• About Svasti
  • Crib notes
  • Poetry
  • Blog Awards
  • Advertising/offers of work

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: Transformation

More on transformation + #iquitsugar week 4

01 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by Svasti in I quit sugar!, Life, Yoga

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

alternatives, doing things differently, Downard Dogs & Warriors, flow, habits, I Quit Sugar, joblessness, no visible means of support, sugar, Support, Surrender, Transformation, wisdom seeds, Zo Newell

I’ve had a few sugar cravings this week, which isn’t surprising according to Sarah’s ebook. I’ve also had my menstrual cycle to deal with, and oh, that pesky lack of employment. So yeah, I’ve had a few.

Mostly I’ve dealt pretty well with them, but I’ve occasionally dipped a teaspoon in a jar of Chocolate Coconut Butter. I’ve had this tiny jar for weeks and weeks and only if I’m desperate do I open it. Because it’s incredibly rich (almost over-powering), that’s really all I need. Not even a full teaspoon of it at a time.

More than anything, I’m noticing that eating something sweet is just another habit. Something I’ve learned to do over many years, and giving up that pattern of behaviour is more difficult than the physical withdrawal.

But I’m learning new behaviours. For example, a trip to the movies doesn’t have to automatically = eating sugary crappy foods. At a pinch, I can go to the supermarket and grab some good quality cheese and nuts from the deli. Or make my own popcorn (seasoned the way I like it) at home.

Then there’s things like this: a different kind of breakfast, adapted from one of Sarah Wilson’s recipes…

My version contains:

  • Pumpkin (sprinkled with a little sea salt to help it cook faster)
  • Carrots
  • Peas
  • Pepitas
  • Black sesame seeds
  • Shredded coconut
  • A liberal dose of cinnamon
  • Two eggs broken in the pan and stirred in
  • All cooked up in coconut oil

This is a wonderfully nourishing meal and an awesome alternative to the usual breakfast fare. I felt like something other than poached eggs this morning and… voila! It’s brilliant. Not to mention sugar and grain/gluten free and super-tasty.

Anyway, this post is sort of about just that: alternatives. Doing and seeing things differently. In a really intangible way that you can’t measure or touch or truly understand with the logical part of the mind. Which makes it hard to write about, but I’ll try.

I still don’t have a job, and I’ve gone through about fifty modes of dealing with this unpleasant fact in the last couple of weeks.

If I pay attention to the stark reality of being jobless only weeks from Christmas and the no-hire zone of New Year/early January, I absolutely freak out. With heart in my throat and chest-tightening anxiety that is not helpful at all. Nor does it do much for my confidence or ability to think outside the box.

The reality about the digital industry in Melbourne is that it’s pretty small and still relatively immature. Surprisingly so given that this is 2011! Sydney has in recent times overtaken Melbourne in terms of numbers of digital jobs. Which just makes me want to move back there!!

Also recruitment agents here are more often than not, sub-par. According to one recruiter I spoke to, there’s a low barrier to entry for becoming a recruiter, many agencies are competing to fill the same jobs and my skills are quite specialised. So if the recruiter has no real experience in digital, it shows. Painfully. But sadly, these unskilled people are all too often the go-between for roles I’m likely to apply for.

But here’s what I’m discovering:

The more I worry about not having a job and when I might get one, and why didn’t I get an interview with that company etc etc etc… I feel like I’m missing out on something important, and it’s that intangible “thing” that I’m trying to convey here.

Today I finally picked up Downard Dogs & Warriors by Zo Newell. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for months and months. Very soon I’ll have finished reading it however because it hooked me from the first paragraph.

Early on, it contains the phrase: “no visible means of support”, which has a completely different meaning in the context of the story being told than the thoughts it sparked in my mind.

Because one could say that right now I have no visible means of support. Yet this does not mean I am unsupported. Not at all.

There’s the little bit of extra yoga teaching being thrown my way. The Self-Alignment Kit I was gifted with at the right time. The kinesiology appointment I was allowed to have on credit. The possibility of a little freelance work coming my way (setting up a WordPress site). And a good friend (who reads this blog, thank you darling!) who connected me with her friend to see if I could do any copywriting or any other work with her. Another friend who offered me some amazing natural skincare products including moisturisers and cleansers (excellent timing since I was running low).

