Click here for PART 1 of this interview.
Yvonne Lumsden
Yvonne currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has a long-established healing practice called OneLove Medicine For the Soul.
She specialises in Reiki Healing, Kundalini Dance practice, and Relationship Mentoring.
She is a wonderful counsellor and healer, and very much works from the heart with love with everything she does.
Part 2
A free workshop for the world
"This is the biggest free workshop retreat that we’ve all been given on the planet whether you’ve signed up for it or not, you’re in it!"
David:
Yeah, very interesting, and I guess a way people can better connect with themselves during this is by having these situations come up, where they are forced to like, there is nowhere else to go, we’ve got to deal with things we may have put off our whole life, you know? It’s like it’s all coming bubbling to the surface now, and we are being forced to look at it. So I guess there is a lot of inner work going on with people, a lot of inner challenges?
Yvonne:
Yes, absolutely. What an opportunity to look at communication in your relationship. You can get more intimate with yourself and each other and with your children. Yeah, I’d say seize the opportunity! This is the biggest free workshop retreat that we’ve all been given on the planet whether you’ve signed up for it or not, you’re in it!
David:
Haha wow, that’s such a great way of looking at it!
Yvonne:
It’s like, yeah. People pay thousands for this! It’s like there you go, you’ve been met with all your own shit.
David:
Wow, yeah, like no choice, deal with it.
Yvonne:
Yeah, that’s what I figure, and humour! OMG I know I can get right into deep inner-child work, but… AND, we’ve got to laugh. OMG have we got to laugh! And that is when like how you asked earlier about how people can cope in situations like this. You know, if it’s getting hot under the collar or getting a bit frantic at home, to stick some music on and have a dance in the living room. Let’s watch some comedy. You know, all those things, they have a place because help shift our mood. They help change that internal, emotional world. Humour, movement, being vulnerable, being real and having that space.
You know for Ian and I, there are times when I’ve said “I’m really fucking over this… I’m really pissed off!”. And I’ll stamp my feet and have a bit of a frustration dance and shake it out, and “Oh… that feels better!”. Because there’s an emotion trapped inside of us that sometimes we don’t even know what it is. And it doesn’t need to be a big deal, it doesn’t need to be a big story, or a blame, or the government is this, which I can do – get on a high-horse when it’s really nothing to do with anybody else. It’s what’s happening in my body and there are ways where we can discharge and we’ll know how much we feel good when we put a silly piece of music on and dance like goons around the place and laugh.
And that’s stuff that families can do, stuff couples can do. We don’t need to solve anything. Sometimes we just need to listen to each other and just go “How are you going with all this?”. And whether is just that quiet voice that invites vulnerabilities and tears of sadness about what is not happening and what you’re missing in life, then lean into that place. If it’s rage and frustration, then lean into there, because there could be something else on the other side.
David:
Yeah, that is such great advice. And yeah, the dancing, the movement – it really is such a great way to shift energy, as we both know from Kundalini Dance. It’s very powerful.
Yvonne:
And I think that’s it, the things our body knows how to do naturally. That we can move. It’s not about getting something right or wrong, but when you look at kids when they are around music, they move their body, they get into it, they laugh. And yeah, it’s one of the most natural ways that we can shift and keep shifting.
I was just talking to a girlfriend earlier this morning about feelings we have. She said she is really grateful for me in her life – she says “Oh, you’re so feeling… you just feel things… I’m not like that but I’m learning to be more like that”. But she has her gifts in other ways and that’s how we are really good complements as friends because we are so different, but when we come together we learn so much from each other.
I think we are all feeling deep feelings, but sometimes we just don’t know what we are feeling. And the change, you know from Kundi Dance, you can be stomping in anger one moment, cracking up laughing the next, crying the next, laughing again, into peace and stillness, and it’ll all start round again.
David:
Yeah, it’s fantastic how the energy can shift in you by doing that. It’s very inspiring and very good advice.
Yvonne:
Yeah, do it with your kids. Ask them what’s their favourite track, what’s your favourite music at the moment. And it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not Mum and Dad, just stick in on! Come down and meet your kids at their level. Ask them what is they want to play. Let’s get the crayons out, or whatever, and they’ll teach you. Your kids will teach you how to play again.
David:
Yes, such great advice. Let’s not forget how to play! We are very creative and playful at heart, and when we are like that we very much slip into our flow, into our place of peace.
Yvonne:
Yes, exactly. We are present with creating rather than trying to figure it all out.
