3 bonkers decisions I made for my mental health, that have changed my life.

This week Big Love Movement turned 3.

Three years since we were about to go into lockdown, I decided it would be a fantastic time to get Big Love Movement off the ground. I saw it as a nudge from the Universe and it worked, we’re still here and growing. My little business is shifting and changing as I am, as we all are, constantly.

This week marks the Spring Equinox, a shift in the seasons, nature's new year; a time of new beginnings and with it comes to a New Moon. I love this time of year but until recently I had no idea how significant it was to me, and not only because it’s my business birthday…

The last few weeks have been challenging, to say the least, emotionally, mentally and physically. The physical came last; the flu. Everything else was under the surface but it felt so big and uncomfortable I couldn’t contain it, for the first time in a long time I reached out to friends for the support I needed and they gave me it fully with compassion, empathy and love; they heard me.

Often the support we seek is advice and encouragement, sometimes it’s a kick up the bum, and we need these too but most of the time the thing we need most is for someone to listen.

I’ve realised this is why I hold so much and keep things to myself, to my own detriment; because I don’t believe anyone will listen, not properly anyway because they haven’t in the past. This takes me on a tangent to our beliefs; those deep-rooted stories we are often completely unaware of. There are three chunky monkey beliefs I’ve held onto for years that I am still working to release and I will share those with you another time.

Riding my emotions over the past few weeks has been hard. Old stories and limiting beliefs that are usually quite easy to ignore have swum up to the surface and slapped me in the face.

Dreams and aspirations have risen up reminding me of what I set out to do and am not doing.

I’ve felt angry, frustrated and like I am failing.

I’ve felt cross at everything and everyone, and when it settled it simply came back to me.

What was happening?

This wasn’t the first time I’ve felt this way and I know it won’t be the last but God, it feels so brutal and unfair when you’re in it.

The sludge gets stirred up to be realised and released. This only happens when we are ready to acknowledge it though, until then things get pushed down, bottled up and contained for years. I have called this many things in the past, some people call it a great awakening but that feels a little too pretty when it’s actually pretty messy. I call it ‘The Nudge’, or a ‘Spiritual Kick-Up-The Arse’, or being ‘Cracked Open’. I’m sure you’ll have your own.

In 2019 I felt like I was being cracked open. For the previous 2 years, I had committed to a daily spiritual practice of journaling, yoga and mindfulness, and I was in the middle of my yoga teacher training. (No, not in India, I studied on weekends in London to fit around my full-time role as a Footwear Buyer, something that in itself feels pretty bonkers to imagine now.) The ‘cracking open’ often comes after a period of darkness; some deep and heavy times; and it sheds light on everything that needs to be healed, there’s nowhere for it to hide because you’re opening up, you’re letting the light in and you begin to see it all.

Nothing brings the sh*t to the surface like spiritual stuff does and it does this so you can learn from those experiences and move forward with that knowledge, choosing differently, and consciously.

I am grateful for the stirring up and the cracking open because it’s helped me to acknowledge, realise and begin to release all the stuff I was, and still am, storing in my body.

Looking back I realise this time of year seems to be when I make courageous decisions most people would think were bonkers but I made them because the nudges my body was giving me were becoming louder and impossible to ignore.

This is ridiculous when you look at it like this which is EXACTLY why I want you to look at it like this…

March 2018 - Brainstormed how to change my career and invested in my first-ever coach and a program to help me plan how to make that happen. (To add some content, my stepdad had just passed away and it was the 2nd Grim Reaper nudge from the Universe that life is too short to be unhappy)

March 2019 - Made the decision to leave my career, wrote the first draft of my resignation letter and bought the domain biglovemovement.com (whilst on my first-ever solo holiday and studying for my anatomy exam on a sun bed in Tenerife!)

March 2020 - Finalised my initial business model for Big Love, started building my website, and created a yoga community to support people's well-being. (From my bedroom with a laptop and a webcam!)

Mental. I don’t use that term lightly but ironically it was all mental.

Mental because I was sick and tired of feeling depressed, unhappy, uninspired and like nothing was going right because nothing was feeling right. Instead, I started to take responsibility for my happiness and make the changes I needed to see in my life. March just so happens to be the holy-sh*t time of the year I go BIG on those changes!

I found an old journal recently and I realised I’d decided to leave school at 17 whilst lying under a tree in Paris, it was in the artist Rodin’s garden, they’ve made a museum of his house and I can still picture that tree in my mind. I hated school, I wanted a fresh start and the last thing I wanted was another year feeling like I was. So, I spoke to my boss and turned my Saturday job into a full-time one, saved up and applied for art college, and do you know what time of year it was? March.

I need to speak to this girl when things are feeling tough because she knew what to do.

So, what is to come from this March?

The most important thing to me is to release my limiting beliefs once and for all.
To acknowledge the stories I tell myself based on my past and use them to stop me from feeling good in the present.

How will I do this?

With patience (yes, that will be hard for me)

With compassion

With curiosity (I talk about this a lot in The Big Love Yoga Community, noticing, listening and moving with curiosity; without judgement or expectation, learning we go.)

So, how has the first quarter of the year felt for you, my friend?

Big love,
Becki xoxo