value: authenticity and integrity.
Will you begin with me?
Yoga for Nervous System happens online, every Saturday, 10am (Singapore; GMT +8). Enquire at connect@globeskimmer.com; register here.
Practice for the sheer joy of being free. Practice to be empty of “me, me me”. Silent, open, and infinitely vast, practice to remember what is real.
Practice to give yourself up and receive the wordless truth. What you get will be useless – not the coin of any realm – but oh, the glory of those moments – being whole.
– Danna Faulds
Did you notice the pink and violet skies, and how overgrown wild flowers are abuzz with bees and butterflies? At where I live, lockdown measures begin to ease today. There is a sense of anticipation with a hefty dose of trepidation. Soon, we will convene in our new-normal selves. When it is business as usual, when you can breathe freely, mask free, what stories of change, loss and triumph will you tell? Will you continue into growth or retreat into familiar safety?
I begin the second half of 2020 offering Yin yoga sessions as a more sensory approach to the process of introspection and self-inquiry. It appears my yoga journey has come full circle, a destined homecoming of sorts. Yet I am stepping into a new world, one that is rebalancing and changing.
Outside, Piscean Age belief systems are crumbling, albeit not without a fight. Humanity is facing a new dawn. Mother Earth matters. Every voice matters. The soul is colorless, genderless and oh so free. It is time to let go of archaic beliefs that keep us in a state of separation. As a human race bound by collective suffering and opportunity for growth, we are asked to step forward to make new choices to experience wholeness.
Inside, I have been feeling my way into practicing and teaching Kundalini yoga differently since allegations of misconduct against Yogi Bhajan surfaced a few months ago. This necessary soul searching has been sobering and heartbreaking. It remains to be seen how I will eventually teach the practice so it is aligned with values I hold dear. I still bookend my day with a meditation in this tradition. There is a space in between my profound love for this powerful practice and equally deep disappointment with the fall from grace of a figure widely regarded as a guru. This is the space I am resting, between my breaths, awaiting the unfolding and eventual answer.
If there is one thing my spiritual practice has taught me, it is this: It is okay to feel the enormity of my feelings. It is okay to feel grief, rage and despair. It is okay not to be okay and positive all the time. This is why we practice. So nothing stays stuck and morph into a cancerous mass. We practice not just for peace of mind. We practice to have a life. A life we want to live. A life filled with freedom, clarity and strength to honor our authenticity and truth.
The more I pour myself into the physical practice of yoga, the more its subtleties permeate into other areas of my life. The deeper my energy medicine practice, the more I appreciate a multidimensional approach to dissolve the programing and conditioning in our system. Yin yoga to me is more than an antidote to our masculine, task-oriented lifestyle, or prescription for release of issues in our tissues. The slow practice is the perfect meditation tool to tune into the intricacies [Y]inside.
I see Yin yoga as an art in deep listening. How do we navigate sensations on the mat so we can listen to the stories inside that are longing to be heard. How do we sit through that hamstring tension so we can tend to strong emotions outside of the calm of the studio. How can we cultivate this sensitivity on the mat so the refined awareness connects us to our inner observer and our greatest teacher, the guru residing in our hearts.
Yoga is not nailing that deep back bend, or attaining the perfect symmetry. With this beautifully complex gift of a human body, can you touch your core to find your way h[om]e, to your unique you?
Wherever you are, how are you keeping up? How is your heart, mind and body? How are you managing your energy level?
Four weeks in self-isolation flew by. At where I live, in Singapore, we have another four weeks to go. We are not alone in this mandatory stay-at-home order. Globally we are staying inside. There are those blessed with a privileged retreat. Many are struggling with necessary familial duties, work demands and self-care in truncated environs. Some are simply facing extraordinary hardship.
I did not think I would live to see a pandemic. Who could foresee toilet paper would be precious commodity. Who knew a previously taken for granted grocery run would be a chance for fresh air and a breather. I certainly appreciate the joy-walks and loving messages from above when I venture out to replenish fresh produce.
