Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping

'Love Melts Fear' - Best of 2009: Challenge

[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge]

This has been a pretty challenging year. In January, when I let my wildest dreams for the year blossom, I decided that this was the year when I would become a yoga teacher and write my book. I've done both, but not without a good dose of fear.

I was afraid that my story wouldn't be good enough to make a book out of it. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to write well enough. I was afraid that if I told my story, truthfully, people would decide that I was crazy or - worse - that I was a Drama Queen.

I still am afraid of those things. But I decided to write my book anyway.

I was afraid that I wasn't 'good enough' at yoga to be a teacher. I was afraid that no-one would want to come to my classes. I was afraid that if I started teaching my weaknesses as a yogini and as a person would be so apparent that people would decide that I was crazy or - worse - that I was a phony.

I still am afraid of those things. But I became a yoga teacher anyway.

Every time I turn up to teach a yoga class, I start over again. I hear the voices of fear. What if they don't like what you have to offer today? What if they hate it and they all leave? I tell those voices that I don't have time for them. I'm too busy feeling so much love for the people who have been brave enough to show up. I'm too busy offering them what I have to share - a very simple, very authentic practice of yoga that has given me so much.

Every time I sit down to write, I start all over again. I hear the voices of fear. What if I have nothing to say? What if all my writing is crap and no-one has been honest enough to tell me? I tell those voices that I don't have time for them. I'm too busy reaching deep inside to find the stories that demand to be told. I'm too busy feeling love for the people who trusted me with their stories, and who trusted me to share them.

My biggest challenge this year has been finding the balance between noticing where my fears were pointing me (because they have an unerring sense of direction) while not letting them paralyze me. What I've learned is that love melts fear. When I love the people in my classes enough to really want to serve them as best I can, the fear melts away.

I'm so glad that I have found my solid ground, that unshakeable place of love and peace that I can fall back into at any time, because it gives me the courage I need to keep on walking, writing, teaching and loving in the face of fear.

This post was inspired by:

• This post by Jen Lee
• Some kind words from my friend Emma; and
• 'Love Melts Fear' by my beautiful friend Edo Kahn of The Kahn Brothers

Living the questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

            Rainer Maria Rilke ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ (1934)

I've read this quote so many times. In the past I've read it and aspired to love the questions, even while my heart and mind seemed determined to yearn after the answers. We live in a society that believes in solutions and that sees the questions not as a place to reside but as a barrier to get through as quickly as possible. Recently I rushed headlong towards a resolution to uncertainty. I leapt to embrace a solution despite the fact that it didn't fit.

I woke up the morning after this moment of decisiveness and felt out of sorts and out of place. I was not ready to live this answer. Instead I decided to keep company with the questions for a little longer. It was a wonderful relief.

At first I wondered whether this was the relief of avoidance. I wondered whether I had simply turned away from the hard questions and chosen to live in blissful, willful ignorance. I wondered how I would know the difference.

But as I sat in meditation one morning I realised that I already knew the difference between avoiding the question and keeping its company. As long as the questions were with me, as long as I was willing to sit with them and observe the feelings, thoughts and sensations that came up for me in their company, I was living the questions. 

Three weeks later I don't know if I am any closer to an answer. But in the meantime living with the questions has turned out to be a refreshing change. Now that I don't feel the terrible pressure of making a choice, I can relax and really pay attention.

What does yoga have to do with climate action?

Teaching yoga in the sunshine for International Climate Action Day. Photo by Pedram Pirnia of 'Art against War' (Check out Pedram's amazing photos from Afghanistan)

The event I organised for the International Day of Climate Action (24 October) was a free outdoor yoga class in a park in Wellington. So what does yoga have to do with climate action?

As I understand it yoga is a pathway towards the simple but sometimes shocking reality that we really are all one.

The yoga sutras, by Patanjali, set out a very precise system of practices that is designed to bring all aspects of our being into greater balance and harmony.

The yoga path doesn't require us to believe anything, it only invites us to practice. Through practice arises not faith but awareness.

As we follow the path and commit to the practices of yoga we begin to awaken to our own true nature. We come to understand that there is no separation between "me" and "you", nor between "people" and "the planet".

There is no longer an 'away' to which to throw our waste. There is no 'them' on whom to blame the problem, nor to rely upon for a solution. Everywhere is here, everyone is us.

Once we start to wake up to this reality it becomes natural, easy and even inevitable that we will want to live as sustainably as possible.

