Origin & Echoes

Category: Uncategorized

  • A Healing Journey

    I’ve been working on some deep stuff the last few weeks and wanted to share, working as usual with various essences and  I had begun to write up a report on a recent plant journey with Nettle that I had been part of.

    This journey  had really highlighted how my body had held old emotional trauma that had become pain in the physical.  I had a real urge to share this as it felt a significant journey. However no matter what I tried the writing felt a bit clunky and not quite right so I saved the document I had and went to bed to ponder on it over night. I wondered what else needed to be added or if it was in fact something that didn’t need to be shared?

    To understand this next part of the journey I will share briefly my Nettle journey.

    As a group we had walked into the forest to meet Nettle and communicated with  the plant by drawing the image we saw and paying attention to what we heard and felt. We regrouped and shared our intentions for our journey with Nettle. I chose to let go of fear, to remove anything that was holding me back and for insights into my own personal journey.

    We then danced blind fold, feeling the music and how our bodies responded to it. Mine responded like a petulant teenager. An old Sciatica problem was very apparent and my left hip area just didn’t want to move. The more I tried to persuade it the tighter it got and the pain increased. Feeling into the teenager vibe I was suddenly drawn back to a painful time in my life at school, where I was a loner and  didn’t really fit in. At that time I had wished to be completely invisible to others so that I didn’t feel their judgemental looks. Looking at this now – I have a need to be visible with many areas of work now and this being invisible was still blocking me in some way. Good – Nettle was getting down into the depths of where I needed to go to remove this outdated mind set.

    We then drank a nettle brew and entered into a shamanic journey for further insights. I felt drawn to lying on my left side which was quite painful and seemed a bit odd but I ran with it. I communicated further with that lonely teenage within me and made amends with her – lying on my side had been like a way of showing I was willing to protect the hurt , or at least the part of me that was hurting.  I felt incredibly tired after the journey and went home to sleep soundly.

    When I woke in the morning there was no tightness like there usually was in my hip. I felt like something had been removed from that area and that was related to this old state of emotional disharmony.  The pain has so far not returned and I feel taller and less restricted in my hip area.

    This has continued for around ten days now. I was amazed by the results and decided to document it in detail.

    So back to the beginning of the story,

    I spent an unsettled night and on top of that the dog was up several times in the night resulting in very little sleep. I struggled to get up and as I was running late for work.  I decided to take the short route rather than my usual,  preferred more scenic walk. I immediately felt a little apprehensive and felt my left hip area tighten in response.

    On brief investigating it made sense in conjunction with the work I had done with Nettle as this walk would entail me walking part of the very same way that I had done to school. I didn’t have much choice as I would add too much time on to the journey if I went the usual route.

    Rushing along feeling the “normal” twinges and finding the muscles of my legs literally objecting by responding with twinges of pain.  I decided to approach the subject consciously as I walked down through the masses of Impatiens flowers and Willow trees over the old familiar green bridge towards my destination and the site of my old school. I was greeted at the far side of the bridge by a patch of tall Nettle. I knew that I was walking through a portal of change.

    I was surprised to note just how many times I would have been immersed in all this plant energy in some form all those years ago. The plants and trees I was now passing would also have been younger and their energy of a different vibration. A familiarity was swelling up and I was grateful to be able to now acknowledge the nature of these plants that I had encountered without any form of real connection before.

    Legs tiring slightly and familiar psoas muscle twinges kick in stronger and more persistent but I kept going onwards up that hill I had rushed up so many other mornings.

    The school has been knocked down and rebuilt and is now a bright, modern primary school. As I paused I felt that old part of me go off and climb the stairs however rather than being met with fear and darkness of the old energy there was a bright vibrant space. I felt in this new space a lightness and an excitement. I saw it filled with all the people who are near and dear to me, my family and friends and all the wonderfully supportive people that I am lucky to have in my life.

    The old teenage part of me stayed there socialising as the physical me marched up the next part of the hill at the front of the school, past the familiar beech hedges to the other entrance. I gently called on the teen me and she was so busy greeting and chatting with others I had to call her again.

    As she reintegrated with me I could really feel the energy wind its way through my central column and take its rightful place.

