Change brings Freedom

Om it

Change brings freedom in small but beautifully sneaky ways!

If you want to use Yoga as a means to freedom, consider attending this beautiful Yoga retreat in Midleton February 2020, just click here for further information..                       😊🙈😩💁🏼  As for  Change and Freedom……Imagine a pole, say ten feet long. At one end is Change 👩🏻‍🌾. I think it’s a  word that conjures up a lot for most people. In these brief seconds here and now, allow yourself to feel into the world of what change feels like for you.

For me the thought of changes feels like moving away from the cosy small paddling pool of familiar comforts (or even discomforts), towards and into the big unknown deep end pool where danger may lurk…And all in just one simple word!

So Change brings Freedom? If ‘Change’ sits👩🏻‍🌾🕵️‍♂️ at one end of the pole ___________________________ ……………..and Freedom  💫🪐✨ at the other, then what lay in between the two is the transformation that occurs.

What does Freedom feel like? To me, it’s lighter, it feels spacious, connected, open, less restricted but not spinning out of control. It is contained and soothing, whole, complete, content, soft.

Since these two are on the same pole, they are deeply connected. Change brings Freedom but feels like we are leaving or that we are separating from one thing to another. When in fact, we are whole and unseparated, and it is only a very small part of us that is convinced we are not One with all.  Change is a process of Life itself as is freedom. Both recurring in all of nature and without change there is no life at all. We would in fact cease to exist.

But l don’t want to get carried away! 😏

What I have learned over the years is that Yoga and Ayurveda are facilitators of freedom. 🔥🌪🌏 How? Mostly through the consistent practices of developing singular focus and simultaneous awareness. Freedom cuts through restraint but also begs us to view and review what our attachments are. Why are we attached and how would we feel if we could be less bound to one thing or another, and do you notice the urgency that attachment demands?

In the early days of my Yoga lessons, it could get annoying because I didn’t want to see how my life was unfolding. Even now I still see my eating habits were and often still are so habitually fast.                                                                                            Some practices of  Yoga helped me to become my own cheerleader! Yoga just kept convincing me that there is time, that I can slow down, chew my food,  I could have more energy, I will find peace, I am calm, I need to breathe, I can notice my heart pounding and not be afraid and I learned that if I watch what I do, say think, how I feel…I get a better picture of who I am and why my eating patterns were so shit!

I still get annoyed at patterns that bring me back to when I was about six years old. But annoyance is a fruitless time consuming venture. Annoyance is related to anger, and really, I can’t be angry at the child in me that learned she had to eat fast to feel better!

Like in my chocolate days. It wasn’t even verbal, I was the highest grade split second ninja chocolate eater 🤸🏼🤺 and before I even knew it, I would feel the warm, moist, oozy chocolate on my lips, my chin and fingers. The morsel has been swallowed, but not yet digested before I realise I have eaten chocolate. And all this before having any thought of chocolate. But I am sure those who offered me chocolate learned pretty fast to place it on the palm of their hand, unless they we willing to risk their digits. 💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I am grateful that Yoga arrived in my life. Yoga had to work hard to show up in my beginner days. I was so ready for change, and it was so difficult to do. I had sticky notes all over the house and even in my car (yes I was living on the verge of bananas! 😂😅) so Yoga could keep reminding me:                                                     Wake up. Build awareness. Focus on this right now. Stabilise. Trust. Believe. Wake up again!! Are you present? Where are you? Pause. Breathe, Exhale. Smile. Joy. You are limitless. Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. Sing!!!!!                                                    And when I did some of the things, the practices or the idea of doing something for myself? It worked. If felt better, I felt happier, I lost weight, I smiled more, I didn’t need to prove myself to anyone. I slowly but surely started to remember what I liked to do, and who I really wanted to be.

And later, in the early refinement…Yoga would ask me at any time of day or night….Do you really want chocolate right now? Do you need that glass of wine? Do you want all that butter? Really, Really? Why? Is this a need or a want? 

