Kirsty Gallagher

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place. the show that seeks out wisdom and a real sense of calm. Today, I'm chatting to Kirsty Gallagher. I'd get to work, I wouldn't remember the journey there, because you're jumping out of bed with the alarm, you're throwing a cup of coffee down, you've got a piece of toast in your mouth as you run to the car, you're stuck in the traffic, someone's bothering you, they've cut you up. If you get to work and you're like, I don't remember getting here, because we've not been present, there's a part of you still in bed at home, there's a part of you that's already gone to two weeks' time to worry about something that's going on there.

0:35So we're scattered. A ritual just brings all of you into that moment. Kirstie is a moon mentor, soul alignment and spiritual coach, yoga teacher, meditation teacher and Sunday Times bestselling author of the book, Lunar Living. Kirstie's thing is bringing together community and really trying to show us that we're never alone, which I think is just the most gorgeous mission that we need now more than ever. Through her yoga, meditation and ritual classes, she teaches us how to live back in alignment with an ancient cycle, a really lovely rhythm and flow that aims to connect us back to our inner wisdom and purpose.

1:23Now listen, you might have heard the word lunar there and immediately switched off. Living by the moon? Not for me, thanks. Well, I get it. If you're a bit of a moon naysayer, but please do stick with us because Kirstie makes the really beautiful point that look, it doesn't matter to her. It doesn't matter to me whether you believe. The point of this chat is to get you thinking about what you do believe in, what feels true and useful to you. Now, before we hear from Kirstie, I just wanted to mention that she's also one of the amazing experts on the Happy Place app. So if you want to try some of the practices that Kirstie chats about today, then the app is where you'll want to head after the show.

2:07Oh my God, her meditations are amazing. There are meditations for time out or to reset your energy, affirmations to help create positive change in your life and a series of lunar meditations which align with the magic of the moon cycles to help you connect with your power and intuition. Kirstie's practices have a brilliant focus on reducing anxiety and creating a sense of peace from first thing in the morning to last thing at night and every moment in between. Kirstie's not the only practitioner on the app, there are loads of experts that I love and know, they're friends, they're collaborators, I love them.

2:48You might have heard them on the podcast, leading practices from yoga to breath work to tapping and so much more, all to help you feel that bit happier and calmer. Plus, with our one month free trial, you can dive right in and explore Kirsty's practices with no commitment. So head over to the Happy Place website to download the app today. All right, here she is. Here's the wonderful Kirsty.

3:37Hello, Kirsty. Hey. Kirsty, we are recording this on, I'm saying, the hottest day ever. Honestly, ever, ever, ever. And we've waited so long to do this. And then we do it on a day that we're both sweating. I'm aware of my moist armpits. That's how I feel. And also, we've both chosen to wear dresses that are... Represent each other. They are representative of each other. I'm wearing a celestial star dress. You are. We're wearing a beautiful flowery garden dress, which is a wonderful compliment. But we're both showcasing our boobs, which we don't normally. And I feel this is out of my comfort zone, which I think is a good thing.

4:17No, I do. And it was so funny. The first thing you said when you walked in, I'd already said to the guys, I was like, just keep checking on me. And then you walked in and said the same thing. And I was like, we're in this together. We are in this together. In like a t-shirt or a dress that goes up to my chin, quite frankly. But today... I'm just aware of those guys down there. Yeah. Let's own them. We can own them. Let's own it. And we can talk about deep stuff whilst having our boobs pertly displayed. There we go. It's all part of it. It is. As you said, this is a long time coming because we've been friends for a long time, But also we've collaborated in different ways, which is it's been a joy for me.

4:53You've been at our Happy Place Festival doing beautiful meditation classes and talking about all manner of things. And also you've done some really amazing specific practices for our Happy Place app. So what have you done for the app? Talk us through the practices that you've created. Mainly meditations, but we went specific on focus for things like morning meditations, meditations when you want to clear your energy field, evening meditations. And then we just recently did a beautiful like lunar meditation practice where you got to meditate with all the different phases of the moon, which was just a joy to do.

5:28We did one around owning emotions because, again, that's super important. It's something that I don't think we do enough. And especially as women, there's certain emotions, isn't it, that we label as being good and bad emotions. So then we shut down and we suppress certain emotions and it's not the way to go. We need to really allow ourselves to feel and to express. So, yeah, we did think of meditation around grief, around anger, just to help people to get into those deeper, almost darker emotions that normally get pushed to one side. So you are not only incredibly skilled, as you've just illustrated, making, creating these beautiful bespoke meditation classes.

6:03You're a meditation teacher. You're a yoga teacher. at what point did the moon element come into things because you are the queen of the moon I don't know anyone who knows more about the moon and I'm constantly turning to you to ask what the hell's going on why my mood's all over the gaff is there a full moon is there something in the way of the moon what's going on so when did you realize that we could look to the moon to be guided and to get a bit more in tune with it because I think it's an obvious thing to say but we all know we're out of sync with the natural world. We don't even think about the moon.

6:40We don't think about the seasons. We don't think about what's naturally taking effect. So when did you realise that was the missing piece for you as a teacher? I think if I go quite far back, even in childhood, I was always very different. I always wanted to know why. I was always searching for more answers or deeper meaning. And I found astrology at about, I remember getting my first astrology book at about 13 years old. and poring over this book and astrology just giving deeper meaning to life and wanting to know what people's star signs were and moon signs were so astrology kind of came first and then in 2009 I went to India to become a yoga teacher I wanted to go to the the kind of the deep roots to really learn and embrace myself and study and it's traditional in Ashtanga yoga that I was practicing at the time not to practice on new and full moon days because of the energetic pull of the moon.

7:31So everybody on new and full moon days would hang out together. We'd all be in coffee shops and cafes and people would have a rest day. And I started to notice on moon days that people's energy would differ. Like people would just be different. And then I started to really notice that everyone would start to have similar issues. Either everyone would be feeling really emotional, everyone would be having relationship issues, everyone would be really anxious and it got me really fascinated and hooked and so in traditional kind of yoga when you're practicing so much you do what's called abhyanga massage as you're practicing like five six hours a day your body's sore so you rub oil into your body and then you lay and let it soak in for 20 minutes so on these new one full moon days when i did that i'd been hanging out with people i'd got a bit of the vibe of what's going on and then i'd go into meditation in this abhyanga when i got the oil on and just really feel into the moon and almost talk to them and be like what have you got to share?

