Tag: freedom

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Soaring Spirit

Julia Chi Taylor

Let your spirit soar!

Let it to be free…

Resist weighing it down with layers of thought and heavy feelings.

Stay present – and you will notice in every moment, the bright light that burns within and never ever goes out – ever.

It may feel it has at times – when the burdens are heavy, and the world feels bleak… Then the joy and light can seem to have fled.

But deep within all is well; even in the most tragic and trying of circumstances there is the ever burning light, of the truth of who you are… Knowing this, experiencing this, changes everything…

It doesn’t mean you won’t feel pain and grief at times, but there will be an absence of unnecessary suffering that so often accompanies our difficulties – and instead, we can experience the deep space and silence within.

In time, the more we practice presence – an awareness arises – that whatever distress or suffering you might be experiencing in the outer realms, can be shifted through journeying within – to the core of your being – and healing from the inside out.

The only way is inwards, to be able go onwards with a lighter step. The only way is to go within to heal and become whole, and then you will see this reflected on the screen of life, and in the reflection of another, all others….

Your soaring spirit dancing and playing… 

The inner journey can feel a hard one at first,,,

’If the outer would change, all would be well’, we think…

‘If he would change, she would change, I had more of this or that, and less distress – all would be well…’

But when we start to go within – we discover the answers lie there…

And the work has begun,

To set yourself free

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Relax and Let go

Julia Chi Taylor

The loos aren’t downstairs in Pret on the King’s road…

But it is the place many people look for them!

I am often sitting downstairs near ‘the looking like it might be a loo’ door!

And so take on the role of ‘loo re director’.

I’ve just been ‘keeping an eye’ on a young woman’s laptop, she was sitting nearby and went on a loo mission…

I re directed her and offered to keep an eye

I’ve taken my job seriously and sat properly watching her table full of her belongings…! But then I like just sitting and watching…

I like the table upstairs by the window too – I like watching the people, the cars, the taxis and red London buses go by – and by.

I remember going to the cinema to see the film ‘Shine’ in the 90’s – it was about a piano player called David Helfgott, who driven hard by his father and teachers had a mental breakdown.

He loved to watch the traffic go by, and by. It calmed him.

I think of him when I am watching traffic – there is a lot of opportunity for me to do that where I live now.

My flat looks out over Sloane Avenue and the traffic goes by and by and by.

The flow of life…

Always represented wherever we look, the expansion, the movement, Consciousness in flow and form.

Consciousness is life, life is Consciousness.

Ad when we sit and watch we are free

In this moment

There is nothing else

It is possible to transcend all the pain and angst and suffering – the torture of the mind.

In this moment

When we watch

And know there is nothing else

And in that space experience who we truly are

The silence is always there

Our natural state – still and clear and joyous.

A leap that can be difficult for the human mind to grasp, is that to experience the freedom that is our birthright – it is possible to let go of the anguish pain suffering anger depression that is so prevalent in our lives – in this process we also let go of the attachment to seeking joy and happiness – the struggle away from sadness to happiness… 

The swing of the pendulum is the pain of duality that so many experience… All the time we are caught in the trap of identifying with these states we miss the experience of being 

But in letting go of this struggle, we can experience the ease joy bliss and the creativity that flows from us, which of course does mean we are happiness joy love – rather than seeking these states…

Our true authentic self.

The process to experience this is simple

But complex

The paradox is that to heal we must feel

Be aware in every moment

To breathe in deeply

To be here now

And to notice and be with every single sensation within and all around…

To be fully aware

To breathe in again and to notice the space before the out breath… The space of all pervading truth.

And to release everything as that breath leaves the body

Everything we are feeling and seeing

Every reaction every judgement

Everything that has arisen

To relax and let go.

And even if just for a moment

Experience our true nature

To feel the ease and peace this brings

And to expand it in

Every moment 

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Dear Diary; Freedom and Love are Within each of us

I jog 2.5k up the Fulham road to my destination, the doors open automatically – I tap in my pin and the pod door slides open… Stepping in I wait for that interminable second while the other side decides to allow me into the magic underground palace that is Pure Gym… Onto the treadmill for some intervals and then off back along the Fulham road and straight in and out of a shower to be ready and shiny clean new for Anadi to arrive…

We catch the number 22 bus, jump off at Green park, and walk along to Regents street to my office that was until March – and I give back the keys… 

A year ago I said to the Regus salesman – ‘it’s just an experiment – I’ll give it a year and see what happens…’

The year is up… It’s happened… I look at the office – I worked there once… And I feel like Neo in the matrix – ‘it never happened.’