The words of one of my yoga teachers also resonate right now: the Universe will always provide.

Maybe it won’t be the job that I think I want or need that comes through right now.

The support I really need is emotional and financial. I need money to pay my rent and bills and so I can eat. It just mightn’t come from the places I’m expecting it to. So I need to stop telling the Universe how to support me, and just let it unfold as it will.

Which is challenging when talking about my financial well-being. It’s counter-intuitive to not plot and plan and scheme and have a back up plan and a second back up plan. But it’s much less exhausting to trust in the process of life.

Tuesday night I went to teach my yoga class as I always do: with a mix of a half-formed plan and an open mind about what will happen in the classroom with whoever turns up. I have some amazing repeat students, and a bunch of drop-ins who float in and out. They all have their own physical challenges, and for some reason they love my class.

Last night I heard that one of my regulars has been “raving” to her friends about the school I teach at, and my classes. Which is always completely unexpected because I’m still such a newbie teacher. But then something must be working right, yes?

Quite often, what goes on in the room has little to do with me or my plan. Occasionally I find myself spontaneously offering tiny morsels of the teachings I’ve been blessed with over the years and sometimes, there are receptive ears for these wisdom seeds.

As I walked away from the school at the end of the class, I thought about how magical teaching yoga can be.

I started to wonder what life would be like if I approached it the way I do teaching. With surrender. I don’t feel the need to control every moment of what I teach. I don’t kick myself if the class plan I was thinking of goes out the window. I never worry about the number of people in my class, unless there are too many! I hate for everyone to be too cramped in my wee back room.

Basically, I let go. I allow my training to do what it will, and I use all of my senses to respond to my students. I know the class will work out, no matter what. It even works out when there are so-called “difficult” students in the room. I don’t try to teach everything I know about every given pose or aspect of yoga at any given time.

When I’m teaching and especially at the beginning and end of the class, I open up to the Universe and offer my prayers and thanks for being able to pass these teachings on to others. I connect to my teachers and their teachers and I ask for their guidance. I don’t expect anything in particular to happen as a result. I just let it be.

This creates flow, and when my energy is flowing everything feels lighter. Easier. Happier.

I know I’m asking a lot of myself to take this approach to my current unemployment situation, but maybe it might just be exactly what is needed.

So, let’s see, shall we?

~Svasti

-37.814251 144.963169

Dreams, death, transformation & labels

05 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by Svasti in Life

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

blood, crocodiles, death, Dinosaurs, Dreams, Labels, sharks, Transformation, transmutation, vampires

Dreamt of death last night/this morning/whenever-it-was, which never means what it seems to mean, of course. And transformation, too. The death was not mine, though often in my dreams it has been. But the transformation was.

Been thinking about that for a while, coz I’ve got this working theory that all these crazy-seeming things I’m interested in are actually about that, too. Vampires for certain. It’s not the blood or the sexiness or even the immortality thing that I like (I suspect like many, that would get a little old eventually, harhar!). Nope, it’s the transmutation from one thing to another. Same reason I like sharks and crocodiles, too, although in a different way. I mean, they’re time-travelers, aren’t they? From an aeon when we were little more than food for dinosaurs. Yeah…

So in this dream I became something but not someone else. I was still me, and having a hard time explaining all the outward signs of change to my family – suddenly taller, different coloured hair (pink) and skin (ochre), new abilities (strength, flying), although the inward signs were way more significant. They couldn’t see those of course, and there in the midst of dealing with the death scenes in my dream, I was once again not what I should be according to those whom I’m related to by blood!

And then this morning, reading something else I laughed out loud. Because I remembered.

Those who seek labels for others (or label themselves) are missing the point. Not in a new age-y dude, don’t stick your labels on me kinda way. Not like that at all. The only way for us to describe what we see is to use words, but what we forget to remember is how those descriptors are all so very temporary.

We’re always changing, transmuting, decomposing and reforming, even if we don’t know it. And mostly we don’t.

