The oyster catcher (aka a plan for life )

Posted on by
2

A few years ago I was driving home from work and noticed an oyster catcher nesting.  I thought this was amazing because it was nesting in a really weird place – in the central reservation of a motorway at the junction of a busy roundabout, in full view of anyone driving past.  What was even more inspiring to me, was that it came back every year to the same spot. 

It became a dream of mine to get a picture of this, the incongruity appealed to my sense of wonder.  I tried to enlist the interest of a photography friend, to no avail.  This year, when the oyster catcher came back, and I had a little more time on my hands, I decided to have a go myself.  I was spurred on by hearing that the Scottish Gamekeepers Association had extended the deadline for their photography competition (no harm in thinking big!)

I knew I needed a telephoto lens for the shot, so I asked for advice on that, before making the investment.  Once I had the lens, and without much further thought to anything else, except for an eye on the weather, I selected a morning to give it a go.

I parked the van close to the motorway.  I had decided that a view from the roundabout itself would give me the best shot and had visions of a perfect photo, a close-up of the bird nesting, with the central reservation rolling into the background and big articulated lorries rumbling past, accentuating this small piece of nature, in it’s vulnerability. 

I walked onto the roundabout and stopped about 20 yards from the edge.  My approach had startled the bird and I had to wait a good while until she settled down again.  I was an intruder in her space and she could tell the difference between me and the traffic (funny, I hadn’t really expected that, I thought articulated lorries would be scarier).  I hadn’t really used this lens much and I didn’t have a feel for the distance that it would give me.  As it turned out, the picture was less than remarkable, compared to my dream.  I decided to try and get closer.  I crawled on my belly to the chevron signs and waited again.  Once the bird had settled I tried to focus the camera – all fingers and thumbs, made a hash of it and a noise.  The bird got anxious again, started to walk around as I lay there waiting again.  I hoped that people wouldn’t drive past thinking I was paralytic, lying face down in the grass on the roundabout, at 10:00am – or worse still, stop to rescue me.  It didn’t happen.  The bird didn’t settle either and in the end flew off.  Worried that I might be jeopardising the nesting I decided I had learnt enough for the day and got up to leave.  The oyster catcher had settled on the nearest high vantage point to observe my retreat.  Humbled, I went home.

I thought about the experience and wondered about going back to give it another go, but decided to congratulate myself on the learnings from it instead:

I had been holding this dream in my head for a few years.  I had finally taken the initiative to realise it myself rather than expect someone more expert than myself to deliver it.  I had made some loose plans.  I had changed my plans accordingly when I didn’t get the results that I wanted, using observation, patience and feedback.  I had realised when to quit, taking the bigger picture into account, holding the possibility of the dream being met in the longer term.  

Well done!  Sounds like a perfect recipe to apply to my life!

I could have consulted with an expert and been given a list of do’s and don’ts, which I would have dutifully followed, and which might have got me the photograph that I dreamt of.  However, by approaching it in my amateur fashion I have learnt much more, building up confidence in myself and I still have the dream to work towards. 

As I thought about this experience and how it applied to other areas in my life I was reminded of the words of a dog trainer friend.  He laughed when I talked about wanting to get it right and said  ‘Don’t listen to the experts’.  At the time the comment  had confused me, but now I can appreciate the depth of truth and understanding in it.  Thankyou oyster catcher :) .

And next month I’m going on a photography course on how to photograph dogs….

http://www.ruralshots.com/photography_courses_12.html

A dog can’t remember yet it never forgets

Posted on by
4

“The difference between a mental and physical memory is that while the mental memory is remembered, often erronoeously, physical memory is relived, and the body  is never wrong about the past……. …a dog can’t remember yet it never forgets”

 ….’Your Dog is Your Mirror’,  Kevin Behan

I have  to admit that I struggled to understand this concept when I read it,
it seemed to be contradictory.  But. once again I have been educated, when Archie and Jack enacted out a perfect example of this principle.

