Transformation

Easy Spring Equinox Ritual

Spring Equinox is here and it is a time of releasing and sloughing off the heavier winter energy and creating space and welcoming in the energy of Spring, new growth, rebirth, rejuvenation and refocus.

To help us really move into this energy of creation, growth and manifestation I have created a guided visualisation.

I always mark this day, as my body is literally gagging for the sun to come back and the snow to go. Living where I do, there is often still snow on the ground, so planting outside is not an option, but there is an alternative. For example I love good food, and I use herbs and flowers in my food, but with it being the end of winter time – there aren’t any to be found. So I create it with an intention and some magic. How? Easy….. Let’s go play…… We are going to plant some seeds and the supply list is at the bottom.

Put on some nice music, music that makes you feel good. Could be classical, hip hop, pop, blues or jazz – anything that makes your hips want to shimmy or a smile come to your face. Then take some time to light a candle and offer up a blessing, when I do this I always say “For hearth, home, happiness, health, clarity and abundance.”

With the music playing take a moment to focus on the lit candle. As you watch the fluttering flame and let the music move through you, what are your heart and soul desires? What makes you happy? What do you want more of in your life? Is it connection,love, time, health, ease, money, glorious community? What makes you feel happy and connected to the Divine and Mother Earth? What do you want to blossom and grow over the coming season?

When you hear what it is, write it down on a scrap of paper. (Not a huge piece, a small scrap, so you might have to write small). Add as many as you would like. These are your wishes, after all. Don’t overthink and worry about the “how”, just listen to your heart.

When you are done, gently fold the paper in half, give it a kiss and if you feel inclined a daub of your favourite essential oil and then pop it into the bottom of the plant pot you have.

Then pop some dirt in on top of your paper, plant your seeds, a tad more dirt and give them a sprinkle of water. Oh yes, do make sure to give them lots of good energy and attention to help them grow!

Then when you are done, blow your candle out (as fire can be tricky), smile and say “Blessed Be”. Pop your pot in a window sill or somewhere it will get lovely sunlight and watch what happens.

Supplies needed:

Seeds – could be herbs, flowers, bulbs – whatever you want.

Little Pots

Soil

Candles

Small piece of paper and a pen

Essential oils (if you feel inclined)

A great big kiss!

Enjoy, and most importantly – have fun.

New Year’s Resolutions? I think NOT!

Jenny Heston · 4:25 pm ·

This morning as I was grabbing some groceries, the woman ahead of me asked what my New Year’s resolutions were. I looked at her rather askance and said “I don’t make them as I don’t believe in that process as it doesn’t work for me.” She looked me up and down, gave me a “knowing” smile and turned away. Excuse me?

I used to be one of those people who when New Year’s Eve rolled up would be the first to list off my resolutions loud and proud – learn a new language, bungee jump 5 times in the year, become vegetarian – you name it. Do you know where those resolutions got me? Eating more meat, hating French class and being terrified of bungee jumping.

Was it because I had picked the ‘wrong’ resolution? No (well possibly when it came to bungee jumping as I’m not a fan of tall heights). It was just more a case of not being 110% committed, connected and filled with conviction for my resolution longer than about 2 months.

Think about it, if you are a regular gym goer, do you find yourself avoiding it in January? Why? Because everyone who has decided to lose weight, get in shape or improve their health buys a membership. What do you see come late February/early March – a much emptier gym. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not raining on anyone’s parade who wants to change something, improve something or learn something new.

However, my question is How Do You Want to Feel, whilst your doing whatever it is that you have chosen. When we make a resolution it is purely focused on “DO-ing”, not on the core state of “BE-ing”. In our culture we have been trained to the DO-HAVE-BE model. If I DO this, I will HAVE that and then I can BE happy. How about we flip it? Let’s work with the BE-DO-HAVE model. How do you want to BE? How do you want to feel all year? When you are faced with a challenge what is the BE-ing state you want to drop into, the BE-ing state to support your choices?

Feel? Feel? Yes Feel. Do you want to feel Joyful, Expansive, Radiant, Stronger, Sexier, Wealthier? How do you want to feel?

So are you willing to try something different?

About 7 or 8 years ago I ditched New Year’s resolutions and decided to go with a word (just one word), that I could hold like a touchstone in all areas of my life. A Word of the Year. This was an amazing tool that I learned from Christine Kane. This one simple word represented to me how I wanted to Feel, how I wanted to BE, which in turn massively encouraged me on the activities that I did and has created some wonderful impacts in my life.