David:
Haha yes, trying to bust our brains trying to figure it out mentally.
Yvonne:
Haha yes, busting our brains because I think I’ve got to save the world. It’s like “No Yvonne, it’s okay. There’s lots of people out there doing something, and people will find their way”. Yeah.
Making change through opportunity
David:
Yeah. And how to you think that this situation around the world has changed the way you do your business – your private sessions, Reiki and Kundalini Dance?
Yvonne:
Yeah, I think it certainly is looking at more online work, and being creative. Now that I have the technology I can bring the dance online, which I’m really actually excited about because I’ve been wanting to do it forever and a day so I could include people I have danced with before when I lived in Brisbane. There are friends I’ve got back in the U.K that I can now bring what I do into their homes. And so that’s really exciting being able to share with more people.
Yeah, and it’s going to be different for me as someone who likes to be in real live time with people in flesh-and-blood in the space, but I know the potency of what can occur at the end of a zoom session (online video call) having done individual and couples sessions and been the receiver of mentoring myself over zoom. There is something beyond just being in physical presence with someone, and I think this is an opportunity for us to delve deeper within ourselves to this place of soul, of spirit, of love. Only because I was feeling insecure about doing something where I’m not in the room with other people, but there is something that is far greater than our physical being, that through online we can tap into.
David:
That’s wonderful Yvonne, really really great. It just triggered a thought in me that when we’re in our own space doing an online call we can feel more comfortable than maybe having to go to an office or a healing centre that is not your own home. And so perhaps a different level of healing takes place when you are in your own home and you feel that level of comfort and safety to express yourself freely.
Yvonne:
Exactly. And I can see benefits of what is actually incredibly self-empowering of how we are all our own healers, shamans, alchemists – whatever word you want to use – for what we can not do for ourselves, but when someone’s by our side to help bring us back home. How incredibly empowering we are. So I’m really inspired by that.
One of my Reiki students was asking me questions about distance healing and I was being inspired by her in that she has arranged with level 2 Reiki to do distance healing, but she was doing it live online. So she’s hooking up a zoom connection with someone whilst they’re at home and she’s actively sending them Reiki. And I’m going like, “Wow, you’re inspiring me here over what is possible!”. Yeah, so you can still have that real live connection that when someone does need some time to talk, that you’re energetically there with them whilst they’re having their experience. So that’s come my way and it’s very exciting. And I’ve been having more enquiries for couples seeing the benefits of online work as well.
Root and Crown Chakras
Yvonne:
I think for me I’m a bit philosophical – if we look at the Chakra’s for a moment, I feel we are really moving in an activation of our Root Chakra – our Earthy physical realm. But also our Root Chakra is the portal of our deeper collective unconscious as the whole of humanity where we hold fear. We are going through a Root Chakra initiation as we are a Crown Chakra. Crown Chakra is about letting go of attachment. We are opening to the infinite of the Cosmos – infinite possibilities. And the more we can let go of our fear and our base in the Earth, then we can plant new ideas, plant new ways.
For me in my own business I’m letting of my own attachment of how I think things should be, or have to be. So yeah, we’ve been given a great opportunity for those energetic centres. For those who are familiar with Chakras to go through the portal of Divine Feminine through our base in the Earth, and go through the Divine Masculine through our Crown into the Universe. And when we have these two Chakras aligned and they’re working in harmony, we’re receiving the ideas and inspirations from the consciousness in the Cosmos, and we’re planting the seeds in the Earth and taking the steps we need to, but letting go of attachment of how they are going to occur. Here we are – the energetic field of the tube Taurus runs around us, and the Chakras that are in the middle. Once the Root and Crown are taken care of, that we’re present to them, then the others kind of fall into place.
David:
Mmmm, that’s wonderful Yvonne.
Yvonne:
Yeah, it’s been a real gem that I’ve been sitting with and really feeling like, oh God, this is so Root Chakra we’re in at the moment, and so Crown Chakra.
David:
I love the way you’ve expressed all that. It really sums up a very, very powerful thing that is happening to us all with the Root Chakra connected to the Crown Chakra, and how bringing those into alignment can be very much the pathway to the peace a lot of people may not have right now.
Yvonne:
Exactly, yeah. And when our mind is closed, our egoic mind is in a heightened state of fear and control, we’re not open to spirit, we’re not connected to the Divine. Our Crown Chakra is always open, but it can open like a big blossom and grow like a lotus – opening out – reaching out to all of the Universe, all of the stars, or we can just be looking up at the sky and be seeing three stars. But when we let go of our attachment or we become less fearful and present, then we see the whole dark night and all the stars.