PS: For more thoughts on what yoga has to do with climate change read these great posts by my friends and co-conspirators in goodness: Nick Potter of Intersect and Kara-Leah Grant of PranaFlow NZ

Why being sad is okay with me

 

Antonio*: good friend, loving husband and father, great listener, straight talker and UN Peacekeeper. May he rest in peace.

I'm sad today. Yesterday suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a UN guesthouse in Kabul and killed nine people. On the same day a car bomb in Pakistan killed many more. I went to bed last night with sadness and I woke up with sadness. But I don't mind being sad.

When I am sad my heart is tender. I feel the deep presence of love that sits beneath the sadness and transforms it into compassion. When I am sad I am also open. I feel the pain of those who suffer, but I also feel the incredible stability of that love. I am no longer afraid of drowning in my sadness. I understand that it arises out of love and that love is big enough to hold it.

So I don't mind being sad. I think it is what our heart and our true nature require in response to times like these. In the sadness our hearts soften, the barriers we have built between ourselves and the rest of the world crumble a little. We feel the truth that we are all always together. We experience the power of our own compassion. In sadness we are very close to love.

Today I'm sad and I'm just fine with that.

*NB: Antonio died last year, not in the attack yesterday, but he's in my heart today.

What 350 taught me about conscious activism

Dawn ceremony in Wellington to open the International Climate Action Day (photo from www.350.org.nz)

On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis. How did they do it?

Lesson One: Harness the Mighty Power of the Interweb

Bill McKibben, the elder statesman of the 350 movement, has already reflected on the role the internet played in making Saturday the extraordinary success that it was. Perhaps the single most critical factor in this has been the expansion of the internet to some of the most remote and isolated corners of the world via mobile phone networks. When Bill came to talk to 350 organisers and climate change activists in Wellington earlier this year he told us a very moving story about a text he had received from a farmer in Bangladesh who was ready to do his part for the climate, the planet and our shared future. This man was already living with the harsh daily reality of climate change as he struggled to adapt his crops to changing and unpredictable weather patterns. He didn't see this as someone else's problem, nor did he see 350 as someone else's movement. Thanks to the reach of the internet via his mobile phone he felt that he was part of the movement and part of the solution.

Lesson Two: Don't Hold to Tightly to Your Brand

The 350 flag was flying in every country on the planet on Saturday. For images of 350 from Papua New Guinea to Denmark and from Ethiopia to Berkeley, check out the 350 Flickr stream. If you were a brand manager, this kind of exposure would surely have you in brand heaven. The 350 co-ordinating team pulled it off with very modest resources. How? As an event organiser for Saturday I was given total freedom to design my event. The 350 co-ordinating committee for New Zealand offered me support if I needed it but made no attempt to control or influence my vision for the day. They encouraged me to use the 350 logo and even hosted an old-fashioned banner-making workshop at their Wellington office so that we would all have the flag ready to fly. I felt supported but never stifled and that left me the space I needed to plan our event in the yogic spirit in which it was conceived, relying on the natural flow of enthusiasm and effort from our local sangha without forcing my timetable or agenda on anyone.

Lesson Three: Bring Your Joy with You and Play Along

Every 350 planning meeting I attended was fun. The wonderful young people who led us always turned up with their passion and sense of joy. We had brainstorming sessions for 350 actions which wandered down pathways of such silliness that we were all rolling on the floor laughing. It was fun to play with those kids and that motivated me to keep coming back for more. I've been involved in different activist groups and movements over the years and the one factor that seems to get lost all too quickly is this sense of joy. It's hard to stay angry or despondent for long when you are invited to play.

Lesson Four: Take Care of Each Other

About halfway through this year I got an invitation to a special meeting of climate activists in Wellington. We were still six months out from the big climate negotiation meeting in Copenhagen (which will take place this December) and we had all already been working actively on local and international climate advocacy for many months. A wise soul in a young body decided it was time to check in with each other about how we were all going. We gathered in a warm, cosy room out the back of a yoga studio. One by one we spoke about how we were and what we needed from each other. Those who were tired or despondent were given gentle words of encouragement. Those who were enthused and inspired found new collaborators. Those who were making big leaps of faith were reminded of the community standing with them as they leapt. We talked, we each prayed in our own way and then we ate together. It was one of the most nourishing  meetings of activists I had ever been part of and it sustained me for many more months.

-

I could list a dozen more lessons I have learned from the leaders of 350 in New Zealand and abroad but these four capture the spirit of the movement. With joy, a light grasp, care for each other and very savvy use of the internet, 350 have redefined global movements for social change and have created something more diverse, more playful and more effective than I've seen in a long time.