It is hard to fathom the magnitude of housecleaning that is required on a personal and collective level. A world painstakingly built to stay safe and cozy is crumbling. Debris that has been swept under the rug, stubbornly held old ways, parts that have been starved and repressed, everything has morphed into monstrous proportions because life is being examined at a microscopic level.
I like to believe humanity is at the threshold of a new way of being. They say you either have the intuition to change or you are forced to change. The Big C, Change, is unimaginable for most people even during the best of times.
For me transcending my resistant to technology was one such change. As a highly sensitive empath who feels everything so deeply, I wondered how I could be of service. With loving support from tech-savvy soul sisters, I took the great tech plunge, to teach online. I, or rather we were called to serve during this incredible time of introspection.
The last few weeks saw me teaching meditation to a whole new community across different time zones. I was very grateful to share the practice that has allowed me to meet my authentic self in this unending journey to find true liberation. It was a free offering from my heart. Your lovely notes saw me through the sense of disconnection I felt in a Zoom room.
You wrote:
“It was a powerful and invigorating session!”
“Was really good. Didn’t realize there were so many meditation techniques. It really helped to feel calmer and more focused.”
You had so many questions after our meditation sessions. Some of you were inspired to keep up with a self-practice. The Work works if you are willing to do the work. What is important you rise, show up and do your best every day. Every new day is an opportunity to listen deeper, trust more, live a little truer, one day, one breath at a time.
It is amazing there is so much grace and silver lining to this crisis. This reluctant pause is profound time not to be wasted. Our suffering cannot be in vain. Mother Nature thrives again. The plight of migrant workers, the marginalized and vulnerable is under scrutiny. Children are realizing being able to go to school is a privilege. There is newfound appreciation for personal and environmental wellness. All around me, people are breaking habits, patterns and cycles and finding change is not so daunting after all. Pursuits in the external world we once counted on for happiness appear to be trivial compared to the richness and sheer freedom a peaceful inner world can offer.
What if staying in and finding our true h[om]e is the deepest journey we will ever make this lifetime? What if this exploration brings us to uncharted territories where a breathtaking horizon is closer than we think. It is beautiful to witness this rousing from a slumber, shifting from paralysis to full-on engagement. Perhaps this is the long overdue reset planet earth needs.
How are you using the gift of this moment to transform yourself, to be the version of yourself you always wanted to be?
What and who will you be when you step out and walk on earth again?
How will you sustain and settle into the new you?
How else can we collectively stay awake for as long as possible?
There are more questions than answers and it is okay. Some days at home are better than the others and this is okay, too.
Soon enough I’ll be back in the mountains. My self-healing retreats will return next year. This is all I know and it is fine. The daily spiritual practice that saw me through change and loss is now preparing me for an unknown future. In this present moment, I am at my most prolific, creating healing music on the harmonium and writing a book. For now, my partner and I are rescheduling our journaling and yoga workshop Trust & Let Go. Come if you are called.
Till we connect in person again, please reach out if there are ways I can support you. There is more than enough space in Zoom room.
Freedom has been on my mind lately. Do you feel the same?
With external borders shut and movement curtailed, I am journeying deep to find inner liberation. The path inward promises certainty when outside circumstances are beyond control.
It is human to want answers, to want to know what to expect and how things will work out. We are following the news, understanding what is happening and still at the mercy of the unknown and invisible. The truth is, we simply don’t know all the time.
The truth is also a dedicated spiritual practice can be your precious oars when you feel like a boat lost at sea. Where do you find ground when there is none?
There is so much wisdom intense times can teach us. We can learn to rest the thinking mind that wants surety and control of the maze. Life simply shows us where we need to go when the time is right. As yogis, we use the mat to practice relaxing and surrendering into the unfolding at the present moment. We listen to the language of the body. We find infinity in the finite.
