Bringing the peace back home...maybe.

So I’ve been to four retreats in the last couple of months, reviewing them for Queen of Retreats.  The Body Retreat.  Vital Detox. Middle Piccadilly.  The Sanctuary Somerset.  All very different and I’ve loved them all.  But, as someone pointed out on Twitter recently, it’s all well and good if you can afford to swan off to these places but if you can’t…?  And I thought, fair point.  I also thought that really, I need to find a way to bring the peace and serenity on retreat back into everyday life.  As Juls at the Body Retreat said, if you only make a few small changes, they will lead on to bigger changes.  And Paola, the yoga teacher at The Sanctuary said that, even if you do just one yoga move every day, you will start to shift.

So. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been getting up and hour earlier than usual. I light a candle, fire up a joss stick and bung on a CD of Tibetan chanting. And I’ve been doing some simple yoga moves before settling down to meditate for about half an hour.  Okay, so it’s early days but so far, so good. 

But I can’t do yoga, I hear you say. Oh, but the first few bits of this are so so easy.  Really.

1. Neck rolls.  Simply stand in a balanced easy posture and slowly, ever so slowly, let your ear drop down to your left shoulder, then circle down so your chin is moving towards your collar bone and then up to the right shoulder and (very gently) backwards.  Repeat several times...really really slowly... and then go back the other way. Releasing, letting go.  

2. Shoulder shrugs.  Arms by your sides. Bring each shoulder up to your ear in a rapid alternate shrugging motion.  It’s quite vigorous but you can alter the pace to suit yourself.  Keep it going for a few minutes.  Energizing, loosening, awakening, creating heat in the body. 

3. Now stand still.  Find the bottom of your sternum.  Place the first three fingers of your left hand under it. Take your right thumb and poke it into the point directly under the fingers.  Take away the left hand and start to massage the point with your right thumb in a clockwise direction.  It may be tender or even painful – adjust the pressure so it’s bearable.  Keep going for several minutes if possible and then swap thumbs and work the same point with your left thumb in an anti-clockwise direction.  This point is three finger widths from the bottom of the breastbone (sternum). This is a point called the Sea of Tranquillity and it’s helpful in the relief of tension in the chest, anxiety, nervousness, and depression.

4.  Let’s just finish with the simple standing forward bend.  Padahastasana. This stretches out the entire back of the body, from head to heels, lengthening the spine and helping it become more flexible.  It massages all the internal organs, especially the digestive organs (so can ease constipation).  It can relieve sciatica, invigorates the nervous system and increases the supply of blood to the brain. It’s also said to remove fat from the abdomen!  On an energetic level, it is grounding, earthing, energizing and it shifts inertia, allowing you to move forwards. It stimulates and balances muladhara chakra, the base chakra situated around the perineum. Not bad, huh? 

a. Stand up straight, shoulders relaxed, ankles and knees touching.  Now inhale as you reach up, arms straight over your head, arms touching your ears. 

b. Exhale and bend forwards from the hips (don’t collapse), keeping your back straight for as long as possible. Keep your legs straight.   Don’t worry if you can’t touch the floor, just keep the idea of it in your mind.

c. Stand firmly and visualise earth energy coming up through your feet and passing right through your body and down into your hands.  Eventually, with practice, you will be able to place your hands under your feet and bring your head to your knees.  But even if you just hang, that’s absolutely fine. 

d. Stay for as long as feels comfortable, breathing comfortably and enjoying the sensation of earth energy moving into and through your body.

Actually, she looks a bit unbalanced but you get the idea.

That’s enough for one day, huh?  Even if you just try one…it could be the start of something.  J

In which I have a large stone removed from a yurt in my belly and discover a universe inside

I went to Middle Piccadilly at the weekend.  It’s a place that’s been floating around my aura for decades. One of the old school retreat places.  I’ve always wanted to go but somehow never did.  When I had the dosh, I didn’t have the time and when I had the time, I didn’t have the dosh.  Anyhow…I was asked to review it, so off I went. 

