This is what is known as a mild awakening experience. It’s a step towards a feeling of oneness and connection with everything.

There are three stages of awakening. The first is what I am describing, simply being engaged with your environment. The second is when the world becomes really sharp; you are in a state of ‘mindfulness’. As you witness what’s around you, you are in the moment in a kind of state of ‘being in love’ with everything. The final stage, is when you lose track of yourself, you feel at one with everything. You have a sense of divine love coursing through you, connecting you to everything that is. You are the universal energy and it is you. I’m unlikely to be feeling the latter in the middle of Kings Cross station, but why not?

I have been feeling the latter a lot in the past few weeks. I have been in the privileged position of being in some of the most beautiful nature in the world, surrounded by mountains in Pirque in Chile. Time slipped by without me noticing, I watched the sun setting most evenings and felt as if I was at one with the reddening sky. Animals reacted to me defiantly lizards approached my hands without fear. I couldn’t see where I ended and everything else began. There was no chicken or egg, everything was one. Timeless.

I have been doing lots of research on awakening experiences and the link between them and intuition for my next book. It seems that most awakenings happen when in nature. It’s easy to understand why, as often when we are in nature we slow down, when in the city it is often impossible to take great notice of where you are simply from the volume of fast moving bodies that surround you.

Having stepped out of the UK for a few weeks, you get that sense of being disconnected from your own culture. You become the observer for a while, as your own vibration has changed. I have slowed down and I am vibrating more in frequency with the Chilean culture and the nature I was in. We all know this feeling; a person from the country can spot someone from the city simply due to the speed their energy is vibrating at. It takes us a while to as we say ‘unwind’.

Having lived in London for twenty years and only in the past year moved back to the country, I have noticed how ‘asleep’ London feels. But never more so than this morning, the very heart of most of the people I saw seemed closed. The light in the eyes that normally burns so brightly was out. When I lived in London, getting out into the country seemed like such a hassle. London has an M25 moat running around it and if you want to get out by public transport, you need to book in advance to make it affordable. So often, unless you have purpose, you don’t bother leaving and if you have purpose, you’re too busy to be spending time needed in nature to feel it. I believe that you have to be out in the trees, the mountains and the water, to reconnect with yourself, life and with the universal energy. You just need to be able to really see the sky; the expanse of that itself can cause an awakening experience.

In all of this I had a big but simple realisation this morning; I have ended up furious every time I have had to travel in London with my Dog. I couldn’t understand how people could look at her, and yet not see her and almost step on her. Some people react in the ‘oh how cute a Dog’ way, but to most she is simply invisible. Trying to get across London with her is stressful. I now understand that she is part of nature, and when you are asleep to life, you can’t see nature. Within nature is all the most beauty that can make you feel connected with life. If you are unconnected to this nature you don’t see beauty. No wonder people jump in front of tube trains. I believe that being disconnected causes the kind of ‘asleep’ that can lead to coma!

I’m not against the city, I miss living in London in many ways, so I am not being a reformed ‘smoker’ here, nagging everyone else to give up. What I am doing I hope is giving a reminder from my position of privilege having just come back from Chile, to remind you to take the time to connect with who you are and expand that into the world around you. Awaking experience ‘light’ can happen in London. I remember sitting on the grass in Leicester Square when I worked for Haagen Dazs, feeling completely in love with everything, people walking past me smiled at me and I felt joyous. Well, ok, this could have been caused by a sugar rush, I ate a lot of ice-cream at the time.

When we don’t see nature we end up not being able to see ourselves. This is why when you are surrounded by people in the city, you can feel so alone. As humans, we really do stop being able to see each other. We don’t see that the old, pregnant or disabled need a seat. We don’t move out of the way when we are blocking the pavement.

We become numb to life. Awakening isn’t just about some spiritual enlightenment or a shift of consciousness, it’s about choosing life and being alive in that choice.