Undoubtedly the physical suffering is real. Apocalyptic news have become so unsettling boundary setting is necessary to maintain sanity. I have never found a better time to take all that yoga has taught me on the mat to dark wobbly places outside of the mat. More than ever, the growing sense of connectedness and peace root even more profoundly in me so I can be the rock for those near and dear. More than ever, we are being called to return to the natural state of balance innate in us.
There is now nowhere else to go except the room in our hearts. Our best teacher resides in this vast boundless space, compass-ready for an inner odyssey. With no map for navigation, anything is possible. This is the time to reinvent and re-imagine all that is possible. Maybe being confined within four walls is redefining what Home means. Perhaps what is excessive or irreplaceable is showing up with surprising clarity. This crisis offers such fertile ground to investigate and re-evaluate our internal and external landscape. There is no more escaping. This is time to arrive in the temple that is the body and confer it deep healing.
The crack is after all where the light comes in. This could be Ground Zero for true liberation if you are willing to consider.
I keep singing, chanting, praying, playing music, practicing yoga. They help me find my inner freedom so I keep going. I want to let you know I am here practicing with you. I am here to share with you the practices that saw me through grief, loss and are now seeing me through a pandemic. Your tools are within you and I can show you how to access them. Reach out if you want to know how I can support you through these exceptional times.Sending you so much love. May you tend to yourself gently when the seas are rough and the storms look like they may never pass.
I will always remember that September afternoon at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport. Our first words to each other were, what brought you here? CazArt and I laughed at this recollection of us chatting in the line at Immigration.
What brought us to India indeed. It appeared to be completely random. Or not. We both received a clear message from Up There to be in South Asia. I listened, refrained from asking a zillion questions and responded to guidance.
I trust what is meant for me. And what is possible.
That was all we knew at that moment in time. There we connected with each other, nearly 5,000 kilometers away from Singapore where we both called home.
Superficially, sitting in the audience of His Holiness The Dalai Lama was the thread that bound us. Really, it was time. It was simply time.
Somewhere out there, there is another heart-centered soul, who just like me, navigates her way home with poetry, song and art. Somewhere in this vast universe, there is another honest, feeling human who consciously chooses courageous expansive living aligned with her true essence.
Two years ago, CazArt had a brain surgery and near death experience that rewired her entire being and existence. In that same year, my dance with death through a sobering Death Meditation reset my most important relationships.
We weren’t looking but destiny found us.
Just like this, we birth our first workshop.
Trust and let go.
We did. And there we were, in the mountains of Dharamshala, knee-deep in cool waters from the gushing waterfall, tending to our full beating hearts in silence and reverence. We have chosen to hold hands, walk with each other and walk each other home.
Trust & Let Go
Our workshop is named after the first book CazArt published after her craniotomy.
In this intimate three-hour session, we dive into the art of trusting the wisdom of the heart with journaling and yoga.
We will soften the body with breath and conscious movement, dissect and slice the fear of letting go, journey deep into our hearts to drop the finely crafted mask we put on every morning, practice deep listening and journal away.
We journal and move, to trust and let go.
CazArt a seasoned journal writer will have your ink flowing like butter. I will be by her side leading with meditation and movement to get you into the flow. We will both share the practice that nourishes, restores and fortifies us when our hearts are weary and bones too heavy. Together we will guide you into your inner cosmos so you can flourish in your outer world.
Trust that you are here in this time
and space for a reason.
So just let go and allow
the glorious moment to happen.
It will take you wherever
you are meant to be.
– CazArt
This is our story. What is yours?
Now is a good time to begin a practice that will nourish, clarify and fortify you many weeks ahead. Trust and let go with us.
Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to die before you die – and find that there is no death. – Eckhart Tolle
The year began with a bereavement and a debilitating viral outbreak that brought travel to its knees and life to a near standstill. I have not felt this sense of urgency about mortality.
