Heart Centred Practices to Transform your Life & Relationships
Shepherds Close London N6 5AG 07855 781 210
“Your mind is your servant, your body is your vehicle and your soul is your residence.” Yogi Bhajan. Many people are stressed out and distracted more than ever. Unfortunately, there is no app for that. There is however a radically simple remedy; get outside. Nature can lower your blood pressure; fight off depression, and dissolve stress and anxiety consequently helping you build harmonious relationships.
When we naturally seek out nature; we have a sense of wellbeing and serenity. When we are enveloped in natural surroundings it strikes a chord in us; it reminds us in the deepest most basic way that we are an integral part of the natural world. When we forget that we are nature we suffer. This simple, yet profound, realisation that we are part of the natural world is at the core of Living from The Heart.
Shinrin-yoku means taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing, the Japanese Ministry coined the term and the encouraged people to visit forests to relieve stress, anxiety and improve health. Spending time in nature around trees or in green spaces can improve your health; it can reduce stress hormones cortisol and increase your immune defence system. According to Yoshifumi Miyazaki, Japan’s leading scholar on forest medicine, a walk in the forest calms a worried mind improves your health and may even help fight cancer.
Nature restores mental functioning in the same way that food and water restore bodies.
On Living from The Heart Retreats we work outside in nature and guide meditative walks or shinrin-yoku. It provides an instant antidote for stressed out individuals and couples in conflict and healing balm; relieving stress healing trauma and helping the immune system recover from stress and anxiety. Forest bathing is good for both the body and the spirit. Our bodies are part of nature and when we are in nature, to there is a natural healing to it.
‘I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.’ John Burroughs
‘In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ‘John Muir
I take much care when choosing environments to work in and run retreats, workshops and training which lend themselves to healing mind, body and spirit. I lead Individuals, couples and group outdoor psychotherapy, Meditative nature walks or shinrin yoku focused on healing Trauma and transforming stress and anxiety into vitality. This approach involves exploring your emotional issues while being in and walking in a natural location such as woodland or urban parks and Heaths. You may find it much easier to talk and open up while working and walking in the outdoors. The next Living from The Heart Retreat on 1st– 8th September 2016 will take place in a tranquil location in the forested hills of Central Portugal, far away from the crowds, just 3 km from the beautiful ‘Castelo de Bode’ lake and 8 km from the small town of Cernache de Bonjardim. The venue sits within a small valley surrounded by eucalyptus, pine and oak. Full of chi, the Trees with full, lush foliage create masses of the Qi or Chi (pronounced chee) life force that deflects toxic energy.
The natural chemicals trees secrete are collectively known as phytoncides. When we breathe in fresh air, we breathe in wood essential oils, airborne chemicals that plants give off to protect themselves from insects. Wood essential oils have antibacterial and antifungal qualities which help plants fight disease. When we breathe in these chemicals, our bodies respond by increasing the number and activity of a type of white blood cell called natural killer cells or NK. These cells kill tumours and virus infected cells in your body.
Spending time in nature increases endorphins. Taking a walk in nature or shinrin yoku is a sensory experience all five (six) senses are enveloped. It gives peace and calm to the mind. Depression is an insidious set of symptoms that harms your mood, your motivation for life, and your relationships. Being in nature and simply sitting looking at the trees reduce blood pressure as well as the stress-related hormones cortisol and adrenaline. Forest bathing or shinrin yoku significantly decreases anxiety, depression, anger, confusion and fatigue, because stress inhibits the immune system, the stress-reduction benefits are magnified in tandem with psychotherapy. When your environments are overloaded with stimulus or you are involved with multitasking over a long period can cause a drain on your internal resources. The best way to develop greater happiness and build internal strength is to have frequent experiences of peace and calm.When you have peace of mind and an open heart your relationships are harmonious.Healing Trauma
Many eastern traditions describe your energy field, including your body, as a unique map. The body stores information about the cause of a problem or an illness, the body also reveals what is needed in order to heal. Your thoughts, emotions, feelings and beliefs and your inner experiences positive or negative are energetically recorded in your energy field.