Yogis get down with the Climate: Blog Action Day 09

These days I'm playing with the idea of conscious activism. It isn't a bold departure from my heritage as an activist. It's more like a subtle shift in attention. These days I'm always looking for ways to connect and engage people, rather than isolate or confront them. These days I'm always looking for the stories and actions that will fill people with a sense of joy, possibility and hope rather than anger, despair and frustration. These days I'm always interested in grounding my activism in a solid base of mindfulness and compassion.

So this year for the Global Day of Action on Climate Change - which is next Saturday 24 October - I've worked with friends and fellow yogis in Wellington to organise a joyful gathering of people to practice yoga for the climate. We'll come together in hopefully vast numbers on the waterfront of Wellington and as we all breath together in downward dog we'll renew our connection to each other and to the earth.

We'll stand together and move together to show our solidarity and our commitment to living in harmony with each other and with the planet. We'll sit together in silence and reaffirm our commitment to the yogic principle of 'ahimsa' - of doing no harm. We'll silently affirm our heart-felt desire to live in a way that nurtures and does not harm the earth or any of the beings that live on it and in it.

It has been a delight to organise this event, which has come together with ease and a very light touch as yogis around the city have each put their hand up to do this task or that. I've sat over steaming pots of tea with some of my favorite people and we've planned joyfully how we can share our mutual loves of yoga and the environment. This is what activism can feel like, and I'm loving it. 

350 is the safe upper level of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (in parts per million). We're at 387 and rising. Join hundreds of thousands of people on October 24, coming together around the world to restore our climate. See www.350.org or www.350.org.nz for more information about events in your area.

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

Spring Cleanse: What are you ready to let go of?

Well, it hasn't looked or felt much like spring around here this past week. Earthquakes and tsunami in the Pacific have left hundreds of people dead, thousands homeless and many more devastated. Here in New Zealand a late cold snap has left farmers without any electricity as they struggle to rescue new spring lambs from the late snow. When disaster strikes I find myself questioning my decision to leave Oxfam, to leave the world of direct humanitarian assistance behind while I write this book. It has been a big change for me and it is taking some time to get used to not having a job that gives me a clear and concrete sense of what I am doing to help.

Then I take a breath. Let it out. Take another. Let it out. I remember that working in war zones or in the wake of natural disasters is only one way to change the world. Writing a book is one way to change the world. Teaching yoga is one way to change the world. Uncovering my own voice, telling my own story, telling my own truth is one way to change the world. I also remember that I don't have to change the world. I don't even have to change me. So, I shed another layer. I let go of another set of the beliefs that have served me well in the past. I'm ready to release them and rest in the space they leave behind.

This week, following the full moon, the moon is waning and it is a good time for letting go. As part of this cleanse I'm not only letting go, at least for the month, of foods and drinks that don't really nourish my body. I'm also taking a little time to notice what thoughts and beliefs I'm still carrying that don't really nourish my soul.

So as you sit in silence for a few moments every day and as you take the time to prepare and consume nourishing food for your body, notice what else you might be ready to let go of this month.

For the rest of this week let yourself settle gently into the changes you have made to your eating and drinking practices. Notice if you are feeling differently. You may experience some symptoms of detoxification this week, especially if you were consuming caffeine, sugar and/or alcohol regularly before the cleanse. Some people experience headaches, in the past I've experienced some confusion/dizziness and also some weepiness. It all passes. Just notice it as it arises and see if you can be present and aware without attaching yourself to the sensation. Use your breath and the awareness of sensations in your body to ground yourself and simply notice what is going on, without judgement.

As you notice the sensations in your body, begin to think about how you want to move your body. This first week of the cleanse, depending what level of cleanse you are doing, you might feel some sensations of fatigue or even nausea. This might be a sign to ease back on any really vigorous exercise regime and focus on gentler, restorative practices like walking or gentle yoga. If you are feeling energetic then by all means, move it! If you don't usually exercise then this week is a good time to start. Gentle, regular exercise will help manage any side-affects of the cleanse and will help increase the benefits of the cleanse as the weeks go on. 

Here are some great resources:

Kristen's Raw

If you are aiming for either total or partial raw food for the cleanse then check out this great site, which I found when Kristen herself left a lovely comment here yesterday. She has fabulous recipes and general information and advice about the raw food lifestyle.

101 Cookbooks

A great site if you are planning to mix some healthy vegetarian/vegan cooked options into your cleanse. Today's featured recipe is 'Green Soup with Ginger', yum!