If it is a need, then do not fight it because if you need it, it is like medicine for you, serving your growth and development.

But if it is a want, well that’s another little rabbit hole, and you have a few breaths to rethink what you really want to do right now. 🙄🤼‍♀️🤼‍♀️🥇🎇

I understand that if I really want change, it has to come from understanding my patterns/conditionings. When there is awareness, change brings freedom.

But change is fickle, and from my experience it can only be sustained if it is held with self care and compassion. Without force, without demands, without punishments, without bargaining or self-manipulations and most especially with compassion for the dreaded self sabotage. 🤔🤷🏼‍♀️🙅🏼‍♀️🧚🏻🥱

Bargaining chips that might be used such as…(l love making up these scenarios!) 🤥👻

Note 1 to self: 

 If I change this cookie into a tomato I will lose weight and I will not have to rethink my self care, exercise or nutrition routine. 🤪🍪🍅 But this one piece of chocolate…does that really matter? 😋

Note 2 to self:

 If I drink 40 litres of water I will become happier. 💧🌟

Note 3 to self: 

 If I meditate two hours a day, for three weeks under ice cold flowing water I will be able to levitate so it will be worth it. 😂😅🚣🏼‍♀️🧘🏼‍♀️⛈

😂Pretty extreme bargaining chips! But bargain we often do, because some part of us desperately wants change!But the other part of us, the wounded parts, they are afraid. Letting go of what no longer serves our development is a closing down sale. It takes time and energy, an amount of grieving with excitement and curiousity.

Change is difficult on every level and small steps can have profound results. But creative changes can give us a new view on how to let go, allow the veil of patterns to relax and a new healthier pattern to become dominant within us.

The truth is we all have annoying weird🦹🏼🧟‍♂️ habits that are disruptive to our equilibrium, and probably irritating for other people 🙇🏽too. 

Some habits just need a little tweaking, and others just need time and a slow gradual building up of confidence and understanding. Slow stabilising patterns transform old habits, and even then, it often is a wibbly wobbly wondrous ride with a lot of discovery en route. 🙆🏼‍♀️ 🌟

As an example… 

Every evening you get home from work and you lay down your keys down somewhere that you always expect to find them again, but you never remember. As the evening routine unfolds, you realise your keys are not where you had expected them to be. So after much searching with some expletives🤬 and huffing😤 and puffing 😡cause this is all more irritation than you really want to face at this moment in time, you find your keys, in the most random place ever, like the second shelf in the fridge with the butter. 🤦🏻‍♂️🧐

Eventually, (you go to a Yoga class and you learn about patterns 😂😇) like a bolt of lightning, you decide to circumnavigate this lack of awareness. You want to become proactive and avoid this ‘pitfall car keys scenario’ every few days or every day for some! 

You get a jar, one that is recycled from your own use or even purchase a really nice looking one. You place it near your front door. 

You create a happy beautiful cosy home for your keys. Your keys will be so happy and safe in this jar. Its roomy, its spacious, but its not a void of nowhere. It is a safe space for them to stay while you go about your living without said keys, until you need them again. 

Later that evening you must go and get some almond milk, and your keys are exactly where you expected. In your home, in their new home, the key jar. 

It’s bliss. It’s change. It’s letting go of an old pattern, creating a beautiful simple new one. Its relief from irritation. It’s no drama. This is Freedom.                                  There is nothing better than knowing that things change, and with change comes the glorious freedom.

BOOM! 🎆🎇🌠

And then the Christmas season resonates even longer.

Peace and joy to all. May the year 2020 bring stability, abundance and transformation to this beautiful world, to increase the gentleness in all our lives and the lives of our precious children and future children.

Go gently, 🪔🪔🪔

Kelly👩🏼‍🦳

For transformational guidance to Nourish your Soul through body, mind and heart through Yoga and Ayurveda contact Kelly 🧘🏼‍♀️ at 086 1778369

Come to Nourish with Kelly, Soulful living with nature’s support, Clarinbridge, Galway