Illness begins from experiencing a problem with your energy levels. This is connected to your emotions and your mind and body. Dis-ease can exist many years before it physically presents itself as a dis – ease. Low energy may be experienced as a blockage or decrease of your energy or levels leading to a chi imbalance in particular organs or parts of the body. Many people overlook emotions as illness. It may signal the imbalance of chi, prana or Shakti in your system. Stubbornness can be caused by an imbalance of the heart energy. Fear can be due to an imbalance of the lung or the kidneys. Back pain can be caused by an imbalance of the kidneys and bladder. Many emotional and physical ailments can be traced to an imbalance of prana / chi in different parts of the body. You are lucky enough to be gifted with a period of grace due to the body’s resilience move towards balance and health.
‘There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.’ Lord Byron
Stress can increase your susceptibility to dis-ease. Stressful life experiences can have significant effects on a variety of physiological systems, including the autonomic nervous system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the immune system. Stressful life events such as:
Unresolved trauma can manifest in many ways, including anxiety disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, panic attacks, intrusive memories flashbacks, obsessive-compulsive behaviours, addictions and self harm.
Individuals may suffer from repeating familiar scenarios, which are unconscious, habitual reenactments of elements of past traumatic experience which is classic of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You may repeat scenarios you experienced or witnessed such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. For example, a survivor of childhood abuse may ‘unwittingly’ select an abusive partner in adult life, you may have grown up witnessing domestic violence and may demonstrate the same abusive behaviours toward others that were modeled to you in the past. Growing up in an unsupportive or unstable environment can create negative internal messages and beliefs about how loving relationships work. Childhood trauma can create difficulty with feeling emotions and impair your ability to think and reason in the grip of emotion. As a general rule, anything destructive that is left untreated — disease, trauma, stress, psychological disorders — can become progressively worse over time. “Trauma that is not genuinely felt will be reenacted in either symptom or behaviour and ultimately recreated in intimate relationships.” — Robert Naborsky, MD
One of Graham Greene’s characters famously said, “I suffer, therefore I am,” suggesting that pain is an inescapable, and perhaps incurable, part of the human condition. Through the use of mind-body techniques, healing trauma is possible, using rich practices and nature. Nature can provide symbols, archetypes and images of a healing nature that can provide an impetus for personal transformation that forms part of the therapeutic process.
Stress, anxiety, tensions Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and personal limitations can be transformed into relaxation, harmony and inner freedom. When you begin to observe your inner world your nervous system moves into a self-healing flow, unwinding energies and tensions. Your life energy, which has been frozen in a trauma, requires an enormous amount of energy, you need a resourceful, safe space to transform this into vitality through acknowledging and releasing what has remained frozen in you.
When this occurs the body and the nervous system relaxes, it becomes possible to process and move through layers of fear and frozen emotions and responses returning to a natural balance. I encourage people to say stop when they feel they are spiralling out of control. I ask them to imagine a full stop at the end of their sentence, at the end of an emotion, a response or a perception. When you are feeling vulnerable, or in painful emotional state, follow these steps
Breathe. Find a safe place, push the stop button and find some stillness. Breathe.
Breathe. Identify your feelings. Breathe.
Breathe. Take good care of yourself and find activities that are self-soothing. Breathe.
Breathe. Find a supportive and understanding person to talk about your thoughts, feeling and reactions. Breathe.
Breathe. Rest, sleep and eat well. Get outside and use your body in a way that feels good. Breathe.
Breathe. Attempt to resolve conflicts and identify what triggered a re-enactment and what fuelled the symptoms. Get professional help. Breathe.
Breathe. Think and speak positively. Breathe.
When you slow down, it is possible to explore your physical responses and your experiences in the here and now.
Healing Trauma and working with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, stress and anxiety is based on Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing Approach. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than 23 million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders many as a direct result of trauma. As researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, Peter Levine found that all animals, including humans, are born with a natural ability to rebound from these distressing situations.
