Grief: feelings, hope & action

by Mei Lai Swan | Apr 10, 2020 | Uncategorized

I have been quiet here for some time. I have been on my moon. Alongside the brilliant pink full moon, this month it has loomed large. Its gifts, that feel like both a blessing and a curse, are a natural inward-drawing, a stirring of what is in the depths to rise to the surface, and a heightened sensitivity and capacity for feeling. And what I have been feeling is grief. 

It’s taken me some days to recognise it. To know and name the swell of sadness rising up from the hollow shadows of my stomach like a wave, pressing for release at the back of my throat and eyes.

And I’ll be honest, it caught me by surprise. I live my life in service, purpose and community. And I live my life like a tidal wave of change. In the cellular knowing that what I have built and cherish could be gone at any moment. 

So after a hilarious busyness of two weeks in self-isolation, and going with the rapidly unfolding flow upon to then land in a new home with dear friends near Byron Bay, I felt deeply grateful and ready to adapt.

But then, with the bitter grace of approaching moon days, the hollow sadness started to emerge. I noticed I didn’t want to face emails and voice messages. I’ve felt empty and heavy, sleeping hard and being slow to drag myself out of bed. I’ve scoured the news to get glimpses of how long the restrictions might last for, when international flights might fly again, when I could return to the place where my heart is. I stood on one of our beautiful beaches, with my heart deeply heavy. I’ve been watching my mind try to jump in and rationalise and chastise. I should be grateful for the abundance, support and good fortune I have here in Australia. But my heart and spirit is telling a different story: I don’t want to be here. 

Then I realised, I’m grieving. Like so many of us – probably all of us, whether we know it and feel it yet or not. For the life of freedom, movement, and community that suddenly was taken out from under us, even in the name of our ‘safety’. For the loss of work, income, family, friends, our familiar ways of life. For the lack of certainty, food and essentials, or being able to go outside without fear of being fined or beaten. For all of those who are suffering deeply, losing their lives or loved ones, without food or shelter, experiencing greater violence and poverty, who are deeply isolated and alone. For the potential ongoing loss of civil liberties. For simple human touch.

And this grief, mixed with currents of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty is both personal and collective. To know that all over the globe, we are entangled in this web of shared experience. It makes these feelings run deeper. They are amplified for each human I feel connected to – which is whole world.

But one of the beautiful remembrances in moments like these, is that no one is immune from feelings. No matter what our minds might think, know, or try to control, our feelings start like a ripple in our heartful soul and come cascading through our bodies. The more we let them flow, the greater our capacity for presence. The more we stifle or deny them, the more they will cripple us, silently and stealthily. They teach us heart, humility and home.
When we allow them to flow, they cleanse and clarify, and offer us the opportunity to know what really matters. They invite us to come together at the common sacred site of our vulnerability and authenticity. To be fully human. And as we let them move through us, they can bring us hope and inspire us into action. 

So as I’ve been allowing myself to feel, to grieve, to honour – without judging or justifying or rationalising – I’m starting to feel an emergence from the chrysalis. A new wave of reflecting, strategising and finding purpose. Exploring new pathways for personal and collective action, so that we can protect and nurture what truly matters, and be part of creating our emerging future in a way that we would want it, rather than passive recipients of a future determined by those with power,  authority and technology.

I would love to come together in community, conversation, collaboration and feeling, in Circles of Connection – local and global community pods for authentic connection, support and heartful action. If you’re interested in coming together in this way, please comment or DM me, I have details coming very soon.

I AM

by Mei Lai Swan | Mar 20, 2019 | Uncategorized

I am white and I am other.

I am Australian bread and butter

and Asian exotic.

I fit fully into neither camp

but grew up loudly naïve enough to make my own.

And that, I fully inhabit.

I am a woman

Who never stopped to think that

Women can’t.

I am a human who knows

I am also the whole world.

And, I am the awareness that holds it.

I am the honey skin envied by white and brown,

and the intellect that screams in defiance

At being defined

by beauty and colour

and improbable ideals.

I feel privileged and unsafe,

I know too much, so

I both stand tall and shrink under the gaze of men.

I am clear and confused

Which must make me

different and no different,

from you.

I am from a broken home

And a wholehearted mother,

my family straddles both sides of the river

which maybe makes me the hanging bridge,..

It gives me the advantage of great perspective.

I am undefined and middle born,

I am torn through the hearts of humans

Breaking over the whole world.

And I am made whole by love

That keeps knocking, because home

Will always call you.

And finally, I know myself

through hard-won looking, persistent listening,

ceaseless searching and incessant questioning.

I know where I belong.

Here, in my own center.

I am, I am, I am.

And I am willing.

To see you. To hear you.

To stand with you. To walk with you.

To fight with you. To celebrate you.

To love you. To make spaces where

we can sit together, in peace.

To understand and to be told by you.

We are, we are, we are.

Not one. We are dazzlingly unique.

But the same.

YOGA, SEX & THE SELL-OUT – WOMEN RISE UP!

by Mei Lai Swan | Mar 8, 2018 | Uncategorized

       VS        

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It’s International Women’s Day, and as part of a global community of yoginis, there’s an important conversation that needs to be amplified and shared far and wide.

As I’ve been participating more in the world of social media of late, to share about my heart & soul project social enterprise yoga school Yoga for Humankind, I’ve become more and more dismayed at the representation and popularisation of yoga – sexualised, impossibly gymnastic and massively glamourised. It’s the antithesis of Yoga – the quiet, inward journey to peel back the layers of false identities, beliefs and constructs, and find the Truth of what remains after all that is shed.

 

‘Inspiration’ is great, but this kind of yoga-glamourising creates an image of yoga that feeds into exactly the kinds of day-to-day social stigmas, ideas and values that create problematic and harmful self-image, self-worth and impossible ‘goals’; that take us outward instead of inward; that ultimately harms bodies instead of harmonises; that alienates instead of unites… and that the genuine path of yoga actually seeks to unravel.

 

It’s been building within me to write on this topic, and it’s totally impassioned me today, on International Women’s Day, to read these insightful, poignant and powerful words… thank you to Roopali, the powerful woman who wrote this  great blog post on the topic.

 

Yogis, Yoginis, HUMANS – can we please stop the sexualisation, physicalisation and glorifying self-promotion in the name of yoga? Can we please instead promote the common denominators of being and humanity, such as: the Self that is our collective ground of being, belonging, vulnerability, resilience, imperfection, befriending ourselves and our bodies, and our real stories of love, hope, loss, peace, struggle, devotion and community.

 

In loving respect and hope,

Mei Lai xo