We can roll out the best laid plans, consult all the planets and galaxies, think we are doing it as sensibly as we know how. But who knows for certainty if the choices and decisions we make are the best ones for us and those we care about. We may never know if the new job, birthing another child, walking away from a relationship that no longer works is the right thing.
Are there right or wrong choices, or are they a matter of opinion and judgment, ours and others. The self-sabotaging beliefs and stories we spin in our heads can keep us stuck in a victim mode.
There have never been wrong decisions. Every single pain and loss expanded, changed and grew me. Part of the practice is to pause, self-observe and purify.
I can only rise every morning before the sun does, rise above my patterns and show up the best I can with a grateful heart. In the quiet of the pre-dawn morning, I say a prayer and listen in. It is an intimate and honest moment with spirit. What needs nurturing. What I ache for. What comes alive for me. The answers that come through at this godly hour are real and true.
A Death meditation I did almost two years ago was a redefining moment. It brought me to the last few minutes where I breathed my last and looked back at a life that went by in a flash. I saw unspoken words that were left hanging in the air, half-carved dreams and too many regrets.
There is really nothing quite like death to clarify, rekindle the courage to step into the journey to deeply drink from the cup of life, and “allow the flow of life as God wants us to flow with it” so to quote Yogi Bhajan.
It is never too late to begin again.
I don’t take anything for granted now. I love the people I love fully and make sure they know it. There is no room in my body to contain unexpressed words and emotions. I share my tender heart openly because the soul knows no division. The knowing that I have danced with life with all my heart and soul brings an incredible sense of liberation and fearlessness.
With yoga, a man can be a goddess and a woman can be a warrior. Our souls are divine; only our bodies have a gender. – Martin Richtsfeld.
Want to know more about the yoga practice that keeps my heart wide open and resilient and my senses sensitive so I can listen to my inner light? I’ll be teaching the highly accessible tools of Kundalini Yoga Saturday mornings in central Singapore in rotation with Joti Akal and Saharra. Together we will move, sweat, chant, sing and pray. It is never too late to begin again. Join us, will you? Get in touch here.
May you rise and shine, make decisions aligned with what is true to you and always remember your divine soul is longing to live your highest you.
Satnam Dear Ones, I adore January. The air feels crisp, fresh and full of possibilities. Do you feel the same too?
We arrive at amazing pivotal times. New year, new decade, brand new era. A year of 4 (2+0+2+0) with six eclipses and all planets in retrograde, no less. There is a lot going on. Spectacular is going to be an understatement for 2020.
The universe is really calling us to peel further, love harder, trust deeper and surrender more to build the life we envision. It is calling us to go deep to find and redefine h[om]e. The energies are about tearing down walls, and outdated systems and structures. There is incredible cosmic support to deconstruct to construct, take baby steps toward a path aligned with what is true and heartfelt for us.
The year that just went by was a soul level spring cleaning. So much of what no longer served has been set aflame, slate wiped clean, recalibrated. How fortuitous we begin the decade with an emotional full moon lunar eclipse, a fiery last go at cleaning up remnants from the past and everything that has overstayed its welcome before we begin a new cycle.
Bless the endings and let the compost fertilize your best life in the years ahead.
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop. – Rumi
What do you intend to create in the next 10 years and more?
Spending time in nature and living in alignment with her pulse and rhythm continue to shape me. The clarity and wisdom nature offers is astounding. I have been deeply blessed and healed by her medicine and want to offer the same to you. This is why I set my self-healing retreats in nature. They are a soulful and intimate dive into your inner wilderness. The invitation is open. Come with me will you?
Indeed the time has come to deepen my work with children. It is such a privilege to be able to lend my gifts to the special needs community.
Spending time with children reminds me of the inner child in us, the one who is naturally open, creative and oh so fearless. This child is the seed of who we are.