‘Evolution has provided us with a way to deal with trauma the moment it happens—yet our cultural training overrides our body’s natural instinct about what to do. The result is that we often store the energy of trauma in the body leading to unexplained physical problems, emotional issues, and psychological blockages’.
Training with Babette Rothschild was illuminating on the impact of trauma on the body Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the phenomenon of somatic memory. People who have experienced trauma hold an implicit memory of traumatic events in their brains and bodies. That memory is often expressed in the symptomatology of post traumatic stress disorder-nightmares, flashbacks, startle responses, and dissociative behaviours. In Healing Trauma I help clients to access what is happening inside and help them learn to restore their systems back into balance and health. From identifying how and where you store unresolved stress, trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and anxiety, to become more aware of your body’s physiological responses to danger and practicing specific methods to free yourself from trauma, learning how to address unexplained symptoms at their source—your body—and return to balance and health a natural state in which you were meant to live.
I use a range of intuitive and energetic Mind/ Body systems blending Eastern and Western approaches and techniques that can really shift stress and anxiety states into vitality. Helping people to manage symptoms and move into healing and growth. Simply being in nature can calm the rush of panic in Mind, Body and spirit. By coming in contact with an experience using all five senses it can give expression to feelings which were unable to be processed by the body and mind. As the body releases blocked energy you are able to open up to innate wisdom of spontaneity, creativity, and authenticity in thinking and problem solving moving into balance and health. Para-theatre views the physical body as the embodiment of the subconscious mind, ‘the only way to release forces trapped inside the physical body are to unleash deep feelings, energies, and give vocal expression to what lies trapped inside the muscles.’Antero Alli
‘I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.’ Henry David Thoreau
How do you manage stress? I would love to hear your questions and thoughts in the comments!
A clients’ view of therapy. Whether we know it or not, social exchange is right at the heart of our human concerns. As social creatures, is there more to life than enriching give and take and fulfilling relationships? If we have a rapport with others and with ourselves that is loving and supportive, we feel nourished and alive. If our connections are ailing, we may suffer profoundly as a result. In this era, specific help is available for improving the way we interact with others. By working with skilled facilitators we can reap the rewards of shift made to our understanding and our behaviour, regarding ourselves and beyond. If you think of the many kinds of human relationship and, in relation to them, the many more types of personal difficulties experienced, you can sense the complexity of problems that therapists, worldwide, seek to address. Regardless of differences in symptoms, a critical part of healing relationship predicaments is coming to acknowledge that, as adults, we are now personally responsible for the quality of exchanges in our lives. This fact is both hard to swallow and empowering. A therapist is someone who helps us realise that we can effect change and how we can begin to promote healing. This weekend I attended a two-day workshop created and facilitated by therapist Aisha Ali. Under the banner of her healing project, Living from The Heart, Aisha offers a dynamic and comfortable space to engage with personal hitches we may experience in our relationships. Under her safe intervention we strategically cut to the chase of difficulties and take a driving seat in moving through obstacles. Aisha Ali runs a variety of weekend workshops to assist in making positive transformations in life. The one I attended focused on our own ‘shadow’ self and how that impacts our lives in an everyday way. In the group, there were seven people, plus Aisha. The weekend was held in a room that was enclosing, private and conducive to opening up to the nitty-gritty of honest therapeutic work. I didn’t know anything about the shadow self before we began. I entered the weekend with little clue as to what the work would entail and what scale of effect the weekend might have on me. Aisha led us forward into group activities that rapidly brought us to connect truthfully with ourselves. Using a combination of physical movements we tapped into our physical and energetic body, which is a resource of wisdom, honesty and insight. Through group exercises we also connected with each other in a way that was unself-conscious and supportive to our individual processes. Though we were a group, the issues we brought forward were dealt with in a very personal manner. Without any judgement the obstacles that confronted us were accepted and treated with respect. This level of trust was testimony to the atmosphere of safety and openness generated for the occasion. Though we were delving into our innermost selves, nothing about the facilitation felt jarring, abrupt or superfluous. After the exercises it was remarkable how much more relaxed, alert