8:24Like what's going on? What's the energy? And really feel into that energy. And I've been doing it ever since. I've been hooked ever since. That was in 2009 when I really then started living by the lunar cycles. And it honestly changed my life. I mean, you can absolutely hear it with what you're saying and having read all of your books, but your first book specifically, which really delves into this, you say that even as a very sort of simplistic basic model we can look at the lunar cycles and twice a month there are two natural check-ins for all of us so how do we use the two check-ins being the full moon and the new moon the full moon when it's big and glorious and bright in the sky the new moon being when we cannot see it at all how do we use those two markers in the cycle to I guess check in with how we're doing I mean that's what I do love about lunar work because first of all when we look at it the moon turns the tides on the earth if we didn't have the moon we wouldn't have seasons because it's a gravitational pull of the moon that keeps the earth on its axis it's said that without the moon a day on earth it'd be six hours long rather than 24 hours long and so there's almost like an arrogance as humans that we're like oh I'm not affected by the moon I'm not affected by the planets I'm not affected by nature The fact that actually I've just remembered, I've written it down because it blew my mind so much from your first book, for any moon naysayers out there.

9:47Yes. Not that you can be a moon naysayer because it's in the bloody sky. But people that think, oh, whatever, it doesn't do anything. But once a year, between October and December, there is a mass spawning of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef influenced and triggered by a full moon. A full moon. If the moon's doing that to coral, what the hell is it doing to us? It blows my mind in a way that we are, I mean, we're made of stardust. That's not me making up some kind of a wee wee fact. Yeah, David Bowie's song or something. Yeah, we're literally made of stardust. Like, we're stars. And the same, I believe, the same life force energy that makes our nails grow and our hair grow is the same life force energy that causes the leaves and the flowers and the trees.

10:26And so we are part of nature. And when we tune back into that, our lives change. But even for the naysayers, I love sceptics. I love working with sceptics in this work because I'm like, even if you don't want to believe in the moon, but you sit down with yourself twice a month, even the act of doing that will change your life over the course of a few months in ways you can't even imagine. So how might you do that? Say we've got a new moon approaching. What might you do on that new moon day? So we want to start with the new moon because that's the very beginning of the lunar cycle. So a new moon gives us a blank slate.

11:00It's where we begin. It's where the moon's at the very beginning of our journey. so if I can just take you back a tiny step in the days before a new moon we get what's called the dark moon and I always talk about this first because it's the it's the time that most people will start to believe a bit more in lunar work because it's the lowest energetic and emotional point of the lunar cycle so if you start to notice those days where you do feel like your emotions are out of control or your boss starts irritating you or your relationship feels like it's not going the way you want it to I almost guarantee you it will be the dark moon because what the dark moon does is pull us into our emotions to show us where we're out of alignment so the dark moon shows us what we don't want so that then when the new moon comes the moon goes okay you don't like your relationship the way that it's going right now you don't perhaps like the job you're doing this isn't working and you're like what do you want so it's like putting it all out on the table yes and having a good look at it yeah yeah which we all do I think all of us tend to because the world moves so quickly and we're all so busy and we're also quite proud about that busyness culturally and so on a societal level like oh my god I haven't I do it all the time and annoy myself I haven't a day off in you know however many weeks and it's like oh my god we are packing our lives to the max and sometimes we feel we have very little control over that but we push through stuff rather than going right this dynamic isn't working i am deeply unhappy in this job whatever it might be that is irking us the new moon is an opportunity for us to sit with it and have a proper look at it which is scary it is and i think that's that's one of the problems in life that we feel the depth of the emotion when we're in it and then as soon as it passes we forget about it but it's going to keep coming and that's why so many people are always saying, why does the same thing always happen to me?

12:51Why do I always end up in the same relationships? Why do we always end up with the same horrible boss? And it's because we're not paying attention to the signs when they're there. So when we notice the dark moon and we go, who and what am I feeling the most emotional about? That's your signpost that those things need your attention. So then you sit down with the new moon and you go, okay, my commute's really irritated me the past four days. Maybe I want a job where I don't have to commute as much, or maybe I need to find a new commute or maybe I need to sit down with my partner and have a conversation about these things that aren't really working for me right now so the new moon we set our intentions we go this is what I want this is what I want to work on for the next lunar cycle now while we're here as well I think it's really important just to mention that especially when you're starting with this kind of work what you don't want to do is go right I want to change my job my relationship my house my entire self change everything about me because it's too much and it's too overwhelming and it's never going to work so then what happens is things don't start to change and then we go oh that moon stuff doesn't work intention setting doesn't work that doesn't work things will never change for me so i always say to people don't work with more than three five max intentions okay five maximum try and make a couple of them quite small and quite doable because as we manage to achieve those things it's almost like working a muscle we then start to believe in ourselves.

14:14My God, I made that happen. I made that change. I did that brave thing. I did that. We start to find a belief and trust in ourselves. So I normally have two maybe that are small that I know I can work on over the next month. And then one or two that are more cyclical. So I might be like, right, over spring, this is what I want to work on. Because what we often find is that the same thing keeps coming up and up as we learn through the different layers and lessons of it. So some things take time to change. Yeah. Do you know what? Everything you're saying rings It's so true because I have certainly seen those cycles in my own life with feeling like I'm stuck in a similar position but with different people in different circumstances.

14:51I've brought my baggage to a new circumstance. And I think, you know, I'm very honest on this podcast. I tell everybody what I'm going through and how I'm feeling without too much worry or shame. But I end up going, right, I need to do more for this person, help more, give more, and I throw my everything into it. but without any boundaries in place. And then I go, I feel resentful. I don't like this anymore. I didn't sign up for this. That cycle has, it's got a lot better. But for years that played on a loop and got me in real pickles. And I ended up actually turning into a person in this cycle that I didn't like very much.

15:33I didn't want to act in a certain way, but I wasn't making those essential changes to break that pattern and break that cycle. So I think it's important to say that once you've set these intentions, you can't just think, oh, the moon's going to sort all that out. No, no, no. It's hard work. This is then where hard work starts. You've got to put the work in. And that's, again, why lunar cycles are so beautiful, because you set the intentions on the new moon. You've then got two weeks as the moon waxes and gets bigger. And you can watch the moon do it in the sky. I honestly even believe that we've all probably looked up for a moon in the sky and it takes your breath away.

