Miracle Mindset, Ayurvedic Wisdom and Mountain Tops
Miracle Mindset
On 6/6 this year, my parents had been married for 51 years. They were on holiday climbing a wee mountain to celebrate. I can’t say I wasn’t enjoying the peace :-D (I live beside and work with my parents currently and as wonderful as they are it was a nice wee bit of rest-bite while I enjoyed the company of Jura, their cocka-poo). On that morning I had a particularly self-indulgent morning practice of Qi Gong, deep meditation, mantra and prayer. I’ve been using mantras to invoke the qualities of Ganesha (I’ve blogged about him before) and Jupiter (benevolence and abundance) recently after receiving guidance from a Vedic astrologer last year I’ll get back to that later. I recently vlogged about a happy client who, after a particularly transformative year was able to pay off her mortgage totally unexpectedly, that seemed like a miracle to me. It got me thinking of the other wee miracles I’d witnessed in recent months. Another close friend had paid off his mortgage (he’d certainly felt the benefit of my vibes); and a friend and client had fallen pregnant after months of trying after attending particularly relaxing yoga/coaching sessions. Ok universe, if these people can experience miracles and if they are in any way affected by the techniques I teach or my words of wisdom, let’s be having some miracles please. They had felt a little few and far between in my own life (see Saturn transit below). And so I included ‘I’m experiencing miracles in my own life and the lives of my family each day’ as a heart felt affirmation that morning, for about a year before I’d only been saying ‘I’m experiencing miracles each day’… they say you have to be specific !!
After firing off a wee message of unconditional love to said old friend a few hours later, I received a message from another good friend inviting me to a call to discuss how to bring more ‘heart into the pharma and medical establishment’, oh and they might be looking for a fully funded PhD student. Whaaaat. I’d just been chatting to my niece about doing a PhD but couldn’t find any scientific topics to whet my interest after a quick search online. I’d also just recently put it out to the LinkedIn world that I had time available for some research work specifically focusing on vagal tone to augment response to treatment to combine my experience in research and the last few years in yoga and heart-centred coaching (looking to supplement my income while I worked toward helping my parents business). I couldn’t believe the opportunity that was presenting. Sure enough, shortly thereafter, a woodpecker landed on my bird-feeder and stayed for a loooong time. ‘Opportunity beckons, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings’ so said spirit-animal.com, you’re not kidding. A couple of nights later I was invited out to dinner at a Michelin star restaurant to discuss the opportunity with the supervising Professor (another kindred spirit) and my good pal where all three of us there experienced what can only be described as an intense meeting of minds, hearts and souls… after a few exquisite wines, lol.
Now a PhD in some seemingly absurd topic might not seem like a miracle to you, but to me it fit the bill for exactly what I was looking for to merge my experience and bring in some cash to help the bills. It’s not all set in stone as yet, but it sure as hell is what I’m now working towards and it’s also given me a kick up the backside to get things sorted for my parents 😊.
The Miracle Mindset Formula:
1. Raise your vibration using whatever techniques you have available (I have many if you need more)
2. Put your intention out into the world – where are you limiting yourself? I had been for months thinking that I only had to help others and if I had to be skint then fair enough, I had also totally blocked myself off from my old life in research thinking ‘I could NEVER go back there’… what if I could, but just as my true-self. Thank-you to my old friend that helped shift that mindset. Maybe it’s emotionally you’re selling yourself short, as he and many many others tend to. We are actually worth everything we desire, only programming tells us otherwise.
3. Know you worth – declare your worth !, yes it feels strange speaking out loud but our spoken words hold vibrational energy (be careful of the words you are speaking). Ask and the door shall be opened unto you…
4. Embody divine love, share this wherever you feel called, this is your super-power and this will get you through rivers deep and mountains high. Warning: It might take some life-lessons to let go of conditional-love.
5. Release attachment and get on with your day, keep the knowing all good things are transpiring and… dance (I’m sure it helps 😉)
Ayurveda
Fast forward a few weeks and I had the privilege to study and spend some time with Richard Powell, Ayurvedic Practitioner and Vedic Astrologer. Ayurveda translates crudely as ‘the science of life’. But oh my, as a (now quite a few years ago) life science graduate, does Ayurveda hold so much more magic or what. Ayu means ‘dharma’ which can be said to be our ‘divine purpose in life through righteous action’, and now more than ever does the world need the science of Ayurveda for it’s inhabitants to become aware of their divine purpose in order to restore harmony on our planet through this ancient wisdom. (Ancient being at least 4500 years old).
I gratefully agreed to be Richard’s guide on his first Scottish mountain and we took to the North Goat Fell ridge to embrace the (hot!) Scottish elements, find inspiration and chat Ayurveda, I couldn’t keep the pearls of wisdom to myself so here is the Ayurvedic magic I picked up:
The heart is considered to be the seat of consciousness and according to the Ayurveda texts, no healing can occur unless the Ayurveda ‘healer’ connects to the patient’s heart (a little tricky in our modern health care system of now only 7 minutes per patient at a standard GP surgery). A healthy person is said to have balanced tissues, balanced digestive functioning, balanced doshas (see below) and is said to be ‘sitting in themselves’. In other-words they are comfortable and relaxed as their own authentic self in their own skin (I could probably count less than 10 healthy people I know based on this last point alone!).
