Awakened Conscious Conversations
Healing the world one episode at a time by offering realistic solutions to the journey of life. Both self hosted ( By The Gentle Yoga Warrior) and guest episodes.
Many of our guests have overcome significant obstacles and transformed their lives.
Rich with deep talks and solo endeavours, often offering tips on living a more conscious life.
Many episodes include a bonus optional meditation!
Awakened Conscious Conversations
Mis Mash Christmas Special: Joy, Grief, and Finding Your Christmas Sparkle
What happens when the holiday season is both magical and profoundly challenging? Join us as we explore the paradox of The Holiday Season where joy and grief can coexist. Discover how speaking from the heart fosters deeper connections, even during the busiest season of the year. We'll also offer tips on how to navigate holiday stress with creativity and joy, encouraging you to embrace your personal "masterpiece," whether through writing, painting, or supporting small businesses while maintaining that Christmas sparkle all year long.
Plus, experience a special gift of peace and reflection with a soothing sound meditation from Lindsay Markovits, a talented sound healer and yoga teacher. Let the calming sounds of a stream guide you on a meditative journey to release tension and find tranquility, inspired by the sacred site of St Necton's Glen. Whether you seek relaxation or a festive film marathon, we've got you covered this holiday season.
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What is a Christmas special? I was thinking of that earlier. What is a Christmas special? Usually it follows some sort of Christmassy theme and something magical which isn't too far off, in many ways as podcasts, but yeah, we kind of dig deep and go into things and hopefully, if you live in an area where it is dark, you've got used to the light by now, but it can make us feel a little bit more kind of sensitive. So I'm here to bring you a bit of sparkle into the world. So how is that going to happen?
Speaker 1:First of all, I'm going to remind you of that magic feeling that many of us may get at this time of the year, and I'm not blind to the fact that some people are going through a different time. I've got two funerals in two days time, so I am not blinkered to the suffering that some people may feel at this time of year, but I found that the way to kind of navigate through this is to kind of really, first of all, speak from your heart. So when you're speaking to people you care about, try and speak from your heart, because we're always taught in so many ways that we need to keep everything in and not share who we really are. We fear that vulnerability of letting people really see us. And, yeah, people do sometimes take advantage of that. And also, just because you've allowed yourself to be vulnerable doesn't mean that it's going to be received. However, most people really want to be vulnerable themselves. If you allow yourself to show yourself and allow them to see that vulnerable side I have, I feel that then kind of makes everything work out in a sense that if they see and they can, you can be vulnerable, they can be vulnerable. The more that we can take off our armor and speak and see each other, the better the world will be and how much we will feel better.
Speaker 1:And as an added component to make that more kind of sparkly is to try and get out of the rut of doing the same things. I know like Christmas time. It is crazy, it's like the world's going to end if everything isn't off. Our entry on Christmas we find Christmas and it's a little bit silly, but also it's supposed to be a time we're going deep within and yet society has made this thing where we have to rush around and, okay, there's that exciting flurry of stuff, but there's also kind of a lot of stress. So I'm going to help you de-stress and the theme, as well as trying to learn to be vulnerable and share who we are in front of the people.
Speaker 1:I wanted to also add a little bit, something completely different. At the same time, and just to remind us, I got this wonderful, I got this wonderful paper from the shop and it so inspired me. Um, it shows like a night, a nighttime scene, with beautiful animals like deers and owls and all the creatures, but it's got that kind of really it's like a masterpiece and I thought what is our masterpiece going to be for this next period? And masterpiece is just something that we want to do, that we've always wanted to do, something that you can do by yourself, I would say, to start with, and something that is free and can we bring that masterpiece into our world? So maybe you've always dreamed of writing something or painting something, or doing something. Something or painting something or doing something. Can you bring that masterpiece with that magical energy of this Christmas sparkle, beyond all the stress? That is that loving energy, and I just my hope for the world is that could we not have that energy all the time, where we're having this sense of connection and love and we're allowing ourselves, like I said, to be vulnerable when, when it's needed to be, etc. And can we allow that to be in ourselves, to be in this beautiful world in a way that we can see each other, feel each other and respect? So you know, the front up to chris, everyone's like really nice and hello, or maybe not sometimes if you're in a busy shopping center, but generally. Then, come January, when I feel like this wave of like kind of depression from everyone, and I get it like if you're not in jobs that you enjoy, or you're skint because society's dictated that you have to kind of run your credit cards dry because of this thing called Christmas, where the real winners are the, the retail businesses in many ways. And I won't get even started by saying try and buy from smaller shops, like we don't want to kind of make it so that people can't do their their own little businesses, which have usually have nicer things anyway. Um, so don't forget to support the small businesses, but I digress. So, yeah, that bringing that magical sparkle into the rest of the year and you know it's, it can, it's, it's a task in itself and it's a great test of our consciousness, but also knowing what makes us happy how to bring more of that into our life, learning to deal with things when they're not quite going as well as we want them.