16:06Oh, it's gorgeous. Because I do think the moon reminds us of where we came from. It reminds us that we're part of something greater. It reminds us that we're all connected. And so as the moon then waxes and grows bigger, in those two weeks, exactly what you just said, as the moon is growing in the sky, she's giving us the light and the life and the energy to do what we need to do to get what we want. So if, for example, it's the new job, send out the CVs, talk to people, let people know that you're looking, do anything and everything you can to let yourself be seen and shine like the moon is doing and just say yes say yes do anything you can to get towards where you want to go so those intentions you set keep them in mind keep them as your true north and intentions are also really beautiful because without intentions it's like if I try to get you to go on a journey now with no map you just end up wandering you're just wandering you don't know where you're going someone might say hey Fern come this way you go that way with them you don't like it you go that way with them when we've got an intention it's a guiding force what if someone out there listening to this thinks oh my god i know there's a bunch of stuff i don't like but what's my intention i don't know where do you start to work out what that direction is going to be in the first place and i've certainly had periods of life where i've thought i am lost i have no clue i don't know what i want anymore someone tell me what i should want and i I want someone to deliver that instruction to me.

17:27So where do we start? Well, first, I'll say the dark moon is important. Just paying attention those few days before a new moon of what am I feeling really emotional about? What's really irritating me? What's getting on my last nerve? What do I feel really unhappy about right now? Because those are the signposts to kind of what it is that just needs a little bit more of our attention. But if you're first starting, your intention might just be, I want to just connect a bit more to myself. I want to get to know who I am and what I want and what I like. because very often we don't know what we want and this is again where dark being energy comes in because if you say to someone what don't you want they can tell me in great detail i don't want that i don't like that i don't like this that bugs me if you say what do you want people are kind of like yeah oh and then we also have this thing i think in society and again i'll speak more so for women because that's normally who i work with that for a woman that knows what she wants who does she think she is oh my god who does she is we think it's big-headed we think she's bullshit we think which is a ball breaker.

18:22So again, we live in a society that is constantly giving us mixed messaging. I also think a lot of the time men and women don't feel, we don't feel deserving of that thing. We go, oh God, secretly this is kind of my dream, but I don't know if I deserve that. And we put it off. So again, this is an opportunity to excavate that and feel the emotions attached to it, which might be undeserving or embarrassment or whatever, and move past all that, I guess. You have to move past it to then work out how to do it and go through that moon cycle. And like you said, important maybe not to set yourself the task of by the full moon, I have to have absolutely nailed it.

18:58Go cyclical, go seasonal, go throughout the whole year to try and work towards it. And that's the beautiful thing about the lunar cycles. It's constant evolution and flow. So set the intention, do all you can through the first two weeks and let that intention be a guiding force. When you've got to make a decision or a choice, does this take me closer to or further from where it is that I want to go or who it is that I want to be or what it is that I want to invite into my life. You might just set an intention for I want to feel more peace. And so then every day, every decision when you've got to go do something, does this bring me closer to or further from a feeling of inner peace?

19:34The full moon then comes and the full moon, as you say, is big, bright, bold there in the sky. The full moon shines this big, bright light over our lives and illuminates for us. What we want to do on a full moon is one of two things. The first thing we really want to do is celebrate ourselves because as humans, we do not celebrate ourselves enough. We don't. Nope. And again, if I said to you now, tell me one great thing you've done today, you'd go, oh, you know, if I said to you, tell me five things that went a bit wrong today, you'd be like, well. Do you know what? This is really relevant because I've spent today really like giving myself a hard time.

20:07And I haven't done anything like bad. I haven't like broken the law or done anything or been mean to anyone. But even the stuff that I'm trying to achieve, I have found myself today, and it's not every day, but today for whatever reason, Maybe I'm a bit tired. It's a dark moon today. Is it a dark moon? Dark moon today. We're going into the dark moon today. I'm feeling that dark moon energy because my mindset is, oh, well, you're not doing that very well. And, well, you're not, you could be giving it way more energy and effort in this area or what you did at the weekend, that wasn't anywhere near as good as it could be.

20:38And I found myself today really wrestling with that in that kind of, I'm in a fight against myself. And I'm like, what am I doing? So this is, I'm blaming the moon. This is dark moon energy. But you can, and this is why, and I know I laugh a lot, but when people tell me things, I can almost give you a celestial reason for it almost straight away. So let's just take you for an example, because I know you don't mind sharing. What do I do with this energy? So your thing today has been a lot of picking on yourself. You're not doing good enough. You're not doing this. So one of your intentions then when we get the new moon on Sunday might be, I want to be kinder to myself.

21:09I want to give myself a little bit of a break. I want to learn just to let myself off the hook a little bit more. Those might be one of your intentions. I intend over this next lunar cycle to be kind. So when you notice that little voice, you can catch it and be like, hey, no, no, no, we're not doing that today. And then what we want to do then is we want to almost flip the switch. So when you're having that thought about you've not done enough, you want to sit there and consciously find, well, actually, you have done enough because already today you've done, I mean, you tell me when we arrived what you've already done today.

21:39What you've done today, a normal human couldn't do in a week. Like, I know I'm packing it in, but I definitely get hung up on detail and like pushing myself to the point where, you know, looking for that elusive perfect that doesn't exist in all capacities. I think you're absolutely right. I may have assumed that my new moon excavation and subsequent intention should be to do better. But actually I'm listening to you going, no, so I need to be a bit nicer to myself. Just be kinder. Take the pressure off. Yeah, I'm not very good at that. Don't search for perfect. No. And then you're going to achieve that.

22:14Tell yourself what you're doing well. I mean, an amazing thing to do is at the end of every day, look yourself in the mirror and be like, you did that really well today. Yeah. You did that really well today. Actually, you did that thing and it was quite brave and you did that. We don't celebrate ourselves enough. No, because I think also society has created this bizarre infrastructure where we're constantly waiting for someone else to tell us that, to tell us you did good or even what you're doing is OK. I think we're losing our confidence and our intuition to go, no, I'm doing all right. And I think, you know, some of that is very superficial in terms of how advertising works and just the world that we exist in with messaging.

