Going deeper...

The body, mind and Soul journey to health

The healthier routines, cutting out alcohol and processed foods, building a relationship with myself and slowing down had a massive impact. I started to feel more in control of my body and emotions.

Practicing meditation and yoga daily took me deeper into my inner world and it felt rich and nourishing. My belief in myself and my abilities grew and I took on some meditation teacher training and then the biggest step I had ever taken, Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training.

200 hours of immersion into Spiritual study and self enquiry. It was money I didn’t have but I took the chance and felt I deserved it. At the beginning I was totally absorbed by it, and it brought up a lot of emotional murk to be seen and felt.

Kundalini yoga involves chanting, singing, breathing exercises, and repetitive poses. It challenges you and has on occasion brought me to my knees.

Its purpose is to activate your Kundalini energy, this is a Spiritual energy that’s said to be located at the base of your spine, as this energy awakens it enhances and expands your awareness and helps you face and challenge your ego. It is commonly called “the yoga of awareness.”

It is a blend of;

Bhakti yoga (the yogic practice of devotion and chanting)

Raja yoga (the practice of mediation/mental and physical control)

Shakti yoga (for the expression of power and energy).

The Sanskrit word kundal means “circular,” and it can be a noun for a coiled snake. The practice of Kundalini yoga is said to arouse the sleeping Kundalini Shakti from its coiled base through the six chakras that reside along the spine and through the seventh chakra or crown.

Chakras are wheels, or hubs of energy along which energy or prana travels like a superhighway to distribute energy throughout the body.Like a snake being charmed out of a basket, Kundalini weaves and coils, waking up energy and clearing stagnancy along the way

I had some huge shifts in awareness during these months, I became stronger and more aware that I had a voice and that it mattered. I started to see my people pleasing tendencies and lots of defences I had built up over the years. It was steadily teaching me how to love myself and peel back the layers to find a more authentic version of me.

After eight months of training and a lot of inner work, it became clear my marriage wasn’t working and we called it quits. We had been together for 20 years and been through an awful lot together. Even though the marriage wasn’t working I had lost my long term best friend and I was alone again. I felt like an absolute failure.

The start of a new life began, I had plans to travel and basically escape the pain of facing myself. But COVID had other ideas and I found myself either working or isolated. I filled my days off with all sorts of study and any pursuit that would keep me moving and not feeling the depths of despair that were washing over me.

I was hiding my real feelings and emotions from the world again and the loneliness was incredible. I was still working and felt bereft at what I saw unfolding in the healthcare system over that period. I was struggling with this stress on top of all the chronic stress that I had lived with my whole life. The pattern of pushing was the only way I knew how to cope, but I was clearly not in a good place and suffering with high functioning depression, not for the first time.

Even though I had dealt with and continued to deal with my health issues, the emotional cycles and triggers were still there and still affecting my view of the world and of people.

Dealing with my emotions never felt comfortable or safe. Despite searching for a deeper relationship with me, my body didn’t feel safe to fully connect. My nervous system was chronically dysregulated, so the same habits and coping mechanisms were all I had.

Nervous System Dysregulation

When we undergo periods of stress for too long, our nervous system responds with heightened activity, leaving us feeling overstimulated and generally frazzled. This overexcitability is an advantage when facing acute stress or threats that require vigilance. But when your sympathetic nervous system is persistently activated by internal or external stressors, it can lead to symptoms like anxiety, muscular tension, and insomnia. This experience represents a dysregulated nervous system.

What used to be a minor inconvenience—like forgetting where you put your car keys or an annoying text message—now elicits an emotional and physical response that may take hours or days to recover from. Over time, a dysregulated nervous system can lead to brain fog, chronic pain, hormonal imbalances, dizziness, fatigue, and other health issues.

A dysregulated nervous system can significantly lower quality of life. Though the physical symptoms of autonomic instability can be challenging, it’s the mental health and emotional effects that cause the most concern for many people.

The deep Spiritual yogi life helped get me through and suited me. It required a lot of discipline, getting up at 4:30am for a Zoom Sadhana with a friend became regular, the constant need to do more yoga, purge more gunk, to feel better but I still wasn’t really seeing the deeper picture.

All my emotional reactions and patterns were based in my early learning of life. My system was addicted to stress. Although my body knew it and was still asking me to listen I wasn’t quite understanding the message.

The patterns of avoiding our emotional pain can be so deep that the mind just doesn’t want to touch them and it was definitely true for me. Throughout life the belief that I had to repress my feelings and emotions, neglect my own needs in favour of everyone else's, to ensure everything was perfect on the outside and that I was wonder woman that coped with everything was hurting me in every way.

I see this so often on the start of peoples healing journeys. They reach for the next supplement, ice bath, coffee enema, yoga class, meditation practice to fix the body and in its own way this is avoiding the reality of what is really going on inside

Gabor Maté, an internationally renowned speaker on the topics of addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship between stress and illness says this in his book The Body Says No,

“In order to heal, it is essential to gather the strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as “realism.” Rather, it is a willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to? Without these questions, the stresses responsible for our lack of balance will remain hidden.”

My physical health was much better but I didn’t want to see the emotional pain. Why would I?

After COVID restrictions were reduced I took a holiday to visit some family in Scotland and on my return I made plans to up and leave my home town and move three hundred odd miles away to Glasgow.

I had never felt comfortable in Lincolnshire and after the breakdown of my relationship and the last bout of depression I felt I needed a sense of freedom and newness. I thought it was an escape but it was the most testing and rewarding part of my journey.

To be continued…

If you are struggling

If you feel lost and alone.

If you feel stuck in the same cycles of stress and burnout.

If you want to break free...

drop me a reply to this or book a call to chat over how I can help.