Archie taking Jack through his paces

I was  preparing the dogs’ meal and had left some very smelly tripe on the
work surface while I went to retrieve their bowls.  Archie and Jack
were in the kitchen.  Archie is a counter-surfer (work in progress)
and Jack has learnt to sit patiently while salivating profusely as
his food is prepared.  All of a sudden Jack was attacking Archie, his
mouth round his neck and giving him a good ‘doing’ – really heavy
stuff from a hound who is normally really placid and always the first
to look the other way when tempers get frayed.  It seemed really out
of character.  As a pup Archie had been known to hang off Jacks flews
while Jack just stood there, looking to us for help, but not
retaliating.

I broke up the fray and finished feeding them.  At  the time I was just in from work, rushing about, cooking meals,  organising dogs, desperate to be able to just sit down and relax.  So taking the principles of NDT I had to accept that I had contributed to the energy of the situation.  I was aware that the incident had the potential to
cause lasting problems between the two dogs and set about a plan to address.

Later that evening I let them out into the garden to see how they were
together.  Archie was clearly traumatised, standing still, ears back,
hackles raised, avoiding Jack as much as possible.  He had definitely
not forgotten Jack’s attack.  Jack, on the other hand, was approaching Archie, play-bowing, wagging his  tail, sniffing his ears, barking loudly, trying to get the previously boisterous response from  Archie.  Jack couldn’t remember what had
happened.  Archie would stand stiffly and then when Jack’s antics
subsided move out the way.

Later the two dogs came across each other at a doorway in the house.
Archie tried to sidle past Jack uneasily, hackles raised. Jack’s
happy demeanour changed as Archie walked past and Jack’s hackles
raised and he growled.  What I took from this was that Archie was
‘not forgetting’ the experience of the attack. Jack, on the other
hand wasn’t remembering but he was reading Archie’s ungrounded energy in the moment and  perceiving a threat.

I restricted their interactions to outside for a few weeks, under my supervision being careful to make sure I was feeling relaxed at these times. The uncertain relationship
continued for a while, but gradually reduced.  They are now playing together
actively again and yesterday, when Archie put
his muzzle in Jack’s gaping mouth I figured that they are through the
worst of it :) .

Archie is still wary of Jack in the kitchen, which is probably a good thing.
I have further confirmation that Jack needs some deeper work on
releasing his blocks and, once again, I have a reminder to remain
conscious in the moment, with myself (as always, something for myself!).

The learning reminds me of a quote from Maya Angelou (author of ‘Why a Caged Bird Sings’)

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel

I guess you can apply that to dogs too.

Difference between a Labrador and a Hamiltonstovare

Posted on by
Reply

Ok, so taking all three out, to just ‘hang out’ didn’t really work – but for the time being I only have two to worry about, as Logan is confined to barracks while he mends.

Decided to work one at a time, while the other was tied up. I started with Jack tied up and working Archie – takes a bit to wind Jack up so thought this would be the best approach. Jack tied up to a tree branch.  He howled a bit because he was getting left out, but settled down. Archie pushing like mad for food, ‘speaking’, some tug and some heel work, more attentive towards me and not charging around the field like a wild thing.

Then I switched dogs so Archie was tied up while I worked Jack. I decided to work Jack further down the field, where he was attracted to scents the other day. I wanted to work with whatever was drawing his attention and get him grounding his energy on me. Archie sat at the end of the field watching us.  As we started moving further and further away he started getting quite vocal. I carried on walking, feeling from the heart, not letting guilt for Archie get in the way or worry that people passing might think I was torturing one of my dogs. I kept going with my original plan, to pick up the scent with Jack and do some pushing. Jack started sniffing strongly and then turned to me and came running back – that’s just what I was looking for. Keep going – and Archie has stopped barking – it was all going according to plan.

Then I looked back and saw this little golden bullet, about 100 yards away, heading for me like his life depended on it.