Yoga Today

A great site where you can get free daily yoga practices on video, including this one which is the best place to start if you haven't practiced yoga before and can't make it along to a class.

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

— Rumi

Last week I wrote a list of 10 things you probably shouldn't say to a friend who doesn't have children. It was quite an experience. People responded, to say the least.

One of the ways in which people responded was by talking to me about it. As a result of one of those conversations I realised that one of the items on the list is probably the most important of all. It's also the item that bothers me least, these days.

What used to bother me the most was the suggestion that the love between a parent and child was much deeper, wider and more profound than any other love. The inference was that if I was unable (or unwilling for any reason) to have children then I would never experience true, deep love.

This no longer bothers me. It can still be pretty hurtful to others, though, so I still suggest you might want to think twice before launching into your rant about how only having a baby has taught you what true love is.

It no longer bothers me because now, finally, I understand that the fullest, deepest love already resides within me. If I don't experience this love for all beings all the time it is simply (ha!) because of the barriers and obstacles that I've erected around my heart, because of the way I contract and withdraw my heart in fear or shame or blame or guilt.

I'd suggest that babies have a special gift for getting us to lower those barriers. It may be their inherent vulnerability or it may be because they haven't yet put up any barriers around their own hearts, which is the same thing. But one way or another babies invite us to let down our barriers. This is particularly but not, in my experience, exclusively true of our own babies, whether by birth or otherwise.

So we let down our barriers. We engage with these marvelous little beings in moments free of fear, blame, guilt or expectation. As our hearts open we experience our own true nature, which is love, joy, equanimity and compassion. We then attribute this experience to the other being. We assume it is this wonderful baby that causes this love to arise in us (I've done the same with lovers). When, in fact, it was all within us all along.

So now when people tell me that since they have had their baby they have come to know what love really is, instead of feeling cheated I feel joy. I feel joy that another being has opened their heart. I know now that there are other paths towards an open heart. I've come to understand that although a baby may be one of the best short-cuts around, ultimately we can all learn to open our hearts irrespective of the company we are keeping. It's not easy but it is simple.

It starts with sitting still and making friends with your own mind and heart.

It's another way to change the world.

I just got back to New Zealand after five days in Sydney for a yoga teacher training workshop with Mark Breadner. The workshop, called "Living Yoga" was mostly theory. From 8.30am to 5.00pm for four days we dived into the theory and philosophy of yoga and at first I was drowning in the long (though very poetic) sanskrit names, the eight different limbs of yoga, the hundreds of yoga sutras, the yamas, the niyamas, the chakras, the nadis, the vayu, the kosha and the different pranayama. To give you an idea of how much information I was drowning in, I took 65 pages of notes over the four days. Uh huh. Sixty five pages of notes.

As you might imagine, somewhere at about page 35 I started to wonder whether I had been crazy to think that I was ready to be a yoga teacher. I couldn't even remember the names of all the kosha let alone be confident that I was making much progress at integrating them all in my yoga practice. I could understand the principles that where our attention goes our energy will follow, but I wasn't sure that in a class situation I could direct my attention with enough clarity of focus to engage and move the energy field of a student.

So I was very relieved when Mark put up a slide (one of more than 200) that set out his guiding principles for teaching yoga. They were:

• All life is energy.
• We assume that well-being is inherent and primary.
• Or work is to offer practices that support well-being.
• We look for the maximum amount of change while being kind to ourselves.
• We always look for ways to rest and let down, let in.

Ah. Ahhhhhhhh. It felt like a great sigh of relief spread over the whole room. As long as we stayed within our knowledge base and always respected the  fundamentally energetic nature of the yoga practice, as long as we were inviting people to join us in yoga practice and never insisting, as long as we reminded people that the purpose of yoga was to support well-being and as long as we encouraged people to trust their own inner teacher and to take time to rest and let down, we would be teaching yoga.

It was incredibly useful and important for me to study the history, philosophy and theory of yoga in more detail and I know that something of the wisdom crammed into those sixty five pages is currently seeping its way into my conscious and subconscious mind. But it was also good to be reminded that yoga is very simple. It is a way of living that supports well-being and reveals our true nature, which is love, joy, compassion and equanimity. It includes sophisticated systems of physical, emotional, mental and energetic practices but it is also as simple as restoring unity between the breath and the body, as settling the mind into deep spaciousness, and as feeling more and more truly yourself day by day.