As Christine Kane says; “ Let’s say you are one of the many people who would normally choose “Get Organized.” You’re tired of the chaos. So, you think, “I need to get organized. That should be my Resolution this year.” You look around and it feels as if areas of your life are out of control and overfilled with – blaugh.

You sit with your clutter. You spend a few days pondering words that will inspire you. You realize in an “Ah-Ha!” moment that you tend to cling to lots of things. You’re scared to let go, whether it is the trinket someone gave you, the old relationship, the clothes that don’t fit…..So maybe the word for you isn’t “organised”, maybe the word is “Release”. Thus, you choose the word “Release” because it inspires you in a bigger way than “Get organized.”

So, every time you approach your clutter or old relationship patterns you remind yourself of your word. “Release”. You start to let the clutter go. Eventually, you realize that you’re still holding on to lots more than just physical clutter. You realize that you hold onto resentments at old relationships. “Release,” you remind yourself. “Release” is your touchstone. It grows you throughout the year. It becomes your guiding force, not your harsh standard.

So for me in 2012 my word was Flourish and it was delicious to see what happened, in 2013 it was Desire and again it was mind blowing. 2014 was Expand, 2015 was Believe, 2016 was Radiant and 2017 was Trust. I’m still perking my word for 2018, there have been a few contestants, but I like to let it process whilst I reflect on this last year and what felt good and what didn’t feel good then from that place look at my desires and how do I want to feel with my family, my work, my clients, myself. So I would love to hear what your Word of the Year is going to be and why. If you need some help with picking your word, Christine has a lovely Word of the Year tool here, that is totally free.

Once I’ve picked my Word, I make sure that I have an image of it around my home, a little slip in my wallet and it goes in the front of my new planner for the year.

So what is your word going to be this Year?

How do you feel about the “F” word???

Jenny Heston · 5:26 pm ·

How do you feel about the “F” word? Does it make you cringe?

Do your shoulders go up around your ears, a possible shudder or does it make your teeth hurt?

Do you glare at the person who uses “that” word and then turn your back?

Do you tell them how offensive you find that word and that the use of that word shows limited development?

Oh yes, by the way, I’m not talking about the word – Fuck – I’m talking about the word Forgiveness.

Forgiveness, such a gorgeous word, but so frigging tricky to actually do, yet exceptionally important for your sake, not anybody else’s. You know the old saying – “Holding onto anger and resentment is like drinking a glass of poison and hoping the other person dies?” It’s so true, half the time the person you are angry at doesn’t give a flying fig, can’t remember, doesn’t care or a myriad of other reasons, but you holding onto this energy does hurt you. So unless you are one of the exceptional few who has figured out how to ingest a substance and send it through the ethers into another human body, you might want to try a different route.

About 8 years ago one of my fabulous mentors advised me that I had a bit of an issue with forgiveness and they suggested I should work on that. Excuse me? I don’t carry grudges, I have no resentments, all is well in my world – mmmm, have to say, bullshit. So I chanted the Ho’oponopono for 2 weeks (yes a full 2 weeks, most of the time under my breath). Now if you don’t know what I’m talking about, or think that I am referring to some exotic tropical beverage, it’s the prayer of forgiveness and it’s super simple there are 4 lines. You pull the image up of the person or situation and sing, say, chant “I’m sorry, Please forgive me, Thank you, I love you.”

Now that may sound totally daft to you or you may have worked with it, but it does work. If you want more information there are some fabulous sites online with a more detailed methodology and the back piece of where it came from.

So after the allotted time my response was – Sweet! I did two weeks of this so I’m all good right? I’ve released any anger, resentment etc that was there. The answer that came back was yes and Heck NO! I had most certainly dug deep and forgiven my 3rd grade teacher, my ex-husband, and everyone or anything else that I had a resentment to, but I hadn’t bothered forgiving myself.

My delicious ego kicked up with “Why do I need to forgive myself, I am a positive paragon of virtue!” (Which I am most certainly not). The fact of the matter is I’m human and I do fuck up (there’s that other F word), I have said unkind things, I have hurt someone’s feelings, I have forgotten a kids assembly at school, I have hurt my own feelings and state of being with huge negative self talk, disparaging comments and self attack.

So what I realised was as fantabulous as it was to do a two week process, I needed to have a daily forgiveness practice, not just a now and then one. Daily I needed to release any anger, blame, shame, judgement, fear or perceived stuff, whether directed at someone else or at myself. Why? Because that stuff can build up and be pushed down and it was limiting me, it was feeding fears, it was something I couldn’t change other than to say “I’m sorry”, it was energy being wasted.

