My Bonkers Birthday in Glastonbury!

Have you ever felt flat, low in personal energy and disconnected socially?

I was feeling this way not long ago and there was no particular reason for it. It had been hanging around a while and was a bit like an annoying dripping tap that makes that continuous sound and is slightly unsettling.

It can be hard to talk to people about these kind of feelings when you have a good life, with everything you need and more. There is nothing wrong and you know you have a lot to be grateful for. I know from speaking with the people who I’ve coached that there can be a feeling of guilt around this, or a fear of being rejected for being selfish if they speak out, so they just get on with it.

By the time these people come to me for coaching it is not actually about feeling flat, lonely, or a lack of energy. It is about their problem on top of that. Whatever problem led to numbing those feelings has led to a habit of numbing the feelings, this could be alcohol, comfort eating, yo-yo dieting or some other unhealthy lifestyle habit that has created a larger problem.

Personally, I have done enough of this myself in the past to know it only creates more problems and through years of self development work I know feelings are there to be felt and transformation comes from acceptance and taking action in a way that resonates with who we are.

Then it is the harder bit… The how?

There can be a perception from others that I sail through life and don’t have the same feelings that other people have. I get it, but it’s not true!

I was feeling flat, disconnected socially and low in personal energy, despite meditating everyday, living a healthy lifestyle, and enjoying my work with others.

It was coming up to my birthday and I really did not want to feel like this, I spoke to a couple of the spiritual people in my life, and realised that it was time to coach myself and treat myself like I would a client… So out came the wheel of life satisfaction tool which helps in the big areas of our life.

From this exercise I realised what I needed was to get away for a couple of days, somewhere different, away from normal and conventional to reconnect to myself.

I wanted a little bit weird and some woo woo uplifting fun!

My amazing boyfriend Paul got to work on my birthday wish of deciding I wanted to go to Glastonbury

He found a massive cabin type house in a family farm which used to be a shed that made incense and it had it’s own stone circle in the grounds.  It was a beautiful place of quiet, calm energy and I felt myself come back to form instantly.

It was so different, especially the toilet. I think it’s called a compost toilet and it’s good for the environment. There is no flush, no water in it, you do your thing and it goes to the bottom which is quite far down. You then throw down a cup full of sawdust. It has a handle that you pull out every so often and turn every few days which I think gets rid of the waste somewhere.

It looks better than what you’re probably imagining and smells clean all the time, but it’s probably up there with your worst nightmares if you are on your first romantic break. Luckily we are way past that stage, but I still couldn’t number 2 in it.

I totally fell in love with the Glastonbury vibe of Friday night in the town. It was bohemian, chilled and peaceful. It was like everything slowed down. There were some weird and wonderful looking people around and a real vibe of happy

We had a meal in a pub and watched some quirky live music and I already felt that I could live there

We had a great nights sleep back at the cabin and the next morning set off exploring. I had already read the local events paper and omg no wonder the people are happy.  Monday night positive living group, Sunday morning ecstatic dance class, Meditations at the goddess temple, a class called find your joy, Oh and this one an Eye gazing class!!! that is a bit weird. Show me a certain type of eyes and I get uncontrollable laughing fits.

Time sure does somehow slowdown in Glastonbury. When I looked at my clock it seemed like hours had passed, yet they hadn’t. This was really good as we got loads done and then the fun really began.

Shopping in the weird shops, buying incense, new meditation music, heart chakra opening bath salts, strange looking candles. We even had a coffee called the immortal coffee and it tasted amazing. (I got the recipe from the café)

Next stop the goddess temple. In we went, it was very purple and quiet. There were loads of lit candles, strange wicker people, lots of veils and a big alter.

We took our shoes off and entered through one of the veils, there were people sat around meditating so we sat down too.  After about 20 minutes I became really tired so I laid down and had a siesta. When I awoke there was no one around and Paul had disappeared. From behind the veil I could see people in cloaks and my mind filled with entertaining thoughts. Where was Paul?  What if the cloak people had come to sacrifice me?

Apparently there was only so much goddess energy Paul could take and was waiting outside. I didn’t fancy hanging out with the cloak people so I went to join him.

We shopped in the potion shop below and I couldn’t resist adding some love potion to my bag of Glastonbury goodies

Back in the town centre it was full of Vikings and witches. There was a strange town cryer, and the cloak people were out in force. What was going on? Was this a normal Saturday afternoon in Glastonbury?.

I entered right into the middle of it to take a closer look at the weird people, but they looked at me like I was the strange one! Then people started banging drums and talking through horns!!