 Archie had slipped his lead and was covering that 5 acre field at top speed. He was NOT being left out.

So plan aborted – needs further development ! Thoughts

  • Be aware, in the moment and be prepared to adjust plans according to what is going on around you instead of doggedly(?!) sticking to the original.
  • Maybe go back to working one dog at a time
  • Don’t work so far away from Archie so he doesn’t panic (tried that subsequently and it worked – kept going back to treat while he was sitting)

And recognise it when your wishes come true. I did get what I wanted in the bigger scheme of things – a dog that wants to be with me, no matter what! That’s Labradors for you!

Logan’s Accident

Posted on by
Reply

Following Sang’s advice to ‘just be’ I decided to give Logan his well-earned rest from the need to perform. Then I started to worry about what I should be doing with Jack and Archie to keep making progress. Stop! as my dogs are my mirror, it was my pressure to perform that needed to be relaxed. So I did ….sort of.

I decided to just ‘hang out’ with all 3 dogs down in the field over the next few days and just enjoy them, no expectation. I even tried setting up a video camera so that I could record us all together, to allow me to learn a bit more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNXrEdBBeAo

The first day was great, very relaxing and I started to get a little more confident. I learnt from watching the videos. Usually I am obsessive about doing the ‘right thing’ but I had decided to ‘go with the flow’.

 Logan spent a lot of time sniffing and running around on his own, but he didn’t bolt and things were generally ok. I spent some time doing this a few days in succession.

 I was starting to feel more relaxed with it all. On the last occasion Logan was racing around the field, nose down. Archie was charging about and checking in with me every so often before chasing off again, Jack had his nose down and had started cantering down the field in pursuit of something interesting, well out of my reach (and my calls). I started to panic, remembering that there was a gap in the fence at the other end so I started to run after him. Archie started running with me excitedly and Logan, who was at the river bank on the other side of the fence, also picked up on the excitement. Unfortunately, as Logan jumped back over the fence, he caught himself tearing himself quite badly. I rounded them all up and we headed straight for the vets where he was taken in that evening for surgery.

Logan always jumps fences, often ones with barbed wire on them and quite often higher than this one.  He jumps this fence most days without coming to grief. What had happened this time?

Then I realised.  As I was panicking about catching up with Jack, Logan, who is highly reactive anyway, would have picked up on that energy, causing him to miscalculate the fence height and resulting, I am certain, in the accident. It was pretty obvious really once I made the link  I share, a little red-faced, because maybe someone else will benefit from it.  The only thing that is not making me feel more guilty is Kevin Behan’s premise that  

“the number one problem afflicting modern dogdom is human guilt”

( Your Dog is Your Mirror) so I am determined not to add to the injury(!)

We were taught on my Bi-Aura course that our thoughts and feelings are very powerful and we learn to keep in the right frame of mind when providing treatments. This was an unfortunate example of how they can impact others in our environment.  

Fortunately the vet practice have been able to do a really good job on Logan’s injuries and they are healing nicely. I am happy to report he can still pee straight but this experience is going to make me even more vigilant on checking in with my feelings.

Archie gets me to pause for breath

Posted on by
Reply

 

People that know me well will say that ‘pooh’ seems to be a favourite subject of mine. I will expound the virtues of feeding raw to my dogs over kibble by describing the remarkable difference it makes to their poohs. I let my dogs eat horse pooh, because I read somewhere it was full of healthy bacteria and therefore good for their digestion. I’m comfortable talking about pooh. Somebody recently told me it was better than ‘talking pooh’, which made me feel valued (well you have to take it where you can find it!).

I didn’t think I would have a story about Natural Dog Training and pooh – but I have and here it is.