    On down the hill towards work, past the Castle that has featured quite a lot for me over the last few years – I suddenly remembered my fascination with it during my school photography club days. I carried on down the road under the shelter of the row of Red and White Chestnut trees. ….  Heavy with their conkers now, the identifying flowers long gone. However their energy cleansing and clearing all the old outdated mind set as I counted and acknowledged all 11 of them. I had consciously connected with the larger at either end of the row and felt that sense of familiarity rise, how many times in years gone by had I walked under this very same row of trees?

    I felt cleansed and fresh as I crossed the road heading for work now. It felt like a layer of scaffolding that had surrounded me just fell away. The pain melted and as I walked on 3 tall Nettle popping through the hedge at eye level caught my vision. Like the Nettle I too felt tall and strong. What a reminder of just who was the catalyst for this inner journey.

    I know that I have now completed what I had to do as per my intentions of working with Nettle and that I have healed at a whole different level than before. Is my healing journey over? Heck no I have merely released one of the layers that was holding me back and causing me physical problems. I will no doubt be guided back to some other area in due time.

    This is why I love my work so much, working with the nature realm brings possibilities to shift our whole perspective that can literally be life changing. With Every old layer of buried emotional discomfort that we can remove we allow ourselves to flow forward without being caught in the outdated and unhelpful default patterns that we can find ourselves stuck in.

    When you are ready to do the work it is amazing what can be achieved!

  • Learning to Share

    Holding on too tightly to our gifts and not allowing others to take or receive from us is detrimental to our well-being. Like the tree overly heavy with fruit we become burdened by so much weight.

    When we sit back and don’t actively share with others, what we offer in a way becomes tainted. It becomes tainted by our perceptions of who or what should be our recipient. Who are we to judge who will benefit in some way from our offerings. Who are we to allow others to take what they need at our expense. We need to be clear on what we will or wont offer.

    Keep firm boundaries on that but also actively need to share in order to grow and keep our own energy clear and unburdened. Like wise knowledge must be shared before it is lost in the ether’s forever. However knowledge is an ever evolving thing and holding on too tightly to what we think we know is as harmful as being influenced by what doesn’t serve us. Knowing is relevant in the moment but it evolves as we evolve and it is in a way the stepping stone to new and bigger ideas and projects.

    If we don’t act on what we know how can we expect to move forward? Our knowledge is our personal perception and inner guidance and in sharing it we may trigger something in others that allow a glimmer of light that becomes a catalyst in their learning process.

    Like wise when we read the knowledge of others it can kindle in us an inner knowing that propels us to find out more and increases the validation of our own remembering. We are linked to every aspect of knowing in the universe and it constantly streams through us, becoming aware of the “channels” that speak to us helps us make sense of our present moments and lessons. A bit like our PC systems when we have saturated a level we need to upgrade and are therefore able to link to new programs and channels. Our own energetic system upgrade is dependent on our willingness to put in the work and in our acceptance of what we learn, integrating it into our being and going with the expansive flow.

    What if someone is desperately seeking the link that you have so carefully hidden from outside view ?

    What if in offering the puzzle pieces we have found to others – we ourselves are able to find more puzzle pieces that link us to bigger pictures than we can currently envisage?

    How can you share your gifts with the world – the answer is simple – share what you know and speak of your passions.

    One small step at a time. Look forward to sharing with you, Sally x

  • Lots of words about words

    I have been giving words a lot of thought today, listening to how and what I say and trying to make sense of the power that words have for us. Its been a bit of an interesting one for me to explore.

    I am a wordy person, I like to using words in the written form and I like a good old chat (I have my mum to thank for that – She had a first class degree in long conversations – known fondly in Glasgow as “an awfy blether” or being able to “talk the hind legs off a donkey”). In my work as a therapist I find myself intrigued by the words that people use to describe how they are feeling and have learned that really listening to these words hold keys into what is needed to help them rebalance.

    Words can be a useful tool or a harsh weapon. They can express a feeling or a sentiment, they can comfort and reassure, they can confuse, uplift, inspire and cause deep pain. They are can be enigmatic and at times can be totally elusive.

    How many times have you heard someone say something and been totally inspired and motivated by their words, or been hurt by the biting words from someone, sometimes glib comments said with no malice can be taken like a dagger wound to the heart. It is our perception of those words and the perceived feel of the energy behind them that causes us problems.

