Fullness

+ a Metta Bhavana (loving-kindness practice) recording for you

Welcome back to the final newsletter in this series looking at each week’s theme of my new 6-week course More Alive in 2025, that began last night at the wonderful Barefoot Body and Soul studio in Belfast. It was such a beautiful thing to witness the energy of this cohort come together and experience an energetic re-call, deep nervous system reset through vagal toning and Metta Bhavana. I’ll share a recording of our Metta practice at the end.

I was feeling annoyed about not finishing this series before class began - lots of shame stories arising - but I understand my delay now because I feel like I can write with much more authority on the theme of fullness now after last night.

This course has been such a leap of faith for me. From that moment in early December, nursing my son to sleep and receiving it as a fully-formed download in an instant, even down to the themes of each week, to 6:30pm last night when everyone joined me in Joanne’s cosy studio less than half a mile from our old home. A home that was a beacon of light to me through the darkest experience of my life. A home I returned to, absolutely broken beyond all belief. A home where I learned to trust myself again, to discover for the first time in my life who I truly was, at a mind-body-soul level. A home where we conceived, grew and raised both our babies. A home that was home to all of us, and many more dear humans beyond our family. A home I still check in on from time to time because I am often moved to tears at the thought of never lying in our bed and looking out through the bedroom window at the astoundingly tall pine tree (the only one between our house and Ormeau Park, an anomaly). I found it funny at first that the studio I ended up starting to practice Holosomatic Body Therapy in was so close to where we used to live but it makes more sense to me now. It’s another part of my own healing. I still have work to do there. And it has a familiarity that helps me stand in my fullness - exactly as I am. Which is exactly how it felt last night as everyone gathered for our first session. Opening this container of healing in the exact way that I had felt it should feel. A gentle homecoming to each body present, to myself.

Fullness is not the end game. Fullness is a never-ending expansion of you. We can feel in any given moment that we are the fullest expression of ourselves, and yet we are not finished, it is not the end of our journey, not the fullest extent of our capacity. The tides of our bodies turn, and another layer is unearthed, another facet of our consciousness unlocked, another veil is lifted. It’s not a pessimistic point of view; it’s just how it is. It doesn’t have to feel daunting, this eternity of self-improvement. I believe it’s the reason we are here on earth: to learn and grow and become more enlightened. And we can experience this growth, this next level of fullness through becoming embodied and working with the information that our bodies give us in order to heal.

In the sixth session of More Alive in 2025 we’ll be building on all the techniques we’ve introduced over the six weeks and culminating in a longer holosomatic body therapy session, pendulating between rest and activation.

I am looking forward to sharing more on what each week brings as we move through the six weeks together. I have no doubt it will continue to expand my understanding of what is possible when I facilitate this work. I am beyond excited.

I began to practice Metta Bhavana in 2015. For the last five years I have been practicing with Manoj Dias on Open and his gentle and thoughtful meditations have often transformed my nervous system.

Metta means ‘love’ (in a non-romantic sense), friendliness, or kindness: hence ‘loving-kindness’ for short. It is an emotion, something you feel in your heart. Bhavana means development or cultivation. So Metta Bhavana means loving-kindess practice.

The phrases I love to use are as follows:

May I be happy. May I be well. May I be loved and at peace.

May you be happy. May you be well. May you be loved and at peace.

May we be happy. May we be well. May we be loved and at peace.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be well. May all beings be loved and at peace.

I have recorded a Metta Bhavana for you to enjoy. It can be practised at any time of day, but it is especially wonderful just before bed so you can float off into a restful sleep. Please let me know in the comments below how you felt in your body as you practised.

Lorna x