Life has kept all of us moving
Pushing us forward and onwards
At times against the grain

In my attempt for redemption
I learn about forgiveness
And how to extend it to myself

In my search for vindication
I learn that Rage
Burns on both ends

In my promise to start over
I learn that beginnings
Exist in every moment

In my strife to trust again
I found faith in the spinning
World of uncertainty

In my vow to not abandon myself
I found strength
In my solitude

Sometimes I still get sad
And lonely and angry

Sometimes I feel my heart
So broken it will never be whole

Sometimes the earth cracks open
The shadows of the depths cold and dark

I light another candle
Offer another prayer

I look for the Moon
Or a star

I find your whisperings
In every glimmer

To bear witness
As I lay
​
Haven and harbour
In your shelter

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on December 29th 2021.

The post Sacred Conversations appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

I force my lungs into space
Push into verticality from gravity
Search the upswell for a reason
to try again

Today
Another day like yesterday
Start over again
So tomorrow will be better

Put on my gear
Put on my smile
Put on my gig
For time is commodity in the roulette called Life

Lingering there in the shadows
Heavy, looming darkness
Taunting, mocking
Spinning tales

Of un-belonging
Of never being whole
Of never being met
Of being just too much

Darkness says
I’ve been in your dreams
I’ve been in your wake
Time and again you’ve looked away

Now I’m in your head
Now I’m under your skin
Now I’m screaming in your ears
Now let’s see you plead!

In the deafening silence of suffering
The graveyard of hearts, wings clipped
Drenched in the dense cold liquid of fear
Shackled by the rusted chains of wants

Undress your armour of pretend courage
Untether from your longings and heartaches
Put out the fire of your rage
Let it go let it go let it all go!

Let’s plunge … Into the darkness of metamorphosis
A realm dense with void
A playground of pain to revel in
Till there’s no more …

Oh, the relief, the catharsis!
Of never having to care again
Of never having to try to do better
Of never having to seek an-other

But there…in the distance
A glint of an ember
An echo of reason
In the balm of being
​
Through the dark cold swamp of shadows
I got down on my knees
And offered my mangled heart for keeps
For Love still deserves a place by the light

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 30th 2021.

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It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
​
~Pablo Neruda

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on May 10th 2020

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Something in my heart sank.
I called her number – no answer.
I called my Dad’s number – no answer.
I felt a panic ran through my spine.
I called my mum – it rang for a while, and she answered.
There was an awkward moment of silence.
Then she said, ”Your dad is gone,”
I thought I misheard her, so I asked her to repeat.
She said the same thing.
I tried to process the sentence in my head.
She said to come home as soon as possible.

I hung up and looked at the phone.
My hands were trembling.
I realised that I had been kneeling on the ground, because I couldn’t feel my legs.
I called my sister again, and I knew it was true.
The unthinkable had happened.
…….
A year on. I found myself back in Singapore, after almost 12 years of wandering. I was on a quest to find myself…

Within the span of a year, I walked away from who I thought I was, back to my birthplace – to remember who I am.
…….
This, is my tribute to 2019…

2019 has been a year of love lost and love found.
A year of navigating through the muddy dense water
of grief and loss

Death brings to light our looming mortality,
as a family we hold each other,
closer than ever

2019 has been a year of gratitude
Friends and community
Offered a soft place to land

2019 has been a year of being up close and intimate
with the predicament of the human condition
A constant reminder of my own (un)willingness
to see the light across the bank of my despair,
and to no longer ignore the truth

Moving through the entangled web
of my neurosis and confusion and denial…
2019 has been a year of understanding
that the darkest moments of life
are shadows from the past,
chained to the systems that define us.

A revelation of what truly matters
A reclamation of agency and ownership
2019 has been a year of
dreams and awakenings,
challenges and resilience,
hopelessness and courage,
reimagination and recalibration

A year in which I’m able to finally own up
to my darkest fears and deepest desires.
I learn how to listen closely to my heart.
It beckons me to serve, to belong,
to be fearless in love and in truth
to come home to myself

2019 has been a year of evolution,
and revolution.
Of not living a life halfway
Of allowing
the porous seed of my becoming
to shed its skin…
…………

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on December 28th 2019

The post A year on… appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

The longing I’ve always held for travel and exploration was born into me. Back when I was only a child, I used to cut out travel ads in newspapers and magazines, making scrap art from those unfamiliar & exotic images, lost in the luring landscapes of misty mountains ranges, panoramic lookouts, architectures from another world.

