What brought me here?

Like many others, I became a life-long seeker in response to pain and suffering. Experiences of deep anguish propelled me towards searching for a way to overcome it. I knew there was something more to life. As a young person I would sometimes experience an opening and heart connection with everything. It was as if all the barriers broke down and I was free. It was joy itself. But then came the return of the limited ‘me’, and with it, loss, disappointment, and despair.

Nonetheless, these tastes of freedom filled me with a deep longing.

It was years later before I had a context for this experience, and began to understand what was unfolding.

In 2011, I came across Scott Kiloby’s book, ‘Love’s Quiet Revolution’. As I became familiar with this and his other writings, I was particularly struck by what Scott terms ‘deficiency stories’; stories of lack and inadequacy. This theme resonated because I was already uncomfortably aware of inner patterns and beliefs about not being good enough, and frustrated by how they were influencing my life.  I was living in the tension of striving for a better version of me: an undercurrent of inadequacy, feelings of less than and a drive for perfection drove the ‘show’ called my life’.  Internally I was often on high alert or preoccupied with currents of anxiety or self-loathing. Such was my doubt it even extended to my seeking - at times I believed I was unworthy of deep peace.  

When I encountered Scott, I was ready to really investigate what was holding those beliefs and patterns in place. His approach gave me a map with which to look more deeply.  A year later in 2012 I enrolled on the training course to become a Living Inquiries Facilitator.

The most valuable impact of the Inquires is really knowing and trusting in a deeply embodied way that presence itself includes everything: the pain, suffering, pleasure and joy. When whatever arises is embraced in genuine presence, it is liberated. Intense feelings and sensations are welcomed  and once met, by themselves subside and come to rest.

What I love about the Inquires is their simplicity, the mere act of being with what’s here right now, be it words, sensations or energies: it is Enough. To be fully present with - even curious – in meeting whatever is arising, and sensing the layers peel away.  

The gift of Inquiry is there for you at any time to dip into whenever you want to.

Please feel free to contact me for a chat. 

Who am I?

The Courage to Look

The Living Inquiries are an open invitation to look in a very gentle benign way. An opportunity to look at what is up whether it is a story you are telling yourself, a recurring pattern, ingrained beliefs or the simple condition of being human. This can be experienced in myriad of way, which seem personal but when inquired into miraculously dissipate, and then there is this ease of being, impersonal, alive and fresh.

We all have a story we tell ourselves, some are of deficiency and lack.  For me it came in the guise of not being good enough and not getting it right.

Deficiency is the word which stood out for me when I came across Scott Kiloby’s work, the Living Inquiries – the looking, longing and desire for more while still having the less than story running - not being good enough, could do better, the endless comparison, and generally living with an undercurrent of not being good enough.

The biggest trap of not being good enough is the relentless striving for perfection. My nervous system was always on high alert; there was a familiar anxiety and self-loathing which felt quite normal. It was the lens through which I saw life. It informed how I lived my life, even in my spiritual seeking there was a belief I was not enough,  at times I felt utterly hopeless and if truth were told felt unworthy of the Truth.

When I got to work with the Living Inquiries and examine these beliefs and conditioning of a lifetime, I saw how it was all held together by words, images and sensations.  Quite simply and with the aid of a facilitator I got the opportunity to look very closely and intimately at this.

By looking at words  such as ‘ I am not worthy’ and noting if the words had a charge or a response in the body. I brought my attention to the sensation and allowed it to be here as it was, without any judgment or desire for it to go away. Images would appear sometimes with a charge or sensation in the body, again I would drop into the feeling and then sit with the raw energy. I became really intimate with it as you would a child when hurt or sad. This intimate looking feels very alive, fresh and complete, there is nowhere to go but be with it as it is. A true meeting! And with that a softening and dispersing of the story, or relaxation of the conditioning.

I discovered being truly present included everything, the good and not so comfortable feelings, all of it appearing and dissipating in a wonderful play of being human ….being yourself naturally.

In Truth we know who we are and essentially we are searching for this, in life there can be a frustration at how elusive it can be because of our conditioning.

I highly recommend working with a facilitator, my deepest work is often done in the presence of a facilitator. To have another be a witness and hold the space is I find, deeply intimate and allows one to go deeper.