and focused we all were in preparation for the explorations. There was a very carefully selected range of music that powerfully aided the aims of the weekend. I observed, with some amazement, extensive ground being covered in a short period of time. In fact, I hadn’t anticipated how much unfolding could occur in one single weekend. I observed that under the right conditions, shift happens quite dramatically. The process looking at our shadow selves was a journey we each undertook and what is important is that the workshop was suitable for everyone. It was made clear that each person only delved as deep and as far as they were individually ready and comfortable to do. This is not to say that the process was unchallenging. Through attentive guidance, the right degree of enquiry and discovery was set before us, and the accompanying willing to face this was encouraged. I believe that the proof of a workshop is in the pudding. Having been stimulated in various ways to perceive and to begin to integrate my shadow self I felt an enthusiasm for this process that left me a convert to ‘shadow work’. I noticed that I went out into the world with such a fortified confidence that I marvelled at my own social relaxedness. There is a power to group-work that reaches parts that one-on-one therapy seems not to do. The reflections and the difficulties that others shared were enormously helpful and accelerated my understanding of my own behaviours. There was something mechanical to the weekend that began to fix problems in a rudimentary way. I found the comments of the people who shared this time with me uncanny in their accuracy and pertinence. Though it was a group aimed at helping the individual, it felt clear that the insights discovered, and the shift observed, was a collective group-experience. I heartily recommend Living From The Heart workshops to anyone wishing to improve the quality of their relationships with themselves and others in a down to earth and honest way. A clients’ point view of therapy Participant November 2012
What are the healthy Characteristics of negotiation in Relationships A healthy functional intimate relationship is based on equality and respect, not power and control. Think about how you treat and desire to be treated by someone you care about. The quality of a negotiation depends upon two things; the quality of the basic relationship between the two people and the quality of the communication that takes place. A good relationship with good communication between two people should enable successful negotiation. A poor relationship with poor communication is likely to create unhealthy relationships. Too often people try to use negotiating skills from the office at home these – skills do not translate into relational tools. The health of a relationship impacts the quality of communication between two people. If you do not trust someone, you are in danger of either disregarding what they say or looking for hidden meanings that may or may not actually exist. The health of a relationship impacts heavily upon negotiation and is a major influencing factor on the likelihood of both partners getting what they need to flourish and grow. Trust This means being supportive, wanting the best for your partner, knowing your partner likes you, and being able to rely on your partner, offering encouragement when necessary, and being comfortable with your partner having different friends and interests.
Intimate relationships are complex, they can be identified by a growing degree of attachment or dependence – in other words, how much we ‘need’ the other person. Attachment or dependence can be hard to negotiate because it defines vulnerability. It is usually our own dependence – our own vulnerability – that we find difficult to confront and to accept. Like it or not, however, dependence, vulnerability, and consequently power are influencing factors in all relationships. You might feel that you control the power balance, that you are subject to it or that it is equal. Nevertheless, it exists and it is a major influencing factor.
Types of power
Positional power This type of power comes from one person’s position in relation to another. For instance, one partner may have more financial wealth or may have power because of the position that he or she occupies at work, the other partner may have less power because of the way in which their partner perceives them and the division of finances, decisions making or labour in the home. Positional power is characterised by a need for the relationship to continue. Information power As individuals, the more information that we have, the more we feel able to control what is going on about us. This form of control involves one person having more information than another and using it to control the other person’s uncertainty. People can become dependent upon others because of their need to control their own uncertainty.
Control of rewards Buying a sports car to reward a partner for their compliance is an example of this. Paying for everything in the relationship. This is about having the power to reward for desired performance or behaviour. This type of power creates dependency upon the person giving the reward.
Coercive power This is about having the power to punish for failure to behave in a desired fashion. This type of power is also likely to create dependency. People can depend on not being punished as well as depend on being rewarded.