22:51And you could try this and you'll be a better person or whatever. So we've lost that sense to just be all right with who we are or next level up, like you're saying, to celebrate ourselves. We wait for occasions like birthdays or weddings to do it. But this can be a moon-triggered thing. So every full moon, celebrate yourself. look at the first two weeks of the cycle what did i do well what did i achieve what did i say yes to where was i brave where did i go after something i wanted where was i a bit kinder to myself what have i done let me celebrate that and then on the flip side the full moon will show you where you got in your own way because 99.999 % of the time in life it's us that's in the way yeah we love to blame other people we love it was you it's you you caused all my agony that's why I didn't succeed or do whatever it was I went to do but when we do that we lose all power to change it if it's your fault I'm feeling a certain way I have to wait for you to do something differently before I can feel better because when I retake about that power and I go well what was my part to play in this how did I allow what Fern supposedly said or did today to kind of trigger me what was it in me that it upset me it reminded me of that time when I didn't get picked for that team in school and it really brought all that back up again I then have the power to change that because I've taken back the responsibility for it and so even in that when we allow it to be their fault his fault her fault parents fault jobs fault boss's fault it's that we have to wait for that thing to change then when we take back that power and go okay what was my part to play in this and we take that real radical responsibility then we've got the power to change it and so when we sit with that and we go okay yeah I didn't say yes to going to that party because I thought when I got there no one would speak to me and people wouldn't like me I didn't go for that job because I kind of thought I wouldn't be able to do it and they probably wouldn't want somebody like me so I didn't send in the application and then I didn't make that phone call because well I was just sabotaging a little bit that day so I didn't we can start to see them when we're getting in the way and then we use the waning lunar cycle the next two weeks as the moon wanes so this is when the moon's getting smaller so the moon's teaching us then how to release how to let go how to surrender how to trust because again we it astonishes me that like little human me thinks i know better than the entire universe of my soul even when you look up at a sky full of stars and you realize how small we are and i'm like but that little human me she'll grip and she'll control and she'll cling and she'll want this to work out and that to work out if I just give it up to something greater like we're always being guided and supported I truly believe that there is a greater source of power out there that we can connect to even if that's just the moon even if we can go and stand at the moon and go please help me please show me the way with this please show me what to do about this please guide me in this but when we try and grip and control as little humanors we just get in our own way yeah so this really just shows you where you've got in our own way and then it shows us further what our sabotages are and it's a it's a tool of incredible self-awareness for me as lunar work like I learned and I'll confess we're on we're on here let's confess all of our things but I very often dress up self-sabotage as self-care how do you do that when I'm on the edge of something really really big so there might be loads of big things coming up doing this podcast with you this person's inviting me to do that this person's inviting me to do that when I'm on the edge of a big breakthrough i'll start saying to myself cursed you've done a lot you should sit on the sofa and eat biscuits and watch Netflix but i'm dressing up self-sabotage for self-care so then what i'm doing is i'm sending myself into almost a sabotage spiral because then i go into the unworthiness spiral and i'm dressing up as self-care so i'm pretending i'm taking care of myself but i started to notice from lunar work every time i was on the edge of something big you wouldn't find me out there pushing for more going for more getting ready for it you'd find to be a packet of crisps on the sofa binging something on netflix this is the same honestly i can't tell you how much that resonates like i've had so many moments where i've thought you know because there is it's there is such a fine line between knowing your capabilities and your energy resources or your energy store versus pushing yourself and in a healthy way not pushing yourself in a detrimental way where you end up in a puddle on the floor no but in a healthy way moving out of your comfort zones I have found that harder as I've gotten older I think I had a naive confidence maybe in my teens and 20s maybe early 30s probably not where I was really motivated to you know jump out into the void and see what was there whereas I find myself quite scared and I that's really interesting I do also dress up sabotage as self-care sometimes so I guess this is another question it's slightly off the beaten track of looking at this lunar work but I wonder how we tell the difference because there will be days where we do need to sit on the sofa and we do need to have a warm cup of tea under a little blankie and shut the world out but there are other days we're doing that where we might not need to so how do we tell the difference for me it's about again the intention behind it but also the the energy behind it because one thing lunar work does show us beautifully is that the moon doesn't shine at full brightness all month the moon as you said at the very beginning for three or four days a month the moon disappears from the sky the moon's like i'm out of it i'm gone i'm gonna go take care of myself see you later because the moon knows she cannot shine at full bright potential if she's exhausted depleted so lunar work gives us almost permission for self-care and rest but for me the difference is those days when it's true self-care I enjoy it I give in to it I there's there's nowhere else I'd rather be nothing else I'd rather be doing there's the permission slip there to do it because I know what I know that it is what I really need if I think about the days I'm doing it as an avoidance or as a little sabotage there's an underlying anxiety to it and I notice that even if I'm on the sofa watching something I'm not watching it I'm on my phone I'm doing something else I'm getting bored I'm changing the channel there's an angsty energy behind it which is because it's a part of me that's like you're trying to avoid you're trying to sabotage this isn't true self-care this isn't and you're so right it's a beautiful thing to to bring up because we do have to be mindful again of of the difference of these things and I honestly believe a lot of this just comes from really getting to know yourself and being able to have an honesty with yourself because now I know when I'm doing it and so I can sit with myself and I can go cursed you know what you're doing it's one hell of a thing to be honest with yourself it's one hell of a thing to do because it's humbling it is and it's exposing because there are bits of ourselves we're so close to because we're so used to just going armor on not looking at that i'm just going to crack on but actually if we stop and we can use the moon cycle as a really lovely system to have self awareness at the end of the day and get to know ourselves a bit better absolutely and then i know i'm doing it so when i know i'm doing it i'm like you've got one day you've got one day and then what i notice is because i've got the permission to do it after half a day i'm bored of myself so i'm like okay right i don't want to do this anymore now i've gone into i've gone into the the fear because then i get to sit with well what are you afraid of well i'm afraid that when i do all these things more people are going to get to know me and more people are going to get to see me and then it means my work's going to be out there more in the world and then that means me being seen more and as you know with any kind of profile you're open then to more criticism and to more constructive criticism and feedback from people and again you've got to regulate nervous system enough to know yourself enough that when people come at you we know the world of social media nowadays you're in a regulated enough place to be able to know your true intention behind things and but that all takes work yeah and so every time I go through one of those times I see it now as more of an up leveling that my nervous system just needs a moment to catch up with where future me's gone so that then when I get there I'm like okay I'm ready to step into those shoes now I'm ready to do it um so I normally give myself about a day I'm like okay you've got a day to do this but within that is the honesty of knowing what it is that I'm doing what the energy is and what's motivating it if it is hiding or if it is genuinely rest and proper time out so as well as using this monthly moon cycle to check in with ourselves to have self-awareness there's also within your work a lot of focus on ritual now again another thing that we've sadly lost in this very fast-paced modern world we've swapped ritual for routine and everything is about charging forward at great pace without much attention or thought to get things done to tick things off a list I mean this is how I operate so much of the time I need I know I need to create a shift there for sure but we don't have those moments of ritual how would you describe a ritual what the hell is a ritual how do we have a ritual in this crazy fast-paced modern world and that's exactly why we need them so a routine is about getting things done it's about an end result it's about something that's normally a bit monotonous that we do over and over again a ritual gives something meaning and it makes it It's sacred.