 The other day I was rushing about trying to get things done – I had to walk Archie, do some training (pushing for food), get to the garage to get a tyre changed, go to the police station to report my lost iphone (the latter two in that order so I didn’t get in trouble with my bald tyre), get my lunch and get other stuff done that afternoon. I had to avoid the friendly man in the park walking his dog as he always throws sticks for Archie and treats him. (I don’t want him to but I don’t like to tell him not to, so I get round it by running in the other direction….!)

 In the middle of all this I found myself driving along and Archie was in the van whining that he needed out for a pooh – in all our excitement we (he) had forgotten one of the important objectives of being out and about.

So I pulled over onto an open grassy area where he could relieve himself. Well he sniffed every blade of grass, bit of rubbish, fence post, once and then some more, for what seemed like ages, but no squatting for a pooh. I was getting more and more impatient. I started to wonder if letting him off the lead was needed, but couldn’t see where I could safely do it away from the traffic. Time was running out and I was sure that he was going nuts in the car because he needed to go. ‘For goodness sake Archie, if you need to go, just do it!’

Then I got a glimpse of myself. Actually I wasn’t in that big a rush. The garage hadn’t given me a specific time, I didn’t have to get to the police station that day, I could take a breather. In the same moment I realised, ‘if Archie is mirroring my emotion there is NO WAY he would be able to relieve himself – my stomach was all knotted up’.  As soon as that thought came to me, I relaxed and the knot released, and….you guessed it, in that moment, he squatted down to do his business. I swear that is the truth!

The next time I will video it – you’ll just have to take my word for the ”what I am thinking part”.

Therapy through a Trailhound!

Posted on by
1

I have decided to concentrate my attention on Logan – rescue dog, unknown past but believed to have been badly treated at an early age, the one of my dogs that is holding back his energy from me.

Recently we returned from a session of ‘pushing for food’ where I felt we were making progress. I opened the van doors to let him out. He just sat and looked at me. I gently pulled at his collar.  In response he got up slowly, took a step forward tentatively, not fully standing up. I stepped back and waited to see what he would do. He stopped.  He was left half standing there, just looking at me, not sniffing, not licking his lips, just looking past me, like a statue. I reminded myself that his behaviour was about the emotion that he is feeling, so I tried to get a sense of his emotion. As I did so I felt sadness and tears started to well up in my eyes. A feeling of “I wish someone understood me, I’m lonely and just want to be loved for being myself, of being confused and not knowing what was expected of me”. The strange thing was that at exactly the point when I started to feel these feelings, his tail started to move, very gently, raising slightly and waving side to side for just 4 or 5 times, and he looked more attentively at me, as if in some sort of recognition. Then the emotion passed. If he’s picking up on my emotion – what is going on?

I thought about the van, where he was staying, and its significance to me. My van represents freedom for me, free from day to day responsibilities and things that I ‘should’ be. I bought it especially to enjoy my dogs, but even the decision to do so was like ‘breaking free’ (I obviously need to get out more!).

I left Logan to settle back in the van, where he stayed for the rest of the afternoon. A few days later, I was working with Logan again. Our progress appeared to be going backwards. On this day he was very hyper, to the extent that I was worried that he would bolt. I tried holding him back with the long-line and pushing for food, but his push was much reduced and we were not in the flow at all. In the end I let him have a run to see how it would pan out, it seemed pointless fighting it.
Because I am following the NDT process , as he ran away from me full speed, totally ignoring my calls, I checked in with my feelings. I was overwhelmed with the emotion along the lines of “its not fair, he doesn’t want to stay with me, people don’t love me, even though I am doing everything I can” – it honestly felt like the stuck emotion of a 3-year old! I wanted to bawl my heart out. Thank goodness the field is remote and it was early in the morning.

I sought advice from NDT friends who gave me feedback. I re-read the chapter in Your Dog is Your Mirror called ‘Decoding Your Dog’. I followed the advice – consider what am I thinking when my dog does something good and what I am thinking when my dog does something that makes me feel vulnerable – and I let the ideas come to me. Things still appeared to be going backwards. I left him for a day and half without food to see if that made a difference and decided to keep him in the long-line (both starving him and keeping him on the long-line were difficult things for me to do and were only done in desperation). 

