Who am I and why am I here?

Allegedly a curious kid, asking myself and others existential questions, like ‘who am I and why am I here’, and not getting any satisfactory answers, I moved into adult life with these questions still quietly knocking at the edge of my consciousness.

I had a mostly loving but pretty chaotic childhood and I was, as a friend beautifully, (maybe not completely accurately), described, … ‘bought up in an atmosphere of benign neglect’. There were many upsides to that -a lot of fun and freedom, and downsides - a lot of early responsibility. I also witnessed and experienced the damaging effects of alcoholism in my main caregivers and bore witness to some deeply traumatic events which left their mark.  

As I grew into adulthood and was faced with the responsibilities of independence and striking out on my own, I felt adrift, unanchored. I didn’t have much stability or guidance and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing so I made my own rules cast my gaze in the direction of travel I thought looked good and went for it. I got a bagful of qualifications and worked and travelled. Life felt good on the whole although I had learned, subconsciously, to turn to alcohol to block out what I didn’t want to feel. In my mid 20’s to early 30’s I had a great group of friends, was having a good time, working, partying, enjoying life but there was a part of me that felt confused, lacking direction and, after several very challenging life experiences, what had once been fun became destructive and toxic. I was not coping, I had lost agency in my own life and I was deeply anxious and unhappy

Having always been connected to a spark of joy inside of me and very much in touch with my body as a child, running, jumping, cartwheeling, backbending, handstands, headstands anywhere and everywhere, I continued expressing my love of movement as an adult through dancing, cycling, swimming. It was around this aforementioned difficult period in my life that I was drawn to taking a yoga class. It was a definitive moment.

I knew after attending that class that this practise could offer me an alternative way to be and feel and I wanted that more than anything.

I moved town and began practising yoga more regularly, along with meditation and mindfulness practises.

I took my first Vipassana 10 day silent retreat in 2000. After years of doing anything and everything to distract myself from the internal pain and discomfort I was feeling, this practise stripped me of every distraction and I was up front and personal with everything inside of me. It was hell. Desperate for it to end but determined to see it through I went one day to the teacher to speak of my mental, physical and emotional discomfort. Without me saying barely a word, I was given the advice to stop daydreaming, to stop trying to get to the end before i’d begun and to keep listening to the breath. He had the measure of me! I was perplexed and mystified however at his last instruction. Keep listening to the breath? What was this seemingly simplistic instruction?!…. anyway, I gamely carried on, did my best to be present and listen to my breath, finished the retreat, felt rather pleased with myself for having embarked on my first serious bit of soul searching, and off I went …

… time ticked on and several trips to India to practise yoga culminated in me taking a leap of faith. I left a good job in theatre to go and live there for a year and a half practising with a teacher called Acharya Venkatesh. He was ‘the one’ I wanted to learn from. Humble, boundaried, authentic. After several months of asana practise I began to feel really good physically, full of life and vigour and optimism. I loved the discipline and structure but there was a part of me that was still unbalanced, I was self conscious, socially anxious, and disconnected … out of curiosity and having time to spare in the afternoon, I embarked on a one month pranayama (breath control) course with Acharya (Teacher) …and that is when things really began to change. 

So it began, 20 minutes every day , sitting in Vajrasana (Hero’s pose), with the instruction to hold the position, without moving (not dissimilar to Vipassana meditation) and practise Dirga (full diaphragmatic)breath. With flies dancing in my sweat as it trickled down my face in the mid afternoon humidity , the relentless honking of rickshaws jostling for space on the roads surrounding the Shala, ringing in my ears and agonising pain emanating from my feet and legs, burning like a pulsating electrical fire through my entire body and brain, I dutifully followed the instructions… ‘”follow the breath, follow the breath, keep in position, don’t move’”. It was probably the most intense physical and mental torture I had ever voluntarily put myself through. We all felt the same. Acharya told us that with sustained practise we would sit more easily when our brain had made new neural pathways and ‘”you will learn to welcome the pain”’… he was right… but what changed you may ask? 

Well, after the course ended I was so impressed with myself (bit of a theme here) at finally being able to sit without much pain for a long period of time that I continued a daily practise . Not having any understanding of what this breathing was doing to be honest -Acharya was not one to give explicit truths, rather learn by experience -I began to notice an almost imperceptible but profound shift.  I began to feel ‘ok’, relaxed, even peaceful. A quiet joy arrived and the more I practised the more settled in this feeling I became. I felt well in the truest sense of the word and I liked being me again - This was 2005.

I came home to the UK proselytising about how the breath had changed everything for me

 Other things had changed too. I was pregnant.

Nearly 20 years since returning from India and mother to an incredible young woman (perhaps my greatest teacher), there have been many ups and downs along the way with many twists and turns, as is life . Whilst bringing my daughter up and pursuing more traditional lines of work, I have kept wellbeing practises running alongside, gaining a Yoga Teacher Training Certificate, attending another Vipassana retreat (glutton for punishment obviously), undertaken talking therapy and embarked on some body work courses and counselling training,.

Having finally sold my catering and café business in 2020 a space opened in my life begging the question what next? What moves me, what will sustain me, what could I share with others?

I had an epiphany.

I wanted to return to and share the thing that had shown me, in it’s beautiful simplicity, a path back to a feeling of true wellbeing, the Breath.

I soon discovered that breathwork had become quite ‘a thing’ and so I had plenty of avenues to choose from for further exploration. Once again I turned my gaze in the direction of travel I wished to move and followed my nose to the trainings that resonated with what felt like ‘my thing’, this time with clarity and purpose about the path I was treading.

Since 2020 I have been immersed in Breathwork Teacher Training programmes and have been teaching Movement and Breath classes for relaxation and optimal health in Brighton . More recently I have completed a 450 hr Conscious Connected Therapeutic Breathwork training for releasing long held stress, tension and trauma from the body/mind and am about to embark on more advanced training in this field. It has been through this transformational training and practise, led by the incredible Natalie Keany at Evolve Breath Body, that I have got to know myself in a very direct way, cutting through some, not all ;) of my mental constructs* (aka ego and stories) and getting closer to the heart of being. *I might just add that these have served me well when my body and mind have been overwhelmed. They provide me with a dependable safety net.. I’m just more aware of them these days and notice when they are muscling in for top of the bill!

Alongside the many insights I have had I have learnt what it means to meet the less lovely parts of myself and to hold all of me with tenderness, love and compassion. Above all I am learning what it is to feel safe within this body in a true and consistent way

I couldn’t be more grateful to those who have trodden the path before me, alongside me or who are currently showing me the way. Friends, teachers, enlightened masters, ancient seers, sharing their wisdom, supporting and guiding me and others. I am also eternally grateful to my own body and breath for never giving up on it’s quest to get me to listen

I know in an embodied way that the answers to the questions I was seeking are not to be found from outside of myself but are in fact within and I can now answer my own question, ‘Who am I and why am I here?’. I am simply, a human being who is consciously connecting to my body, to the healing power of the breath and to my own humanness and I am here to share this work with everyone who is curious to experience this practise for themselves.

We all have our unique story to tell and our gifts to share. We are here to learn from and help one another.

Who are you and why are you here?

Lins x

“Don’t search for the answers that could not be given to you now,

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything

Live the questions now

Perhaps then someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer”

Rainer Maria Rilke