Love only what falls your way and is fated for
you. What could suit you more than that?
MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS
I was working with a client named Madison. For months, she had been worried about where she was heading, and whether she would be able to call in what was next for her. We had a kinesiology alignment session and she told me she’d just written in her journal: When will it ever be enough? When will I ever be okay?
Madison said she was ready to be supported in a bigger way; to stand up and allow herself to receive without fear; to watch the unfolding of all she’d been working so diligently towards.
So we got straight into it. We created some goals together, and dived into a kinesiology balance. These were the goals to which we aligned her:
The very first energy-balancing remedy that came up for her was the Bach flower essence Gorse, plus the Gate of Hope acupressure point, from the beautiful book, Floral Acupuncture.
According to Dr. Edward Bach, the Gorse essence is a remedy for those who’ve given up belief and lost faith in themselves and their situation. By using this essence, we can allow ourselves to trust there is a way forward. By doing so, we actually find and make our way ahead, looking towards the light.
The Gate of Hope is a point on the torso (just under your diaphragm, on the nipple line, on either side of your torso), which sits on the liver meridian. This acupressure point holds the energies of possibility, renewal and hope. Using the point helps to release stagnation and envision a positive future. In traditional Chinese medicine and kinesiology theory, the Gate of Hope point corresponds to the Wood element, which also relates to growth, new beginnings and renewal.
We went one step further, by using the essence on the acupressure point; this supports you to allow your hope to return, on an even deeper level. (Remember hope? That sweet, nurturing emotion that reminds you that you can dream in a positive way again.) This supports you in clearing away your own obstacles and opening your eyes to the bright possibilities that lie ahead.
If you wish, you can do something similar right now: simply use your pointer and middle finger on each hand to find the Gate of Hope point I described (it may feel a little tender). Hold the point with your fingers applying a firm but gentle pressure for 2-3 minutes, taking cleansing breaths in and out through your nose. You may feel a shift in energy, thoughts, mind and mood. Later on, you may want to purchase the Gorse flower essence to either put on the Gate of Hope point, or take orally.
As we continued our kinesiology balance, and as Madison started to tune back into flow and alignment, the message of the day was simple: she now had to allow this to unfold, without trying to control the outcome.
We can feel very pressured by time, as we work towards our goals and our bigger vision. By putting undue pressure on ourselves, by listening to negative stories and limiting beliefs that simply aren’t true, we can sometimes lose hope in the vision we’re creating for ourselves. We can think that the growth and expansion we crave for is too far away.
As if conspiring in her favour, the cards that then fell out of the deck for Madison were ‘Timing’ and ‘Patience’. This gentle reminder couldn’t have been clearer: step back into flow, trust the timing, allow the unfolding of what you’re working towards, of what you’re envisioning, of what you’re taking action on to draw towards you—and don’t rush it.
This isn’t about waiting impatiently. It’s about grounding into what’s next, making space, calling it in, and noticing how you feel when you embody what you’re calling in (even before you’ve received it), all the while trusting in this space of new beginnings.
You know those times you feel so far away from how you want to feel, and from what you’re calling in? This is when you need to become really aware of what story is holding you back, which fear is keeping you small, which negative thought or limiting belief is blocking your path.
In those times, you must tap into the energy of what you’re hoping to expand into and receive, and switch it up; let your stress hold less tension and power over you, and let your expansion take hold.
Another one of my clients, Emma, had booked a session, in a panic. She’d been working so hard and had come into a real crisis of confidence. Seemingly out of nowhere, she felt completely irrelevant in her field, doubting everything she did, said, wrote or thought.
She was feeling anxious and small, tired and drained. She felt like she’d lost all connection to her intuition and guidance—to her system of higher and greater support. She told me she felt like a small boat rocking on the water, far out in the ocean. Every time she found a rope in the water, she’d pull on it, hoping it would lead her back to shore, but it wouldn’t lead her anywhere, and a sense of panic would set in again.
She wasn’t at the point of wanting to quit, just at the point of needing something to shift, to welcome in a sense of hope and trust, a rush of new energy and alignment.
‘Sounds like you’re in push and mush mode,’ I said. I came up with this term one day while feeling sluggish, feeling like I was trying to push through, instead of just resting and restoring to step back into my flow. It’s a term that explains that deep energetic drag and drain when you’re in pushing mode, striving and working hard and actually getting nowhere, leaving you feeling drained and exhausted. AKA feeling like mush!
