When people just think it’s mindset work.

Mindset work is the mind.
The mind is a place of logic that has come from past experience.

Although your present self comprehends that something happening right now is not the thing you have been through but your physical body separates from itself.

Your chest dipped inwards
Your heart has flown out of your body.
You are a complete shell of yourself in an environment that is “safe”. 

Something has happened within you but you don’t want to cause a “scene”.

You know the ppl there are unable to hold you - don’t get me wrong there is empathy & compassion but in a way where the depths of your ancestors and your childself is all currently present? 

This isn’t tangible.
It’s not where you can tap or stroke myself out of it.

It’s stories within air - when was the last time you truly felt air, what it’s saying, where it is in time & space?

It’s the hollowness of life itself & yet consciousness.

To feel is to be in tune.
Can you be in tune with the story your mind is playing because your body is having a reaction to it. 

The story your mind is currently making up because of a past experience, a rememberance of when you split yourself into pieces so you didn’t feel all of the grief & pain that you experienced unnecessarily.

I was reminded this week that humans are selfish.
That we only care about ourselves and this really does break me.

In fact, last week I cried through grief at how selfish humans are, consciously & not.

This reminder came from a marketing chat.

At a mastermind day, my chest sunk and I greyed out as if I’d be on herorin for days.

I decided to be selfish.
I left the group where my body felt like it was not only being threatened but on the receiving end of that threat.

I choose to move my paintbrush in another direction. 

To me, the selfish thing to do was to suppress it and carry on like everything is “normal”. Change you mindset, move on & carry on. 

One of my wishes in this world is for more people to choose to be selfish, to looking and feeling into their triggers because to me, not looking at your triggers from body & mind is ultimately the most selfish act of all - to yourself and another.

My mind is the problem until it isn’t.
My body is the problem until it isn’t.

Neither are the problem until I own this is part parcel of being my own artist.

Life is my canvas and every feeling is a piece of art to that canvas.

The good, the bad & the ugly.

It’s not just in the eyes tightening or the smile flattening. 

It’s in how you bypass my existence. 
In how you treat me slightly differently than a white person — not enough to prove, but enough to feel. 

It’s the double take your system takes. 
That recalibration. 
And it’s felt by the other body. By me. 

And when another POC stays silent, that silence isn’t ignorance. 
It’s fear. 
Fear of being fired for agreeing. 
Fear of naming patterns their body already knows. 
Fear because they understand — clearly — that HR will not protect them. 

White privilege has insurance. 
“They didn’t know.” 
“They didn’t mean it.” 

Meanwhile the impact lives in my body as stored energy. 
Something I now have to process, shake out, metabolise — just to keep doing my job. 

And I know this isn’t projection because I know myself intimately. 
I know what is mine and what is not.

My dear friend, 
This. Is. Yours. 

What still grows in winter?

The tears from my aching emotions.

When does this end?
Is this what unconditional love is?
Is that what I am being shown
as such a feeler?

Is this spirit’s way of showing unconditional love
through the pain of sadness
and torture?

The heart space feels empty.
Iboga showed me that.

And yet—
there is this knowing pull into the earth,
passed down into the roots
of what we deem as hell.

Our perspective hell
is what peels away the layers
like a freshly bought phone case.

That Big Bang moment
when Raj & Howard share their devotion
to the peel—
inch by inch—
knowing the new will be no more.

This new device
will now be theirs.
Tainted
with day-to-day living.

What happens now?
Nobody knows.
Not even I.

But for those three seconds of peeling lust,
I will suffer my winter.

If all pictures and videos can be manipulated into whatever someone wants us to think or see,
then surely someone could be set up for murder?

With technology and AI booming at the speed they are,
time is our most precious commodity.

What wouldn’t I do to save it
Pay someone.
Delegate.
Even lock myself in energetic frustration over how much time I’m wasting compared to what I could be gaining if I just did the thing I keep avoiding.
(Yes. I’m talking to you… taxes)

Enter the wonderful world of AI
Our new creative agency
A place to decompress.
To debrief.
To process.
To seek solitude, reasoning, mentorship.

Our #1 hype friend.

And yet…
I wonder what the polarity of this will mean for human life.

Technology is outgrowing us faster than                                                                                  it takes to birth a child to their second birthday.

So what does this mean for law enforcement?
For media?
For truth?

Footage can now be doctored into a fake reality.
Entire narratives fabricated with terrifying precision.

Will our decisions really be ours anymore?

We’re only just now collectively admitting that mental health exists.
That it impacts individuals.
That conditioning shapes not only how we see the world, but who we believe we are—
unless we actively do the work to discover otherwise.