Alliances and networks This concerns the relationships with Social networks (Facebook Literally) and real ones with Family and friends. This is an extended form of information power together with positional power.
Access to and control of agendas If one person controls what terms of the relationship are negotiated, they can effectively set the ground rules i.e. when one partner wants complete control of their partner’s behaviours and loyalty without any relationship skills or creation of the necessary skills to create a healthy relationship. This avoids intimacy. One person focussed on conditions that are favourable to themselves and for needs and requests from their partners that are unfavourable to be blocked. When the discussion is controlled, the relationship becomes dependent on the other to explain the rules for communication and subsequently negotiation. This is unhealthy in adult relationships and creates a power imbalance.
Power All negotiation is about power. Because there are always power imbalances in a relationship, negotiation goes on all the time. No matter what your overall approach to negotiation, you may need to consider the nature of power. Remember that the power in the relationship will influence how intimacy is negotiated. There are many ways people play out power dynamics in relationships through money, sex, decision making, and giving or withholding affection.
Healthy negotiation in an intimate relationship
Taking Responsibility
Accepting responsibility for yourself, means looking after your needs without holding someone else responsible for your life. If you need help get it. Acknowledge past and previous bad behaviour including verbal, emotional or physical violence. Being able to say sorry and admit when you are wrong goes a long way to creating harmony in a relationship. Be sure to communicate openly and honestly. Keep your agreements. Do not create excuses for you or your partner actions. A healthy Relationship is built on truth rather than game playing and deception.
Good Communication Good Communication is based on clarifying issues, specifying feelings, and working together for mutually satisfying solutions. If one partner does something that hurts the other in any way they can take responsibility, and make needed changes in their demonstration of love for the other partner.Any two people can have different perceptions. Differences are not a problem; it is how two people deal with differences. It is often best to take a conscious approach to making decisions in relationships. There is no right or wrong. Take time to listen and reflect. Navigating your desires and reactions. Stop the internal dialogue with yourself about the other person’s motivations and emotions. Ask questions instead of making assumptions. Work towards finding mutually satisfying resolutions to conflict, this means talking. Take time to work what your desires and needs are. They are just as valid as your partner’s. You do not need to agree or even understand differences in opinion to respect your partner. When differences come up observe the situation from your partner’s point of view. No issue or problem is more important than the relationship. When one person wins an argument there will always be a loser rather than two people winning. Conscious decision making Making money decisions together, making sure both partners benefit from financial arrangements, sharing dating expenses, accepting both partners need to hold a job. Making decisions together, splitting or alternating costs on dates. Being mindful of the other person’s needs as well as your own – doing things for each other, going places you both enjoy, giving as much as you receive. Basic Steps to Maintaining a Good, Healthy Relationship • Be conscious of what both want for yourselves and from the relationship. • Be vocal about what your needs are communicate them assertively. Neither of you are mind readers • Recognise that your partner will not be able to meet all of your needs. These can be met outside of the relationship. • Do expect your partner to change to meet all your expectations. Accept differences that you see between your ideal how you would like things to be & the reality of who they really are. • Expect conflict. It’s healthy and be willing to negotiate & • Observe and have compassions and empathy. See things from their point of view. You don’t have to agree to respect and understand differences. • Healthy relationships take continual work and effort to maintain. Take your relationships’ Temperature • How well do you and your partners listen to each other? When you and your partner talk, do you look each other in the eye and really listen, is one of you pre-empting a response before the other has finished talking? • How willing are you to take responsibility for your role in your relationship? Many people are good at finding fault in others; particularly those with whom they are in relationship. How capable are you of both identifying your relational limitations and working to change them? • Re you willing to make compromises? Generally and in your daily routine are you conscious of your partners’ likes and dislikes, sensitivities and emotional needs? Do you allow your partner to make compromises for you? In order for a relationship to be balanced and healthy, each person needs to assert his or her own needs and be responsive to those of their partner. • Do you both recognise the qualities you enjoy and appreciate about each other? Are you able to express these, or are they left unsaid? Over time, couples have a tendency to take each other for granted, recognition; appreciation and affection need to be regularly exchanged, in ways that work for both partners. • Are you able to express your concerns without fear of how your partner will react? I Are you both able to express concerns gently and respectfully and do you become harsh or ridiculing? How you express the things that bother you matters at least as much as what your concerns were in the first place. These factors share common themes: mutual respect, openness and consideration. Take time to consider that your care, attentiveness & respect in your romantic relationship are the gifts that matter most every day and create a healthy loving relationship.
