Messy, Luminous, Being Podcast

We may like think of "spiritual practice" as joyful and calming, but the reality is that it's a bumpy road. It takes work to stay connected to our inner selves in a world that is always pulling us outside, into action and busyness, and trying to keep hold of our attention. There are so many times where it feels awkward, where our emotions are raw, sitting still is uncomfortable and we just want to...

Routines have always been the way I carved out time for myself. Blocking in specific time-slots for activities was how I thought things got done. But between lockdown living (where we watched our carefully cultivated routines completely fall apart) and watching the rhythms of the natural world (which can speed up or slow down but remain resilient), I've been wondering whether there might be a diff...

It can often seem like the world's problems are so big that our individual efforts barely make a difference. Yet from a meditation perspective, inner work is the most revolutionary and transformative action you can take to create change...not only in yourself but in the world. When Gandhi said, "be the change you want to see in the world", I think this is what he meant. This episode is my reflecti...

Things that we experience in childhood and the parts of our life we struggle with are our spiritual curriculum for this life. And if we apply love to the places that hurt, then real healing can happen. Because Love is the ultimate competency. These beautiful words all come from my conversation with spiritual psycho-therapist Chausey Leebron Jameson. We talk about boundaries that help us care for o...

In this episode I talk about my take-aways from the conversation about self-compassion I had with my own meditation group last weekend. It's a personal episode and my attempt to pull back the curtain continually to show what my practice really looks like and how I'm using buddhist teachings to negotiate real messy life situations. It's in messy real life where different meditation teachings take o...

Combining spiritual practice with the journey of motherhood, this episode is a conversation with Leena Lemos & Megan Horowitz, the founders of Enlightenedhood. We talk about how Leena and Megan find space for themselves & their favourite practices. We also talk about ways joy can mix with stress & anxiety and how spiritual practices have helped both women navigate the ups and downs of motherhood....

It feels easy to think about getting exercise & good nutrition as part of our weekly habits. And we also easily accept that these habits have a wider impact on our physical health, energy levels, mood and mental states. Yet somehow when it comes to our inner experience and our minds, it feels different. We don't tend to think about feeling calm or a sense of balance or joy being something we can a...

In this episode I talk to Martina Knight, who in the midst of a successful professional dancing career found she needed a way to reconnect with her authentic self. This is how she discovered yoga and then as a yoga teacher has continued to share this practice with others. In this episode we talk about the emotional toll of the performances we all do in everyday life, and how yoga and the breath ca...

Have you ever worked for something and when you achieved it, you didn't feel like you thought you'd feel? There are times when we find ourselves in real dissonance between our expectations and our inner reality. For me, these times always bring up the question of meaning. We have this beautiful precious life & it can feel a great responsibility to use it wisely and well. So where do we look for me...

What happens when you stand on your mat and wait for the present moment to find you? How do you find time to do this in busy life? And how might that simple practice transform your life? In this episode I talk with Lucy Holtom about her experience as a yoga teacher, actress and parent. This is a conversation full of heart, practical ideas, and profound golden nuggets of wisdom about the places whe...

In this episode I take a deep dive into a big issue for many of us stuck in lockdown with kids — how do we find any time for our practice or any space for ourselves when we are homeschooling, working, cleaning the house, keeping everyone fed and busy from the moment we get up until we're too exhausted to do anything but stare at the wall. (Yep I know the feeling!) We keep looking for that 20 minut...

What are your big questions? What are the things in your heart that you really want to ask? And do you feel free to ask them? In this episode, podcaster & spiritual seeker Krista Xiomara talks about how asking questions and following our innate curiosity is the vehicle for our spiritual journey. Her story about being raised in a strict sect of the Catholic Church and then setting off on her own sp...

In this episode I share a session I ran for the Scapa Home Festival on moments of meditation. Sometimes we only have a few moments here and there, and taking advantage of these times to connect inward can be a really beautiful habit. Moments of Meditation includes both chat from me on my own "messy luminous" perspective on how & why we might meditate in our lives just as they are, and also include...

Questioning and finding ways to make meditation and yoga practice work within our individual life is such a journey. In this episode I talk with yoga teacher and meditation friend Natalie Wiltshire about walking with herself, perspective on hard times, acknowledging our real humanness and finding signs of hope. You can find Natalie at www.natsyoga.co.uk

I remember the first time I tried to meditate when I was about 20 & had a really strange out-of-body experience. I was confused and knew I wasn't going to do that again without more guidance. So five years later when I met a friend who had been practicing buddhist meditation for years, I asked her loads of questions about her experience sitting. What she described then was very mundane and disappo...

Sometimes connecting to yourself is possible, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes all we can do is get through it. But we can find a place...a yoga mat, or whatever your place is. And in that place we can find time and space to sit with how we're really feeling & what's really going on inside of us. These are some of the beautiful insights from my conversation with Catherine Annis in this episode. Y...

The place we really live is in our minds. Any frustrations we have, any fears, loneliness and longings for things we miss...all of it happens within our minds. So now, while we are being challenged with this huge upheaval in our external lives, we can also think about how to support ourselves inside. Marathon runners need the right fuel and training practices to build up stamina. And maybe that's...

As our life changes, our spiritual practice must also change. Our body ages, different times bring different challenges. And allowing ourselves space to acknowledge what's present for us at a particular point in our lives, or even on a particular day, brings a beautiful new level of honesty to our spiritual practice. In this episode, I talk to the lovely Fiona Hayhoe-Weiland about breathing practi...

Exercise, spending time in nature, restoring our natural breath and dropping into moments of stillness are essential human experiences. Ones that we seem to have lost in the hubbub of busy life. But as we enter this strange moment where we have been forced to slow down, it might be just the time to remember, these are not bonus extras. These are the essence of the human life. In this episode, I al...

Getting out into nature is a beautiful practice, but we all know the saying - wherever you go, there you are. And it can be just as easy to bring our worries with us on our walks. Or feel we can't practice because we're always getting interrupted by our kids. Or maybe feel like we don't know how to unwind from that feeling of push and drive. If this is resonating, you are going to love this episod...

When we consider our health & well-being, it's easy to focus on what we eat or how much we exercise. These things feel more tangible and accessible than the more intangible practices we can do to calm our minds or transform destructive thoughts into thoughts that promote joy and inner well-being. But are they so different? In this episode, I get curious about how we sometimes compartmentalise cert...

When you feel alone or disconnected remember, the very particles of air you breathe in have come from the trees around you. They are breathing us and we are breathing them. In this episode I talk to Dani Mae about her passion for the ability of the breath to heal us and connect us back with ourselves. We talk about her journey through anxiety, grief and injury as well as the daily challenges of st...

Meditation is most commonly known as a practice for calming the mind. And while this is definitely true, there are (at least) four other things my meditation practice has given me over the years that have been really unexpected...and such a joy. In this episode, I talk about what my meditation practice really looks like right now, (not the idealised version, the real messy luminous truth) and how...

In this episode I talk with the lovely Bre Williamson about transforming anger & anxiety into a power rather than a hindrance. She shares her favourite meditation practice, the Green Tara sadhana, which connects us to our inner wisdom of compassion through action and the feminine power of creating life. We get real about how parenthood changes our practice and ways we can let go of the "perfect" t...

What do we mean by self-care? And are our acts of self-care genuinely helping us? Or could they sometimes be keeping us stuck in our hectic & overwhelming lifestyles? It feels like the idea of self-care has become ubiquitous for a reason. There is a part of us that genuinely needs care, an aspect of our being that is squeezed out by the busyness of our lives and the demands we are under. But as co...