And the deeper you go into this work,
the more you realise resonance and precision don’t live in the mind.

They live in the body.

The body as a channel.
A space where something closer to truth permeates the system.

I’m not saying truth doesn’t shift with perception.
Why do you think you can realise something about an experience years later?

Those reflections come from space opening.
From perception finally having room to breathe.
From the body processing what the mind once couldn’t.

Which brings me to the jury system.

How vulnerable it is.

Who is being picked at random to decide the fate of another human
when they may not have fully processed their own emotions, wounds, projections?

Unless we have the capacity to view, to empathise, to hold—
from a mature, grounded place of depth and honesty, without distortion or fragmentation,                                                                                                                            how will we look at photos or video footage in the future
without jumping to the fastest, most palatable conclusion?

The one that fills the KPI.
The one that clears the inbox.
The one that keeps the machine moving.

Will we
or future humans
accept face value?

This is where intuition comes in.
Discernment.

Following a nudge.
Questioning the footage.
Investigating the story even when—especially when—
everything logically adds up.

When you’re the only hand raised for not guilty.

AI or not, the human emotional experience still exists.
No matter how much we try to suppress it.
No matter how much we outsource our thinking.

So I’ll ask you this:

Could you live with yourself?
Would you want to live with yourself?

Or are we slowly handing our power away
to technology
and to those who control it?

This might sound like a harsh extreme,
but it feeds directly into our everyday lives.

Into how we scroll Instagram.
How we compare.
How we consume opinions as gospel.
How we let someone else’s version of events define our reality.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

Or do we?

You can’t flow if you aren’t in it.

You can’t feel music if you aren’t the music.
You can’t dance if you aren’t the dance.

So why is Flow Dance different from Ecstatic Dance?

Here’s a story.

It was a friend’s birthday — a Wednesday evening.
We went to an ecstatic dance.

At one point, I stepped outside.
In the small, enclosed outdoor area, three people were laughing but as I walked out, they suddenly stopped.
Pure silence. It was so strange.

And then...

We all burst into hysterics.
No reason. No control. Just laughter.
It felt amazing to release that sound, that energy — that part of the process.
(in unison as well)

As we laughed, a woman from the hosting team came out.
Polite face. Pointed tone.

"I know it’s funny, but we can hear you inside"

That hit me.

Because Flow Dance Meditation allows it all.
It encourages it all.

We would never stop you in your process.
Because it is about the process.

Movement is art.
and what it brings up — laughter, tears, singing, shaking, stillness — it all belongs.

There’s still a quiet code in some ecstatic dance spaces —
An undercurrent of “do this, not that.”
A subtle pressure to behave a certain way.

But Flow Dance?
It doesn’t ask you to do.

It asks you to be.
Just be.
You.

no jitters,  
no high alert nervous system, 
no shakes, 
no overthinking, 
Just… a regulated, normal day. 

The women we admired growing up. 
The ones around us.
The ones we learned from - how to think, feel, and act about our bodies and what it means to be female. 

My mum grew up in the era of Indi Amin - a time every woman feared for her life,
Raped multiple times by multiple men, 
Death, or both. 
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to choose
Just acceptance that this is what life is. 
And me… I carry that.
Amongst other things. 

Women supporting each other’s businesses. 
Creativity & Collaboration. 

I saw women voicing their creative visions
Helping each other bring them to life, purely for the love of it.

I saw bodies I’ve only dreamed mine would look like. 
I was held between the legs of a tantrika-who I eye gazed with previously
Her energy: Stable. Bold. Fearless. 

I watched perky butts and boobs move through the room
Witches hanging from a candlelit staircase
I saw them connected: in friendship, in touch, in femininity, in love and softness. 

Humans 
Having fun 
Moments being captured
That’s all it was and it brought up so much for each of us. 

Being in the room was brave
I wanted to be my version of brave 
But how can one do that, if they can’t first accept the step before—
The step that, for that version of you, is brave?

Our ending circle made me feel physically sick. Strangled.
Grimey like. 
I didn't land on my version of brave.
I didn't face my fear. 
Why should I merit myself with tokens of awareness & realisations? 
I tried but I felt a fraud. 
Lies. 
How can they say anything kind, when all they’ve seen is the little girl? 
But... when the little one has never been seen before - 
how can one understand village community life? 

Being seen not for what you show 
But for who you are choosing to let go of - 
And become. 

If, as humans we can accept that we find different styles, food, textures, colours, tastes, scents pleasing, then why do so many of us struggle with accepting ourselves or parts of ourselves?

As women; 
Nose, hair, skin, fingers, breasts, bum and as Emily writes, our vulvas.