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“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.
When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
Hermann Hesse
Sex is your Life Force. You are born out of it. It is your creative energy. It can bring enlightenment. Self esteem is not static. It fluctuates. When you think of your inner lover or Divine Love, what images come to mind perhaps the image of the Goddesses of Love? Aphrodite is an enchanting embodiment of sexual fantasy. Her allure is universal. She is the stereotype found in the Hollywood sex goddess who stimulates desires and romance in the imaginations of millions. Perhaps the ecstatic devotional poems of Rumi, Kabir, Mirabai conjure images of blissful and divine Love?When you make a journey to find Divine Love you enter the realm of coming to grips with reality beyond the emotions of love or fear.
Experience and personal growth helps you move from fantasy to reality to be able to manifest Divine and Sacred Love. The journey to find the Lover within you and connect with a Conscious or Divine Love will take you to unexpected places, some difficult to visit.
Your memories, beliefs, and values will place obstacles in the way; you may have opposition, feelings of bitterness and old wounds that impede your progress. You may even feel the need to defend yourself against perceived attacks in order to not be wounded again. Reality on this journey is found between becoming conscious of your idealised images and expectations you place on yourself and relationships. These ideal images are virtually non-existent, when they are not met feelings of disappointment and loss have mastery over you hounding you to degrade yourself and current relationships. Prompting you to behave in unauthentic ways to gain a false sense of being loved and desired.
Reflect. Look at the walls you have put up around you. Which part of your self needs protecting? How old are they? When you meet a Love, which part of you greets it? The adult, child or teenager? When you think of Love what images arise? What is your desire?
Your Inner Lover is both the feminine and masculine whom is excited by feelings of longing, awe, fear of the unknown, and incomprehensibility. When you Love deeply, you open yourself up to the possibility of betrayal and the pain of separation. You open yourself to wounding, and this very woundedness is your openness. Love is a universal quality, intrinsic to consciousness, no journey is more rewarding. It’s worth the time, effort, and dedication to discover your inner Lover. Celebrate what makes you and your desires unique. Your life is beautiful. Your inner Lover is a healthy embodiment of life force, an experience of sensuous pleasure. Your sensitivity allows you to extend compassion and empathy to all you encounter. Sexual energy can have many expressions: at its lowest vibration, it is biological; at the highest, it is spiritual. Along with this sensitivity to your internal and external experiences comes passion. The Inner Lover is connected through feeling.
Your inner Lover wants to touch and be touched. You want to touch everything physically and emotionally and you wish to be touched by everything. Here you recognise no boundaries. Revel in your experiences of the exotic, of desire through the language of love, music art, and the senses. You desire connection with yourself allowing powerful feelings and experiences and in your relationships with other people. Your desire is to experience the sensual world in its totality. Give yourself permission to feel this fully.
The inner Lover makes a journey through your mind, body and spirit moving upwards towards silent spaces, passing through your heart to your mind and the seventh centre at the highest point in your body. Here you will feel grateful towards the energy. Be open to receiving the gifts of loving relationships which have the power to melt defences, leaving you and your loved ones disarmed and open – allowing the magic of divine love to flow.
