I feels like I had asked the heavens to enable me to learn to slow down, be calm and mindful periodically over the last five years or so, but it never really happened for me until recently. Life always seemed to be something I either had to ‘get through’ or struggle to obtain. To survive almost! Of course this fed an overactive mind and a tendency for anxiety.

 Beneath all this was an undercurrent of knowing that the lesson would come when the student was ready, even though it perhaps was not an overly conscious thought on my part. Just faith you might say.

Last year after several months of pain within my arms and hands, I was finally diagnosed with severe cubital tunnel syndrome symptoms and told to stop almost 90% of my holistic therapies. No more massage, no more reflexology. Even facials I wasn’t allowed to do! They would all exacerbate my condition which had no hope of healing naturally without these measures. I was also given some rather tasteful splints to wear every night to keep my arms completely straight and told to avoid bending the arm, using the arms repetitively, leaning on my arms and elbows and weight bearing. My reasonably successful ten year business was slowly collapsing around me and life becoming more complex in many respects. Pain was becoming a big factor in my life as well and my husband was even brushing my teeth when my arms throbbed so badly I couldn’t cope to do it myself!

That left my reiki teaching, reiki healing, and my newly-stepped-into psychic mediumship readings remaining. All the bits that I had previously kept small due to fear and my own insecurities were all I had left! My comfort zone of holistic healing was gone and I had to enter unchartered territory. I knew that my ego had plenty to say about this, but I had just overcome 4.5 years of post concussion difficulty-some might call misery- and I had learnt to be humbled by the journey that the egoic suffering could bring.

I knew that this journey was likely similar in nature, bringing about whatever shift in my consciousness was needed for the evolution of my soul. I had no notion of what I could be learning throughout this phase of my life, only that I could trust that process the universe was bringing. I believed this very deeply-I didn’t have to like it to accept it! I think that is where my mindfulness journey truly started. With the concussion that had me flat on my back in the dark for months and with this new condition and a life with pain and limitation. 

Months on, and an enrollment in a mindful coaching course later, coupled with much experience listening to the melodic voice of Echkart Tolle and I’m even more aware, reflectively, of my learning journey with mindfulness. Mindfulness has enabled me to ‘ride the wave of life’ far more effectively. To not become too lost in the egoic state of lack or become too focused on what I can or can’t do. To avoid the ‘lack’, ‘limited’ or ‘deficient’ label my mind wishes to use for me. My mindfulness has enabled me to face the prospect of my disability and inability to pick up a pen and write a sentence, with reasonable degree of grace. When the wave of bitterness looms, I’m able to breathe and witness the thoughts that that feeling elicited. To become the awareness and the watcher of them. Not to imbibe them. Not to BE them.

Mindfulness has enabled me to touch base with my body in ways I had never even previously had the notion to do. To connect to breath and life and being. I now put down my phone to eat. I now smile and bask in nature on walks. I now meditate daily, even if it’s on the click and clack of the keys as a type. Noticing. Listening. Being aware.  I have found my freedom in this. Freedom from the mental construct of what my life should look like, and a new found excitement in what it will become. But mindfulness is teaching me to not attach myself to how it’ll look, but to sit calmly in the now and in every given moment as it presents itself. 

I’d like to take this opportunity to emphasise that I’m no mindfulness guru however, and this is a journey all of itself! But I notice now where I’ve mentally wandered, and I don’t judge it anymore. I don’t judge myself for my own humanity any more than I try not to judge another for theirs. Mindfulness is beginning to stop me in my reactions to old triggers and I’m so much calmer as an individual. 

Despite needing two surgeries and living with a lot of pain and limited movements, I’d say I was the happiest of my life. When people ask me how I am, I’ll often say “My arms aren’t good but I’m very good in myself.” And that’s the absolute truth. I’m living with pain and limitation but I actually feel ok with that. Where did that come from?! Mindfulness!

You could say mindfulness has taught me everything. Mindfulness IS teaching me everything. It is the very thing I always wanted to know and didn’t know. The very tool I needed to use but couldn’t find. This is the very thing I need to use to teach others. Not only will it be assimilated into my EFT practice https://simplysoulfulawakenings.co.uk/eft/ but my workshops and teaching.

https://simplysoulfulawakenings.co.uk/courses/

It will form the foundation of my coaching-it already is, as I focus so much of my time with clients now on body awareness and conscious breathing! It’s already happening! It is becoming who I am. Mindfulness has connected me with my soul and it’s now my job to carry it forward. Min

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions” Oliver Wendell Holmes jr