More and more, I am called to help you to align your inner and outer worlds, embody your true identity and find your h[om]e. I have created a one-to-one integrated program – with yoga, energy healing and inner child therapy – to help you fully step into the life that is longing to live through you.
H[om]e is where the inner child resides, with nary a mask or false identity. H[om]e is a place inside of you where you are free to be you. H[om]e is where you can turn your attention inward to nourish so you can flourish.
How do you walk yourself h[om]e? It is not a mere dance under the stars, swim with the dolphins or one-time therapy. The program I have crafted contains structure and support to guide you breath by breath, movement by movement, one inner child at a time, to the spacious room inside you. Together we will unlock the door to vitality and deep joy to pave the way to your best life. Now is the time. Write me here.
“Prepare to change,” comes the honeyed baritone voice of my teacher Hansu Jot as my fingers are getting ready to move from chord to chord on the harmonium.
Preparing to change fingers soon eases into a fluent rhythm when change is prepped for.
The music of life plays out before my eyes on the harmonium. It is about moving through life. Making the changes you need to make the changes you want to make. “Prepare to change” is both literal and metaphorical. Our brain and body are one neuromuscular system. Can do metaphorically, can do physically. How do you prepare for change so you can sing your melody on your vision board?
There are two ways to change things: Either you are forced to change or you have the intuition to change. – Yogi Bhajan
As we prepare for change, the Big C – Change – becomes less daunting. “Change is the only constant” cannot be a wiser adage. Some change, such as a relocation that feels so expansive, is downright exciting. Some change, like the ending of a relationship that you thought is meant to last forever, hurts like hell. How can it not be?
Can change be more comfortable? Rather should the question be, is resistance to change the suffering?
This extraordinary year has been for me one of Big C, of metamorphoses. It has been fervent shedding – breaking karmic patterns, releasing lifetimes of outmoded energies, rewiring mindsets, clearing clutter inside and out, trimming my inner landscape – to fully make space for the essence of Sita Pavan Kaur, the spiritual identity I want to embody heart and soul. It has been about discovering my inner music, nurturing my higher self and breathless expansion in ways I did not envision.
This is a year of rooting deeper into love, truth and trust. There is a sense that God is doing it all. The synchronicities and unfolding are sheer divine orchestration. Breathtaking to witness, such a blessing to receive. Losses and gains, endings and beginnings, crossroads and life-changing paths have long been set in motion because there is a greater plan than the ones I have in my head. I could not have been better shown what I want to let in from now on.
Hindsight is always 200 percent. I am hard pressed to find anything I would have done differently. Everything is exactly at where it should be. The process of withering and eventual death is simultaneously excruciating and necessary. I cannot say I love the life lessons but they did clarify and redefine boundaries and what is most important for spirit. I did not seek illumination in such bewildering circuitous manner. The becoming found me.
With a whole lot of gratitude, hand on heart I whisper, I enter a new decade with zilch regrets thank you.
How about you dear hearts. How did the last 10 years pan out for you? In the last weeks of this decade, are there baggage to drop, unfinished businesses that need wrapping up and closure? Are there people you want to reach out to, share more time with? What should be unreservedly let go of to expand into intentional living and so much possibilities? What is ripe for beginnings? How are you preparing for change?
We end 2019 with a solar eclipse and begin the next with a lunar eclipse. I love eclipses for the incredible cosmic support they bring to life. What is more aligned and true for us is given a handy shove, if we are so willing.
May you begin a new decade fresh, charged and ready to carve a future you want to belong to. May you grant yourself carte blanche to venture the length, breadth, and depth of what you love. May you have the courage and strength to live the change you wish to see in your world.
Everything seemed possible, when I looked through the eyes of a child. And every once in a while; I remember I still have the chance to be that wild.
– Nikki Rowe
Hello Beloved, I have been spending so much time in nature, pausing, observing, listening. There is beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty all around me, to quote the Navajo prayer of gratitude.