Practice makes perfect Love Is a Practice. It is a skill that improves with practice. When you consciously identify and communicate your expectations, you are more likely to create and attract healthy loving relationships. When you listen to the wisdom of your heart you can allow it to guide you towards higher expressions of love. You are invited to join me to learn more… www.livingfromtheheart.co.uk
Love, Sex & Intimacy Workshop on the weekend of 7th – 8th March 2015 10 – 4pm both days in North London
On Love, Sex & Intimacy weekend I will introduce ways to help you to develop a healthy sense of sexuality and desire. Learn to identify your emotions and get your needs met in a healthy manner. It will explore the possibilities for experiencing greater depth and nourishment in your relationships. Explore feelings that arise when you meet challenges including shame that may prevent you from having an enjoyable sexual relationship. Find ways of overcoming barriers to better relationships. The workshop is open to all regardless of sexual orientation or if you are in a committed relationship or single.
Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it necessary? Is it true? Does it improve on the silence?
Many of our experiences of Love, Sex and Intimacy are linked unconsciously to feelings of shame; guilt or fear. We do not always recognise that our thoughts about these can prevent us from fully expressing and receiving Love. Many people have not been taught how to talk about sex and sexuality in a healthy and empowering way. This causes a lot of suffering because of our lack of skill, it can create Sexual and Intimacy based difficulties in relationships. Many people were not taught how to love and express their needs in a healthy ways. We learn through observing and experiencing the relationship between and with parents, siblings, caregivers and significant individuals, whom may not have been competent at managing and expressing themselves. Many individuals and couples lack the mature emotional skills set because of their experiences. Concerns about sex and intimacy are common. The weekend workshop explores your unconscious emotional responses and repetitive relational dynamics including the messages you learnt about Love, Sex and Intimacy which possibly has been passed down generation after generation in your family, society, culture. The past only remains so when it no longer affects us in negative ways in the ‘here and now’. You can usually trace your emotional inheritance back to the original dysfunctions within your family. People tend to model themselves on their parents as they are very important role models in your life. Did you see your parents holding hands and expressing tenderness with each other? Did you observe them expressing anger and resolving conflict in a healthy way? Perhaps they were emotionally immature like so many people. They were only doing what they have been taught and it was their best at the time. You may have experienced similar difficulties and challenges in meeting your needs in relationships as an adult. During Living from The Heart Workshops you will move towards becoming more conscious of the underlying dynamics that drive your emotional responses. You will learn to recognise and express your feelings in healthier ways, expanding your sense of self and your repertoire of responses in your relationship. Consequently you and your relationship become more nourishing and nourished.
We have the capacity for two basic feelings—those of love or fear. Emotions are messages your body sends to your mind emanating from your sense of self. Why you feel the way you do?
Everyone at sometime is driven by either Fear or Love. Your sense of self is the source that generates ease or dis – ease and is unique to each individual. Awareness, Self Love and Good Self Esteem is the master-key.
Ask yourself:
What determines my experiences and relationships as safe or unsafe?
This is a way to begin to bring your unconscious responses into your conscious awareness.
Your needs determine your emotional responses. When you begin to recognise and communicate your needs more consciously you begin to experience greater emotional aliveness that flows from mastering the ability to clearly communicate what you want in life. Remember that these are learnt responses. If you are not currently skilled in this area, the likely hood is that you were taught by people who did not have the skills. YOU CAN LEARN NEW ONES!
The better you become at communicating your needs, the more likely you are to get them met. Consequently your emotional wellness improves greatly.
Distress is usually experienced when certain outcomes are not aligned with your intentions.In other words when your experiences fall short or do not fulfil your expectations. (See live-your-life-with-intention)
This emotional upset is caused by an unmet need or to when someone challenges our sense of self.
‘You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.’
Intention is an important element in any journey. Intention begins with a recognition, of what feels good and joyful. It does not matter how faint, momentary or fleeting. It is unmistakeable and unforgettable because it feels good. Remember for that moment you felt good about yourself. When you form an intention for yourself, you are setting an intention to feel that experience again, to feel it on a more consistent level.
Intention begins with the realisation that you can choose how to be.