Here it is in summary: The mind-body-spirit/self-development industry seems to be divided into two main camps. “You can be, do or have anything you want in life. My teachings assist you.” and “You may not get what you think you want in life, but you will discover who you are and what is possible. The results may exceed anything you’ve ever dreamed of.”

My teaching and consultations fall into the latter category. I believe in spiritual breakthrough rather than spiritual bypass. However the former is the one that puts the most ‘bums on seats’ at events and what many clients want. Let’s face it, working on yourself and confronting your ego is no easy task. Most people would love to find a very simple solution to avoid pain. But pain is a natural part of life; it is a growth tool, and we need to stop and reflect; we need to feel, otherwise, what is life all about?

We all get stuck from time to time, so going to classes in self-development, reading books, or consulting someone for help is advisable. However I have discovered that many teachings in life-coaching models encourage speakers and the people you consult for help to ‘Poke your pain’. To poke a client’s or audience’s pain, basically means to make them feel terrible about themselves or their situation, and then offer them a relatively easy solution. It normally involves parting with money. But when a person is in pain they will do anything to get out of pain and avoid future pain. Practitioners may charge large amounts of money, as the perception is the more you pay the better the results of the work. This often leaves the person in debt with no change in situation.

I have to say it does make me really frustrated. Getting what you want is only possible when you really think about why you want it. Problems cannot be bypassed if you want long term sustainable change.

It’s easy to sell bread to the starving, but teach them to bake the bread themselves and they never go hungry. Terrible business plan, but surely the art of helping people grow is to give them the fertile soil to do it themselves.

‘Put downs’ are very different; they take power and positive energy away rather than giving positivity. Often this change of intention is down to fear. A person can fear losing control; it can even be caused because they like the person. I remember my grandmother telling me that the boys who push you in the playground ‘like’ you. I thought that was ridicules at the time, but I can see her point now. Women often use words to test men, see how strong they are or how committed they are. This comes from choosing a man as a father for a future father or protection the family from other tribes.

Banter through flirtation between a man and a woman can easily shift into put downs. Masculine energy, which can reside in a man or a woman, tends to be competitive. The feminine energy likes a sense of fullness and attention. The feminine will banter in order to feel full attention, but if this becomes competition based then the male energy will become competitive and then the intention shifts into put downs.

Even though the words are the same the energy is different. You might not realise at first, but these comments become small piranha bites out of your self-esteem.

The best conversations are the ones that make you feel affirmed. We don’t need people to always agree with us, as many of us learn through conversation. Kindness needs to be the back bone for all human interaction, sadly it’s often competition that becomes the back bone. Kindness bends, moves and gives, like our own spin; competition is rigid, and more likely to break a connection.  We do need to take responsibility for our emotional triggers, our intention and the very energy we bring into a room, let alone into a friendship or someone’s heart.

This is the shift of consciousness; we knew it was coming for a long time. I first heard about this about fifteen years ago; it seemed so far away. It was described as though it was an apocalyptic disaster.  Many of the things they said would happen are happening, but I thought years ago that the sky would turn red and all manner of terrible things would happen in one go. I’m thankful thus far that this isn’t the case.

I have also been seeing number patterns, for example seeing 11.11 on the clock, or in other random ways. I know many others have had this experience, and I have never normally been someone who has a belief in dates and being bitterly disappointed that ‘two thousand zero zero…party over…whoops – out of time’ didn’t happen as Prince and Nostradamus had promised. However I do believe in the power of numbers: maths to be exact. I hated maths at school and ended ungraded in my maths exam. So when I had maths as a part of my Degree I thought I was done for. However I now love numbers! The degree module was maths as archetypes in nature and art. I found maths is the basic structure of everything in the universe. So when we come across dates such as 11/11/11 there is an energy to those numbers. All over the world people will be writing those numbers. The date on a newspapers, when writing cheques, everywhere. In Chinese writing the figures look like symbolic pictures of what the words mean. If we look at 11; it looks like two pillars next to each other, the coming together of two things, perhaps two people. It is very symbolic of unity.