So if you are thinking – I don’t need to practice forgiveness. Really? Come play with me for a moment and let me paint a random day.

You drive to work and someone cuts you off and you have to slam on your brakes to stop from rear ending them. WTH!!!! You were there, in that lane, didn’t they bother looking? At work there is drama happening and you hear through the grapevine that someone you thought was a friend is having a good old gossip about you, and it’s not very pleasant. The work day trudges along and Maria from accounting comes bouncing up to tell you how her latest fling is taking her to Cuba for 2 weeks, yet you can’t get your husband to go to the next State. Traffic is bad on the drive home and you swear, curse and beat yourself up about life in general. You didn’t pitch your very cool idea at the office meeting, you allowed yourself to be talked over…….

You get home to find that your darling family (who’s been home for a few hours now) are all just lounging around, or are out, the house is a mess and no one has bothered to open the fridge and think “What should we have for dinner.” You cook dinner, your youngest is in a foul mood and apparently feels it’s all your fault so most certainly acts out, you have to heckle the kids to do their homework and then you receive an email from work that asks for yet another thing that wasn’t meant to be happening for 2 more weeks and finally after everyone else has been tended you fall into bed exhausted.

So no resentments, no anger, no self attack?

If you can say you have none of the above then I should come meet you and you better be sitting under a Bodhi tree and looking uber serene!

So I invite you every night before you close your peepers, make a list of what you forgive, who you forgive and most importantly forgive yourself. Forgive your fears, your shame, your blame and your judgement, forgive the neighbour and their yappy dog that barks at 5am. Come back to the place of loving and appreciating yourself. The reality is you are awesome and you are human, that doesn’t mean you need to spend your time beating yourself up and holding onto anger. The more you forgive those around you and yourself, the more space you create in your life to flourish.

Drinking water or a nice cuppa tea is far better than drinking poison.

Transformation and a Dogwood tree…

Jenny Heston · 4:55 pm ·

I don’t know about you but the word Transform or the phrase “This person experienced a transformation” seem to be popping up a lot lately. Me being me I used to be open to this concept but also a tad skeptical. Can someone really transform? Can that really happen?

So a little story for you. Grab a cuppa tea and let’s chat.

18 years ago my Dad died suddenly and in his honour I bought a Dogwood tree, as that was his favourite tree, and fairly much daily he and I would go explore and hike with dogs together. I put his ashes under the tree and planted it with great care and surrounded it with all the herbs and flowers he loved.

5 years after that my youngest was born. So in his honour and celebration I bought a plum tree and put the placenta underneath it when it was planted. Both trees grew happily, healthily and strongly until the goats got out. Now if you don’t know anything about goats, they will eat almost anything! In fact I have seen them eat tin cans and tires!

Thus, one day the goats busted out of their pen when no one was around and they did an amazing job on the dogwood and turned it into a small stump and then proceeded to have a good nibble on the plum tree. I carefully bandaged up the dogwood and the plum with hockey tape (as that was all I had), gave them lots of nutrients and hoped for the best.

11 years ago I moved from that property after an abusive marriage and there was no way I was going to leave those trees there. So I dug up the dogwood and all the dirt around it and under it, I also dug up the plum tree, wrapped its roots and soil in a sheet and took them both with me, along with my belongings and my kids. At our new home the kids and I dug a great big hole, and as I looked at this stump of a dogwood tree I decided it would be best to chop it up and put it and all its dirt into the hole and plant the plum tree on top. Which is what we did.

5 years later I noticed that the plum tree leaves were changing and no longer was it producing a gorgeous little plum or two. Odd. I took a good look at the leaves and couldn’t figure out what was happening to them – okay this is odd.

Very odd.

Over the next 4 years there were no plums, the leaves were totally different and there were no blossoms at all, but there was a sense of transformation. Then last year for the first time it blossomed, just a few mindst you. Whoot, whoot, plums again.

No.

The blooms were gorgeous but they were a dogwood flower! Excuse me? How, Why, What? I had and still have no clue.

Today, I walked outside and it was as if the tree exploded!

There are over 200 blooms on it and they are all dogwood flowers which have now become one of my most favourite flowers.

So if you ever doubt the capacity to transform, remember this tree.

If you ever doubt your strength to hold your center and BE, remember this tree (after all it was cut up and in a hole).

If you ever doubt your ability to blossom and thrive against all odds, remember this tree.

Happy transforming!

Transformation

jennyheston

Release Anxiety And Claim Your Power