32:21And so as soon as we make something a ritual, we bring the divine, the universe, source, God, any word, whatever word you want to give for that big old energy in the sky, it brings that energy in and it then reminds us further that we are more than our to-do list. We're more than our rushing around. We're more than our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions. We're souls having human experience. And when we stop and we check in, it also really, I mean, I remember again, when I was in India we would start at 4am every morning like we would be up first thing in the morning I didn't have time for a big ritual then I didn't but the one thing I committed to doing every day was lighting a candle because in that moment that brought me into the day like how many people out there listening or how many of us have done it I used to do it quite often I'd get to work I wouldn't remember the journey there I literally wouldn't remember the journey because you're jumping out of bed with the alarm you're throwing a cup of coffee down you've got a piece of toast in your mouth as you run to the car, you're stuck in the traffic, someone's bothering you, they've cut you up.

33:23If you get to work and you're like, I don't remember getting here because we've not been present. There's a part of you still in bed at home. There's a part of you that's already gone to two weeks time to worry about something that's going on there. So we're scattered. A ritual just brings all of you into that moment. So in that moment of lighting a candle, I would invite myself into the day. I would close my eyes for a moment and I would gather all of myself into that moment and as I lit that candle that was me saying to the day I'm here with my two feet right here right now in this day can't tell you how much it changed my entire day because I went into the day present that took 30 seconds not even and so we understand for people that are busy and for parents and things there's a time constraint but you could lock yourself in the bathroom for one minute in the morning and do something for you and as you do these rituals as we mentioned earlier it starts to help you to know that you're worthy and deserving of your own time.

34:20You're worthy and deserving of showing up for. It helps us to trust ourselves, to be there for ourselves. That if I can't show up for myself for one minute every day, how am I ever going to learn to trust myself, to be there for myself in the hard times? Because I'm like, well, she can't even show up and light a candle. She's no use to me. So that little ritual of inviting our presence into a day says to us I trust you I'm here for you and it just it it changes everything so rituals don't have to be sage and music and they they can be but they don't need to be yeah it's such a beautiful thing to do I've personally had to and this is probably quite a recent revelation do a lot of thinking about about ritual versus superstition because I can really catastrophize that is you know at some point down the line I've learned to over worry and I've learned to magnify my worries and that is very natural for me now to think of the first thought is the worst worst one like the most unimaginable thing they could be called intrusive thoughts or catastrophizing but they're always there and I'm learning to live with that without the reaction bit which could be a panic attack or whatever comes next and sometimes I've conflated ritual with superstition because those catastrophizing thoughts make the ritual this thing I have to do otherwise something awful is going to happen so that's been very interesting for me to go right I can have ritual but I can't pin it to things like if I light a candle every day, no one's going to die or whatever it might be.

36:02I've got to bring that moment into the present and just feel the feelings without pinning it to the future, the past, whatever. That one I think we still, I mean, I probably have maybe a slightly magnified thought process when it comes to that because of how my brain works. But I think many people out there start to get a bit feared up about little rituals or things in their day like I have to have them otherwise I'm not okay and that's quite a there's a thin veneer between the two I think yeah I think it's just really important to see it as an act of self-care as well that it's not a I have to or this bad thing is going to happen to me and it that's just such a it's such a beautiful thing to bring up as well because I again I try to find line even talking about things like manifesting and things like that because I think people do fear I have one bad thought I'm going to make my whole life horrible I don't light the candle that one day yeah my entire life is going to fall apart and so then we make emotions good and bad well it's good to feel happy and joyous and high vibe all the time you've got to be high vibe all these awful things gonna oh it's really bad to feel down it's really bad to feel angry it's really bad to feel worried all of these are the full spectrum of human emotions that we're here to feel and experience in in my belief system we have a soul having a human experience and part of that is to feel everything and to experience everything and so it's super important that we don't then put these labels on things if you have one bad day I I very regularly I'd say let me say every six months I go into what I call the void or the wilderness I go into like a dark and twisty place and I let myself be there and I let myself get on my hands and knees on the bathroom floor and cry and experience all of that I let myself go to the depths but I let myself do that as in I'm still there for myself holding myself in that and that's important in all of it in ritual and everything is that this isn't now something outside of me that I'm having to do back to our point before because something else has control yes the universe has control and if I don't bow down to the universe and light this candle something awful is going to happen it's about taking back that sense of personal power in our own lives and saying this ritual this one this is for me this isn't to appease anything else or to get anything else this is simply to gather all the parts of me that I've got scattered and so for you a beautiful ritual might be just having a moment to bring back the part of it that's gone over there catastrophizing that the part of you that's over there worried about that the part of you that's there and feel all those parts of you come back so that you can welcome all of you into that moment that again could take a couple of seconds but it's like I'm here now I'm safe now I've got you yeah and having a little action helps to actually mark that moment rather than hoping it will happen at some point in the day you know if it's a set time or it's an action that you do that almost triggers the cognitive brain to go this is the moment where I'm okay with exactly how I'm feeling and I'm just in the now and I think you know it's probably no surprise that many of us feel quite confused about manifesting ritual or catastrophizing and pinning superstition, etc.

39:09Because we've seen perhaps a decline in organized religion. There are still people out there who hold their faith dearly. That's an absolutely beautiful thing. But I think there are many people like me who feel there is something going on, would class themselves as spiritual, open to many different belief systems, methodologies, but doesn't have one doctrine that they follow. so then you start to go god there are so many different ideas and thought processes out there that you start to just sort of grab hold of all of them and apply them and just hope for the best but actually you've just said okay use the moon as a as guidance or use nature but actually just trust yourself yourself trust yourself that's what i was thinking the whole time you were saying that because i talk about this so often when you start a spiritual journey you're gonna find i mean i remember when I first started I was becoming a crystal healer I was doing Reiki I was doing regressional therapy I was talking to angels I was doing spirit guides there's so much out there the thing is with spirituality with anything we don't know the truth until we go back to wherever we came from none of us know the absolute truth so what we need to find is what's true for me and what's true for me might not be what's true for you and that's beautiful as long as what's true for you brings you happiness and joy our truths can exist together there's always an and And I've talked about this even lately because with moving into my new place, you know, I felt a certain sadness of leaving London and I felt really excited about moving to a new place.