The Doshas:
Everything in the natural world is made up of qualities of the five elements (Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth). We all exhibit a primary, secondary and tertiary dosha and can find balance through life when we hold this wisdom.
Vata: Air/Ether – dry, light, cold, fast, intuitive, flakey, quick-witted, worry, anxiety, forgetful, creative –needs ‘nurturing’
Pitta: Fire/Water - hot, light, goal oriented, competitive, inflammation, intelligent, love of knowledge, oily – needs ‘to surrender’
Kapha: Water/Earth - slow, heavy, strong, patient, persistent, loyal, resilient, sticky, unconditional love, grounded, cuddly - needs ‘invigorating’
When we think of our doshas or the qualities of elements that consist of our make up: ‘like increases like, and opposite heals’… this makes me think of the healing qualities of a yin/yang relationship too.
Read the descriptions above and what dosha do you most strongly resonate with? Chances are you’ll pick the dosha you think you are, but there will be a strong dosha of who you are actually in the process of discovering. For me, I would have always thought I was predominantly Kapha – pretty cuddly, can be lazy, puts on weight very easily and yes fairly strong, patient and resilient ! Turns out, I’m predominantly Pitta, well I guess I can be hot-headed when I need to be, yes I do push myself, I certainly love knowledge and am fairly goal oriented. My new plan is to have a more invigorating morning routine finishing with a calming meditation which will allow me to surrender more easily into the day balancing my pitta and kapha. There’s also a whole host of dietary advice.
Issues arise when intelligence of the body is thrown off – and that’s where we find the dosha. And what throws off the intelligence? The dosha. So back to this ‘like increases like’, if we are predominantly kapha we love kapha foods like carbs, cheese and sweets and we don’t really like to exert ourselves. Or if we’re pitta, we love to push ourselves to the max, eat spicy food and take on the world. Or if we’re vata we’re more likely to be vegan, over-think to the point of worry and headaches and never sit-still. Sound familiar? All a case of like increasing/aggravating like.
In Ayurvedic medicine, pathology is assessed by considering the dosha accumulating, being provoked, being aggravated, overflowing, spreading and lodging in a defective or weak space (perhaps due to past trauma or genetic susceptibility). For example when we consider cancer, increased pitta may cause acidity to build in the body to the point where it lodges as inflammation at a place of weakness, however kapha dosha is also out of balance to cause the continual growth of the tumour. The trick with Ayurvedic awareness is maintaining our balance so as not to experience the disharmonious body’s lack of intelligence. We all have a unique dosha blue-print to work with.
Mountain Tops
As we go through life, we all face tests of will. We all are faced with our ‘dharma’ and many bury their heads in the sand or even run for the hills in the opposite direction. Richard told me his Vedic astrologer teacher (a very precise form of eastern astrology) says ‘there is no such thing as free will, only free won’t’. Essentially, we’re only either in resistance, or we’re able to go with where the river of life is flowing. A concept the ego mind dis-likes. Along our walk, we chatted about the beauty of ‘false summits’ and in realising that life was probably a never-ending trail of false summits that we had to learn to appreciate, especially the soul-growth and lessons we acquire along the way, particularly when it comes to non-attachment of our favourite things or people…
When it comes to the astrology of the current time, there’s a fairly rare alignment with Saturn, the lord of karma, time, structure and Pluto, transformation, secrets and the underworld for the next few months and into 2020. We’re all feeling the effects of this ‘karma’ the law of cause and effect, in some area of our lives. The trick will be to let it transform us for the highest good. Turns out, I personally have a lovely 7 year transit of Saturn around my moon, which I’m only 2.5 years into. When it comes to austerity… Saturn is King which certainly feels right when it comes to my love-life and money. However, I’ve come to the conclusion to get through the next 4.5 years more easily (thankfully it eases off for the last 2.5) I’ll think of the plus points and use this austerity to balance the doshas, implement some solid, secure structures when it comes to routine, diet and exercise and face the family karma with the miracle mind-set of a warrioress. Hopefully, when I get to the other side, I’ll be able to see how the seemingly impossible became possible and help a few others with similar hurdles. Imagine if we all could zoom out higher on the challenges we all face with others in life, we can’t really begin to comprehend how another person experiences their karma, challenges or burdens. By meeting others in a place of non-judgement, compassion and care and understand that everyone has lessons to learn and dharma to dance with… I know we can bring about a few further miracles along the way and see the divinity in all throughout the process... including the false summits. Let's make that our intention as we move into this week's new moon total solar eclipse and the transformational energies available to us all to re-align with our true north.
Thankfully we did reach the true summit of Goat Fell, after a particularly Kapha/Pitta route I had planned out and the view was as stunning as always on a sunny Thursday in Scotland.
With love, as my secret weapon,
Heather