The next day I kept him on the long-line and when he strained just encouraged him. I called him to me, but as he came towards me he would veer off again.   So I stood at the end of the line trying to make sense of it – if it was mirroring me – I tried to feel what was going on.

Then I had a eureka moment. It felt like he was being too pressurised by my expectations – when he was coming back to me to push I believe he was picking up my anxiety, pressure to perform (coming from the head, not the heart) and it was causing him to avoid me at the last minute.

As I became aware of these feelings I realised that it mirrored stuff for me in my life, being asked to cope with things before I felt able to, being scared of moving forward in new areas of my life in case I made a mistake. I know I was right in making the connection because I started ‘greeting’ again, Scottish parlance for crying and my barometer for knowing I have unblocked something!  So I stopped calling him and just waited.  Eventually he started coming back to me of his own accord, with stronger pushes than he had given me before. It was lovely – so I quit while we were ahead! I think it was breakthrough – only time will tell. And he stayed in the van to get over it!

I am still a beginner in all of this, although well and truly hooked as it all slowly unfolds. Below is the lovely advice that I got from Sang Koh, the NDT dog trainer who has been helping me with this process, that I would like to share.

The big lesson in this for so many of us is to unlearn what we’ve been taught. To quiet the mind and peel away the layers of personality we’ve developed through our lives that keep us safe. But we have to pull away those layers to have an emotional dialogue with our dogs. So my advice to you would be to actually do less “training” and spend more time just relaxing. As you saw, the pushing and all the other stuff will come in time, once you let go of the need to have Logan perform for you. Don’t worry about “progress” because there is no ultimate “goal”. There’s only being. Just be with Logan getting to know who he really is, learning to appreciate his true nature. The connection and bond you want will naturally develop once you can let go of the notion that he, or you, need to perform to be loved”

So I have been following that advice.  This morning he wouldn’t get out of the van after going for the morning exercise, so he came to work with me!

 

 

 

 

A dog feeling its owner’s feeling

Posted on by
4

The other day I was visiting a friend of mine.  We had a lovely time chatting and updating each other on various things, including my learning with Natural Dog Training (NDT) and the dogs.  When I got up to go, her toy poodle started to jump up and bark frantically.  My friend has been trying to stop her dog barking and asked me, with my understanding of NDT, if she could use that to help.    Not professing to be an expert, but based on what I had learnt from the leaders in the field, I explained that my understanding would be for her to look first within herself.

             ‘What is going on for you?’ I asked.

            ‘Well, I’m annoyed, it stresses me out this barking and jumping up, what am I supposed to do about it?’ she answered.

            ‘But before that’ I pressed, ‘What were you feeling before she started jumping that might represent a trigger for her behaviour?’

My friend thought for a second and then said

            ‘……That I am interested in our conversation and that I don’t want you to leave’ 

I suggested that she could work with that feeling and see if it made a difference.  My friend went with the idea and said that she was letting go of the need to hold on to me by reminding herself that I would be back.  The little poodle was relaxed at her feet within seconds.

 Can it really be that simple?!

Then I am reminded that, when we feel compelled to offer advice to others, we are usually well-advised to follow that advice ourselves!  Who thought working with your dogs could be so insightful?  It’s great :-)

Jack, recall and me

Posted on by
1

“It doesn’t matter to a dog what its owner says, does, or thinks; all that matters is what happens to the owner internally on the deepest level of emotion

……….Kevin Behan’s, ‘Your Dog is Your Mirror’

I have had Jack from a puppy and through all 5 years of his life I have been struggling to develop his recall to a level where I can allow him some off-lead time.

