Where are you on your path? Probably exactly where you need to be!
If you ever thought that weird things have happened in your life, think again. 2020 has brought about some of the weirdest, most awful, complicated, frightening moments. Yet it has also brought with it some new ways of thinking, new ways of working, new ways of communicating... new ways of being.
I started writing this on Monday of the second week of 'lockdown' and I wrote that I felt sure that for most of us, we are part way through the weirdest time of our lives, with no real idea of when normality would resume, or what normality would look like when it did resume. That was probably the end of March.
I've tried writing it again, several times, and it's taken me a whole load of ups, downs, round and arounds to properly come back to it, and we are now headed for the end of May!
For many, if not most of us, normality is still a distant memory, and we are still very much in the thick of what the new normal looks like to us.
We live in the digital world, where information is freely and quickly availale via the internet, but this can be both really helpful and potentially really dangerous to our mental health.
The Government released its new guidelines a couple of weeks ago, about beginning to ease the lockdown, and of course that threw the entire country into a state of disarray, because the guidelines meant different things to different people. This is when our mental health can be challenged. Our minds are comfortable with familiarity - even if that familiarity is bad for us (think about people who smoke, for example, they know it's bad for them, yet they still do it, because it's a habit; it's familiar). That same part of our mind that clings to familiarity (because it gives us security) fears change. It fears the unknown, as that often leads to a feeling of insecurity.
Because we cling to familiarity, and because we live in a digital world, when things start to worry us, we start Googling, and we find a whole load of information on the internet that fuels those worries, which in turn can lead to anxiety, so we start Googling the symptoms of that, and soon realise that we have some, if not all of them, and so we Google some other symptoms we're noticing, and before long, we've self-diagnosed an illness we don't have and the tiny spark of worry has turned into a raging inferno of anxiety. That is how unhelpful the internet can be. The internet gives self-proclaimed experts a much louder voice than they've ever had before, and it becomes difficult to separate the truth from the ramblings of the keyboard warrior.
Now, if you know me, or read my last blog post or follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I'm pretty heavily into the sun, moon and stars, but little did I expect, when Saturn, Mercury and Pluto aligned in Capricorn on 12th January 2020 that the changes that were on the cards would be so massive! I knew that it meant there would likely be big changes across the world, and that it was all about authority and power, but I certainly didn't expect a global pandemic.
It's also interesting (to me, anyway) that the first five times I sat down to write this, it was like pushing water uphill, which is never any fun, yet the sun is now in Gemini, which is the planet of communication, and I've felt the urge to start writing it again. I've allowed it to flow, and here we are! Also interestingly, when I wrote my last blog post, the Full Moon was in Gemini, also all about communicating.
Over the course of the last few New Moons, I've been manifesting greater communication with the world. Essentially, bringing help and healing to more people that need it, and during lockdown, I've opened up my therapy practice online (it's always been online, but this forced me to really push it, as I couldn't see clients face to face in clinic) and I'm now practicing Hypnotherapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling with clients via Zoom, Skype and telephone all over the world.
The other thing I've done is created a weekly online guided meditation session, via Zoom, which is open to everyone. Presenting to groups has been something I've wanted to do for a long time, and it hasn't happened, but lockdown has enabled that for me. It means that (providing your time zone allows it) you can join the guided meditation from the comfort of your own space, which means you can stay in your pyjamas if you wish, and enjoy some inner focus and some stillness.
I've now taken these guided meditation sessions into the studio, and I teach from StayWell Health in Derby. We use the sessions to follow the phases of the Moon to bring clarity, focus and healing. You can join in person or via Zoom, and book directly with StayWell Health where you'll find me on a Friday at 7pm. I'll look forward to guiding you Moonwards...