At the Off the Mat yoga retreat in Big Sur last month we spent one day exploring our own voices. The voices in our heads and the voices we needed to liberate so that we could speak with truth and love in the world.

Part way through the asana practice that day, as we were in camel pose, our hearts wide open and our heads dropping back to open our throats, Seane invited us to let the words we needed to hear most arise. When your heart is fully open and you have exposed your most tender parts to the world, when you are looking at the world upside down and you have relinquished the need to be in control it is amazing the simple truths that become self-evident.

The words that came to me were "You are enough". That was what I most needed to hear. Those were the words that would answer the question that accompanied me throughout life, leading me to work too hard or to love unwisely. Am I enough? I'd been asking.

When we had come out of camel and were gathered in a circle in the centre of the room, being led by the amazing Suzanne Sterling to explore our voices in song, we were offered the opportunity to say out loud the words that we most needed to hear. Actually - it was more terrifying than that. We were invited to SING the words that we most needed to hear.

I have long believed that I couldn't sing, that when I sing it sounds bad. So there I was I was standing in a circle shaking with fear at the thought of singing, alone, in front of all these people and yet sobbing with the need to hear these words, to give these words to myself.

So I summoned up all the courage that yoga has given me and stepped into the circle. I opened my mouth and sang with all my heart "I am enough". As I sang others in the group picked up the phrase and started singing it with me. I shook my whole body with the joy of finally answering my own fearful question. Am I enough? Yes. I am enough.

Over the course of the day and the remaining days on the retreat five different women came to me in quiet moments and told me that the words I sang were the exact same words that she had been saying to herself - the very words she knew she also needed to hear. We are enough.

A week or so later I saw this photo on Andrea's blog. It lead me to this post by Tracey Clark. I had initially thought that the photo was of Andrea and I was struck that we had both chosen the same words for ourselves. Then I realised that it was Tracey who had chosen those words. But maybe it was all of us. We are enough. Say it to yourself. Sing it out loud. Go on, you only have to do it in the quiet of your car, or your kitchen. I sang it in front of 45 people and three of my heros. If I can do that then anyone can.

This is what conscious activism means to me. Excavating deep into my motivations to do service work and uncovering my own shadows, owning them, addressing them and healing them. So that when I turn up to do the work of serving others, of bearing witness in this world, I'm not looking to those others to answer the question that only I could really answer - head thrown back and heart open.

I am enough.

Change the World: Make friends with your Heart

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

— Rumi

Last week I wrote a list of 10 things you probably shouldn't say to a friend who doesn't have children. It was quite an experience. People responded, to say the least.

One of the ways in which people responded was by talking to me about it. As a result of one of those conversations I realised that one of the items on the list is probably the most important of all. It's also the item that bothers me least, these days.

What used to bother me the most was the suggestion that the love between a parent and child was much deeper, wider and more profound than any other love. The inference was that if I was unable (or unwilling for any reason) to have children then I would never experience true, deep love.

This no longer bothers me. It can still be pretty hurtful to others, though, so I still suggest you might want to think twice before launching into your rant about how only having a baby has taught you what true love is.

It no longer bothers me because now, finally, I understand that the fullest, deepest love already resides within me. If I don't experience this love for all beings all the time it is simply (ha!) because of the barriers and obstacles that I've erected around my heart, because of the way I contract and withdraw my heart in fear or shame or blame or guilt.

I'd suggest that babies have a special gift for getting us to lower those barriers. It may be their inherent vulnerability or it may be because they haven't yet put up any barriers around their own hearts, which is the same thing. But one way or another babies invite us to let down our barriers. This is particularly but not, in my experience, exclusively true of our own babies, whether by birth or otherwise.

So we let down our barriers. We engage with these marvelous little beings in moments free of fear, blame, guilt or expectation. As our hearts open we experience our own true nature, which is love, joy, equanimity and compassion. We then attribute this experience to the other being. We assume it is this wonderful baby that causes this love to arise in us (I've done the same with lovers). When, in fact, it was all within us all along.

So now when people tell me that since they have had their baby they have come to know what love really is, instead of feeling cheated I feel joy. I feel joy that another being has opened their heart. I know now that there are other paths towards an open heart. I've come to understand that although a baby may be one of the best short-cuts around, ultimately we can all learn to open our hearts irrespective of the company we are keeping. It's not easy but it is simple.

It starts with sitting still and making friends with your own mind and heart.

It's another way to change the world.