And in the tradition of transmutation, we need to snip those labels loose, tear them into tiny pieces and send them flying ten miles out to sea, remembering that in the end they’re just words, words, words…

Someone might have said it to us once (or even many times over), but it is our fear, shame, sadness, embarrassment, guilt and pain that empowers the labels, those places where we hurt. We hide words and labels in our bodies like wounds we need to defend and in doing so, regenerate our pain points.

But all we need to do is set them free.

They don’t mean anything.

They aren’t personal.

I have to remember this, too. That’s why I’m writing this here. To remind myself when I forget, because I do forget and often.

~Svasti

-37.814251 144.963169

Sometimes…

16 Tuesday Jun 2009

Posted by Svasti in Learnings, Yoga

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Dhanvantri, empowerment, Fear, Ganesha, Healing, malarkey, Prayers, Recovery, Sanskrit, Spirituality, Surrender, Transformation, Yoga, Yoga teacher

I think I’m just afraid of who I might actually be, when I’m finally done with all this being afraid malarkey.

When I allow all the knowledge I’ve learned (and continue to learn), to be grafted to the very marrow of my being.

When I’ve practiced to perfection the incredible meditations and other teachings I’ve been given. When they’re as natural as breathing – so much a part of me I don’t need to think about it.

I’m afraid of that person I’ll become.

And sometimes I think… it’s the one significant thing causing most of the pain in my life.

Even while writing this, I’m avoiding doing something else right this very moment. Something I should’ve done already and that other people are waiting for. Something that’d be good for me to do. And I will eventually, just not before I’ve put it off time and again.

Til I can’t stand it any more.

At least this time though, the distraction is much more honest, less convoluted.

I want to scream, and I want to cry and grieve. For the time I’ve spent veiling my awesome, powerful, motivated and very real Self away, and letting the freaked out junior would-be super hero run the show instead.

All so I don’t have to give up my excuses.

Of course, like that smoker who knows they need to stop, I’m not ready to give my excuses up yet. Just because I can see them for what they are, doesn’t mean I’m stopping.

I’m still enjoying the whole experience too much. It mightn’t be good for me, but it’s comfortable. And it’s what I know.

Its life-changing stuff y’know, getting the things you want most for yourself, instead of sacrificing and sabotaging your own life. At least, that’s the realisation I’m coming to.

Sunday, I was at my yoga school doing my remaining cleaning hours for the week (still need the money til I get paid the week after this one). As I cleaned, and when I wasn’t chanting various Sanskrit mantras to myself, my teacher’s recent words filled the empty room.

You see, I only signed up to do the Hatha yoga practitioner certificate this year, not the first year teacher training. Mostly because I didn’t feel like I was ready. Which, as it turns out, is just more hiding and excuses, really.

As we discussed various maintenance tasks, she turns to me and says I think you should do the teacher training. I want you to teach here and help with future teacher trainings. You’re way ahead of the others on philosophy and related topics and I think you’ve got things you can teach them.

Just like that. And yes, it’s something I want. Plus, I know I’m ready now…

There alone, sweeping the floors, I thought about standing at the front of that room and… I laughed, while I coincidentally sang the invocation to Ganesha, remover of obstacles…

Om Gananam tva / ganapating havamahe / kavinkavinam upamashravastamam / jyeshtharajam brahmanam brahmanaspata a nah / shrinvan nutibhih sida sadanam…

Yes, it’s what I want. But to get there… I’m gonna have to give up a few things I’m pretty sure I know as ‘fact’ about myself. But guess what? Apparently, all I have to do is keep going towards what I want.

The transformation will occur in the doing, not the wanting of the doing… this was the message/realisation I recieved while sweeping, singing and laughing.

Okay… so, I kept singing, this time Sri Dhanvantri’s (the lord of Ayurveda/healing) prayer. It’s my very favourite thing to chant because it resonates best I find, when you’re singing from the heart.

Om sankham chakram jaloukaam dadhad amruta gatam chaaru dorbhis chaturbhih / sookashma svachchhaati hridyaam sukha pari vilasan moulim amboja netram //

kaala ambha uda ujjjvalaangam kati tata vilasad chaaru peetaambaraadhyam / vande Dhanvantarim tam nikhila gada vana prouda daavaagni leelam //

I still have my excuses and I’m holding on tight. For now anyway. I’m not even going to attempt to break them down just yet. As long as I keep moving in the right direction, then I reckon… its all good.