While we’ll do another dive into self-care and doing your best work soon, let’s make sure we’re on the same page now. Pushing yourself to do your best work (often with the underlying thought that that’s the only way to ‘get ahead’) is the opposite of being aligned and unstoppable, or clear and confident.
It’s not a bad thing in and of itself. If you allow yourself to become aware of it and listen to it, it teaches you to slow down, reconnect, recommit, realign, and get back in the headspace and energy you need to be in, to do your best work, without rushing, forcing, striving or panicking.
‘Let’s just do a big clear-out, to bring you back to your centre and into alignment,’ I suggested. So these are some of the kinesiology goals we went for:
I then muscle tested Emma to find the key goal—the one that, out of every goal we’d created for her, was the most pertinent to her stepping back into full and true alignment:
This core goal was, essentially, Emma’s main block. The fear she was holding in her mind, body and energy field was holding her back from feeling calm, centred and committed to herself.
So I tested the percentage of stress and contraction, and of openness and expansion, in relation to this core goal. Lo and behold, she was at maximum stress (i.e. feeling very constricted, contracted, fearful and out of alignment) and minimum expansion (i.e. not feeling at ease, grounded, open, expansive, in flow or aligned).
These states were impacting on one another because to feel expansion, we must first let go of the belief that we are stuck. Her fear that she wouldn’t be able to call more money into her life and work was causing such constriction that it was blocking her sense of ease, flow, alignment and abundance, as well as her belief in herself, impacting on almost every area of her life and business.
When we dived deeper into what this core goal meant for Emma, it became clear she’d taken comments from other people on board—people she loved and respected—that weren’t for her absolute betterment. She said that lately she’d had plenty of conversations with friends in her industry who were saying how hard business was; how the market was saturated and things weren’t like they used to be; how you had to change what you were doing in order to succeed ‘these days’.
This had left her feeling as though she was completely powerless to change (and to make a change), to be of service, to make a difference, and to be supported by her life’s work. She then said to me, ‘Those conversations and the depleted energy I left them with, made me feel as though I’d lost touch with my own alchemy, trust and magic, by going so far down the rabbit hole of lack of faith and mistrust.’
We dug deeper. Emma loved and respected the people who’d given her their opinions so much, she was more invested in keeping their beliefs alive than in loving herself and her dreams. She realised that she had to let go of what those people had said, and honour herself and her own path now.
I asked her to work with her CEO self—the part of her that could rise above the current situation and vibration, the opinions and thoughts of others, and make her own beliefs matter. By doing so, I explained that she’d be able to ‘flick the switch’—to start deeply believing in herself and her own ability to create what she wanted in her life and work, without feeling the need to take on others’ opinions before (or instead of) her own.
Throughout the rest of our session, we worked to clear her sense of lack, to shift from ‘push and mush mode’ into alignment and trust, to allow the unfolding of what she was working towards, and to transmute her fears into a deep sense of harmony. We worked to ensure that she knew she could trust herself; that ‘more’ doesn’t mean ‘better’; that she had the power to shift her self-doubt, to change, and to transform.
And so do you.
Alongside Gorse, Cerato is another Bach flower essence that is very suited here. It supports you to have more faith and trust in your own judgement and decisions, allowing you to listen to your heart and intuition more, without feeling the need to take on the opinions of others.
To support us in trusting and allowing an unfolding, instead of rushing and pushing ahead, we must also trust that by not controlling the unfolding, we’re actually allowing it even more.
Lately I’ve been reading some of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Aurelius was a Roman emperor and philosopher. His Meditations are a series of his personal writings, thought to be dated around 161-180 AD when he was emperor, reflecting on spiritual and stoic philosophies.
I just pick up the book and flip it open, reading whatever page I land on. The latest paragraph I’ve landed on has left me feeling particularly calm and reconnected to life (after a rather intense couple of weeks, where I did plenty of ‘zooming’—as my husband calls it—into the future): Do not let the future trouble you. You will come to it (if that is what you must) possessed of the same reason that you apply now to the present.
In today’s talk, that’s the equivalent of: ‘Don’t worry about the future so much. Stay in the present and trust that when you get to the ‘future’, you’ll manage it with as much strength, grace and grit (or more!) as you do today.’
Said even more simply: you’ve got this.
The quote from Aurelius that opens this chapter is also particularly soothing. It’s something to embody when you’re zooming into the future, worrying, wondering and working yourself up into a lather, because pieces of your puzzle feel as though they don’t quite fit today.
Trust that what is meant for you will not pass you by. Allow yourself to lean into, and allow, the unfolding of all that is to come.
I step into my flow, trust the timing, and allow the unfolding of all I’m creating and receiving.