    You know that feeling when someone says something really quite harsh but delivers it from a place of love and we are able to hear them but deflect the harshness in favour of learning something either about ourselves or about the person delivering those words.

    Then there are the times when someone says something nice or positive to you but that grating nagging feeling shows up within you, and you know something just doesn’t feel right, the words said are being delivered from a less than positive place in that person. Their negativity may well have absolutely nothing to do with us but we feel it and adopt it as if it was an arrow thrown intentionally. We have no idea why we feel hurt or deflated by these words – as after all they were positive and pleasant – but we are picking up on the energy the person delivering them is dealing with at this time.

    Don’t get me wrong some people give compliments and praise freely. But do so out of some need to be seen as “nice” or “supportive” and really do deliver them in a less than supportive way. That’s when our inner bullshit detector fires up and alerts us to this. Remember this is good as its giving us the heads up not to let that energy into our own energy system too readily.

    If we can detach ourselves and question what we feel then we can save ourselves the confusion and hurt of accepting any form of energy or validity from the words. Noting what their words trigger in us is insightful and gifts us the ability to learn and grow.

    There are 3 essences I tend to use a lot if I find myself in a situation where I am faltering in response to what someone has said to me. Ground Moss for when they trigger hyper emotional responses and it literally feels that I have lost ability to do anything about how I feel.

    Another essence is Red Chestnut, when I get caught in the thought loop of a conversation “post mortem”” and spiral into the “could have” “ should have” and further on into the negative self chatter that leads me to be panicky and feeling like the worst thing that could happen – has actually happened! (This is most definitely not the case – if we were in a worst case scenario we would be too busy coping in fight or flight mode and taking action to even think about anything.)

    The other I find helpful in this situation, and in particular if I know that I am having to be around a person that is prone to acting in a way that takes me to the more negative dwelling side of things is Walnut Moss, it allows me to digest their words and choose wisely before accepting anything energetically from them, it also helps me process my thoughts and compose my own words wisely and saves me from dropping into a triggered knee jerk response to their words.

    One of the hardest things to deal with is when words “fail” us. You know the occasions when someone asks you a question and you just can’t find an answer anywhere, the more you search in your mind for one, the more the panic rises and the more the ability to find the words gets further away.

    Another question that arises from my “word ponder” is Why do we feel the need to fill any silences with words. Those times when all goes quiet and the knot in our stomach builds pushing us into that need to fill the silence with words, often we don’t really want to talk, nor does the other person but we end up filling an awkward silence with meaningless words that in the end make us feel inadequate and stupid and builds that weird energy that is counterproductive when we pick up on the stickiness of how the strained conversation is going.

    That isn’t to say that it is good to strike up a conversation with whoever we meet but to do so when we feel it, rather than when we are merely trying to feel less uncomfortable in the situation we find ourselves in.

    I used to get quite frustrated if someone broke into my silence with mindless chatter. However I do try to be mindful that perhaps the person doing so may have a real need just to feel heard. Often much of our own frustrations come from not feeling heard too! There is a huge difference between listening to someone and actually hearing them. The greatest gift you can give someone to actually listen to them without judgement.

    Our own words also affect us as much if not more than they affect others. If our inner voice is criticising it can render us powerless. In fact our inner critic says way worse things to us than anyone else can – and more regularly! You can learn to tame the critic and be aware of what your mind chatter is telling you. It can be your greatest enemy or your finest coach so choose those words in thought wisely.

    Don’t believe everything your inner voice says to you and this again comes down to the question everything. If its your coach heed its wise words and if its your critic question what it is that it is trying to prevent you from doing. Often its coming from the centre of our fears and in trying to protect us from being disappointed it keeps  us from the optimism of trying.

    Not only what you say, but how you say it has a big impact on how we are received by others. So choose wisely and always think before you share your words with others.

    In this era of technology it is a totally different ball game as although the energy behind a text or email can be felt on some level, there is a complexity that also brings our state of mind when reading the messages into  a contributing factor to how we presume the words are meant. Trying to explore further into that topic was a little too much for my brain to handle today !

    So I shall leave you with some more words…. Be as kind to yourself as you would be to others especially when it comes to self talk. …

    My gratitude to you if you have got this far – Thank you for reading my words I hope they give you food for thought!