Keep it simple sweetheart

I just got back to New Zealand after five days in Sydney for a yoga teacher training workshop with Mark Breadner. The workshop, called "Living Yoga" was mostly theory. From 8.30am to 5.00pm for four days we dived into the theory and philosophy of yoga and at first I was drowning in the long (though very poetic) sanskrit names, the eight different limbs of yoga, the hundreds of yoga sutras, the yamas, the niyamas, the chakras, the nadis, the vayu, the kosha and the different pranayama. To give you an idea of how much information I was drowning in, I took 65 pages of notes over the four days. Uh huh. Sixty five pages of notes.

As you might imagine, somewhere at about page 35 I started to wonder whether I had been crazy to think that I was ready to be a yoga teacher. I couldn't even remember the names of all the kosha let alone be confident that I was making much progress at integrating them all in my yoga practice. I could understand the principles that where our attention goes our energy will follow, but I wasn't sure that in a class situation I could direct my attention with enough clarity of focus to engage and move the energy field of a student.

So I was very relieved when Mark put up a slide (one of more than 200) that set out his guiding principles for teaching yoga. They were:

• All life is energy.
• We assume that well-being is inherent and primary.
• Or work is to offer practices that support well-being.
• We look for the maximum amount of change while being kind to ourselves.
• We always look for ways to rest and let down, let in.

Ah. Ahhhhhhhh. It felt like a great sigh of relief spread over the whole room. As long as we stayed within our knowledge base and always respected the  fundamentally energetic nature of the yoga practice, as long as we were inviting people to join us in yoga practice and never insisting, as long as we reminded people that the purpose of yoga was to support well-being and as long as we encouraged people to trust their own inner teacher and to take time to rest and let down, we would be teaching yoga.

It was incredibly useful and important for me to study the history, philosophy and theory of yoga in more detail and I know that something of the wisdom crammed into those sixty five pages is currently seeping its way into my conscious and subconscious mind. But it was also good to be reminded that yoga is very simple. It is a way of living that supports well-being and reveals our true nature, which is love, joy, compassion and equanimity. It includes sophisticated systems of physical, emotional, mental and energetic practices but it is also as simple as restoring unity between the breath and the body, as settling the mind into deep spaciousness, and as feeling more and more truly yourself day by day.

I am enough

At the Off the Mat yoga retreat in Big Sur last month we spent one day exploring our own voices. The voices in our heads and the voices we needed to liberate so that we could speak with truth and love in the world.

Part way through the asana practice that day, as we were in camel pose, our hearts wide open and our heads dropping back to open our throats, Seane invited us to let the words we needed to hear most arise. When your heart is fully open and you have exposed your most tender parts to the world, when you are looking at the world upside down and you have relinquished the need to be in control it is amazing the simple truths that become self-evident.

The words that came to me were "You are enough". That was what I most needed to hear. Those were the words that would answer the question that accompanied me throughout life, leading me to work too hard or to love unwisely. Am I enough? I'd been asking.

When we had come out of camel and were gathered in a circle in the centre of the room, being led by the amazing Suzanne Sterling to explore our voices in song, we were offered the opportunity to say out loud the words that we most needed to hear. Actually - it was more terrifying than that. We were invited to SING the words that we most needed to hear.

I have long believed that I couldn't sing, that when I sing it sounds bad. So there I was I was standing in a circle shaking with fear at the thought of singing, alone, in front of all these people and yet sobbing with the need to hear these words, to give these words to myself.

So I summoned up all the courage that yoga has given me and stepped into the circle. I opened my mouth and sang with all my heart "I am enough". As I sang others in the group picked up the phrase and started singing it with me. I shook my whole body with the joy of finally answering my own fearful question. Am I enough? Yes. I am enough.

Over the course of the day and the remaining days on the retreat five different women came to me in quiet moments and told me that the words I sang were the exact same words that she had been saying to herself - the very words she knew she also needed to hear. We are enough.

A week or so later I saw this photo on Andrea's blog. It lead me to this post by Tracey Clark. I had initially thought that the photo was of Andrea and I was struck that we had both chosen the same words for ourselves. Then I realised that it was Tracey who had chosen those words. But maybe it was all of us. We are enough. Say it to yourself. Sing it out loud. Go on, you only have to do it in the quiet of your car, or your kitchen. I sang it in front of 45 people and three of my heros. If I can do that then anyone can.

This is what conscious activism means to me. Excavating deep into my motivations to do service work and uncovering my own shadows, owning them, addressing them and healing them. So that when I turn up to do the work of serving others, of bearing witness in this world, I'm not looking to those others to answer the question that only I could really answer - head thrown back and heart open.

I am enough.