~Svasti

No regrets

19 Friday Dec 2008

Posted by Svasti in Life Rant, Poetry

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Change, Edith Piaf, La Môme Piaf, No regrets, Non je ne regrette rien, Transformation, Yogic

Sung by the great madame herself – Edith Piaf – Non, je ne regrette rien (No, I regret nothing) is… vocally and lyrically a knockout.

At not even 5′, Edith was nicknamed “La Môme Piaf” (the little sparrow) – which morphed into her famous moniker.

Here’s one angry, tragic and passionate woman – with good reason! Abandoned by her mother and father, brought up in a brothel til the age of six, then re-claimed to work as a busker alongside her father travelling around France… her talent was obvious. She lost her only child to meningitis. Her singing career was dogged by those that wanted to take advantage of her.

Edith kinda lived fast and died young before it was ever fashionable to do so…

An English translation of Non, je ne regrette rien is as follows:

No, nothing at all
No, I regret nothing
Neither the good things
Nor the bad, they are the same to me

No, nothing at all
No, I regret nothing
It’s been paid for
Swept away, forgotten
I don’t give a damn about the past

My memories
I have burnt my memories
My sorrows, my pleasures
I don’t need them anymore
Swept away the love affairs
And all their tremblings
Swept away forever
I start anew

No, nothing at all
No, I regret nothing at all
Neither the good
Nor the bad, they are all the same to me

No, nothing at all
No, I regret nothing at all
For my life, for my joys
Today
They start with you

Now, this could be interpreted as a love song to another – but I like it better when thinking of it sung to oneself…

There’s some very kinda yogic stuff in there – expressing no preference for the good or the bad (its all the same), the past not being related to this moment (just a discontinuous moment-to-moment existence that appears to be linear)…

Its all about right here, right now. A transformation. A change sweeping through. A revelation. New beginnings.

How I wish I could take these words and make them my reality right now!

To have no regrets at all, not one (I’m working on it)… to see the world through fresh eyes with a heart that’s known no sorrow. Or… that none of it matters any longer. No regrets…

Now that’s something worth both living and dying for.

Oh, and happy birthday, Madame Sparrow… you woulda been 93 today (same age as my grandma), if you’d stuck around…

And now, a public service announcement:

Those who know stories
Within stories

Listen up!

Whispers thusly concealed

Must remain
Shine no light on them…
~Svasti

Follow me on Twitter Subscribe to my posts via RSS Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to RSS!
Svasti's Public Declaration of Excellently Awesome Future Life Plans

Enter your email address to receive email notifications of new posts.

Join 386 other subscribers

Archives

Browse by category

Recent Posts

  • My father’s been slowly dying for almost a year now
  • It’s all about my brother
  • The work continues
  • In case you missed it…
  • Two Words Project: 2012 summary
  • Looking both ways
  • A forked road
  • Who am I becoming?

Guest posts by me on other blogs

  • Yoga with Nadine: 5 Key Tips for Healing From Trauma
  • The Joy of Yoga: Guest post from Svasti
  • Suburban Yogini: My yoga story
  • BlissChick: EmBody Talk: Svasti, Yogini & Survivor
  • CityGirl Lifestyle: A Pearl of Wisdom {by Svasti}
  • Linda's Yoga Journey: I don't know how old yoga is and neither do you - part 1
  • And part 2
  • Getting help

  • Beyond Blue (Australia)
  • Black Dog Institute
  • EMDR Assoc. Australia
  • Gift From Within
  • Root Cause of PTSD
  • Trauma & mental health
  • Women Against Domestic Violence
  • Blog at WordPress.com.

    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
    • Follow Following
      • Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness
      • Join 146 other followers
      • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
      • Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness
      • Customize
      • Follow Following
      • Sign up
      • Log in
      • Report this content
      • View site in Reader
      • Manage subscriptions
      • Collapse this bar
     

    Loading Comments...