Reflections from Spring Yin Immersion

Yesterday, Saturday 12th September, I spent the afternoon immersed in a beautiful Spring Yin Immersion at The Yoga Shala, facilitated byBrooke.

The passionate Piscean energy of Brooke, the heart behind the Yoga Shala, is felt the moment you walk through the doors—and it is definitely felt while she is facilitating. She held space with such grace and depth.

Today I am now sharing some of what unfolded. I didn’t come home yesterday and immediately sit down to write like I usually would.

I stayed in the energy.

I let the afternoon continue to move through me.

I sat with Pachamama Mother Earth, and connected with Grandfather Sky. I allowed myself to be quiet, to breathe, to feel, and to listen rather than immediately trying to understand or articulate what had happened.

Something in me had been gently cracked open. Not broken, nor shattered, just opened enough for something I had perhaps been holding a little too tightly to become visible. I knew the words would come when they were ready.

This afternoon, they did.

So today I am stepping a little more deeply into vulnerability and sharing some of my own answers to the journal prompts we explored throughout the immersion. Not because I have everything figured out as I know I am still riding the rollercoaster or life. But because there is something powerful about allowing ourselves to witness our own truth, especially when the answers aren’t particularly polished or convenient.

I have also included a few additional prompts throughout this reflection as invitations for you to turn inward and listen to your own body, heart, and inner knowing. You don’t need to answer them all. Perhaps one question will be enough.

 

Spring is beginning to make herself known. After the stillness of winter, there is a noticeable shift in the energy around us sharing renewal, emergence, growth, movement, clearing, and possibility. Seeds that have been sitting quietly beneath the surface now responding to warmth and light. Trees begin producing new growth. Flowers open. The days lengthen.

There is an invitation for us, too, to consider what might be ready to emerge after our own seasons of stillness.

Spring doesn’t mean we suddenly need to become hyper-productive. Nature doesn’t rush. The seed doesn’t apologise for the time it spent underground, and the flower doesn’t compare its bloom with the one beside it.

There is preparation before emergence, clearing before growth, and rooting before reaching.

That is where this Spring Yin Immersion met me so beautifully. It wasn’t about pushing myself into my next chapter. It was about honouring where I am, acknowledging what has been, and becoming curious about what I am preparing to grow.

 

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), spring is associated with the Wood element, traditionally connected with the Liver and Gallbladder meridian systems.

Wood represents growth, direction, strength, flexibility, vision, and movement.

Look at an actual tree uf you can, or visualise a tree: it needs deep roots for strength, but it also needs flexibility. It grows towards the light while remaining anchored in the earth. When strong winds come, it yields enough flexibility to move without breaking.

Strength isn’t always about standing rigidly upright. Strength is our capacity to bend, adapt, respond, and keep our roots while allowing ourselves to change shape.

Within TCM, the Wood element is also traditionally associated with frustration and anger—particularly when energy feels blocked.

That gave me something important to reflect upon:

Frustration might tell us that something matters, that something wants to move, that a boundary has been crossed, that ba standard is ready to be set or that our current direction isn’t aligned with where we want to go. There is a fine line between acceptance and defeatism, patience and postponement, surrender and giving up. I am learning to become much more curious about that distinction.

 

The immersion began with a cacao ceremony.

Beginning a gathering this way creates a threshold between whatever we were doing before arriving and the intentional space we are stepping into.

We received the cacao, connected with our breath, connected with the intetions we carried into the space and began to slow down.

Cacao has a long history of ceremonial and cultural use, particularly among Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. In contemporary wellness spaces, it is often described as heart-opening medicine. I hold that language with both appreciation and discernment.

For me, the medicine was not something I needed to attribute solely to the cacao. There was medicine in the ritual, in the warmth, in slowing down, in consciously receiving, in gathering with community, in setting an intention, and in breathing before moving.

Sometimes the medicine is simply the moment we finally stop long enough to receive it.

 

Connecting with breath before movement felt particularly significant for me.

As a Vision Therapist and Intuitive Guide, I have spent almost two decades exploring the relationship between the eyes, brain, body, and the lived experience of the person in front of me. My clinical work has taught me to observe the physiology of vision, while my intuitive practice has taught me to listen for what may not always be immediately visible. Vision is not simply about whether someone can read the smallest line on an eye chart; the way we see, move, orient, attend, and respond is deeply connected with the rest of our sensory and nervous systems.

 

When I enter an embodied practice, I naturally become curious:

 

There is something wonderfully humbling about allowing the body to speak before the mind gets involved. This is an invitation to choose body intelligence over artificial intelligence in as many moments as possible. To pause long enough to listen, to notice, and to trust that the body is often communicating long before the conscious mind has found the words.

 

One of the traditional associations within TCM that captured my attention and was intertwined within this immersion Liver to Vision.

As a Vision Therapist and Intuitive Guide, I couldn’t help but smile at the synchronicity. Vision is abount so much more than eyesight; it also speaks to our inner vision, our sense of direction, our ability to imagine what could be and to hold a picture of something before it exists physically. In my work, I have come to appreciate that seeing can be both a physiological process and an intuitive one, a way of perceiving not only what is directly in front of us, but also what may be quietly emerging within us.