Most of us women comparing to the standard Barbie style white woman.

Numbing out the various parts of ourselves,
the parts that make us who we are.

The version of us that we have grown to learn,                                                                   how to make which make-up style work for us,                                                               which side our fringe goes 

and yet, behind the scenes, we fight the comparability shadows within us,
the dark shadows that feed on fear, guilt & shame.

Fear of not feeling, shameful of who we are, could be, how we feel, our desires and the choices we make for our individual journey. 

Fear of guilt—for trusting ourselves,                                                                                      for following our hearts,                                                                                                            for doing our best with what we knew.

Guilt that we didn’t live up to another’s expectations or hopes.

Guilt that there may have been deceit or lies to others and quite often, even more soul destroying, the shame & guilt to ourselves and the fear we may do this to ourselves again.

Fear of failing to accept or process it all.

Reaching a new level of low self.

and if you don’t?

Perhaps questioning, if this is normal?

What is this new stage/ level of you,                                                                                        this new perspective or understanding of the world & yourself?

If, as the book is titled, we are to ‘Come As You Are’, then perhaps we should …       ‘Come As All That We Are’

🫦

I dislike the commercialism of it.                                                                                              I dislike having witnessed people falling into V day because they have to not because they want to.                                                                                                                                 I dislike having witnessed people doing this for 1 day rather than it being a regular occurrence between the people involved.                                                                                 I dislike how the day is more geared towards romantic, being in a relationship love. 

On the other hand…

I like how it can remind people to take a moment and appreciate the realness of their relationship.                                                                                                                                  I like that it encourages people to make an effort if they don’t usually.                               I like how the usual miserable office people have a secret glint in their eyes because they know they are guaranteed some kind of action.                                                              I like how the vibe in a space always feels lighter on V day, be it in a corporate office in a tense meeting, the gym, the bus driver, coffee shop, or at your parents, which by the way is our first biggest lessons in and about love.

It’s my first time back to my yin practice after a 5 month break. Trust me, this break was not intentional, life and circumstances literally got in my way. I was either away or living somewhere with no physical space to practice. 

I have been taken places before with yin, we've travelled a fair few dimensions together but this evening really touched me. Perhaps it was the time away, perhaps it was because I had spirit in me or perhaps I was ready. 
I bet all 3,
working together creates a dream team after all.

I joined the session in eager excitment but as I logged on for what can only be described as a sister wound coming up for me, front and centre. I started to play out 2 scenarios with 2 different friends who have never met.
You don't have a sister I hear you cry
Yep but its there. It was there. 
My 2 stories played out at the same time, as if each eye opened its narrow pathway for the story to walk and I was its bystander. 
I sat with it and saw my own annoyance and frustration until I realised it was a sister wound, then I cried. I let the tears of saddness fall. 
Only 1 posture in but I was in flow and a smile on my face, let's go. Puppy pose came along with 3 padded cushions and we breathed for the chest to open the back of the heart. I pulled back to ensure I stuck with my mindful intention to keep the hips behind and then it happened. My chest got lower into the pillow and an edge in the bottom right of my heart let out such a crying wail. 
For the 1st time, I saw my mum as my teacher. 
I flashed back to a conversation yesterday and instead of seeing it for what it was, a natural question, one for me to ponder / use my human design traits to hone in on, I fobbed her off and probably did an eye roll because "she didn't get it". I wanted her to understand that I didn't want to limit myself to one area of a topic. That anything can happen if we are open and believe. In that moment, that question she asked me, she was my teacher. She has been my teacher all along, I just couldn't see. Let's be real, I didn't want to see it and for that I have to fogive myself. I deeply cried while my back stretched and my chest dropped onto the top pillow. I accepted that this was happening, that I saw her in this way and the joy that comes from it. 

The profound moments didn't stop there. 

I travelled back to 2017/18 where I met my yin teacher Sara, she was a cover teacher for my regular Sunday class in Covent Garden. As I was getting up through the noise of the 'it' girls chatting away, I heard Sara mention the flyer for her upcoming retreat. It was in that split moment of not walking away from picking up that flyer that changed my life. 

I have promised Sara for sometime that I will write her a review for her 1st course which we completed in September 2023. I haven't done it nor have I written her up an updated testimonial. She understands why but I'm frustrated that the words haven't flown. After all, it's only a few lines, a paragraph at most but here's the thing,

someone can only take you as far as they have met themselves and she definately has. She continues to do so. I admire the way she is able to hold herself and take us on our own deep journey while knowing that she is at the end of that baby strap holding us as we explore our own episode of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. Just like a movie, the soundtrack is always, always on point. 