I believe in a collective consciousness also known as a morphic field; that we are all linked at a level of consciousness. Having so many people writing a symbol of unity on the same day is rather powerful. You might like to look at where you would like unity in your own life, or wish for unity in parts of the world that so desperately need a coming together. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks, it is sure to be a very powerful time for change.

We keep hearing that we are at a point of economic collapse; I personally believe that things are much worse than we are being lead to believe. But what do I mean by worse? I’m really looking from a perspective of good and bad based on the social structure that we have become used to, a structure that has resulted in a global unhappiness. I am excited to see what is possible when we start to value people over an unsustainable progression that leaves too many people suffering. I am however scared, because people are struggling through this change. It’s hard to let go of everything you believed in. Fear is a part of it, its right to fear, but it’s choosing love in the face of fear that counts. There is such a big clearing happening, you have to know its ok to let it go.

I have been delighted to see so many positive comments on facebook. Amazed to see all the happenings on Wall Street and surprised that we haven’t seen much about it in the UK news. People are rising up and staying ‘NO’ when in Britain it used be hard to get anyone to vote. We are starting to care for our old people after years of dropping them like trash because they didn’t have value in a commercial based society. I could list so many great things I am witnessing, but what I will stay, is we are finally waking up to what really matters: Love, pure and simple love. Now there can’t really be anything to fear in that can there J

I have a love of driving trucks from working with Stage electrics; I was driving the van down Princess Street, when something remarkable happened. I turned to smile at my boyfriend, who was filming the streets we drove down. A bunch of kids were standing on a corner about to throw an egg at the van. The tall one with the egg caught my smile and smiled back. The whole scene must have taken a moment at the speed I used to drive, but it seemed to last for ever. I was in a state of total completeness. Everything seemed full and alive. The repercussions of the feeling lasted a few days, even the reluctant boyfriend became engaged with me as a let go of our impending separation. I felt complete.

I know I had these awakened moments throughout my life. This wasn’t the first one, but it’s one I remember the most. An awakened moment is simply a heightened state of consciousness. I have used all kinds of methods to get to these places of expanded awareness: travel, sex, drugs, live music, lighting, dancing, day dreaming, meditation, sailing, walking, singing, dangerous sports, gazing endlessly at hot air balloons . All of these things work, but the fix is always over too soon. I have found now I can get to heightened states with intuition and curiosity, it comes with how I look and listen to my moment. I can make it happen at any time, of course not to the dizzy heights of an orgasm, my name’s not Sally. But I can feel that awakening where I am not separate from all that there is. We become the space in between the words and the words themselves and the breath. It’s nice to remember that even when life makes it difficult to be there, I can get back there, but just remembering awakening exists.

I have decided not to have a mid-life crises and in fact not to try and convince myself that I am any age. I decide to be ageless, I am proud of my life experience, but I don’t think time is purely linear. Time is a construct of the mind. Tell a young woman she has cancer and watch the worry make her age before your eyes. Staying young is about thinking young. It’s about being curious about the world, looking at the tops of trees and not worrying about the cracks in the pavement.

Everyone wants to be surrounded by people who love them at a milestone age; you want to feel achieved in some aspect of your life. For me I would like to reflect not upon what I have, but on what I gave. If you can reach midlife having given more than you took, and having made the world a more loving place, then you have earned your entry into another 50 years of health and happiness.

As people it is possible for us to become addicted to anything that makes us feel better. This could be from a basic sugar rush or buying something new, right the way through to drugs and alcohol. We can even become addicted to our spiritual beliefs, making us believe that we are having a better and more righteous life than others.

We unknowingly fall in and out of addictions throughout our life time.

The cause of this ‘need’ for addiction comes from the different experiences of our day-today lives.