We wander on down towards the Mall and up to Trafalgar Square where thousands of people are gathered for the Freedom March …As we approach the energy is tangible and we can hear a chant ringing out, a call for freedom – ‘No to masks’ – ‘no to mandatory vaccines’ – ‘no to control’ – ‘no no no…’

Banners held high – ‘Freedom over fear – Power to the people…’

Freedom from fear will set us all free and we can reclaim our power, now – now we can make that choice to let go of our fear…

Because we cannot be free when we live in fear… Fear is the real threat to humanity

There is no fear in freedom…

And freedom is our birthright… 

Freedom is within everyone of us… We have the chance now – and now – and now to let go of anything blocking us from relaxing deeply into this moment, into who we truly are.

No one can control a truly free person… Whatever is occurring in the outer realms cannot shake the truth within each one of us that we are infinite awareness…

Spiritual beings treading an earthly path.

A truly free person is in the world, but they are not of it… They know deeply that the only truth is infinite love…

‘There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…’

If we wish to make a difference in the world, our work is moment by moment to free ourselves from any fear and re discover the true source of our power which is at the centre and circumference of all our being… Love

Love is not something you can do, it is who you are…

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Dear Diary; Off The Lead

Anadi and I were planking on the grass together one morning last week!

We had shed bits and pieces by the benches, my vibram five fingers, my running belt, Anadis Xero shoes and his T shirt…

A little dog raced excitedly over to our ‘belongings’ and rummaging around, decided eventually on one of my vibrams…

Off he raced; his owner in hot pursuit…

Anadi and I maintained our plank throughout a fit of the giggles.

She retrieved my shoe and brought it back explaining… ‘It’s only his second time off the lead…!’

He continued to race wildly and excitedly about, and was soon back on his (albeit long) lead…

I reflected how a huge part of my life has been unclipping myself from the lead of childhood…

And mine was in many ways a very long lead…

Born at the very end of the 50’s, my young years happened through the 60’s, which meant there wasn’t the same surveillance over children as nowadays.

We were let loose very young and raced for hours alone in the woods and over the common land… No mobile phones and only hungry tums bringing us back when ‘penny chews’ had stopped filling the gaps…

But the lead was there, none the less… Strict rules about ‘how to go on’, expectations of behaviour and a definite realisation whenever we ignited the disapproval of our ‘elders and betters’…

But in some ways, the separation from the adults – and the hours of freedom where there wasn’t a lead in sight – did allow for the space to find our who I was.

Essentially someone whose main purpose in life was to lark about and learn how to become clear within, which was there, even as a child… The awareness that all I ‘wanted’ (an oxymoron) was spiritual growth…

Oh – and to run and run and run! At first with no purpose other than to enjoy the joy of the running step….But then for many years I took up the burden of ‘pressure to succeed’, to eventually return to that original place… 

To run about, because of the  love of running about…

And along the way I completely unclipped from that lead – which demanded somehow that life was about something more than this…

More than simply larking about

In the moment

Silent

Still 

And free

And running about for the fun of running about.

It’s my second time off the lead and this time no one’s putting it back on me again!

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Dear Dairy; Let go, Now

It’s funny really, when I think of how many words I write about my life, when I do the same thing.

Day after day

Everything the same

I run, I write, I spend time with Anadi,  I work with my clients

And I drink coffee, too…

And when I am resting, I don’t really do anything.

I don’t watch television, I don’t even listen to music ( I used to when I had a car; in the car!)

When the theatres and cinemas are open, and the restaurants too…I enjoy those things.

But,

I like doing nothing, no thing at all

I like silence, to be silent, no talking, no sound around me

I like being alone

I like being

Alone


We are all alone really and truly, we came into this incarnation alone and we leave alone.

I remember reading the words of Rumi, about twenty years ago, I was forty one years old…

‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense’.

And I didn’t like the idea of ‘each other’ not making any sense then.

I felt a slight discomfort, a feeling of distress…

‘Each other’ having been my lifelong quest, love, togetherness – each other.

But I felt the truth of the words.

And so I knew there was more work to be done…

More journeying

To learn to be alone

And to know that field

To lie down in it and be free, to understand that ideas and language are just that, ideas and language and that the world is too full to talk about.