We were unsure of what to do next, but it worked out fine as a big dragon came round the corner “oh lets follow that and see where we end up!”

So we joined the strange parade of Vikings, the cloak people, witches, and people banging drums. More people joined along the way and we had no idea where we were going.

We walked for a fair while, out of the town and it became quite meditative and enjoyable, I thought “maybe I should buy a cloak?” but that thought passed quickly.

After quite a long walk I noticed the healing waters place that my kids had told me about (The Chalice Well). My kids have fond memories of this place that always brings a smile to their faces because when they were there a man stripped off naked and jumped into one of the pools to absorb the healing energy!

At this stage we left the dragon and entered the peaceful gardens of the well. It was such a different vibe from the drums and cloak people, though I was freezing and kept forgetting to talk quietly. It is meant to be a quiet place of reflection and meditation but I was full of fun energy!!

I stopped to do some meditation to shut myself up and help me talk quieter. Afterwards we drank the water out of the well that came straight from the underground, through a lion’s mouth and into 2 glasses.  Wow you could taste so much iron in that water and I really did feel energised. Maybe that’s what made the man do the naked jump? Should I step up my weird more and do it myself? After some thought I decided it was too cold and I didn’t want to be the person that someone else’s children laughed at forever.

Eventually we got back to the cabin, exhilarated and exhausted and strangely enough quite early, because time is definitely slower in Glastonbury. It felt like we had been out for days.

Next morning, we decided we’d try that Sunday morning rave thing, after a cup of immortal coffee first of course.

As soon as we left the cabin, I decided it was time I needed to go to the toilet properly. We found a decent public toilet that was clean, big and even played music. “Ah this will be a relaxing experience” I thought

And then… A voice somewhere came out of a speaker and told you, you only had 10 minutes in there and then an alarm would sound, but it would warn you before the alarm went off and someone broke the door down, or the door flew open.

OMG, clench… Total butt hole anxiety… No way… I decided to wait, after all I had already waited two days.

We set off to go do some ecstatic dancing. We found the place, Pendragon house would you believe, dragons everywhere.  It just looked like somebodies house though.  Huh, “What do we do Paul?” (He has solutions for everything that man)… “Do we just ring the bell? it looks like there may be a big studio at the top of the house, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around”.

We plucked up the courage to ring the bell, eventually.  We were let in and there was a man vacuuming and a woman with a laptop, and a baby in pyjamas.  “Err we’ve come for that ecstatic dance thing”…

We were told to take our shoes off and go upstairs. There was a beautiful big bright studio, music playing, a woman sweeping the floor and no one else there.  She smiled at us, Paul and I looked at each other, she continues sweeping, I wondered if we were just suppose to dance, so I asked… Apparently people don’t turn up till about 12 (an hour away) because they have usually been out partying the night before. We were welcome to just be in our bodies and do whatever our bodies felt like… Oh I should have brought the love potion oil I bought the day before. Instead I tapped one of my toes a bit, maybe moved a shoulder, looked at Paul…whose facial expression said “WTF!?!?”

Time was precious and we wanted to do the tour.

We decided to leave, do our walk and come back in about an hour when everyone was ecstatically dancing.

We said goodbye to the vacuuming man who told us it was a community house, I felt better for knowing where I was and off we went and walked to the top of a big hill. Very enjoyable.

We decided not to go back to the dance, my legs ached, and Paul said he didn’t feel like dancing ecstatically at that point.  “Let’s go have a beetroot hot chocolate then and get the recipe if it’s good.”

It was good! So a quick trip to the health food shop for beetroot powder and loads of chocolate came next and then we set off back, I had such fond thoughts of my toilet all the way home.

Paul’s not sure if he could live there, too many Vikings and cloak people. However, a few days later he emails me to tell me he is buzzing, has been smashing it in the gym and has loads of new creative ideas. He thinks it may have come from being away in Glastonbury.

I think we need to go back. It was the funniest fun I have had in years, I felt quite at home and I am intrigued about the eye gazing class.

This trip really brought me back to how important it is to reconnect to who we are and accept how we feel without judging ourselves for having them. This realisation alone has eased any feeling of disconnection from others because I have been true to myself and I feel inspired that there are lots of wonderful people out there who I am yet to meet and that’s exciting. I can accept that there are people who have moved out of my life too.

It is human to fear making a change, letting go of what we know, not being liked, worrying about not being enough. But we don’t have to let it define us and prevent us from moving out of comfort zones.

Any change is good, it shakes things up and helps us see things from a fresh perspective and expand ourselves.

Life is for living and moving forward into the happiest, healthiest versions of ourselves.

Jayne