I asked myself: What am I actually seeing for my life? Not what looks sensible, what I think I should want, or what makes sense to someone else BUT what do I see?

The answer that emerged was surprisingly clear: I see myself continuing to weave together the threads that have sometimes felt separate—vision therapy, nervous-system nourishment and awareness, body wisdom, breath, emotion, creativity, spirituality, and lived experience. I see my work becoming less about fitting neatly inside one professional box and more about honouring the whole human being in front of me. I see myself creating spaces where people can explore that wholeness for themselves.

 

Then comes the other side of the equation within the immersion; the Gallbladder, which represents courage.

The Liver represents the vision, while the Gallbladder represents the courage to bring that vision to life.

 

Seeing something clearly doesn’t automatically mean we will act on it. We can have an incredibly strong inner knowing and still hesitate, waiting for certainty, waiting until everyone understands, or waiting until there is no possibility of getting it wrong.

My own answer to the question what are you afraid of was uncomfortable:

I also know that if I continually make decisions based on avoiding discomfort or disappointment, I am allowing fear to become the author of my life. And, quite honestly, sorry but not sorry, fuck that… I would rather feel the discomfort of choosing courage than the quiet ache of wondering what might have been if I had allowed fear to make my decisions for me.

Courage currently looks less like making one giant, dramatic leap and more like choosing the honest next step.

 

This was the intention I carried into the divine in immersion and Yin yesterday: I want to open my heart enough to have conversations I have been avoiding.

That sentence landed heavily.

I know the difference between not knowing what to say and knowing exactly what needs to be said, but hesitating to say it.

There are conversations where I know what my heart wants to communicate, and then my mind starts negotiating: Maybe later. Maybe when the timing is better. Maybe when I know how they will respond. But we don’t get to control another person’s response, we are the only ones who can only take responsibility for our own truth.

Can I speak honestly without needing to control what happens next? I am still sitting with that one.

 

 

That last line stayed with me and gave me the same goodbumps typing it while it did writing it with pen to paper. There are times when I have mistaken being gentle for needing to be agreeable. A soft heart can still have strong boundaries and sensational standards. A receptive body can still say no. Compassion doesn’t require self-abandonment, and love doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations.

The seeds my heart is asking me to nourish are truth, creativity, courage, connection, play and unconditional untamed love—not because those things are new to me, but because they are asking to become more fully embodied.

 

 

Not simply writing more words, but finding the courage to express more of what I truly believe in conversation, rather than only through my book and blogs.

Allowing the different threads of my work and life to meet each other rather than continually separating them into neat categories:

The clinical and the intuitive

The scientific and the symbolic

The body and the mind

The professional and the personal

The serious and the playful

The wild and the grounded

 

 

 

Deeper connection with myself.

More honest connection with the people I love.

More integration between heart, body and mind, and between what I know intellectually and what I actually live.

I desire to create more spaces where people can experience connection without needing to perform. That is why circles and immersive experiences move me so deeply—we don’t have to know everyone intimately to share a meaningful experience. Sometimes simply being witnessed is enough.

 

For me, the answer is the tendency to make growth and joy conditional: I’ll feel joyful when I’ve finished this, when I’ve figured that out, or when the next thing is sorted.

Joy keeps showing up in much smaller, immediate places:

🩷 A run that clears my head.

🩷 Music, dance, and belly laughter

🩷 A delicious meal or barefoot steps on the earth

🩷 Playing with something whether that be food, paint, dirt or leaves simply because it feels good

🩷 The pleasure of creating something that didn’t exist yesterday

 

Joy doesn’t require us to have everything resolved. Joy is part of what gives us the energy to keep moving through the unresolved parts.

 

I try to control the how—how something should unfold, when it should happen, how someone might respond, or whether I am prepared enough.

Underneath that is a very human desire for safety: If I can anticipate everything, nothing will surprise me.

Life doesn’t work that way.

The invitation isn’t to abandon planning or discernment; it is to stop believing I can control every outcome.

If I loosened my grip, more creativity, play, spontaneity, trust, and a little less exhaustion would emerge.

 

Being misunderstood. Being judged. Disappointing people. Being “too much” or “not enough.”

Getting something wrong.

Being seen while I am still figuring things out.

There is something vulnerable about allowing people to see the process rather than only the finished product. That is where authenticity lives.

We don’t become authentic once we have everything figured out—we practise authenticity by telling the truth about where we actually are.

 

I sometimes want clarity before I move, wanting to know where something is going before I fully commit.

I am being invited to accept that some parts of my journey can only become clear through movement. I don’t need the whole map; I just need enough trust for the next step.

Acceptance is becoming less about liking everything that has happened and more about no longer spending energy wishing reality had been different. This happened. This is where I am. What can I create from here?

 

Knowing when enough is enough. Not saying yes automatically. Not filling every available space. Not allowing someone else’s urgency to override my own needs.