And so I make another cup of coffee and sit silently, sipping the black liquid, a place of meditation for me for so many years.

And I let go

Of all the pressure to do more, to be more, to have more.

And I understand in each sip, the one realisation 

The years and years and years of seeking, distill into now…

One sip, one moment

Now

This is all it takes, now, and now, and now

Our realisation, our freedom. all arise in an instant

Now

We are all free

We simply need to know this, see this

And let go

Now 

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Dear Diary; Finding it all out

Writing it all down, pouring it all out

The stream of consciousness onto the page,

Finding out what is within.

This is my practise, to turn up and find out what will be revealed, discovered uncovered through the written word

Expressed on the page…

Writing it all down, can be a wonderful therapy too… It can be used as a way to clear away the anger the pain, anything within that is stuck and can’t get out… The written word holds so much energy, out out out and then it is gone.

Burn the paper, burn the page clear the pain.

Sometimes when we pick up a pen, or put fingers to keys we have no idea what is locked within; what ideas and thoughts, what deeper awareness we know.

What wisdom lies within.

The non dominant hand can reveal much too… Ask a question and see what the words will reveal.

We know more than we think we do

All there is to know is deep within the recesses of our being.

We are forever learning what we already know in so many different ways….

From a book in school, we pour over ideas concepts, lessons in maths and art and English; absorbing all this knowledge…

To learn to be a dentist or a plumber or an expert in physics; a teacher, a banker, a builder and on goes the list….

As we go we learn how to learn these things

So that we can continue to learn and grow.

In confidence, in self discipline; skills so that we can organise ourselves and our lives…

We learn to be reflexive, to think critically with our mind.

And our body teaches us to know things too… It has a wisdom of its own, it teaches us through dance, through movement, to release the knowledge from within…

And we can write it all down…All that we learn and know, find out, discover uncover

We can write it down. 

`So that other may read it 

And find it for themselves…

Because in the end; we let it all go…..

All that once made sense turns into no sense

And we are free

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Dear Diary; It all Comes to No Thing

It all comes to nothing…

I cried, but I also felt free.

With this realisation

With this acceptance…

My ‘conditioning’ was based on continual striving, somewhere… To do your best, to be a good person, to think of others, to achieve, to never rest, to never complain.. To keep going.

I recognised this very early; but freeing myself from the constraints of this energy – which of course was all mine, simply reflected back in the play out of my life – well it took time.

There was a cycle of letting go, following by a taking up of the reins once more, and a setting off with great enthusiasm and zeal.

Many projects, some begun and aborted… Many taking me on wonderful journeys of self discovery and growth, great learning and a gradually deepening of acceptance of my self…

The adventures were often rewarding, fun, successful… But still there was this nagging driving force coming out of the fear… The fear of being wrong

Not measuring up

Just not good enough….

This is a familiar energy in our culture – many of you will recognise it – and in our society it is written about too; there are courses and books and seminars designed to remind you that… 

You are enough, as you are.

You are who you are and it is enough…

But still the patterns can continue; the drive to succeed, to achieve not coming from the sheer joy of finding out, stretching and allowing the creative expression its arena…

I freed myself…

And part of the freedom for me came from the acceptance that when that final curtain falls, its all gone, it’s all come to nothing… This deep acknowledgement within me, somehow freed me to approach any endeavour or idea or adventure or project from a completely different position…

From one step to the next… Being fully in that step and trusting that the next would take care of itself..

Being in the flow and going with it…

Of course for others this isn’t always the case… The legacy they leave is important to them… The people they have given birth to, the books they have written, the businesses they have created …

We do not know the path another treads… We do not know what they have come to find out, to live out to experience

Each person’s journey their own…

But for me the freedom from feeling somehow wrong, that I hadn’t measured up, that I still needed to somehow earn my place came with that realisation

It all comes to nothing

There is no point

Its simply an experience 

Our energy playing out.

A deeper recognition of my soul in motion… 

A deeper connection to the no thing from whence we all came…

And I was free…

To play, to have fun, to let my spirit be truly free,

And; in an even better position than before to guide and support others in their own endeavours, and experiences and desires and needs to express and to find out.

In a better position to guide and support them to live and breathe and be here in whatever way they want to be here.

There is no one way.

Only the way within you.

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Dear Diary; Who is Me?