This year marks the year I return to the mountains. I never thought I would attempt to touch the sky again after a bad fall on a volcano in remote Indonesia some 13 years ago.
The deeper I venture into this vast wilderness, the closer her steps take me to God. The more I touch the core of my spirit, the more I fully comprehend the words of my teacher Shiv Charan Singh, “The God in me is already loving me.” With every exhale, I drop deeper into this love, allowing God to catch me inside of me.
I have found a fearlessness that comes from a place of self-acceptance. Completely accepting my unique identity, who I am and what I stand for.
I have never felt more in alignment, so in love and loved.
The deeper I venture into Self-Healing Journeys, intimate conscious retreats and sessions I have created to empower you to heal yourself, the more I see that you have to want to access this inner state of joy, empowerment and wholeness. You have to want it. Do you?
You have heard it all here and everywhere if you are on this path. I want to share another story:
The client was given this caveat, “You know your marriage may not survive if we go through this process. Do you still want to go ahead?” This was before the deep dive into recognizing, releasing and healing a life’s worth of conditioning, belief system and patterns that kept her trapped in a bottomless downward spiral.
The high-flying boardroom warrior opted to consciously move toward the energy of authenticity. Stepping into her soul power was something she could no longer ignore, as emotional turmoil ate away her physical and mental health.
Bless her brave heart, Inner Child Healing is deep shadow work of weeding phobias and fears and seeding new ways of being. It is an integral part of inner work because it gets to the core of self-sabotaging patterns held in the subconscious since childhood.
She was not alone in navigating the frontier of her own becoming.
The truth is, I am just as human as you. I fall apart and fall together again. I went through the darkest time in the course of rebuilding my life when my own lack of self-love and self-worth shattered so many things I held dear and close. I know what it is like to face with the immensity of the unknown, to harbor a self-doubt so debilitating it is incapacitating. I know paralysis by analysis too well. I am keenly aware of falling prey to a sense of devastation and hopelessness, feeling the sun will never rise again.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. – Albert Camu
It takes so much more strength to let go. Tearing down walls and comfort zones along with nameless fears, no matter how disheveled and daunting it can sometimes be, is being open to a life that is waiting with open arms.
Grasping tightly, on the other hand, is akin to wearing a protective armor that weighs heavily on the body. Self-preservation is a beast that offers an illusion of protection.
The body remembers long after the conscious mind has forgotten. Denial is scarier than shadow work. It desensitizes all your senses. The temple for the soul is numbed into believing that the perpetual pain in the back is a new normal because, well, everyone else chooses the easy way out. What you repress holds you hostage. A cabinet full of drugs and calendar chockablock with chiropractic appointments dulls the one full-colored life you are entitled to live.
You see, what you allow yourself to peel corresponds to the depth of your healing. Only if you allow. The crux is you willing to own your feelings, your stories, your choices. You willing to be uniquely you rather than what others expect you to be. Their judgment is merely a reflection of their own tainted wounded lens.
” I think that the process of giving your true love to someone, mainly surrounds the act of opening a door inside that’s all locked up. Behind that door lives the small child that is the real you. The small child who hurts too much and feels too much and laughs too loud and always believes. True love involves unlocking the many padlocks on that door, taking her by the hand, and guiding her to the arms of the one you’ve chosen to love. And I think this is why some people change forever because they loved someone in this way, but it only hurt too much. The little one was wounded. So this is why you take her back and tell her she’s better off staying inside. It is a poetic, lyrical tragedy. Some people die this way, before they ever are dead. Or maybe we don’t die; maybe we live on, behind that door.” – C. JoyBell C.
It is not at all an easy path but so worth it because personal liberation is priceless. This is why I practice what I practice. They keep me real, fearless, free. This is why I love and do the work I do.
