Standing on the threshold.
My journey beyond the cancer seas.
I’m here in that place of beginnings again. About to step back into the world of work and purpose. Poised on a threshold that has seemed so far away for such a long time. Am I ready? No idea. And yet I have to move forward and trust the process, trust myself and my community. There are a lot of people who continue to work through cancer diagnosis and treatment, or they come back to work very soon after. I salute you all for your fortitude. For me it was impossible since my main work was shiatsu, which requires a degree of body health and strength to do. And until now I haven’t felt capable of holding anyone else, either emotionally or physically.
I am still navigating some PTSD that taps me on the shoulder in the dark small hours of the night, but overall I am feeling integrated and ready for the next piece of this new life to fall into place. This past week or so I have been revamping my website, laying the foundations. And there I found my blog from years ago about how I came to shiatsu. I read it and felt my hand reaching out to me from the past and a sense of my future me calling me on.
It was profoundly heartening to feel that call again. And it gave me a sense of rightness for this present moment and where it is taking me. I have decided to share that blog of mine below. May it speak to all of you who have momentarily forgotten your way. Somewhere out there is a reminder of our becoming, a reminder of who we are. Maybe its a person, an object, a thought, a smell or like for me a forgotten blog. But there will be something, if you trust, that reminds you of your place in the greater wonder of it all.
The beginnings.
In the heady days of 90’s London, midst a booming alternative scene. I found myself fly pitching as a hair wrapper on Camden Lock. And in that time of weaving colours into folk’s hair, I began to sink more deeply into the conversations that created the backdrop to the patterns I wove. I started to feel I could be of service to people in that market madness. And so I commenced my reiki masters training over a number of years and worked with various groups offering this hands off energy work.
But you know, it wasn’t enough. I kept feeling the urge to touch, to pull an arm here, to hold a point there. This was scary territory, I was not trained in massage or other body work and had no idea what this all meant. So I did what many of us do in our spinning 20’s, and I turned from the healing work and began to point my search into learning about my own body.
Healing my traumas and harnessing my emotions with the help of my yoga really helped to focus me and has given me the 27years of daily practice. I call it my drip drip transformation. I qualified as a Contact partner yoga and Amrit hatha yoga teacher. And have gained other numerous qualifications over the many years since. Teaching yoga has satisfied my urge to connect and support others well.
But still, at the back of my heart, I could feel a calling. The spoke of my wheel was yet to be found in terms of the service I could be giving to others. But what? I mused and toyed with thoughts and research into different trainings, but none ignited my soul. Until I stumbled into my first shiatsu treatment and a moment of eureka infused me.
Because this was what I had been guided to be doing all those years ago in my reiki days, and the more I uncovered during my shiatsu trainings, the more I fell in love with the simplicity and majesty of such an ancient map to view the body from. Its profoundly healing and yet meets each person wherever they are. The depth and versatility of this fully clothed hands on system of informed touch is nothing short of magic.
In my years as a practitioner I still rise in joy at the transformations I witness in my community of clients. To be privileged to hear people’s story and to have the tools to be able to hold them, wherever their body is needing holding, is almost indescribable. I love what I do. I bring everything to my treatments. And in those precious moments of supporting others, I come alive. I finally know who I am. And this is what has brought me here and will keep me here for many happy years to come.
For more info on my upcoming Bath clinic www.wildrelys.com