40:38Even coming here today, I felt overwhelmed about the amount of stuff I've got going on and I felt so grateful and excited to be here with you. So there can be lots of multiple different realities all at once. So the spiritual journey is about, again, not looking for anything outside of you just because they say, and I say this all the time, if anything I say doesn't resonate with you, that's not your truth. I'm not here to tell you what to believe and what the fact if the moon doesn't resonate with you that's not your truth but go find something that is your truth go find something that in those moments that you're on your hands and knees on the floor helps you get through and one of my deepest truths is my soul has chosen my soul's chosen my life for me you know my soul's chosen before and this is why astrology and birth charts are beautiful because I honestly believe that our soul chooses the exact moment we're born and then our birth chart is a blueprint so all of the different parts of our birth chart are different lessons and personality traits and different things that our soul has chosen to learn this lifetime so anytime i'm going through something hard i can sit with the fact that my soul's chosen this for me my soul wouldn't choose anything i can't get through so you know you can get through it curse because your soul's chosen it for you that gets me through the hardest times yeah because it's empowering rather than oh well I give up.

41:52Victim of life. This is just how my soul has chosen this and I'm absolutely screwed. It's my soul has chosen this because I can get through it. Because I can get through it and this is helping me to learn and to grow and to expand and to evolve. And I'm going to, when we look at this, when we look at the times in life we grow the most, it's not necessarily in the times when everything is joyous and everything's wonderful. It's in the times when our back is against the wall. It's in the times you've got to really dig deep into ourselves. It's the times that we're really having to navigate hard things.

42:20that's when we learn the most. Yeah, without a doubt. Without a doubt. I can certainly, you know, look back at periods of my life and think I learned so much in that shitty bit and then the good bit, didn't learn so much. Yeah, exactly. Felt better, but I didn't learn so much there. Looking at ritual, and you mentioned the word sacred a moment ago, you know, applying meaning to a moment and noticing the sacredness of life. Again, I feel like sacredness has been wiped out because we're so used to the speed of life and this sort of ugly disposable element of life that we're all witnessing and part of just by nature of being human sadly at the moment what does sacred mean what does it mean to you how do we find it in the everyday in this rush in this chaos in the conflict we see in the disposable you know just throw away existence that we're we're living at the moment that's a beautiful question for me making something sacred and inviting in the sacred means inviting in that deeper meaning of life outside of all of the noise and everything that's pulling for your attention and everything that you know as you've mentioned a few times we live in a consumer culture that tells us all the time that we're not good enough just as we are and you need this or that or this or that sacred means a pause a moment of stillness a moment of quiet When I think of the word sacred, I almost see myself like in the grass, bare feet, hands on a tree.

43:50That's sacred. In that moment when we're connected to something bigger than us, something that hasn't been made by humans or hasn't been something that is just part of the divine that weaves through life. And I find that in nature. Like to me, nature, whenever I want answers, I go to nature. I just find anything and everything in nature is sacred. And I think we've probably all experienced those moments where we've watched a sunrise or a sunset or we've heard a bird song or we've suddenly found ourselves in a moment where we're like, there's peace, there's quiet, or we get our bare feet on the earth after a long day and something happens.

44:25And I believe that that's because that sacred moment connects us back to the divine, the stardust part of us, the very energy and essence of life itself. that's what sacred means to me it means just to invite meaning into the moment yeah I get every time I get in the sea it doesn't even have to be like a particularly enjoyable swim I'm just like I'm in I'm connected I'm this tiny speck in a big undulating body of water it is the best and I think that's actually a really interesting point because you know as I said I can't pin my I don't sort of contain my spiritual beliefs in this one sphere that is labelled and assigned to a certain bunch of rules.

45:13But I probably would say the closest thing to God or that bigger than us feeling for me is nature. And that's something that we could all access, you know, just even admiring just the sheer magnificence of it every season and those great changes that we are nothing to do with we are not in control of nature it's happening it's happening without us as you say you know like arrogant minded humans you think we're controlling it all it's just happening and it is it is the perfect way you know you wrote a whole book on this on the sacredness of nature and again look to nature to get back in tune with ourselves and to be guided by it talk to me about that book and how again you use the seasons and the ever-changing notion of nature to check in with yourself have self-awareness move in the right direction yeah I mean I call that book sacred seasons because I wanted to really bring about the energy of making seasons sacred not only in nature but also in our lives we live in this very man-made world that we try to make very linear so we think everything should be the same all day every day and we should be the same all day every day and then when it's not we get all upset and we try and micromanage it and control it back into making it the same everything in life is cyclical everything in life I mean even on our bodies our bodies get replaced every depending on different body parts every like seven years or three years we're in constant state of motion and we struggle the most in life when we try to resist when we try to push when we try to either cling and hold on something no longer meant for us we try to force an outcome and it keeps I feel like our conversation today has been so beautiful because one of the biggest things that comes back to is trust is self-trust but when you can begin to trust whether that's in you or the moon or nature or god or universe or your soul or source whatever it is we then begin to allow ourselves to flow much more easily with life and we don't come up against the same amount of resistance and even the moon shows us that that the moon doesn't hold on and go well I can't not be a full moon anymore because there might never be another full moon again and I've got to shine really brightly and if I'm not the full moon who am I I might be no one if I'm not the full moon the moon just wanes and then on the same hand the full moon never goes oh maybe I shouldn't shine that bright oh god what are they going to say about me if I like really let myself be seen and the moon just shines you never witness a tree going if I let go of these leaves there's never going to be another leaf I've got to hold on to the leaves oh my god no no no nature just lets go you never see a flower not wanting to blossom or bloom because it's a bit like oh what would they say about me and little old me and oh I've got nothing so for me nature just when we witness nature we get to see season cycles flow in action and in that nature shows us so beautifully we only have to step outside to be inspired about what's going on so right now you know we're in we're coming towards the end of springtime we get the summer solstice next month which takes into the second half of the year nature at the moment's in full abundance nature's just in growth nature's just allowing everything to be out there to be seen to enjoy the abundance and so this this helps us when we start to work in nature seasons and cycles to see that there's a time to grow there's a time to really put ourselves out there there's a time to enjoy there's a time to let go there's a time to go inwards there's a time to hibernate and so as we start to make the seasons in nature sacred and we mark them it helps us to do the same in our lives to realize we're going to go through times of our lives when things aren't growing when it feels like everything's a bit barren when everything's a little bit stuck where everything's a little bit dark but nothing lasts forever and very soon we'll be back out in a season of full bloom again and we'll be blossoming again and life will be flowing again and so when we start to see this growth cycle and we start to see again in nature we look at winter and we go everything's dead no in winter everything beneath the surface is regenerating and gathering everything it needs for that tree to come in full blossom again so when we're in those darker times everything within us is gathering regenerating growing so that then when it's our time to grow again we've got everything that we need so as we learn to live in seasons like this we don't fear the dark times in the same ways we don't try and cling and grip and hold on to the good times we just know that everything's going to go in perfect cycle in perfect flow in perfect time and although I do believe that we get to navigate our way through those seasons and we get like we always have a choice we can't necessarily choose like we can't choose where nature grows and blossoms and blues we can't necessarily choose exactly what's going to happen I believe our soul knows but human us can't but we can choose how we act, how we react, how we feel about it.

