Blog - emmaMCCANN

Nov

2021

The Perfect Moment.

I was waiting for the ‘perfect moment’.

That sweet place where four children where playing happily, without conflict, without needing me for long enough that I could share with you what I was burning to share.

And that moment never came.

TBH, I wasn’t expecting it to. But I kept it in the back of my mind, waiting, JIC it did come.

Cause yesterday, I was celebrating hard.

Not because any one big thing had happened.

There was no lotto win

no house bought

no fancy new car.

I didn’t have a new outfit, a new toy, a new client.

I didn’t have a new plant.

Or an earth shattering orgasm.

I wasn’t celebrating a ‘single’ thing.

I was celebrating a cumulative effect of many many increments.

Increments so small that at times I didn’t even notice them.

Increments so big they were sometimes immediately obvious.

I was celebrating all the ways I’d shown up for myself in a container of coaching and counselling with my coach Johanna Parker.

All the ways I’d grown, shifted, changed, emerged, stabilised, solidified, clarified.

I was celebrating ALL.THE.THINGS.

Except there were too many to list in the one session.

I cannot begin to express in this moment, this one post, all that I received from this work. It was layers and layers amidst a lifetime of relinquishing layers.

One thing I know for sure, for absolute sure – and I say this as a person who has had therapy for the past 15 years and worked with a different coach each year on something or other for the past 4 years – that you are absolutely safe. Held. Met, with all that you are and all that you bring to the container of work you’ll do with Jo.

All of it.

All of you.

Held. Safe. Seen. Acknowledged.

No matter how big, how small, how joyful, how ‘ugly’.

May

2021

What does conscious living mean? An exploration.

Living consciously, with awareness, means being mindful enough to be able to recognise the impact we’re having on ourselves, the world and those around us.

Living consciously takes deep awareness.

And acceptance.

It requires us to show up for shit that’s uncomfortable, hard and sometimes downright ugly.

It also requires us to show up for what’s joyful and not fight the ease in life which we are so prone to do when addicted to stress and drama.

Living consciously requires us to show up for ourselves.

To celebrate hard.

To take radical responsibility.

It’s attempting to live without judgement.

In deep acceptance.

It’s leading by example.

Inspiring simply by being who we are and believing in the best people have to offer, in their capabilities and capacity to thrive and offer their gifts.

Conscious living means giving a shit.

And acting like it.

It means doing our best to create meaning through presence and awareness. By paying attention, listening.

It means honing our mindfulness skills so we can be present.

Sitting in radical responsibility for all that is ours.

Witnessing others in all that is theirs.

It’s more than this too.

More that I can’t express right now.

The more will come. Just not today. Look out for another chapter.

May

2021

Mindfulness. This moment.

I lay in bed and listen.

I can hear the soft rhythmic breath of the person bedside me.

I focus on just it for a moment.

I stretch my hearing further and found the birds outside.

Many different types of birds singing their early morning songs.

I hear the soft hum of traffic

the louder motor of a motorbike moving fast

I heard the flump of the heater igniting

and the soft movement of air through the vents

and then there was more air

it makes a rushing sound.

I feel the bed beneath me.

The softness that cocoons me

and the firmness that supports me.

I feel the weight of the covers over me

they come to my shoulders

the warmth encasing my body

and the cool on my face.

There’s a pillow beneath my face.

It’s soft.

The side of my cheek is pressed into it

I can feel my earring digging into my ear

my hair spilling over neck.

My legs are folded against and around each other.

I can tell the difference between the different items of clothing on my skin.

Some are firmer than others. Some a little firmer than others.

I notice my body.

I feel tension in my knee where I’ve got an injury

and tightness in my mid back on one side.

There’s a light something I can’t quite describe in words in my lower belly.

There’s an openness through my chest and my upper abdomen.

My breath comes easily

naturally

softly

my ribs expand and contract with my breath

the top of my belly does too.

I shift my focus to stay on the breath, to be with the body, to try and keep noticing the sounds at the same time.

I think a thought that wonders what time it is

I notice the thought is there

and remembering I’m practising mindfulness

so I simply accept its presence

and return to the breath.

I notice a thought about getting ready for the day

kids to school

lunches.

It all happens at once in my mind, hours of morning are this one moment, this one thought

and I notice again that I’m not in the present moment.

So again, I accept that a thought has come

and return to the breath and the noticing.

I do this many more times,

bringing myself back to here.

To now.

Before the person next to me wakes.

Their movements

and the change in their breath

are part of my deepening awareness.

I watch them seek me out.

Watch them reach for me.

We connect.

I feel the extra warmth from this body.

The change in pressure where our bodies are connected.

I feel their breath gracing my chin ever so often.

I keep listening to the birds

and the gentle hum of traffic.