Speaker 1:So, christmas, maybe you're not doing what you want to do. I know from so many people that rarely do you get to do exactly what you want to do. Um, there's all different types of reasons. But even if you're doing something that you don't want to do on Christmas day like you're going somewhere you don't necessarily want to be can you find a bit of Christmas sparkle and that, but also put boundaries, like it is your Christmas time as well, and just because everyone wants to sit around and do stuff that you don't necessarily want to do, you find pockets of time when you can do what you want to do. You know, like over the holiday season, like maybe you want to just read a book, do something quiet, get yourself off early to a local cafe and just tell the family that you're not going to be about for a bit. Um, and then you can go back to them. And you know, just like I'm not saying like go off for the whole week, but just spend like these pockets of time where we can really appreciate them and ourselves.
Speaker 1:You might hear a bit of paper rustling because I'm opening up this poster. I just think it's so beautiful. What it reminds me is that there is this beautiful, magical world that is at night and for some reason we used to spend a bit more time out at night. I'm not talking about going to nightclubs, I mean, I like nature at night and there is this mystical spirit. I think at this time of year, whatever you believe in, there's this beautiful spirit of love and joy and abundance. And because in this poster it's a full, full moon, there is slivers of light. So that's how I see it as we navigate through this time is that there will be dark times, but there will always be slivers of light within that and we can choose to focus just on the dark, where sometimes we need the darkness just to be, still and be, or when we're feeling like we're a bit flat. We can choose to focus on the light and allow that light to flow and be beautiful, just as you can flow and be beautiful. More rustling paper. But yeah, that's how I'm feeling it this time of year and what one can do.
Speaker 1:I wonder, could you decide on something really nice that you would like to eat on Christmas Day, because I hear this quite often you don't always get to eat the food you want and could you make it for everybody and just take it along to where you're going, or yeah, something like that. And could you do like, if you're struggling with your to buy presents and stuff, could you give someone your time so maybe you could put in the car and give you half an hour to clear your garage or something where it's going to help someone. I'm going to go out in a minute on a nice crisp, wintry walk where the last remnants of the leaves are, and the mistletoes and the bare skeletons of the trees, the ones that dropped their leaves, look so beautiful to me. I think birch trees just look like beautiful pillars of light, especially when you get one of those grey, miserable days, the ones that everyone mourns about. I can see the beauty in that such joy if you look for the slivers of light and you know the world here in this particular area of the world, needs the darkness, it needs the time to regenerate.
Speaker 1:I heard this awful story that I don't know where it was, but someone had decided to inject redwoods with adrenaline so that they didn't like. It was something like redwoods or some tree like that with adrenaline so that they didn't get. It was something like redwoods, or once some tree like that was adrenaline so they didn't go get to go to sleep for the winter. Um, I'm not sure if it wasn't redwoods, but anyway it didn't matter. What happened was the trees died because they didn't have that, that time to kind of be, and in many ways if we're not making time to be, then we're going to make ourselves sick. So it's finding the slivers of time to be within all this chaos.
Speaker 1:It wouldn't be a Christmas special if I didn't share a few Christmas things, a few Christmas things. So just imagine you're stuck indoors and you're with your family, which you love very dearly, but you've kind of spent hours with them and there's not really much more for you to say Well, what could you do instead? Perhaps you want to watch something, but you don't want to watch too much. So I thought to make it Christmas specially and completely change it as well. I know this podcast this week has got lots of different things in, but I like that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you my top five classic Christmas movies. I'm talking about classics, so kind of not stuff that's come out really recently but classic. So I'm going to do them in reverse order, but they're all brilliant. So from 1982, the Snowman, which is a timeless animated film. It has no dialogue in it, so just to warn you, but it doesn't need it. It's got beautiful singing I think ala jones was the singer when yes, which makes you wish you could fly if you still remember how you felt as a child on christmas eve or if you don't celebrate christmas on the eve of a big celebration and then so, so that's really good, that's kind of universal for all. And then the 1993 Tim Burton, the Nightmare Before Christmas, and that's a very beautiful but also kind of gothic-y mix blend of both Halloween and Christmas, beautifully emanated in the only way that Tim Burton can do, in that really kind of magical gothic way. And again, I think that's a good film to watch with the family.
Speaker 1:And, as always, it wouldn't be Christmas without Charles Dickens, when when I remember, when I read about Charles Dickens a while ago and that he had been really successful and he had a few flops and then he wrote he wrote, um, the Christmas Carol, and that I believe that came out on Christmas Eve and it basically sold out and it is such a beautiful, beautiful story that it works well as a movie. Like, by all means read the book, but it works well as a movie. Just a little bit of trivia for you since around 1935 there has been at least 19 versions of the Christmas Carol as a movie and I know even the Muppets have done a version. I loved it in the Muppets when Bob Cratchit loved it in the Muppets. When um, um, bob Cratchit and um, the head of a people are little creatures around him was saying that they were cold, and then the person that played Scrooge I can't remember which Muppet was said how would they like to be suddenly unemployed? And then the little, little um creatures were going hot sun and they'll pretend it's like really warm. Um, you had to be there. It's kind of lost on a podcast. Forgive me for that.