When you clarify your intention, a space of consciousness opens up within you. There is a realisation that you can become someone who feels goodness more of the time. Your internal dialogue shifts to an acceptance of the radiance that is innately part of who you already are. You recognise your innate goodness. You have begun a journey to become more of who you already are, deep inside yourself. This journey involves purging layers of conditioned behaviours and responses that have prevented you from recognising your true self, from feeling a deep and loving connection with your inner being and others.
Be Authentic. What do you want most from your life? Do you want to learn how to open your heart? Do you want to be of service? Would you like to learn about compassion and kindness, about self-love, do you wish to learn to love others? What is your heart’s desire? What areas of your life need attention? What has been neglected?
Ask your heart what it needs. Write it down. Share your intention with a trusted person who can support you in your efforts.
Make a commitment.
Explore what each of these commitments look like. Set yourself daily, weekly and monthly reminders of your goals. Put into practice a routine that supports these changes you wish to make in the present, always return to this moment.
Before you get out of bed affirm I am having a fun or productive day.
Before you leave the house, affirm that I have quality time with my beloved and loved ones.
Before you start your car, affirm that I have a safe journey.
Before you go to work, affirm that I learn something and can be of service to others.
Commit for the long term
Any lasting change requires a long term commitment. If you want to be healthier, you might have to alter your lifestyle i.e. Change your eating habits for good. Challenges befall all of us in many forms it is the cycle of life, beginnings and endings. It is not what happens to you but how you cope with these obstacles that are important.
Listen to your heart
Answering life affirming questions demands you to look deep within and reflect upon your life.
Think about your life for a few moments. Get a pen and paper. Take a deep breathe in and out just focus on your breaths. Relax your body, take slow deep breaths inhaling and exhaling. Place your hand over your heart. Notice what is in your heart today even if there is sadness and suffering. Pay attention to where you are right now. Pay attention to what you are doing. If you are sitting what are you sitting on? Where are you? Are you indoors are outdoors what your surroundings are? Who or what is close by in your environment? Become aware of the sounds around you. Close your eyes and tune into the sound of your heart beating.
Only you know the answers to your hearts deepest longings. Take a few breaths relax and ask your heart the following;
Where am I
Why am I here?
What am I longing to do with my life?
Where do I want to be?
Have Hope
After you have set your intention make a commitment and listen to your heart. Then surrender. You cannot control the outcome. You can take conscious and positive action in the direction of that which calls to your heart, you must trust that the process will unfold in a way that is best for you not necessarily what you want. Your life may head in a direction you never dreamt of.
Intentions are much more powerful when they come from a place of contentment than from a place of lack or need. Be grateful for all that you already have.
‘If you just feel happy for what you have, have an attitude of gratitude, and be grateful, then it will come true, you will be great and you will be full.’
In order to welcome love into your lives become aware and let go of some of your beliefs about Love, what you learnt from a young age whilst growing up, from your Mother, Father, siblings and significant people in your lives.
Listen to the deep internalised messages; feel them in your body and how they may have influenced some of your decisions now as an adult.
What messages did you receive? Are they true, are you shaping your life to the same soundtrack? What negative messages are you holding onto?
Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the centre so you have two columns record the negative messages and next to each one write down what replace the old messages with a new one
I.e.: ‘No one loves me’ on the right hand side you would counter this with ‘I love and approve of myself’Take some time to write down what you learnt about Love. Today write down and acknowledge what needs to be altered. Each day take a moment to work on each of these messages. Get support if you need to.
Once you stop telling yourself the story about your life and how you are loved and love – they will have less power over you – you are free to shape your own destiny.
By loving yourself you allow others to love you back.
Living from the Heart:
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S aishaali
E admin@livingfromtheheart.co.uk
Aisha Ali is a much sought after relationship specialist. She is known for her intuitive insight, she is very skilled at getting to the core of issues and helping individuals and couples transform unwanted repeated patterns. Her clients experience support clarity, awareness and a sense of peace, balance and accomplishment.