David:
Hmmm, that’s a really lovely way of putting it. I love the work that you have been doing with the Chakras, and I know it’s been a big project of yours for some time, and mine.
Yvonne:
Haha, yes, I’m so grateful that we stayed with it because I really see the diamond coming to light.
David:
Yes, I’m very excited about not only the new way you are putting together the online dance course, but with the Chakras and the upcoming eBook. All the information that is coming about that is very exciting.
Yvonne:
Yes, and I just love the little nudges we get from the Universe. I just had someone asking if I had any information that would help because she has a lot of anger at the moment and having recollections of past sexual abuse. She wasn’t able to have a session with me at the moment so wanted some information to help. So I sent back some tips, but I thought this is just when I get the Chakra eBook and the Grounding document done – bang, there you go. So it’s just a little nudge from the Universe saying people still like written information and people still like something they can print off in their hands, read or refer to and learn.
Trust your body & intuition
David:
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love the way you just mentioned how you can help people with getting to know the Chakras and what they do, and how you recognise problems that are related to the Chakras. Is there anything you’d like to add about the work you are doing with the Chakras or you would like to say to people?
Yvonne:
Yeah, just around language and the term ‘Chakra’ has been around, but if people prefer an ‘Energy Centre’ in your body. I like to refer to old-fashioned sayings like being a “tight arse” with money – there’s really a lot in sayings. Even if people don’t know about Chakras, I would invite people to trust their “Deep Inner-Knowing”. To really trust and really listen to their body and to their heart. It’s not that if you think I’m not this or I’m not that, and I’m not sensitive and I’m not intuitive, and I’m not, I’m not, I’m not etc. It’s like, I’m going to tell you, you are! You are, you are you are. You are love, you are intuitive, you are kind, you are compassionate, you are present. It’s like, yeah.
Sometimes when we are embarking or we want to discover, it’s like ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I’m not that’. Just put all those words to one side and just listen. You’ve had a feeling in your body, a feeling in your waters, like when you go to someone’s house and something doesn’t feel right, or you’re having a conversation with someone and you get a funny feeling about them, or perhaps you drive a different way to work one day and you discover there’s been an accident. We’re all having experiences like that differently. And it’s trusting, trusting that part.
David:
Hmmm, yeah, that’s such great advice, Yvonne.
Yvonne:
Yeah, I want to appeal to everybody’s heart to trust. I’ve needed a hand helping me to remember this.
David:
Yes. I guess that comes back to how we started, which was observing or just noticing yourself and the language that you do use. Because basically we are programming ourselves with our words, you know? As you say, ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I can’t do that’, or ‘I’m sick and tired of this’, then if you keep saying that then you will be sick and tired, and you won’t be able to do things. So we very much stop ourselves, don’t we?
Yvonne:
Oh, yeah. Our brain is a computer chipboard and when we were kids we were given programs that we didn’t sign up for, but as an adult now we’ve got to defrag and reboot, and put in our new programming.
David:
Yeah, that’s another really great way of putting it. Very much, I guess a forced opportunity for us to do that. You know? To look at ourselves and think, oh, I don’t like that I do that.
Yvonne:
Yeah, it’s like “Oh, that didn’t feel so good when I spoke to someone like that”. It’s like oh, here’s healthy shame. Yeah. Healthy shame is really, really invaluable. The place of our internal moral compass and value compass, but I think yeah, the more we can become comfortable with our healthy shame then we can have more honest conversations, we can be more real, we can be more vulnerable. Because our inner-self isn’t always comfortable. It can be fuckin’ uncomfortable! Really fuckin’ uncomfortable!!
David:
Haha yep, that’s so true.
Yvonne:
Isn’t it. And I think it’s like when I started on this journey, how ever long ago it was… a few moons back now, I always thought it would be light and fluffy. You know? Like, I’d go and do this retreat come away and I’d be fixed. But then it was like, oh… I’ve had a great experience, but I’m still having the same arguments with my partner, and I’m still looking at the world through these eyes, and I’m like… Oh, okay. So, it comes down to us. We can have experiences, have people by our hands helping us along the way, but, you know?
I know for sure when I pay the gym membership and I don’t go to the gym, nothing changes about my body haha! I think like, bugger it. I’m paying you, why is it not working? Where’s my six pack gone?