The heater.

I hear the coffee machine come on

I notice the thought that comes with that.

I’m thinking about how the coffee machine has a timer attached to it so it turns itself on.

It’s set for 630am.

And now I know the time.

But again, thoughts.

So I come back

to the breath

and do my best

to lengthen the space inbetween.

May

2021

What Yoga Isn’t

In my yoga classes I spend a lot of time talking about what yoga is.
Sometimes I think it’s also helpful to think about what yoga isn’t.

I think this is particularly important when yoga is a practice from an ancient culture that is increasingly making its way into western culture. There needs to be some way to make it palatable to the general public, without actually losing the essence of what it really is.

That can be a tricky balance.

So here’s what yoga isn’t:

It’s not exercise per se. Sure we are moving our bodies when do asanas. However, yoga in its essence is not the asanas, that’s just one ‘limb’ and has a greater purpose.
Yoga is not about how flexible you are. The number one concern I hear from students is that they’re not flexible. Particularly with the increase of images of hypermobile people in yoga poses on Instagram, we have a strong concept that yoga requires flexibility. However, yoga is about working with the body as it is each day.
Yoga isn’t fancy labels and gear. Yep, I own some of those too, so there’s no judgement here. The point is that yoga doesn’t care if we come in our daggy old sweats or a $150 leggings. If anything, going back to the principles of ahimsa, choosing yoga clothes that would cause no harm would be in alignment with yogic philosophy. If we break that down then you might look for things that are made ethically, to the people who make them and the planet, ensuring they’re not releasing micro-plastics.
Yoga isn’t picking your toes or thinking about what you’re having for dinner.
Yoga isn’t just coming to the mat
Yoga doesn’t care whether you’ve done your hair and makeup
Yoga isn’t interested in your mood
Yoga doesn’t care about the size and shape of your body
Yoga doesn’t have anything to do with whether you can get into this pose or that
Nor does it have anything to do with whether you’re a good person or not (Well….I do yoga, so I’m ok)

What yoga is, is a tool.

It’s a tool in your toolbox to support you to live an intentional life and balance the equivalent of qi, which in yogic traditions is called prana and be able to reach samadi (enlightenment – and what this is in our modern world is certainly worthy of another post). And this particular tool uses postures, focus, self control and values as guiding principles.

I think sometimes we forget that.

Ultimately, most of us in the developed world aren’t ‘following’ yoga, but are more ‘going to’ yoga. It’s something we do that takes us out of our normal life and gives us a reset.

I invite you explore the place of yoga in your life. How do you see it? How does it fit in? What do you use it for? What are you wanting from yoga? Is there something you need to change to deepen your yoga practice and make it more than just about the mat and exercise?

Apr

2021

3 steps to make decisions using your body wisdom

When I sat down to write this time, in the car, on the way to a yoga festival to present (yes, my husband is driving) I asked myself “What is it that I really want to share with the world?” “What is it that really wants to come through me?” and “What do I really need to share that I’ve been holding out on?”

There’s so many answers to these questions.

So then I’m left with another question: Which one of these things will I write about now?

And in considering that, what I’m going to write about it is how we come to our answers. How do we go about our decision making processes.

Before I continue I invite you to think about how you make decisions. Are there lists? Pros and cons considered? Are you weighing up the financial cost, the environmental impact? There’s so many things to consider right.

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Apr

2021

The desire for deeper connection

“All my friends are talking to me about their renovations. Talk to me about something real.”

BOOM.

There it is.

Right in the middle of the conversation the woman I was chatting to expressed her gratitude for the depth of our conversation and then said the above statement.

I was struck by it. The desire to be seen, to be met, to be in deep interactions and deep relationships with people was so obvious.

I felt like she put into one simple sentence what I was feeling, and what I had worked so hard to unravel for myself. As well as that thing that happens when we get swept up in other people’s energy and the flow of conversation.

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Mar

2021

Self care as a first step to living an aligned life

So many women feel guilty prioritising themselves.

If we unpack this, first, I think there’s a problem with the word ‘prioritising’. Straight up, it brings to mind to do lists, competing stuff that needs to get done, stuff like washing, remembering to pick up the birthday cake, booking appointments, that email to your kids’ teacher and the list goes on.

Self – care doesn’t belong in a list like this.

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Mar

2021

A quick spot on body image

Nearly all of the women I’ve spoken to across the span of my life have felt some kind of insecurity about their body at some stage or other. Many of us still do. Even me, on the odd ocassion.

What I see is that a preoccupation with our appearance can mean we’re so busy worrying about how we look and whether people like us, or find us pretty that we’re actually not living IN the moment.

The perfectionism and insecurity that comes with these feelings to present perfectly are debilitating.

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