I’d imagined the sights, sounds, smells… the touch of snow. This was back in the days before budget airlines existed and global travel became as ubiquitous as hopping on a subway. I remember taking buses to the airport just to wander about, looking at travellers and their multi-coloured suitcases and coats. I’d listened to announcements over the PA and wondered about the adventures that await them or the experiences they had returned from. 

I didn’t get on a plane till I was 21. But I was hooked long before the journey started. I needed so much to explore beyond the little red dot on the map that’s Singapore, the mysteries that laid in store beyond the little island city state on the equator. It was also this insatiable wanderlust that led me to subsequently leave behind my self-contained life, my cosy apartment, corporate career.

After I stepped into my 40’s, something shifted in me, made porous by the lessons learnt on the road – solitude, adaptability, grit, courage, respect, resilience, fear, love, and impermanence. And all that frenzy of looking outwards for mirrors of self-expression started to change course. As I delve further into the practice of self-inquiry and introspection, a different longing begins to take shape… a beckoning from a familiar place, calling out to me to not forget, to remember – of who I am and where I come from.

To retrace the story of my own becoming.

This subtle stirring in my heart a few years ago became a visceral yearning when I lost my father last year. Now the ambers have been stoked into a wild fire of recognition, a deep sensate resignation from the nomadic seeking, to return to the birth place of my karmic imprint, like a fish swimming back into familiar waters.

“Take your attention down into the tiny, miraculous stitching of the life you are creating from nothing, and trust that each small thread is connecting you to the greater body of belonging. One day, maybe today, you will look back on everything that came after your decision to attend to your life like an artwork, and you will see a great number of years symbolized in moons and stained with blood, stretching across a great landscape behind you, and you’ll know you have come a great distance. Here, with your great cape of wound-moons, a piercing presence in your eyes, a living history on your skin, you will know you have always belonged.”
Toko-pa Turner, Excerpt From “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home”
​
———-
I’ll be moving back to Singapore in a few weeks time, after 12 years of wandering to be in close proximity to my family and friends who have stood by me through all these years. I’m also looking forward to bringing more of my skills and practice in therapeutic modalities to serve the local communities in Singapore and  around the region. 

Starting from November, I’ll be offering regular Yoga Therapy and Integrated Bodywork 1:1 Sessions in Singapore, with the flexibility of in-house, home visits and clinic sessions at Soma Clinic and Terra Luna Yoga.

I’ll also be launching teaching and therapist professional development programs for those who’d like to learn more on working therapeutically with a sensory approach in bodywork and movement.

Singapore-based sound healer extraordinaire Jasz Lau and I will be partnering up again to offer a deeply therapeutic embodiment series of four Somatic & Sound Healing special classes at her lovely new studio The Senses Therapy from November through to February. And look out for the Somatic Wisdom Therapeutic Workshops at the trauma-aware Terra Luna Yoga which caters specifically to women. 

For teachers and practitioners looking for continuing education, don’t miss out on two Somatic & Yoga Therapy trainings that I will be offering in Cambodia (December) and Thailand (February). 

If you are a teacher trainer or wellness education provider, I’m now available to help you create customised therapeutic curriculum that I can also facilitate or deliver in your existing training programs. See below for more details.

Coming home.

Blessings,
Daphne

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 31st 2019

The post Be-longing appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

An alchemy of life and sentience
A secret volition
lays beneath perception

Organic but inexplicable
Of divisions and multiplications
Of cellular intelligence and divine technology

Elemental compositions
Quietly nestling
in the womb of my Ma

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 26th 2019

The post Fractal appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

Pain, is the storylines
We build around it

Our wisdom
In reframing

Through breath
Through witnessing

​Transforms
The experience

​Into grit and
Resilience.

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on October 22nd 2019

The post Someone once said… appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.