50:07So even in those darker times, we can choose to go into that almost moment of this is awful. We can play the victim. We can look for something outside of us to come along and save us. Or even on those hard times, we can choose to be like, I don't know why this is happening. I don't know what's going on right now, but I'm going to try and choose the inner peace. I'm going to try and choose to show up for myself. I'm going to try and choose to be here for myself. And then in that, when we talk about sacred, hand it over to something greater know that you don't have to struggle as little human you on your own give it up to something greater please moon please source please universe please god i don't know what to do with this please help me please help me yeah and even in that when we ask for help that in itself opens up avenues for new energy to come in because we shift it into a lesson for growth and we we support ourselves in it and so again each time we do this we build trust in ourselves i know you're going to be there in the good times and the bad times and that's when our lives really begin to change i don't think we it's very beautiful i don't think we have to even like in those moments of surrender where we hand it over to something else as humans we're constantly looking for the answers well who who am i talking to what am i talking to i think i've learned over the years doesn't really matter it's not going to harm anyone if this helps you cultivate hope resilience faith joy inner peace doesn't matter absolutely just write it down journal say it out loud whatever well i think the the cyclical just how nature works and looking at looking at these beautiful cycles it is so interesting because i think all of us can probably look back at times where we've wanted to bloom all year and we're struggling to and we're literally we've got no energy left we're on our knees trying to bloom but equally it's very interesting in those times where there are fallow periods and we need time out and the leaves have all dropped off I think in those moments a lot of the time and this goes back to sort of like self-awareness I guess and looking at the moon cycles in those times we abandon ourselves we go bye see ya I'm detaching from what's going on and what you're feeling I'm out of here and again if we can check in and have the self-awareness to know we're doing that, that's when we can start to actually, because it takes great courage to go, okay, how am I feeling?

52:28God, do you know what? I actually feel really, really sad. Or do you know what? I feel absolutely terrified at the moment. Whatever it is, to even look at it, let alone sit with it, is terrifying. And I think in those moments where the leaves have fallen off, we're wintering, as brilliant Catherine May would say, I love that book. If anyone out there is interested in this subject matter, read Catherine May's book Wintering because it's so beautiful. She's been on the podcast as well. But in those moments, looking at stuff and not fearing it, it takes great courage, but it's not going to harm you to look at it.

53:03It's not going to harm you to feel scared, to feel, you know, totally sad, whatever it might be, or very, very angry. we can sit with that safely and I think that's something that we're not used to doing in the modern world we just run away from ourselves but even that is such a beautiful way to be there and show up for yourself so placing your hands over your heart and saying to you I'm here I'm listening I'm here I'm listening and then listen to what bubbles up and so I often talk about it as being bubbles and again one of the questions I get asked the most I get asked two main questions how can I listen to my intuition and what's my purpose they're my two most asked questions we want to hear our intuition but we don't want to hear the sadness and the anger and the grief we can't selectively feel emotion so we can't want to feel happy and joyous and not feel sad and angry and it's actually in the sad and angry that again we learn the most about ourselves so what we notice as we start and that might be a ritual that people want to start to do hands over heart every morning I'm here I'm listening and just notice without judgment and it doesn't need a story well why are you feeling sad you shouldn't feel sad well I've got me in you got them to feel sad about you're such a terrible person don't give a story just watch it oh that's sadness oh okay I'm feeling a bit of sadness let that be there what you'll notice is that then beneath that sadness might bubble up a little bit of happiness and then beneath that might bubble up a little bit of anger and then beneath that might bubble up something else and our deepest intuition lives beneath all of that so all of those emotions that we've suppressed or denied or not listened to are emotions beneath all of that.

54:35And it's only when we start to listen to and hold and accept ourselves in the moment, I don't need a reason to feel sad. I'm allowed just to feel sad in this moment. And I can hold myself and hold my heart and I can put my arms around myself and say, oh, cursed. We're so bad at that. I think most people go, oh, there's people worse off. I won't let myself feel sad. What have I got to be sad about or to be depressed about or upset about? There doesn't have to be a reason, as you just said, these emotions come and go. So what about when we get stuck in an emotion? What about if you're putting your hands on your heart every day and you feel outright sadness?

55:08How do you get unstuck in a situation like that? So there's a couple of different ways. One of the things that we need to then start to feel into is where does the sadness come from? So kind of what's beneath the sadness. And again, we've just said not to put reasons on it, but is there a particular reason? Is it a loneliness? Is it a yearning for something? What is that sadness? and then I'm a really big believer in moving things somatically as well so move that sadness because again when we when we're just sitting in emotion it just sits there it stagnates so we've got to invite and again nature flow movement if you watch any animal in the wild and they're a brilliant example if you watch the gazelle that's just been chased by a lion the first thing it will do is it will shake yeah because it shakes that energy that fear out of its body and we have um this about from my yoga days but we have what's called fascia in the body connective tissue it's around every organ every muscle everywhere in our body and there's beautiful research done a while ago about the the fascia kind of transporting emotions and feelings through the body so when we continue to have a feeling or an emotion it gets stored in the body it'll get trapped it might be that we tense ourselves every time we think about something and we hold ourselves and we can probably all bring to mind someone that's got the weight of the world on their shoulders right you can see it in their body someone that's closed and protecting their hearts You can see it in their bodies.