Speaker 1:Number two, macaulay Culkin in the 1990 classic comedy Home Alone. Now that puts a smile on most people's face. Most parents would not forget the children, but I like the way they kind of did this. A A boy. He's a boy who accidentally left at home by his parents because they're all traveling off and it's chaos in the morning and he's forced out with these burglars, who aren't the brightest of burglars but persistent, and his family gets stuck and they're trying to get back to him. So that's really good.
Speaker 1:But number one in this Christmas special of my all-time Christmas movies, which has some kind of themes, a little bit like the Christmas Carol, but done in a completely different way and it's got its own new thing. So I don't want to say it. It is like it's like the Christmas Carol, but completely different at the same time is it's a Wonderful Life. This explores love, hope and redemption. It's from 1990, sorry, 1945, and it's a classic starring the legend James Stewart and he was an amazing actor and other people as well, brilliant female roles as well. I just off the top of my head, I can't remember their names. Anyway, this film teaches us that every single life matters and we should never underestimate how much we can make a difference to others in this world. So how much we can make a difference to others in this world. So that was a little bit of fun for Christmas.
Speaker 1:So what would I like to leave you with? I would like to leave you with a beautiful meditation which was recorded by my friend Lindsay a couple of Christmases ago, and it's a sound meditation. It's absolutely beautiful and I'm giving you this or rather, I'm attaching this wonderful meditation that she did as a gift for this show, because I think it's a nice thing to do if you get a few moments to yourself over the Christmas period. So listen out, this is going to be spectacular. So happy Christmas, special, happy Hanukkah Whatever festival you are celebrating and here we go. Yay, I'm so excited. I want to do this myself.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, the Gentle Yoga Warrior, and please welcome today sound healing practitioner and gifted yoga teacher, lindsay Markovits. Lindsay Markovits is a level two sound practitioner, having spent 18 months studying sound healing practitioner. Having spent 18 months studying sound healing, she's also an open-hearted, passionate hafa and kundalini yoga teacher and practitioner, specializing in all levels of yoga and sound journeys, with an exploratory approach to yoga and sound. Lindsay very kindly recorded a sound healing session and I'm just about to share that with you now. She did say at the beginning it's best to practice lying down, be comfortable with a blanket, etc. But of course, if you prefer to do it seated, then that's fine. Just make sure you are comfortable and that you won't be disturbed.
Speaker 1:But I remember her saying that there's this amazing place in Cornwall in the UK called Tinge Tangle. Right, it's a really kind of magical, mystical place. There's legends of King Arthur, but there's also a fairy forest down there and it's just got amazing sounds and I remember her saying that she took some of the sounds from there. But I'm as excited as you are to hear this amazing meditation. So, without further ado, here is Lindsay Markovits's amazing sound healing session.
Speaker 3:This meditation is not suitable for people with sound-induced epilepsy. Please use headphones or a good quality speaker to listen to this meditation. You are listening to the sounds of a stream that leads to St Necton's Glen, an ancient site in Cornwall which is considered a sacred place by many. Listen deeply to these sounds, let them rush over you and through you. Allow the sounds to conjure images of water, a beautiful stream, perhaps glistening, dancing in the sunlight, and allow these images and sounds to inspire feelings of flow. How does it feel to let go and flow?
Speaker 3:Bringing your attention now to your breath, breathing, noticing the rhythm of your breath. There's no need to try and adjust its rhythm. You may be able to hear the sound of your breath or just sense the vibrations with the inhale and the exhale, a soft oceanic vibration, much like the distant sound of waves against the shore, breathing into every corner of your torso, belly, chest, sides of the body, back of the body. Exhale, letting that breath go entirely and on two, regulate the breath now. Well, inhale for five, four, three, two one. Inhale five, four, three, two, one, one. Exhale six, five, four, three, two, one. Inhale five, four, three, two, one. Exhale six, five, four, three, two, one.
Speaker 3:Inhale, exhale, exhale, inhale. No-transcript. Notice the distant sounds and the sounds within your space. Notice the singular sounds, the repetitive sounds and the continuous sounds and the continuous sounds and perhaps, if you listen very carefully, you might be able to hear that distant oceanic sound of your breath, beginning to breathe a little bit deeper now, taking a really big inhale and exhale. Perhaps make a sound of your own, if you like. Couple more deep breaths like this. Use your exhales to release anything that you would like to let go of before you continue with your day or evening. Make some sound, if you like, with your exhales. Be expressive, just mindfully now easing yourself back into your day or your evening.