I so love to hold your hand and support you through this renewal process. To shine the light on new ways to open new doors. It is the work I am called to do. And much more. At the end of the day, your inside job is your own journey. I want to empower you with self-healing tools so you know where and how to reach for these practices when life goes topsy turvy. I want inspire you to show up no matter how bone-weary you are because healing is not linear. We regress and progress, we sometimes break down again to break through. This is why we establish a solid practice to surf the waves of life.
As I am preparing my Second Degree Reiki teaching material, I am reminded the change you seek is the one you allow. Energy goes where attention and intention go. There is nothing more profound than realizing you have the power you manifest the life you desire, to walk the course that is right for you.
It takes courage to heal. Or would you breathe your last teetering, always on the verge?
If you are seeking support in radical transformation, to live in the light, I can hold the lamp for you. Ask me more here. Thank you for joining me in whatever ways you do, for showing up for yourself.
I have found in me what I am to be. Which I already am. And I’ll be what I am because only I can. – Shiv Charan Singh
I stumbled upon an old photo of my early days in Ashtanga yoga practice, transiting from Marichyasana C into D. Two incredible twists that took my stiff mind some three months to ease into.
I nursed a love-loathe relationship with this physically demanding yoga practice. The butterflies fluttering in my stomach every time I dropped in for Mysore self-practice class at the crack of dawn reflected what was going on in me. The abdominal cramps I experienced spoke of resistance to the unfamiliar, of fear of judgment from my teacher and more bendy practitioners.
The mat has always been my go-to tool for transcendence. I poured myself into a practice that changed my relationship with myself, and eventually every facet of my life.
The core strength I cultivated got me to fully honor my desires. I could take actions in the outer world to align with my inner world: I went on to create an ethical, sustainable retail business before the rest of the country caught up with conscious consumerism. The business was something I dreamt of pretty much most of my adult life. Heeding what my soul longed for required a trust beyond the logical constraints of the three-dimensional mind.
“Root deeper to bloom forth” is one of my oft-used phrases in class. Standing in your own power is lower chakra work. It rests in the realm of third chakra, the center of power and will. It is both energetic and physical because the body and spirit are one intricately woven electrical circuit.
The navel is where life begins. Your 72,000 energy channels spring forth here. Your expression – from the heart and throat – is manifested from the navel. Can’t communicate your truth? Navel work darling.
Fire in the belly they say. It takes courage to chip away the old block to birth a new life. It takes strength to do what is right for you and do everything necessary for your own expansion.
It is so easy to numb yourself, to live superficially. That dark place where your deepest fear resides is probably the most potent version of your spirit waiting to be expressed.
I have been noticing this split within the Self in incredibly successful women in the course of my work. Women who, out of fear, conditioning and habit, choose to hold back an authentic expression of themselves; choosing instead to wear the weight of other people’s expectations and judgment. Women who live for special occasions, for the picture of a perfect family, for the time to be right. Women who allow constant busyness because it is a perfect hiding place. Women who wear such impeccable mask because they didn’t think anyone would notice their exhaustion from carrying dead weight. Women who are paralyzed in silence.
It is a dreadfully limiting little box to be living in.
True healing occurs when we are congruent and in touch with who we truly are.
Dearest lovelies, how would it feel to allow yourself to have what you want. The equation is straightforward: If you want something, you make space for it. There is no other way. Begin with everyday simplicity. You no longer have to wait for that special date to wear your favorite outfit. Every day is a special day to burn your precious incense. Every day is a good day to enjoy a meal on a silver plate reserved for special guests.
Because this one life is a special occasion.
If you are so inclined to show up for yourself and the life that is waiting for you, I am here to lend support, to free up space for yourself and your deepest longings. My lifelong inner journey and the soul work I continue to do have come to this: I am inspired to offer limited one-to-one coaching spots that include Kundalini Yoga, Inner Child therapy and energy healing sessions. This program is completely bespoke and designed to empower, expand and create fulfillment. Evolution doesn’t have to be daunting. You have all the navigation and support you need – send all your burning questions here.