Finding your inner light

I was going for a walk last week with my husband. In front of us was a man with his young son who would have been about four years old. As they held hands and walked along the little boy danced, kicked his legs out wiggled his arms. He was full of energy, he literally could not stop moving. It reminded me of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, albeit a more clumsy version, in those 1950s movies where they would sing and dance down the street. I said to my husband, remember when our boys were like that at the same age. He said yes and then it gets bashed out of them, they are told that they have to walk ‘normally’ and sit and be quiet. They literally have so much energy they are jumping out of their skin. Then they get to school and they have to sit still and be quiet.

Why do we do this to children? Why do we take them out of their bodies, insist they ignore their natural impulses to move and run. Disconnect from pleasure. Ignore their natural impulses to explore the natural environment and the wonder and awe you can find in nature if you really pay attention.

As adults we can get so caught up in own suffering, we can spend an eternity searching outside of ourselves when our suffering seems unbearable and obstacles seem insurmountable. We bypass and self soothe with shopping, alcohol and any myriad of other available avenues to bypass dealing with our own emotions and to be present and vulnerable.

I tell you something simple yet quite profound I learned from one of my coaching teachers Layla Martin. You have everything you need right inside of you.

So how to you find your own inner light within?

You pursue your pleasure. I am not necessarily talking about sexual pleasure even though that is definitely one avenue of pleasure to pursue. I am talking about what is pleasurable to you that nourishes and sustains you. Walking in nature, dancing, mindfulness practices that involve movement and breath; these are great practices to connect you with sources of nourishment. How do you connect and listen to your body? How do you learn to be with your emotions and pay attention to what your feelings are trying to tell you.

None of us have been taught to do this. It is almost as if we have been implicitly told that pleasure is a no go zone.

Where do you start?

A good place to start is working out what is it that you really want. A simple desires practice, spend 5 minutes writing down your desires, start every sentence with ‘I want….’. If you don’t know what you want, it is hard to connect with what brings you pleasure.

One of my favourite pleasure practices is just to sit out in nature. Maybe you could try to sit out in nature and lye down on the grass and just breath and imagine all the energy from the earth. moving up from the earth, up your legs into your core. Notice your breath moving in and out of your nose. See what that feels like. Dancing is another practice that we seem to stop doing in early adulthood. Why? Our bodies are made to move. Try dancing for 10 minutes a day. Swimming is one of my favourites particularly in the sea, just floating in the water.

We have so many resources available to us within and at our fingertips. Next time you zone out on your phone and start online shopping, stop yourself and go for a walk outside instead. Breathe in the fresh air.

Midlife - what is it really all about?

I felt compelled to write this blog post because I’ve noticed a few people around me lately who are experiencing early signs of midlife transition and not really realising this is what is going on for them. Midlife is an extraordinary portal and rite of passage that both men and women experience that can start anytime from around 40 years of age through to mid 50s.

It is a time in life when we start to ask many questions, a time of refinement and reflection when our psyche gives us a nudge to look back and look forward at the same time. To ask ourselves, what aspects of ourselves do we need to let go of. What aspects of ourselves that have kept us functioning in the world up until now, no longer serve us going forward. Brene Brown calls it the great unraveling.

It’s your psyche giving you a chance to heal childhood wounding, heal pain around old losses and layers of pain around early relationships. We are also faced with our own mortality as we see our parents ageing or dying, friends becoming ill or dying.

It is a liminal time that may feel groundless to many people. One of the points of midlife is to learn to tolerate discomfort of the unknown until the path forward becomes clearer and known.

Many women have menopause to cope with as well that also brings up lots of questions and discomfort with changes in our body. But here is the thing about that. It is only your fertility ending. In our western culture where the narrative around menopause is death, we seem to assume the woman has died also. Many women comment that they suddenly feel invisible. In all actuality, it is a massively transformative time for women because many of them feel they are just getting started when it comes to their bigger purpose in life. Just because your fertility is ending doesn’t mean you stop being a sexual being. For many women they feel closer to their sexuality than they ever had before and their feminine life force energy is awakened.

When you don’t understand the discomfort of life transitions and rites of passage, it can be easy to jump onto the first external source of relief that might make you feel better. Obsessive exercise and worrying about your figure. Don’t get me wrong exercise is great but actually, this is time time in your life when you need to be really intentional in your exercise because you musculoskeletal system is undergoing a shift. A new car, a new partner, cosmetic work on your face, spending lots of money on clothes and jewellery. All classic relief escape hatches. You know what? All the answers are inside of you.

When you can sit with the unknown and grieve habits and patterns that don’t serve you any longer, you start to birth a new version of yourself. Embedded in the darkness are the seeds of the new adornments or parts of yourself, you need to create to go back out into the world and bloom. New habits, interests, ways of being. Many women in particular find themselves reconnecting with visions and purpose from their youth that were put to the side.

Our second half of life is about meaning and purpose. When you can learn to resource the grief of the old with self-compassion and approach the unnavigated path forward with great curiosity, you will discover your true reason for being here. The path is different for men and women. The heroines journey is different to the hero’s. But ultimately this rite of passage is about the same discovery.

If this post resonated with you pass it onto a friend who might benefit from it. I coach women and couples to navigate this journey. If you are interested in talking to me about coaching head over to my website and book yourself in for a complimentary call to see if coaching will help you navigate midlife.