Super Sizzling Solstice - Reclaim Your Natural Radiance

Dear <>

Wishing You a
Super Sizzling Solstice







 

We are all innately magical, creative beings.  It’s just that sometimes we forget.  So here are some of the reminders I have received which I share with you with deep respect for the radiant contribution you make in the world.

Beautiful Breathing
I am greatly honoured to be leading Singing for Breathing sessions at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals this term and have been immensely touched and inspired by hearing the beautiful voices and stories of patients with pulmonary and cardiac issues.
So often we forget what amazing tool for transformation our own breath cycle is.  Difficult emotions, states of unrest, pain and tension are all alleviated by simply slowing the breath. Breathing with connection to our tummy muscles counters the shallow breathing associated with anxious states. Releasing a long breath to an increasing count or whilst sounding SSSS or SSSHHH encourages beautiful, billowing breath.

Mental Magic
We all have the capacity to take command of our thoughts. A mantra (meaning tool of the mind in Sanskrit) is an intention, invocation or affirmation which enables us to still and centre ourselves. Spiritual traditions of all shapes and sizes have used them for centuries - even footballers chant them.  Whether it’s the Gayatri Mantra  or The Sun Has Got His Hat On, intentional sounding of your chosen song, chant or affirmation clears and brightens the mind.

Dance into Delight
Whether its dancing around the lounge, yoga, pilates, moshing or strictly ballroom, movement is medicine. Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy has researched the power of body language and demonstrated that ‘power posing’ significantly alters our brain chemistry and hardwires us for success.  Expanding beyond our habitual body language and patterns of movement enables us to access new behaviours, sensations and interactions.  Movement brings our visions into action, grounds our dreams and allows us to truly embody our fullest potential.

I am delighted to have been invited to co-facilitate an Open and Shine Urban Retreat  day this weekend with Yoga Teacher Katrin Heuser and am looking forward to stretching in new directions using sound, movement and creative self enquiry. 

Sizzling Sounds
Singing restores my sense of wonder about life.  Witnessing the power of creative expression within people from all walks of life - teen mums and their babies to therapists integrating sound into their work and elders of 89 years - is truly awe-inspiring.  I am so grateful to all of you who come and share the magic with me. 
Just to say how much this day opened my mind to sound. Katie carried us on a journey with enormous enthusiasm and charm. Her varied array of instruments to just look at was a treat, never mind have a play with. Great fun, with a serious side about the benefits of using sound to reach people struggling in their lives. - Virginia Prime, Aromatherapist, Scent of Sound Workshop at the IFA

Radical Radiance
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look. -  Fra Giovanni Ciocondo
Becoming a radical, radiant force for transformation in the world becomes possible when we stay tuned to our essential sense of self.  This ‘Self’ is able to observe all the identities and roles we play out in daily life. As such it is a vast space of possibility - both empty and expansive.  As we drop the fear of losing our identity, we discover the joy of transcending limiting beliefs and reclaiming our natural radiance.   We are able to respect the wisdom within others and to experience greater levels of connectedness.  For radiance is not something separate from the struggles we face in our humanity - it is absolutely inherent within it.  It is contained within every cell of our body and every aspect of our families, communities and societies.  As we re-source, remember and reclaim our radiance we become a force for liberation in the world.

Wishing you the joyful celebration of your radiance this Solstice.

www.therosewindow.org

From Trigger to Tigger Happy

From Trigger to Tigger Happy 

The Multi-Sensory Revolution

Thank you!

For all the heartwarming responses I received to my last blog on Processing Loss, I have been so touched by your courageous stories and insightful comments.  For me this illustrates the importance of expression - we need to dialogue deeply about the tough stuff so we can move through it with grace and understanding.  So I'm offering some free talks this June to open up more dialogues on many levels.

Multi-Sensory Multi-Relational Expression

Since I started working with children with Special Needs in my teens, I have been intensely aware of the need for a multi-sensory approach to development.  We are all holistic beings and our senses interrelate in magically intricate ways.  Those with synaesthesia experience a powerful relationship between sound and vision, whilst recent experiment Fruity Note confirms that we associate smells and sound - ‘smound.’   

Tracking the Patterning of our Senses

Models such as NLP and VARK enable us to track our patterns of sensory relating. Many people have a dominant sense - those who are auditory will say ‘that sounds great’ and enjoy a healthy debate, whilst those who are visual will use maps and diagrams.  Our senses are hardwired into our memory hard-drives - the smell of fresh cut grass may trigger a memory of summer in the park for one person, whilst sudden movements may release disturbing recollections of an accident for another.  These sensory programmes influence our important decisions - we choose the partner who ‘smells right’ and then wonder why they turn out to share key traits with our parents.

Multi-Sensory Transformation

As we become conscious of our patterns of perceiving reality, we can make our own sensory medicine - we can dance out our inflexibility, cool a hot temper with soothing music, lighten depression with a daily walk and low carb diet and release defensiveness by experiencing gentle touch.  Whilst we cannot change the past, sensory work enables us to re-wire our response to it - a huge howl, deep massage or liberating dance can release the pent-up energy of moments that have been frozen in time, enabling us to move from trigger to tigger-happy - ☺

Multi-Sensory Revolution

Multi-sensory approaches are inclusive and accessible.  Multi-media content is increasingly available on the phones in our pockets - text messaging has revolutionised communication for people with hearing impairments.   

Multi-sensory work reaches across perceived boundaries of expression and opens up new realms of creativity.  This week I attended an inspirational meeting of Innovate Funded Music Projects, having been part of a project with excluded young people and infants with Sarah Fisher and Catherine Pestano.  Amongst the projects were BitterSuite giving young people a multi-sensory experience of classical music and Liquid Vibrations exploring the effects of music in water for young people with Special Needs.  Adele Drake, Founder of Drake Music talked of the profound change for parents who are able to see their children from a different perspective - those who have been labelled as ‘excluded’ ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘hard to reach’ by mainstream education can be recognised for the truly creative beings that they are.

Working with the power of our senses can bring about creative change and help us stay tuned to what is healthy for our people and our planet.

For those of you wishing to explore the Scent of Sound, please join me at the IFA on 14th June.   I am also looking forward to teaching a multi-sensory Sound Healing course at the Holistic Healing College in July.

Wishing you a truly bouncy tiggertastic June :)

Tigger-Happy Multi-Sensory Medicine Tips

1. Observe - your habitual patterns of sensory processing (kindly and without self judgement)- eg ‘I tend towards reading/writing activities and spend hours researching on the computer’

2. Diagnose areas in need of support - ‘I get backache and find it difficult to communicate confidently face to face (eg off Facebook)’

3. Prescribe an sensory antidote - must be FUN! :) ‘Go to a book club where people read aloud and socialise, take up pilates to ease back tension ’4. Enjoy - rinse and repeat