Ep.1/ The Homecoming.

14 Jul

Written By Anna .

a brief rendition ofMy story & how i came to be where i am today.

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I feel it is quite usual for us humans to find motivation and purpose in being there for others, espesially in our darkest hours, and I have had some very dark hours.

Leaving home to study Education, Psychology & Councelling at university was my first step towards this purpose, when taking steps at all felt impossible.

Still, the first step is all it takes to start again.

During this time, with the help of my studies, relationships, rave scene and “extra-curriculars” my body and mind remembered what it is to feel something other than the bleakness.

Gradually, I came to find a sense of self-care again and slowly began building my self - esteem. Nevertheless I was still stuck circling patterns of dissociation, self harm, compulsive, intrusive thoughts and behaviours, and suicidal ideation.

I have always had a questioning mind; through trauma and dissociation this had become dangerous. At my worst I had very little grip on reality, and zero capacity to truely connect with anyone or anything beyond my own obsessive delusions.

Nature and art were my solace in my darkest times.

I walked, I sang, I drew, I wrote, channeling my pain and conflict into art or letting my art be my escape.

As I started to get better my connection with Nature deepened. I spent many hours walking, or stepping very slowly, through woodlands and rivers. I developed an ear for listening to their secrects and writing them into poetry, prose and song. The disconnection I had always felt from my peers was somehow soothed by the sense of kinship I felt with the more that human world.

It wasn’t until a few years later, and after the breakdown of my long term relationship, I began a regular yoga practice. It was largely due to this that I started to develop a deeper and more grounded relationship to my body and experiences.

Through lockdown, I was furloughed and devoted my time to delving into my inner world.

With my curious and philosophical mind I have always wanted to understand the mysteries of the human experience and the universe. The question “WHY?” has always facinated me and while it had driven me close to insane, it wasn’t something I could let go of. I could however now recognise that the answer somehow lived inside of me, as much as outside and MUST include my own wellbeing.

After years of seeking through religion, science, and philosophy. After years of inner termoil trying to grapple with my own emotional experiences and the trauma of the world. After years of battleing with the question, I finally began to ask it in a different way.

This is when I started my Yoga Teacher training.

Witnessing my mentor through this process, illustrated the way we can dance with our experiences rather than fight them. She held such beautiful and wise containers in which the group had full chance to explore their depths. Our training was built around the principle of embodying the teachings and practice before stepping onto the mat, though “embodiment” wasn’t yet a buzz word!

What followed was a zest for life I had not had since childhood. I was “High on my own supply”, and like a lot of newbie yoga teachers, desperate to share the practice that had changed my life for the better. In hindsight I can see the telltale signs of my saviour complex and tendancy to spiritually bypass.

As with most things, the high did not last forever and three years later I found myself burnt out.

A couch potato, I was once again forced into the dark.

I was mortified. The practice that had felt like my saviour had put me on my ASS. Once again I was asking the question…. “Why?”

It was not a hard question to answer this time. I can be blind, and slow to learn, but I’m no fool. I recognised, as I explored my internal landscape, how much I attached my value to my work and my “progress”. This was the very begining of the next layer into deepening my relationship to myself and the mystery. This was the start of my next descent.

I spent six months in a kind of depression, doing the bare minimum and learning to knit. With in this time, for the first time, I began to disentangle from the story that my worth as a human was somehow associated with what I could achieve.

It is interesting and very beautiful to note that it was also the first time I was supported and secure in a deeply loving relationship.

We must have our base needs for safety, nourishment and connection met, before we can have any capacity for deep internal work.

Over the next couple of years I was triggered by people and life experiences. I was brought face to face with my subconscious and shaddowy aspects again and again in order to integrate them.

Through this process I began to feel a disenchantment with Yoga. The shallowness that students seemed happy with, began to irritate me. I am a creature of the deep, and Yoga classes alone, were no longer able to hold the work wanting to come through me.

I had come accross Feminine Embodiment Facilitator Training with Jasmin Chew, on Instagram, about 6 months before I decided to commit to the course.

At first I felt a sense of disdain towards it.

I thought “why do you need someone to teach you things you already know just so you have a certificate?”, or “oh what a money grab!”

The next time I came across it, a month later, I felt much less resistance to it. I thought I should probably take a look at the content before completely dismissing it.

A couple months later I looked again, and this time I acknowledged, just how much I really did want to join it. I checked the price.

Another month passed before I finally booked on and took the final open spot.

It’s funny how, with out fail, the thing you absolutely can NOT see, is absolutely NOT relevant to you, is actually the very thing that is.

I have far too many personal lived examples of this now!

In the same way that the thing we find ourself judgeing in someone else is usually a thing we are unwilling to see and accept with in ourselves.

Completing this training has felt like a home coming. Even a year and a half post, I am still moving through the integration of all it’s teachings. The depth and breadth makes it hard to talk about in a concise and readable way.

But through the process I have been reborn.

Not by creating or manifesting a new identity to attach myself to, but by shining a light on all of the stories, internalised patterns, ancestral wounds, shame, grief and anger that was keeping me separated from the reality of who I am.

‍While a process like this is never complete, where I am now means I can take full ownership of, and full responsibility for my life.

Where I am now, each step I take is rooted in Truth.

Where I am now, I am able to stay in connection with myself, people and experiences even when they are challenging, uncomfortable or full of darkness.

I am no longer driven by a need for validation, or a need to save the world, or a need to prove myself.