Jane Alexander's Blog, page 8

Core wounding, shame and connection

Core wounding. Those deep entrenched, often hidden, beliefs that let us scupper ourselves time and time again.  I first came across all this when I did a course of Rebirthing, absolutely ages ago.  I’d always felt that my ‘core issue’ was abandonment – and that it had kicked in when my father died (when I was ten).  I blamed my inability to form relationships on it – it was a handy tag. I'm not so sure about that any more.  Rebirthing, however, looks for stuff that ha...

THE best chocolate truffles ever - and, guess what, they're good for you!

Well, I wasn’t going to write about food today but then I popped on Facebook and saw that Amy Levin had posted up the recipe for the absolutely beyond awesome truffles that she made on The Deep Pause and so I thought, right…let’s talk about food.
Now, you know me…I went from punishing myself with food (eating myself nearly to death) to punishing myself without food (nearly passing out doing 80mph on the outside lane of the M5 cos I’d been fasting for over a week – no, not that intermittent non...

True Love, primal yurts and the people who're airbrushed out of fairy tale books

While I was at The Pause I read Call Off The Search by Anna (Pasternak) and Andrew Wallas.  Why? Because Danielle suggested I might find it interesting.  She runs courses with Andrew Wallas and says he’s a good guy.  So I did.  It wasn’t as if I had anything else I was burning to read: I haven’t read anything lately that has rocked my boat, that has really made me think or feel. 
It seemed a bit familiar and then I remembered that I’d read an extract from it in a supp...

Dreaming on the starlit hill

So, there was a hill at The Deep Pause.  A gentle slope hill, not a hard slog hill.   At the top stretched a small stone circle with a fire-pit in the centre - a mini mandala.  A line of trees protected its exposed flank, dappling shadow-shapes onto the green green, grass-green grass. The first night most of our group crashed early to bed but Danielle, Lynn and I sat around the fire and had one of those conversations that smack you sideways because you simply aren’t expect...

The Pause and the Invitation

from www.lifebydanielle.comI'm just back from The Deep Pause in Cornwall. It's a five day retreat run by life coach Danielle Marchant and I was there to report for Queen of Retreats. Funny thing, I wasn't even sure I wanted to go.  I was feeling low, on one hell of a downer for all sorts of reasons, and I just didn't feel I had the energy or the inclination to engage.  I felt I had nothing left to give and my life felt like such a mess that I really didn't think that something...

How to lose weight sensibly and keep it lost

I didn’t tell you about my recent retreat, did I?  It was fabulous, it really was – and I figure it might be interesting to those of you who are still looking for that magic weight-loss bullet.
I love The Body Retreat and this is the third of their breaks I’ve tried.  I met trainer Julie Brealy years back, when I did something nasty to my Achilles and my pal Trisha recommended her sports massage.  She was working for a local bootcamp in Devon at the time but now runs The Body Re...

Why do we kill ourselves with food and drink?

So I’m lying in bed, scanning through my body.  It’s the start of a meditation practice I picked up from Arnie Mindell but today I’m not meditating, I’m just observing.  Yup, the torn muscle in my arm is still twinging a bit and there’s my Achilles putting up its, er, ankle to wave its discontent.  My jaw is clenched and my shoulders are tight (I’m not sure I relax even when I sleep).  And my arms are aching from yesterday’s kettlebell class (but that’s a good ache). ...

On not-gardening

I’m in awe of you gardeners, I really am.  Never more so than in summer. I love the concept of gardening, I love the end results, and your spaces are so very beautiful.  But, you know what?  I’ve finally accepted that I'm just too damn lazy to be a gardener.
My garden has gone wild and I have decided that, rather than fight it, I’ll choose to like it that way.  For almost my entire adult life I have molested gardens, fighting and flailing in an attempt to keep them neat, t...

How do you moor yourself? More-come-and-wise?

The gym was shut this morning and it left me feeling untethered, adrift.  When I’m feeling unsettled, out of sorts, out of touch, I throw myself into exercise.  Yes, I know I need only do a short sharp burst of HIIT or Tabata to keep fit but why do 20 minutes when you could lose yourself for an hour or more?  On the treadmill or the cross-trainer (as opposed to the happy trainer?) my body sinks into auto-pilot – it drops the need to stay tense – and my mind empties.  I flo...

Some decades are better than others...

Some days are better than others.  Some months are better than others.  Some years…some decades…  Yeah, you get the picture. 
It’s easy to get lost in the past, isn’t it?  You start by looking at old pictures and, hey, weren’t you so young and pretty?  And, oh, didn’t you have a life back then – a job, a vision, a purpose; friends, family, home.  Weren’t you so in love – with someone, with life, with yourself?  And wasn’t the future so bright? 
And...