Before I started following NDT (Natural Dog Training) I would only let Jack off in a secure field that I have had fenced or my back garden, where I know he can’t get out.  When off lead, he could be enticed back with dog treats 50% of the time, but the novelty would wear off – and if left to his own devices for any length of time, he would switch off from me, get his nose down and find something more interesting to do – like digging up a nest of field  mice, or air scenting for bigger prey.  If his nose went down, the only way of getting his attention was going up to him and physically moving him with the lead – and even that was often met with stubborn resistance.  I was not interesting enough to him – or that’s how I was interpreting it anyway.

Jack with his nose down

Once I started to get the hang of pushing for food things started to change.  He stayed engaged with me for longer periods – I could get his attention back more often, although not all the time.  I would see him air-scenting and then look to me for  ‘push for food’.  Although not fool proof yet the behaviour is a really big advance in what I had achieved up until then. After the first few weeks of progress with NDT I invited a dog behaviourist friend who had been helping me, to see the fruits of our efforts.  As Jack looked to me she expressed amazement at how this was the first time she has seen us interacting so well together.  Alll that hard work was starting to pay off……

At that moment, with Jack focussed on me I realised that there really was a change in his behaviour, it hadn’t been a fluke.  I started to see that my goal might be achievable.  I should be elated, ….but the feeling that came up for me  was really unexpected, …a negative feeling.  It was something along the lines of panic – ‘eek, if my dog is looking to me to provide his focus, entertainment, leadership (?), how am I going to handle that responsibility?’.  For the first time in 5 years of striving for this goal,  I was shown in that moment that at a deeper level,  inside of me, there was something that was making me scared of achieving the one thing I thought I wanted.

So more work for me, again!  But the good news is, once uncovered, these things can be worked through, because awareness is half the battle.  My goal is to have Jack watching a deer in the garden and run to me to play ‘push of war’ as in Kevin’s video clip

Be the Moose to your dog

I would love to hear of your experiences where your dogs’ behaviour has helped you discover something deeper about yourself.

Rethink on the hounds’ training

Posted on by
Reply
Logan taking for the hills

Well, I was making great progress with NDT and wanted to tell everyone about it.  Then losing each of the hounds in the space of a week stopped me in my tracks.  I’ve always thought it was extremely important to share experiences with other people, including ‘lessons learned’.  I am constantly trying to do this in my day job.  However, when you are being very public and something happens that might be perceived as failure (well by me anyway), you  want to keep quiet about it :-)   One thing about the Western culture is that we tend to value hitting targets, meeting goals but quite often forget the huge importance of the journey.

So I stopped…. literally.   No walking of the dogs and no working with the dogs.  This is a big admission for me.  It was totally against the discipline I had been following and the beliefs I had developed: that dogs need regular daily exercise, that the daily work/walk between owner and dog(s) is the opportunity to bond, without that everything falls away.  If I stopped working or walking my dogs, the earth would stop revolving and everything would fall apart.

But I had to stop.  I was listening to my feelings and found that I had lost confidence in taking them out at all, much less working with them and learning with them.  It wasn’t all bad.  I used the time to think.   What was I doing?  What  had gone wrong?  Why am I making such a meal out of this?  Other people have dogs and just take them for walks, no big adventures (I’ve just seen a dog walker in Glasgow with at least 10 off the lead!).  I was putting all this energy into Natural Dog Training and expousing the virtues to all and sundry and yet I had just lost two dogs in the space of less than a week (I am not saying this has  anything to do with NDT, I am saying it has a lot to do about me).

I was going on a  Qigong course that weekend so the dogs didn’t get worked.  I had some early meetings over the next week at work, so the dogs didn’t get worked (or walked).  One thing in my favour – I was aware of how I was feeling  and knew that while I was feeling like that I was not in a good space  to work with the dogs.