Once again today has brought me here, to the blank page…

We journey each day to a new beginning;

A new blank canvas.

Journeying intrinsic to my being.

And running too, and being in cafes… ( or outside them at the moment!) in front of the Saatchi gallery on the Kings road, my regular ‘outdoor cafe’ haunt …

Training in a gym (virtually for now!) is intrinsic too. It has always been thus, from age fifteen years when I joined a group of men in a garage and lifted weights with them. I found I loved it, I discovered myself to be in my element. 

Journeying, running, ‘gym ing’ and drinking coffee…

And talking healing helping too…

This is my life

A simple life

And the more simple it becomes – the more ordinary – the more expansive it feels; from the inside out.

Freedom from within.

I also love writing and Spanish and being with Anadi (not in the order!)

There is nothing else.

Within this there is nothing else for me to do

Just to Be. Free. Me. Free…

Who is me?

Who am I?

Who am I really?

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Dear Diary; Let Me Become

Let love and light shine from my heart
And as I run
Let me become
More me
More free
So that others can see it
And find it for themselves.

This was a prayer I wrote to myself many years ago; a poem of my dream; my wish to run free. 

The me below that me, ran to express; to paint the picture of my soul in each step

I knew that the only thing that mattered to me was to clear the pain, the places where I had separated from my self – from me; the true me – below the me that identified with being a fast runner, who sought the love and approval ‘out there’, through the chimera of success

To express freedom
To express love
Joy
Fun

I knew that all that mattered was to keep ‘wiping the mirror until there was no mirror to wipe’.

So that freedom and joy were in every running step.

I also knew that where I was trapped in the cycle of attachment to outcome; to the chimera of winning being important.

I knew this meant that I was not clear of the treadmill I was on.

There was more wiping of the mirror to be done.

I also knew that my running journey shone a light for me on the path ahead, and reflected straight back onto me…

This light guided me to the next step and the next… The joyous expression of my soul in motion; but it shone right onto my pain too.

My running step was both my salvation and my nemesis.

And many years later, I read this poem now; this prayer to the future me.

And I find the future me is here.

She runs, her feet bare, each step an adventure (if sometimes an ouchie one! )

I am more me
I am more free
I have become
As I run.

.

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Dear Diary; Beyond The Illusion

 Lock down has turned a key within me, that has opened a door which finds me speaking and connecting with many more people!

It all began when my fabulous client Josie encouraged me to hold an online Satsang… 

A ongoing dialogue has opened up from there…

Many questions are being asked; and in many different ways, this one question keeps arising…

Who am I? 

Who am I really?

From the same source; we are all born…. Of consciousness, of infinite love.

Namaste…

This is who we really are… And in the present moment we know who we truly are, when we are silent, and still – there we are, here – now.

But in the moment that we ‘react’ to anything we are immediately in the past.

The old brain, the prehistoric brain is telling us that there is ‘danger danger danger…’  It has been reminded of something way back; way back when we were little… When to survive we adapted our behaviour to keep safe within our family, within our society.

We created a self that fitted in…

So when we react, something has challenged this created self, the hurt self, the ego… 

But none the less…The self you believe yourself to be; the identity which you hold on to tightly; because…

Letting it go feels to be a death…

Oh what irony, to be living asleep, not recognising that who we are is always there, eternal.

Our freedom arises when we

Let go….

Let go of every single shred of attachment to our sense of self, and discover the self that is true…

The I beneath the I

And the we let go is through experiencing everything we feel – and living it fully

Fully feeling and cutting those stories… 

To heal we must feel.

The way to freedom is through our experiences, consciously experiencing them.

Being fully in each moment of everything in our lives, without resistance.

And then we start to shed the layers, peeling them back like an onion skin –  and journeying to the centre of the earth; to the centre of our being.

To discover that consciousness is at the centre and circumference of all things.

So within, so without.

Our outer experiences reflecting our inner state.

If we want to experience a different reality, we must travel inwards and clear all that is blocked or stuck; and recognise the patterns that are looping around; maybe so many times in this life, that eventually you start to see them; recognise their familiar ways…

It is likely that we have been doing the same thing for lifetimes…

And now you are beginning to see…

Once the veils of awareness have been parted, it takes courage to keep them drawn back… To resist any desire to close them again.

Out of fear for a new uncharted future…

And instead, see beyond the illusion – and wake up to who you truly are.