Hello! For my friends who observe Chinese New Year, Gong Hey Fat Choy and Gong Xi Fa Cai! To mark this New Year, I am happily launching today a new website! You will notice that it has been streamlined to showcase the upcoming music releases and tours. Please check it out! We are now entering the year of the Fire Monkey, known to be a time of rapid change. As I look at the year ahead, it seems that way for me – lots of growth, expansion and possibilities. My team and I are laser focused on the joy of bringing my music to Asia through the upcoming “I Am Light” tour (theme: “Ignite Your Inner Light”), then to the world, where the message is “Find Awakened Presence Everywhere” in my global “Yoga Bomb” tour. If you tend to be easily distracted, this year will grace you with the opportunity to practice being focused on your goals while following your heart’s joy. I am cheering you on! From my creative Devi cave (aka my music studio) where my “I Am Light” EP is taking shape, I was reminded the other day of how the creative process is cyclical, with ups and downs on the way to completion. As a yogi, I often reflect upon the wise…
RECLAIMING THE DIVINE FEMININE (Continued from The Power of the Divine Feminine in a Dark Time) I had already moved from Montreal in 1989 when the Polytechnique shootings happened. I remember thinking from my Toronto home that it could have been me that was shot and killed that day. I was like those 14 young women, ambitious engineering students who had followed their path to higher education. But unlike them, I had chosen to study at the University of Waterloo. I was in the school of Architecture, which was at that time, and may still be (I honestly don’t know), very much an old boys club. I allowed the energy of that clan to deeply affect the way I felt about myself. Fed up with being a topic of conversation for my long blonde hair and bold attitude, I found myself soon with a shaved head, flirting with the idea of same sex relationships and unconsciously desiring to be more like a man. Needless to say, I became sick every month as an unexplored rage at being was pumping through my body in the form of extremely dysfunctional menstrual cycles. I hated being a woman. For much of my life, being a woman has felt unsafe. I have been subject to two overt physical assaults, one…
(Continued from “Toxic Shame“) The misperception that we are fundamentally flawed, which feeds our sense of shame, does need healing, but not because we are wrong, bad, ugly, awful or damaged. The misperception needs healing simply because it is untrue. It is an illusion perpetuated by our wounded self-perception. It exists because we give it power. We fear that it’s the truth, so we hide it away. As we reveal our broken bits from the darker recesses of our psyche, we eventually see that we are all beings of light that cast shadows, on an evolutionary journey back to the One place of undivided consciousness of pure love. In every moment, no matter what shame binds our perception temporarily, we are loved and supported beyond what we can habitually and consciously see. If you feel you suffer from debilitating shame, other than reading John Bradshaw’s book, I would recommend professional help from a skilled therapist who can help create a safe place in which you can allow your feelings of low self-worth to emerge, without judgment. Because shame exists in the severed places in our self that we fear, the process of revealing them in a safe environment is powerfully healing, just in itself. We need to be seen, just as we are. When we bring…
Dear Parvati, My life looks good on the surface – I’m intelligent, good looking, have a decent job, a good relationship – but I feel like a loser. I can’t seem to stop doing things I’m not proud of, like spending evenings playing World of Warcraft instead of working on my writing (I want to publish a novel), or letting the vegetables rot in the fridge while I eat chips for supper or order pizza… meanwhile I’m paying $100/month for a gym membership and not using it. I think most people who know me are really fooled and they think I have it so much more together than I really do. I’m afraid that if they found out the reality, they’d all get disgusted and drift away from me. My significant other has brought up the idea of living together, but I’m afraid I’ll lose her if she sees how I really live. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in shame for not being a better person. How do I fix this? Thank you for your question. Hiding is hard to do at any time, especially on an ongoing basis. Hiding our true self from our self and the world is extra hard, even painful. You may think you are the only one who does things…
(Continued from “What are the unconscious tendencies that affect your choices?“) The choices we have made over years have carved the lives we have today. Most of these choices were made unconsciously, until we wake up to the story of our lives. We all carry personal tendencies that shape the way we make our decisions. We can see these tendencies clearly in the way we reacted to our parents. Each one of us has unique interference patterns that thwart our joy. These interference patterns are like an inner saboteur that blocks our ability to live our greatest joy. We all carry a saboteur within us until we find the courage to befriend ourself and get to know our shadows. When we befriend ourselves, we begin to listen to the full story of our lives: our hopes and dreams, and the scary, painful bits. If we are to fulfill our dreams, we must acknowledge our shadow, which has a huge impact on the shape of our lives. When we befriend ourselves, we listen to the little girl or little boy within that holds secrets to our unfulfilled desires. When we befriend ourselves, we hear our deepest joys and activate the inner courage to realize our true heart’s desires. An exercise that I include every day in my…
Happy New Year! May you experience the fulfilment of your deepest joys and true, heart’s desires. For many, meeting our heart’s desires may seem like trying to realize a fairy tale illusion, or trying to touch a mirage that always feels out of reach. Yet we often come to New Year’s with hope that this year we will finally get the love we want, get that perfect job, make millions or experience glowing health. Whatever it is that you seek to bring fulfilment to your life, may you find it now and live it always. But how do you do that? About nine years ago, I came across a hot-off-the-press book that greatly helped me get my life on track. It helped me stop trying to fulfill other people’s dreams and helped me find the courage and get-up-and-go to start fulfilling my own. It is New York Times best selling author Debbie Ford’s book The Right Questions. If you have not read it, I recommend you do. It is short, to the point and very useful. In it, Debbie reminds us that where we are today is not the result of a single decision, but the result of repeated choices we have made over time, usually at an unconscious level. When we consider this, we…
(Continued from To Risk Speaking Up And Saying What You Feel) I have a saying that gets me through every show. If there are three people in a room, one person will hate what I do; another will love it; while another will not care. I find this very helpful. Everyone will have their own, personal experience and opinion of what I do. My job is not to worry about what others think, but to do the best job I feel I can do and have fun while I do it. People may not like what we say, and react to it. But that is their stuff and is no reflection of who we are. Our job is not to try to fix or change anyone, but get on and do what we are each here to do. We do not need to try to convince someone we are worthy of love, because we already are worthy, simply by being. If we look deeply into the root of stage fright, we will find that we may need to cultivate a bit more self-love. Self-love is different from self-confidence. Self-confidence can get us to the stage. Self-love will help us enjoy delivering the show. If we don’t have self-love, our self-confidence becomes bravado – thick on the…