It’s a curious place – not quite the serene middle-of-nowhere spa I’d expected.  To be honest, it’s caught in a bit of a time-warp – part seventies hippyshake, part eighties pinefest.  I itched to give it a makeover, to pull out a powerhose and to fill a few skips.  The raw food was amazing though (that might merit an entire separate post, come to nibble it) but what really blew me sideways were the treatments.

Now then. Some (good) places have one or two amazing therapists.  Most have okay ones.  And some (often the big anonymous hotel spas and day spas) have pretty mediocre ones. You know the type I mean –their hands might be busy on your body but their minds are necking cider or having a snog with someone else’s boyfriend.  Anyhow, I think MP has bagged an almost rudely unfair share of the seriously awesome ones.  

I had been prescribed three sessions by co-owner Lisa and first up was one of the best therapeutic massages I’ve had – serious deep fascial work, delving down into pressure points, hitting the ‘ouch’ button (in a good way).  Angela read my body like an orienteerer and went for the icky bits like an All Black making a dump tackle.  Then, while my physical body was still sighing with relief, caught quite unawares, I had my energy body opened up by Claire. While Angela was all no-nonsense, down-to-earth and practical, Claire was an earth mother, soothing, nourishing, comforting and…so tender.  She performed a lovely chakra-balancing nurturing treatment called Hand on Heart (using organic products from the fabulous Cornish company Spiezia.  Check them out, I’d forgotten how good they are). 

‘So, what’s the verdict?’ I asked at the end.

‘Your feminine side is very depleted,’ she said. I nodded.  That made sense.

‘Your throat is closed.  I wonder what it is you’re not saying?’  I remained silent.  J

‘Your heart and solar plexus are out of sync.  Oh, and your crown is fuzzy.’ 

‘Right. So basically, the only bits that are okay are my bottom bits and my third eye?’

‘Pretty much.’  And she shhhed me and took me next door to my bedroom and wrapped me up in bed with a mug of chamomile tea.  ‘Rest.’ 

‘Yes, Mum.’

And I did.  I slept. And slept.

But really, these were just the (very fine) support acts for my final treatment, a shamanic healing session with the wonderfully named Maya.  Now, I’ve done a fair amount of shamanism in the past – I’ve had healing sessions and I’ve done workshops and trainings.  So I thought I knew what was coming.  Wrong.

I’ve often wondered about my shamanic experiences.  They’ve been powerful but cerebral somehow.  Just more mind games?  Just vivid imagination?  Sometimes it feels that way.  So I went into the session feeling, not sceptical but without huge expectations. 

But the sage smudge was heady and the drum beat was soft, rhythmic, mesmerising.  Maya called up guardians, spirits, call them what you will, to guard the space and I waited, my energy body tingling with anticipation.  As she took me down the tunnel to the lower world I felt my third eye convulse.  I strained for ‘seeing’ but Maya caught the trick.  ‘Not in your head,’ she said.  ‘Feel it in your body.  Feel where you’re holding.’

My hands crept to my solar plexus.  I couldn’t deny the feeling – as if I had a huge stone lodged in my belly. 

‘Go inside it,’ she said.  ‘What do you see?’

It was a large space, like the inside of a vast yurt, a domed ceiling, a floor made of dry compacted earth, the air thick with dust. 

‘Is anyone there?’

‘No. I’m alone.’

‘What’s there?’

And the ceiling began to crack, like an egg, and the floor started to crumble away and pinpricks of light appeared and I was caught in the dance of stars. The entire universe inside my belly and me twirling and tumbling like an acrobat.

‘Now blow it all out into the fire beneath your feet,’ said Maya.  And I panted out the stone, my body convulsing like I was giving birth to a black hole.  And it moved, from my solar plexus to my womb and a wave of regret swept over me, for the neglect of my feminine (both earthly and divine), and I wept, big heaving sobs, tears streaming down my face.  And then it went altogether, leaving a lightness in my body, a space. 

And other things happened (she removed bits I didn’t need and put back bits I’d lost, some made perfect sense and others were well weird), but I think I’m stretching you too far anyhow, already.  You’ll either roll your eyes and go ‘yeah yeah’ and move on (and I wouldn’t remotely blame you), or you’ll go ‘Yeah’ in which case I’d say, go, go… try it yourself.  J