Some of the things about ME you don’t even realise are about ME. Like the way I always fold my legs up underneath me when I sit on a chair. There’s something so uncomfortable about having them down at right-angles. “Oh look at you with your yoga poses!”, people will say. I’ll somehow manage to fold them up when sitting on desk chairs, bar stools, aeroplane seats… It wasn’t until I saw Jennifer Brea interviewed on TV and saw her sitting on the interview couch with her legs crossed in the lotus position that I put two and two together. It’s like my body knows intuitively that the energy required ..read more

It was a week since Andre told me about my open gate and my male protective spirit. It was so abstract to me that it didn’t really register and I didn’t give it another thought besides half-heartedly trying to imagine a big gate closing whilst meditating. I was still feeling terrible though and had gone back up to the pyramids to relax. Again, by chance I bumped into Andre. He asked me if I had contacted the healer that he’d told me about. I’d completely forgotten about it but promised that I would do so. I searched my phone and realised that I had written it down the last time I spoke to Andr ..read more

It’s funny how in Ubud you find spiritual people in the most unlikely of places. My friend Ivy was coming from Canggu to see me and had hired an ojek (motorbike taxi) to bring her through and take her back. At this point I was still suffering with my relentless symptoms of pain and fatigue, which had been going on for 3 weeks. This proved frustrating as, throughout the day, we messaged about meeting times but my energy would rise and retreat; one minute I’d be up and ready to go, and the next I’d be weighed down by a huge unbearable force and couldn’t move from my bed. The day was suffocatingl ..read more

Continued from The Gong Master A Miracle Pill So, I’d finally found something that helped me with my symptoms. I would go to a sound healing at the pyramids and would immediately feel better. I would lie there and let the vibrations go through me and would feel the pain moving from inside of me, out towards the surface of my skin and… pop, out of the top of my head. Then I would come to, feeling refreshed, like a completely new person. I was already familiar with this process and the feeling of the pain moving out of me through vibrations. It’s something that I would try to achieve by myself i ..read more

I had been living near the Pyramids of Chi for a few months before I actually plucked up the courage to go. I’d eaten at the café before which sits overlooking the two imposing structures, which have been built to one 16th of the size of the pyramids of Giza, and watched as people wandered out of the sound healing session looking dazed and hugging each other and thought to myself that it all looked a bit too mystical for me. Besides, I’d never given a lot of thought to what was actually taking place in there, only having a somewhat vague idea of what sound healing actually entailed. It was dur ..read more

Ashram Munivara When I went to my first Kundalini yoga class, I had no idea what to expect. I was just looking for a place to do yoga nearby and I came across an ashram nestled in the jungle, with daily classes for 35k (around €2.50). Having no afinity to any particular yoga style, I was happy to try something different, but I wasn’t quite expecting something quite so different. The entrance to my Munivara AshramIt’s all in the breathing IN-ELLLLLLLL! EX-ELLLLLLL! The instructor yelled throughout the session as we switched from one pose to another in quick succession. We lay face-down, with on ..read more

The Coworking space in Ubud runs some pretty far out workshops. Only here would it seem normal to take a break from your workday to go and lie beneath strobing lights, with pulsing surround sound, and hallucinate your head off. The so-called “Light Consciousness” session was being run by an Australian guy, a kind of Timothy Leary for the Digital Nomad generation, and was purported to aid meditation, although I’d heard from people who’d tried it that it was a bit trippy. The room was scattered with bean bags and yoga mats, two huge LED lights loomed over each side of the room and speakers were ..read more

I first came across the Coach in the co-working space in Ubud. He didn’t look much like a Coach, with his basball cap, bermuda shorts and luminous green rucksack. By chance, we ended up sitting next to one another at lunch one day and he told me all about himself, how he had given up wealth and success to travel the world and follow his dream. How he was at first disillusioned by Ubud and all the cynical faux-spirituality, but returned and found that there was also a bedrock of cool, like-minded people. I resonated with what he said immediately, but when I asked him about his dream and what he ..read more

(continued from The Healer) After my meeting with Tuaji the day before, I didn’t have a lot of time to think before I was again round at Dee’s, ceremonial sarong thrust into my hands and bundled onto the back of a motorbike to take me back to Tuaji’s for my water blessing. It was a bad day and I struggled to sit upright on the back of the bike, a fog closing around my brain and heaviness dragging my limbs downwards. When we arrived, Renato was there to greet us at the complex and we took a seat and waited. I saw Tuaji’s wife and her friend busily making preparations for the ceremony, and Renat ..read more

My first impressions of Bali were that it was the perfect place to recover. I was surrounded by peace, nature and the quiet spirituality of the Balinese people. External stress was minimal, there was no housework to do and my motorbike meant I didn’t have to walk even the smallest distances. In addition, healthy food was cheap and available everywhere. However, as the months passed, I realised I was not getting better. I continued to wake up with painful joints, burning muscles and at least one day a week I wouldn’t be able to leave my bedroom. Whilst on the one hand I was grateful to have the ..read more