Many of us are getting battered by different surprises and shocks at the moment. What's it like for you? For me recently first came blankness, like I don't want to know about this, then some tense thoughts and habitual patterns that question just how will I get through this? What does this mean? What am I doing? These along with body reactions like gut churning and a sharp rise in heart rate...
Trauma is held in the body, and often revealed in relationships. Trauma disrupts our natural ability to connect. Trauma can create isolation and withdrawal. Trauma can flood us with shame or make us persistently terrified of abandonment. Experiences of relational rupture can become lodged in our physiology and our felt experiences. Even after years of talk therapy and medication, the impact of trauma may still linger. BUT...
Talk goes a long way…but to really complete your healing journeys the body needs attention and support. Traumas and difficult unresolved experiences are held in the body affecting us until the body feels safe and supported to express and release. Robin and Phoenix offer bodywork sessions depending on what is required: Shiatsu, Cherokee, Romi Romi (Māori) and Intuitive bodywork. It works, it’s a journey and it can be a big relief for a whole host of problems. The space is safe, the touch is nurturing and we realise just how much the areas of holding and clenching or stiffness or tension keeping on the armour of protection and holding in the wounds….have been impacting us. We get so used to the layers of holding and protection we don’t realise what...
A field of diamond Waking to a glorious sky of sunlit cloud Rolling by the Big Tree Champagne yellow, cloudy gold Eagle circling wide, fast, so fast she stretches in her strength Cutting through the sky on majestic wings Sky of promise and sky of clarity Big breaths, breathe in this expansion to match this delight Down to the Earth Down to where diamonds sparkle in richness that will disappear in the light Dew on every blade of grass A drop of sun-kissed water on hundreds of grass leaves Drops. Shining, simple, clear I am that drop...
Most of us have events in our lives that we cannot process at the time, especially when we were younger. Children can be resilient, but it doesn't mean that they can handle or process or resolve what happens to them at the time. Thus most of us carry trauma - even if we find that word too strong for what we are aware of about ourselves. It can be called many things, these parts of ourselves that are still dealing with unresolved issues, memories, patterns and experiences.Many therapies try to help people to get over, get past, ignore, replace, talk it out, change or transcend such experiences. These can help, but wouldn't it be even better and finally freeing to get to the cause of the trauma...
Phoenix writes: I am panting with excited exertion. My feet are pointers, picking their way along the track that goes ever upwards, my body follows along, my spirit is stirred. Almost at the top of the mountain, I stop and rest. I have been resting a lot on the 3 hour walk to the top of Mt Donaldson, a mountain near Corinna in the Tarkine where our eco-healing retreat resides for the first five days. Steadily, slowly the track goes ever upwards, the pre-dawn light starting to reveal… …something I had never seen before, even then the Vic High Country pales to what the Tarkine offers at dawn on top of Mt Donaldson. When I reached the top, where a cairn rises, I forget to breath out for a moment as I...
It’s great being on a spiritual path.
We do get questioned about how ‘spiritual’ our work is because we do shadow work, we help people safely feel stuff they haven’t felt before, we help people move through anger, sadness, loneliness, grief and other ‘negative’ emotions and bring science, some mainstream modalities into the healing space.
There’s lots of personal responsibility and personal power for our individual lives, deep listening, trying things, exploring strange or new, opening, allowing, softening, connecting….
…and that may include darkness, pain, confusion, uncertainty and stumbling. Not all the time but sometimes.
Mike writes: A friend asked this question recently: Do you believe in balancing a sceptical mind with an open heart? And what does that mean for you? It’s a great question and I believe that balancing healthy scepticism with an open heart is the essence of a grounded spirituality. To quote Jesus: “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” To me this means being under no illusions about people. Everyone behaves, at times, like a wolf – even though some are dressed up like sheep. We ALL have shadows and sooner or later, despite our good intentions, we hurt people, let them down, betray them. All of us! And yet we find it really hard to accept this...
Phoenix writes:
As this is being written much of Australia is under lockdown. A few weeks ago I gathered people’s responses to my question of ‘What are ways you are getting through such times?’
Many people responded and the results may be very helpful. Here is a quick synthesis of their responses, we hope these helpful ideas, hints and encouragement help…as well as knowing that you are not alone in this.
Maga, the Queen phase in the women's cycle. A time, conventionally known as menopause, that is suppressed, judged, medicated and dismissed by a patriarchal society. This is what I have traveled these last few years and am at the peak of the transition, I think lol. Recently I journeyed with a group of beautiful brave soulful women into our sacred feminine. The Baba Yaga story is one of terribly terrific tasks that the dance of freedom from the wild woman calls for. To do that we need to let go of the “perfect mother” fantasy, face our fears and raise our sticks of fire to light the way ahead of us. The darkness often makes me tremble in fear and want to run and hide. And so...