56:20So our body starts to store any emotion that we don't deal with, that we don't allow, we don't express. It gets pushed down and it gets stored somewhere in our body. So movement is beautiful. So just start to move your sadness. If that sadness would move, what would the sadness move like? And again, this is very odd for most people because we're used to sitting on our hands, not moving. Especially British people. Yeah, aren't we? We're so shit at this. Don't cough, don't make a noise, don't do anything. but then again you can see even if you try to sit still now your body tenses and there's a signal going to your body it's not safe to move I've got to sit here I've got to really perform in front of furnace my whole body then is reacting and then the next time I'm in front of someone else I feel like I've got to perform for that same energy will come into my body so start to just move the sadness and another thing that we're really terrified of is sound we're really scared of sound but in women are women or throat is connected they are they are they look the same they're connected and so sound it what does the sadness sound like and the more you get used to it so it might just be first you sit there and you sway a little bit or you just rock yourself like you would a child if a child came to you and said mommy i'm sad one of your kids you take them when they're still little enough and you just rock them it's okay i've got you rock the sadness a little bit it's okay i've got you we also need to feel safe to express an emotion so we can't really express an emotion unless we feel safe within ourselves to do it.

57:39So rock yourself a bit. I'm safe to be feeling this. I think we're conditioned to not feel safe to express any of it, quite frankly, in this part of the world, in this decade. I've been thinking about this a hell of a lot because I went to this very moving and unique event at the weekend, which I'm sure I'll talk about on social media at the right time because it was very, very impactful. And I cried and laughed in equal measures throughout the whole day and it was, I haven't felt so alive in ages. And because I knew I was in a room of other people that were going to do the same, I felt safe. But when I walked out of that space, I thought, would I do that?

58:21Would I laugh that heartily with tears rolling down my face if I was in the cinema or if I was just chatting to a group of people? Would I cry with like snot coming out my nose and like a heaving chest with outside of that space. No, I wouldn't. And then I started thinking, would I really sigh with disappointment if I felt it? Like, no, I wouldn't. But it feels really good to do. How good did that feel? Would I shout out loud due to excitement or whatever I was feeling at the moment? No. Would I sing without inhibition if I was out of the shower? No. This has been on my mind all week. And I also, I'm really intrigued around the sound part because I predominantly talk for a living.

59:14And I, as I've waffled on about endlessly, however many years ago it was, 2019, had a ginormous system of vocal cords that was stopping them from shutting altogether. And I couldn't speak. And I was like, I'm in deep shit here because that's literally all I do. And I had a surgery booked and the whole thing. And I realised there were so many times where I was so scared to make or make any noise. And my voice would just almost evaporate. And I can feel it now because I'm having to cough. When I'm thinking about this subject matter, I can feel it in my throat. I think this throat area for me, it's like a life lesson because I've obviously been, I'm in this job for whatever reason.

59:59And I'm learning as I go. But this throat area, I keep coming back to it because it's either working really well and I feel like I'm in a flow and I feel I can speak without inhibition. I can make noise without inhibition. But equally, when I'm not, it is the first thing that goes. And I'm either just coughing very regularly, just a regular cough, or I've got a whacking great pea-sized cyst on my vocal cords that is going to, you know, stop me from working for however many months. Which luckily it didn't. all showcased in my book, Speak Your Truth, if you fancy reading it. But it was a real journey.

1:00:35And I think, again, we're just, look at nature. Nature's, you know, tweeting birds and roaring lions and powerful thunder. And it's noise, it's life. And we are so scared to make noise and we need to get over it. I've been doing these workouts where you go like, and you let out this noise. And I have found it, and shaking as well, I've found it so cathartic on a level that I don't understand. I don't get it, don't need to, but I feel better for doing it. But I think we all need, like, just listening now, everyone, just like make the noise you need to make. Just do it. We just need to stop caring so much.

1:01:14We do. And that could become, again, a ritual. Yes. You're going to give yourself three minutes a day. And I often encourage this to kind of women I work with, pick a music track, stick it on, and for those three minutes, move. And again, when we first begin that, we stand there. It's like in a yoga class, I very often give people time just to free flow. And you can see everyone being like, well, I don't know how to move. You need to tell me how to move. You're the instructor. You tell me. We've become so out of alignment with ourselves that we don't even know how it feels. You know, you'll see people in yoga lessons and they'll stretch like that.

1:01:48And I'm like, does that feel good? Like, what if you just moved a little bit into it, moved a little bit more? because we've become so outside of ourselves that we don't know even what feels good within us anymore. So move, move your sadness back to that, move your anger, move your rage, move your joy and then sound it, even if in the beginning it's just a little, like, a little sound. Before you know it, I remember a friend of mine many, many years ago, we went to the sea. I can't remember what had been going on for either she or I but something had been going on and we were just like, Yes! And you see kids, like, you see a kid have a meltdown in Tesco's, they don't care.

1:02:22They don't give a shit. they're screaming they're tantruming they're moving their bodies around but i look at them sometimes it's envy because i'm like imagine having that amount of freedom in how you're feeling in that moment that you're just going to express it yeah i'm gonna have a tantrum in the supermarket tomorrow just to see what happens aisle 11 please i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i can't wait do you know what this i cannot believe how quickly time has whizzed i was actually shocked looking at the clock there because it's whizzed by quite quickly but we've covered a hell of a lot of ground but I think all of it comes back to natural cycles at the end of the day it's natural cycles honoring them which we don't do en masse in the modern world taking heed of what's already going on around us like the moon and the seasons and if it feels right to you tuning into it and I can't thank you enough for our chat today because it's been you know full of revelation and and just beautiful things for us all to go away and think about.

1:03:19But also for contributing to the app and being at the festival. It means the absolute world, Kirstie. Thank you for having me. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. By the way, Kirstie obviously mentioned that we just had the dark moon, which is why I was maybe feeling a bit all over the gaff. We only had that chat last week, if that is helpful for you, in knowing which part of the moon cycle we're in. You can also easily Google it or you can have a look in the sky and work it out. Kirsty, thank you so much for your time. Remember, if you want Kirsty to guide you through more of these practices, you can find her on the Happy Place app.

1:04:00And if you want to read Kirsty's brilliant book, it's called Lunar Living, and you can also find her on Instagram to follow all of her gorgeous work. What else have you been reading, by the way? I would love to know what books are floating your boat at the moment. You can always come and chat to us in our book community. We're a lovely bunch of bookworms. Head over to Instagram. It's at happyplacebookclub. We not only give tips and advice with great books that we're reading, but we want to hear what you're reading too. We're back next week, of course. But in the meantime, it's a massive thank you to wonderful Kirsty, to the producer Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio, and to you, moon lovers, Moon Naysayers, I love you all.