Take a simple walk through any tube station in London and you will have instructions barked at us over the tannoy system: ‘Mind the gap’. ‘Do not leave your bags unattended at this time of heightened security…’

None of us really like being told what to do. You then see faces of your fellow commuters, but never the eyes, some with there nose deep into a free paper giving them more things to worry about, more instructions.

Then from the corner of your eye you catch a smiling face, she’s holding a bottle of perfume, she has perfect hair and perfect make up; another poster letting you know that the way to happiness is what you own and not who you are, even the music that we listen to speaks of it ‘I can’t live, if living is without you.’

The television will all tell you how to lead a perfect life and bring down anyone in the media for even having a patch of cellulite.

All this drives us into the masculine energy, meaning the masculine – feminine energies becomes out of balance.

Masculine and feminine or male and female energy has little to do with being a man or a woman.

The masculine energy is in line with the logic of the left brain. It brings a vibration linked with ‘Doing, fixing, sorting and achieving’. The feminine energy brings a vibration of ‘passive, stillness, reserving and being’.

When we feel like we are lacking in our life we turn to the masculine energy, we feel there is something that needs to be fixed. Something out side of ourselves,

Addiction, finds itself in the masculine energy. If we feel that we are not enough, we look for something to make us feel better.

The ego also resonates better with that masculine energy. It is the ego that creates our fear. This is nothing new, if you weren’t good enough in cave man times you would be kicked out of the tribe, probably meaning death. The ego allows us to put ourselves first, so we make sure we are safe for food and shelter. We fear not being good enough, now today as we always did, though now we fear not having the material assistance we are offered day in day out.

When you break your fear, you break your addictions.

Drug addicts are often very sensitive people who can see the world for what it is. They’ve fallen down a gap between reality and our common perception of it, unsurprisingly not feeling they fit in with the world. The drugs they are attracted to will also represent the imbalance in there own masculine and famine energy.

Looking at Illegal drugs we see drugs are linked to be ‘uppers’ which make you feel high, happy and able or ‘downers’ which make you feel numb or distant.

Hash, heroin, Ketomin, Valium are downer drugs, but also famine energy (passive, stillness, reserving and being)

Coke, ecstasy, speed, crack are upper drugs but also masculine energy

(Doing, fixing, sorting and achieving)

Rebalancing the energy lacking or finding other ways to bring the energy in can really help fight addiction.

A friend of mine smocked hash everyday because he didn’t like himself when he was aggressive or male dominate. He took it as it brought out his famine side which he much preferred. He was an artist and he felt that the creative energy of the right female side of the brain was helping him.

When breaking addiction you must understand that you are ‘not your thoughts’. You are the thinker of your thoughts. Many people feel that they are linked to there addiction because they can hardly think of anything else but the things they crave most. The thinker has the ability to control those thoughts.

The other part of us is the ‘awareness’. You might know of times in your life where you have been depressed, or panicked. There is a part of you that is aware that you are panicking or depressed. The awareness isn’t panicking. The awareness is not depressed. A good practice is to log in with that aspect. This is what people who study meditation try to be, in this level of awareness. Once you have found it, you can’t loose the awareness. Just knowing it is there, and it is always still and calm, brings a serenity to even the hardest situations.

The awareness is never addicted.

The key to an addiction free life, is to balance your male and female energy, have a tamed ego, and try to face all fear head on, so fear never becomes the theme by which you resonate. Always allow the light vibration of love be the guiding force.

It’s so easy to see how the external world needs you, and allow that to override what you need yourself. In my case it’s my clients and students that get the best part of my attention. For you it might be people who rely on you for their well-being, and you put their needs over your own. It’s also hard to actually know what you own needs are, because to look inside yourself is often like trying to see the dark side of the moon.  The outside needs of those around you seem so bright and urgent, that they can push your own needs into the shadows.