Not giving away creative energy simply because I have it.

 

A seed doesn’t need to be exposed to every harsh environment to grow, and neither do we.

To support what I am growing, I am putting clear and sensational standards in place: more intentional choices about my energy, more space around creative work, more time outside, movement, rest without justification, honest communication, and fewer decisions made from a fear of disappointing others.

 

We also explored Dharma. A concept encompassing right action, values, purpose, and living in alignment with one’s path.

Dharma doesn’t have to mean discovering one giant, rigid life purpose.

It can be a fluid collection of verbs:  Connect. Guide. Create. Listen. Explore. Teach. Feel. Question. Share. Hold space.

My Dharma isn’t one title or destination; it is the way I bring my whole self to whatever is right in front of me.

 

During the immersion, there was discussion around the Lung and Gallbladder meridians and altering gene expression.

This is where I like to bring my practitioner brain alongside my intuitive self.

 

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, meridians offer a traditional system for understanding the body through patterns of energy, function, and relationship (e.g., the Lung system with grief and letting go; the Gallbladder with courage). These offer beautiful frameworks for self-reflection.

In saying that meridians shouldn’t be presented as scientifically established anatomical structures that directly switch genes on or off. While epigenetics shows that lifestyle factors like stress, sleep, nutrition, and environment influence biological gene regulation, that is distinct from saying a specific meridian practice directly alters gene expression.

We can hold both curiosity and discernment.

We can explore traditional wisdom without turning metaphor into biology, and we can appreciate science without overstating it.

Asking “What do we actually know?” doesn’t take away from the magic—it makes the exploration honest.

 

One of the unexpected gifts of the afternoon was witnessing the shift across the entire circle.

Everyone arrived carrying different stories, nervous systems, and quiet burdens.

Over the course of the afternoon, the room softened. Postures shifted, breath deepened, faces relaxed, and people settled into stillness and presence.

 

Through my work as a Vision Therapist, I naturally pick up on subtle visual changes in posture, orientation and attention.

As an Intuitive Guide, I have also learned to notice the quieter shifts that happen beneath what can be seen, the changes in presence, confidence, connection and embodied awareness. Witnessing those gentle, deeply human shifts unfold collectively was incredibly moving, reminding me that transformation is not always dramatic; sometimes it is found in the smallest changes in the way someone looks, moves, feels and meets the world.

 

There is a vast difference between being instructed and being held.

The heart behind the yoga shala was felt in every moment.

Brooke created a space of safety where there was room to feel, pause, listen, and simply be. Loving, passionate energy doesn’t demand, perform, or announce itself—it simply creates a quality of space in which genuine transformation can unfold. I am deeply grateful for her facilitation.

 

Seeing isn’t the same as becoming. I can have a vision and feel something calling me forward, but eventually, that vision asks for my active participation: to make the decision, have the conversation, set the boundary, take the risk, and begin.

Courage isn’t always a giant leap. Sometimes courage looks like:

🩷 Sending the message

🩷 Saying the thing

🩷 Saying no (or saying yes)

🩷 Publishing the words

🩷 Starting the project

🩷 Resting instead of pushing

🩷 Choosing joy without waiting for permission

 

This is the question I am carrying forward:

My role isn’t to force the bloom.

My role is to tend the soil: to listen, nourish, clear, protect, trust, and let nature do her work.

 

If you feel drawn to explore these themes, pick one or two questions below.

Journal, walk, sit outside, or lie on the floor.

Place a hand over your heart, breathe, and let each question move through your body:

 

I arrived at Spring Yin Immrersion carrying questions, and I left without having all the answers—and that felt perfect.

The purpose wasn’t to “solve” myself, but to listen, soften, and make space for what was waiting beneath the noise.

I sat with Pachamama, looked up at Grandfather Sky, connected with Grandmother Earth, and let my heart remain open.

Emergence doesn’t force or rush; it simply creates enough space for truth to reveal itself.

Spring reminds us that what appears above the surface has often been growing quietly underground for a very long time.

Perhaps something within you is ready too—a conversation, a boundary, a creative idea, a new direction, a deeper relationship with yourself, or a return to joy. 🌱

 

If something in this reflection stirred a feeling inside you, listen to that nudge.

Next weekend, on Saturday 19 September, from 3:00–5:30pm, I am holding Wild Wisdom & Sacred Rage Release at The Yoga Shala.

 

This is an invitation to explore the wisdom held within the body and create space for what has been asking to be felt and expressed.

Not everything that wants to emerge arrives gently.

Sometimes it comes as frustration, anger, grief, a fierce no, or a truth we have been swallowing for a little while or a long while.

We don’t need to shame those parts into silence.

We can become curious about their wisdom.

When: Saturday 19 September | 3:00–5:30pm
Where: The Yoga Shala
What to bring: Come as you are. Bring your body, your breath, your questions and whatever is ready to be felt.

Together, let’s create space for what has been waiting beneath the surface.

If you feel the nudge, you can find all the details and reserve your place here:
BOOK YOUR PLACE →

With unconditional and untamed love,