I didn't have the space for the words to come to me, something was missing. Yin is known as a feminine energy, its softness, its gentle introspective nature. While that is true, tonight I felt what I thought I previously knew, the grounded stillness of the masuline energy within yin is what allows me to drop deeper into postures. The feminine feels safe to flow and work through the pain. Tonight my body understood what my mind has been convincing me for years. 

We aren't even on posture 3, shoelace. A posture that brought out the saddist in me. 
This and frog was getting me to sit with the physical body pain and that I did. Thoughout today's class, I barely took a rebound. I let the physical tension poke at me for what I guess was 6 mins each, not due to force but because I was able to be still with the overwhlem of pain and tension. 
I felt safe to let it move through me.
I allowed myself to be the observer of my letting go of pleasure and pain.

I sporadically cried throughout my class this evening and multiple times while typing this, I even questioned if my new neighbours would wonder if everything was okay. I walked through each open door that popped up tonight and with each step the lesson that it brought. I cried for the same reason and for a new one. 

How can I go through an entire beginning, middle and end in a few sentences? It's not possible and that is what happens in each and every one of Sara's offerings. The dance through your beginning, middle and end but as I said, she continues to see herself so have a tug on that safety strap as a check in and continue the ride.

Sara is due to release the 2nd round of ‘Reclamation’. If there is any part of you that wonders, I encourage you to sign up. Otherwise, experience her playful side with one of her epic Flow Dances that will get you into your version of embracing Sandra Bullock in The Proposal where she dances round the fire to ‘Get Low’ by Lil Jon. 

Sara is also launching her membership community in September 2024, so keep an eye out for that too! Inside info: prepare for all the things & more 💫

Thank you Sara, for everything x.

I had been there before…

Hadn’t I just?

We all wake up to this idea, every morning that we are doing the same thing all over again. The same routine, the same dishes, the same clothes. 

When does it end? Perhaps this is why us humans get caught up in new shiny things, shiny objects, and new styles. 

For the change                                                                                                                         For the adaptability                                                                                                                     In order for us to not feel like we have been somewhere before. 

We can go to the same restaurant multiple times and each time will be different - the food, the company, vibe, decor, how we feel and that’s what ultimately matters, how we feel. 

Routine can bring structure and boredom                                                                                It can be caging yet freeing                                                                                                         It can allow for ease and flow yet the repetition can make one feel like they want to end things.

You’ve been there before                                                                                                  You’ve done it before                                                                                                            You’ve felt it before                                                                                                                You’ve lived it before                                                                                                              What else is left?                                                                                                                     

How can you change the way that you’ve been there before?

My first time in Hong Kong was in 2017. It was never on my radar to go apart from a brief Instagram post that popped up on my feed once. It belonged to a girl who was in my class at high school. She had tagged “the dragon’s back hike” and as quickly as you can google search “dragon’s back hike” I was off the page

I am constantly stripping. It's a full time, overtime unpaid job for me. Never ending. Why?

I started down this journey to be lighter and free. Living in hope of this feeling. Knowing that life is meant to be experienced without limitations. To be enjoyed. 

Instead, it has been a life of deep dark excavating. The fight, the torment, the pain. All leading to sadness, weakness, loneliness, and helplessness. 

Allowing for it to come up and out
Allowing it a voice 
Allowing it to breathe
Moving it through me and out of me
You feel the possibility of lightness. And you are back, that feeling that you know, you've always known is unnecessary 
You move through it again
You try. You don't stop trying
You excel at being the tryer
Is it worth it?
Has it been worth it?
Some days
but...how does one do this?
There are so many methods, so many possibilities
Choices
Which one and within that, how again?

I used to feel guilty for one of the ways not working out for me or something not feeling quite right but in the end it isn't necessarily about that thing/ way lasting for a lifetime. It's okay that it doesn't. If it did, maybe we wouldn't have found the next thing or the thing after that. Perhaps comparable to relationships in some ways?

Do that thing that scares you into complete meltdown
Do it slowly
Do it once every 6 months if thats how your nervous system currently copes
Be the lover, mother, sinner for yourself
Eat the indulgent food and that glass of wine but be conscious of it. Sit with the why - before, during or after but sit with it and you will find your way
You'll keep finding your way. One step after the other
and you'll more than likely go through hell and heavily question WTF you have put yourself through but you'll keep going for your perfect 'illusion' of freedom
Try all the tricks, all the habits
Keep moving, keep smiling to create all the space
It will all slot into place when you are in a place to open and ready to receive.

(For my Flow Dance family: 1 dance after the other)