For a long time I didn’t fully understand what taking care of yourself really meant. I thought it was a good night’s sleep, some exercise, eating well and taking some time out. All of those things are true and although they go some way to keeping you in balance, they don’t go the whole way. Often when we keep a lot on our plate, we don’t leave room for the things that come out of the blue that life can throw in our direction. These things can tip us out of balance; we might not even know we have tipped. We might just find ourselves irritated with our partner for no good reason, snapping at the kids or over reacting at a work colleague. These things happen when we are in a place of overwhelm, how we get there is by not looking after ourselves. Looking after ourselves isn’t just the external basics, it’s in our psychology.

When you are your normal self you are in balance with your personality. A balanced personality is a mix of awareness of the current moment and engagement with that moment. The best of you is somewhere in the middle of a fully functioning self. Being tipped out of that alignment can come from a lack of self-understanding. Looking after yourself is knowing the cause of the tipping points in your personality. It could be something as simple as being cold, hungry or tired. It might be not enough alone time, or too much. Knowing what pushes your buttons means that you can look after yourself by not pushing yourself too hard.

In our society we are focused on growth, and feel that growth should be the normal reality of all people. But even the earth itself goes into winter – there is a natural time of stillness, calm and renewal that comes from that winter. Yet we seem programmed to believe that we must keep going and growing as individuals and as a society; then we are shocked when the balance is tipped and something crazy happens. Maybe if a bit of inner reflection time was acceptable, our cities would be happy places and less aggressive.

Usually when I finish seeing clients in Covent Garden, I take a train from Paddington back to Bristol. I fight my way through the shoppers on to the tube, with a wheelie bag, trying hard to protect my small dog who is usually with me. By the time I get to Paddington I usually feel tipped over the edge by the public. So in the greater scheme, I have spent all day healing and loving people in my appointments, yet in the 45 minute trip across town my exhaustion and stress has sent out a huge volume of dagger eyes and frustration to complete strangers.  So not just my balance, but the balance of those around me has been affected.

This Saturday, I got a taxi.  £15.00 well spent, and the world is now a better place because of it; as we are all responsible for our own balance and the energy we give out to the world because of our balance, or lack of it.  Looking after yourself is about looking after the world. We don’t realise the knock on effect of our actions, dagger eyes, frustrated sighs and irritated tuts, they all go into making the world hit its own tipping point, making it a darker place for us all to live. Living in balance and looking after yourself, isn’t just a gift you give to yourself it’s one that gets passed onto everyone you come into connection with.

Look after yourself, because were ALL worth it.

If this blog has made you think of ways in which you could look after yourself better I’d like to recommend some friends of mine who are well-being practitioners. Of course there is me! But here are a few other people you might like to consider:

London –  Massage and acupuncture www.tuinamassageandacupuncture.com

London – Who you are and your body  http://www.loveisinyou.com/

Bristol – The food you eat http://www.enhancenutrition.co.uk/

London – The little bits of self-love you buy http://www.buddhaonabicycle.com/

I’m a terribly curious person. I have watched in fascination at how the phone hacking case is unfolding. I am hoping that it is a welcome kick up the bum to those who believe that you can do what ever you like in the name of making money. It’s sad that the people we give our power to: journalists, the police, and the government have all let us down. Perhaps what is rising is power to the people and as I always say, trust your intuition over what you are told. I bet Boris Johnson is wishing he had done just that.

I believe we are witnessing a massive shift in the ways we have been doing business up to this point. Not just in the UK, but a global shift of prospective. Its a very exciting time for those of us who can ride the waves of change, and rather scary for those who feel the need to hold on to old values.

Last week I had dinner with some wonderful men who are looking to change the world of business. One of them was Roger Steare known as ‘The Corporate Philosopher’. http://www.ethicability.org and http://www.rogersteare.com/

Roger is writing a book “The Power of Love in BUSINESS. How to get your humanity to work”. For the book he is looking for story’s of when business has put love before profit. If you have any tales to share please click the link above which will show you more information and contact details for Roger. Much of the profit from the book is going to charity. I think its a wonderful project.

As consumers we have more power than we realise, maybe right now we are about to start to see it in action. Bx