Then I slowly started to realise that ‘not feeling right’ was how I had been for some while, but not paying attention to it, trying to keep up with my training regime.  I was pushing for food, religiously, each day, once or twice a  day, I was doing heel work, I was playing tug, I was doing ‘box’ work, I was (trying) to teach them how to speak’ (bark) on command. I was making every effort to fit everything in before and after work, at lunch time, around feeding the family (on a good day)  and how was I feeling?   Exhausted, pressured, on a time scale, trying to get to the goal where the dogs were behaving as I believed they needed to behave, and desperate to do everything ‘right’.

And I was totally missing the main point of my learning in Natural Dog Training. If dogs feel what we feel, then no wonder they ran off – that was  exactly how was I feeling, to be honest!

A helpful realisation, ……but it does make you wonder about labradors?!

Looking for inspiration from Kevin Behan’s book, Your Dog is Your Mirror, I randomly opened on this quote which worked for me perfectly.

‘But now I was learning the prey organizes the hunt and the urge to cooperate and that all acts of disobedience were actually an instinctual “argument” between owner and dog about how to hunt for prey, although the human didn’t  see it that way but rather saw it as an issue of respect’

And the earth hasn’t fallen apart yet.

Introduction to Bi-Aura

Posted on by
Reply

A few years ago decided to investigate setting up my own business.  I signed up for a course, to learn all about it – on what? I didn’t know?

The first night of the course there was a guest speaker, Sarah Jane, talking about her experience of using Business Gateway to set up her business in complimentary therapies; Bi-Aura.  She was dressed in a white ‘clinical’ uniform, a bit like a ‘clinique cosmetics’ sales woman.  I wasn’t terribly interested in alternative therapies, but as she spoke, I was struck by how her personal story related to my current situation.  She had been motivated to set up her own business by a restructure in her place of work, where she had been disappointed  about the outcome to her personally.  She was also talking about the body’s bio-energy fields, a subject that I had recently been reading about.

At the end of her talk she handed out her marketing material.  The reading list she referenced in her leaflets were of books that I had read in the last few years and that had resonated with me – in particular Louise McTaggart, “The Field” .  They also mentioned her work in communicating with animals.

I wanted to learn more – not only was she describing her own personal journey which mirrored mine, she was also talking about communicating with animals, at a time when I had a young dog who had just lost his litter-mate and was worrying about his mental state.  So I contacted her.

A standard Bi-Aura treatment takes 4 sessions. When I turned up for my first session I did not know what to expect. I received a warm welcome from Sarah Jane who started with an interview on why I had come to her, a general case-history and a discussion about what outcomes I was looking for.  After she had made her notes she asked me to take my shoes off, and stand in the middle of the room with my eyes closed.

Each session lasts about an hour, partly standing and partly sitting or lying down, with eyes closed, while the therapist tunes into your aura, or bio-energy field, to scan for and correct imbalances.  A better description can be found at the Bi-Aura web-site

http://www.bi-aura.com

I have to admit I felt very self-conscious, standing there, not knowing what exactly was happening, aware of a ‘wooshing’ noise as Sarah Jane ( I later learned) was ‘waving’ her arms around my energy field, scanning for imbalances. I distinctly remember thinking, if friends and family could see me now they would think I had flipped my lid.  I wasn’t sure what to make of the first session but found it very relaxing.

It was at the second session, when I was lying down on the massage table, again with eyes closed, that I felt my right leg spontaneously and gently stretch out as if it was growing several inches in length.  After a few minutes it seemed to relax back again.  Weird!  When Sarah Jane gave me feedback after the session she explained that she had been drawn to work at my right hip, from the energy imbalances she had picked up.  This was surprising.  I had gone to Sarah Jane with help for anxiety relating to my current situation in life.  I had never even considered, or mentioned to her, the chronic ache in my hip that had developed over the last few months, due, I believed, to a long daily commute.  But after that session, although I have continued with the commute over the last 4 years, the ache has never come back. I continued the sessions with Sarah Jane and had a great improvement in my mental outlook as well.  

Working with Sarah Jane made me interested in learning more about Bi-Aura, so when an introductory Bi-Aura workshop came up in Edinburgh I booked up.