When I had my spiritual awakening, I discovered my Femininity.

It was intoxicating.

I felt alive, empowered and liberated.

I sat in circle and drank cacao and got in touch with my emotions and EXPRESSED my emotions for the first time in my life.

I cried with other women who were into REAL connections – not jealousy, bitchiness or competition.

I recognised the unhealed part of me that had been hiding behind a masculine shield of “I CAN DO IT ALONE”….because I had felt alone.

🌟I learnt how to receive.

🌟I learnt how to interdepend on others.

🌟And I healed.

I actually wrote my latest song on Spotify during this time. Check it out HERE.

But there was a shadow side to this.

Learning this softer, gentler way of living, I started to REJECT my masculine energy…

I would say things like:

“OMG I used to be so in my masculine” like it was a bad thing.

I got confused. Instead of recognising that my masculine/feminine polarities were out of balance….I started to judge masculine energy as being being BAD.

As a result, I swayed far too much into my feminine. This looked like:

❌staying in bed past 9am

❌having no structure or routine to my day

❌prioritising coffee dates over building my business

❌rejecting objectives because “I wanted to be in flow”

❌showing up late to meetings

And as a result I felt:

⚫️LOST, like a piece of paper floating around in the wind.

⚫️UNCERTAIN because I wasn’t taking action to find out if the path ahead was the right one

⚫️GUILTY because I was wasting my time and talents

⚫️like not TRUSTING myself because I didn’t take action on my dreams

⚫️And I QUESTIONED if I had what it takes to make it work.

It was only when I started drumming, lifting weights and working with my coach that I was able to balance out these polarities.

But it didn’t happen overnight.

It took time and persistence.

Now, don´t get me wrong.

I´m not saying that my Feminine energy was a BAD thing.

Not at all.

My feminine energy is what helped me

🏆CREATE my first album

🏆REST and heal my body

🏆Connect with my INTUITION regarding the next step

What I AM saying is that having TOO much feminine energy, without the corresponding Masculine Energy was harming me.

❌I wrote my songs but – I lacked the structure or consistency to dedicate time to the recording studio

❌I rested my body, but in the process I forget to take consistent daily action

❌I connected with my intuition – and disregarded the logical side of my brain which helps me take decisions.

So how did I get back in touch with my masculine energy?

I surrounded myself with inspirational people who have their polarities well balanced.

How do I know?

I SEE them creating their businesses while at the same time being connected with their heart.

They have an energy of “CAN DO” and they take action on their dreams proactively and efficiently, while still enjoying a good ceremony.

and…dare I say it?

Yes, I´ll say it.

They are FINANCIALLY ABUNDANT.

Because they have systems structure in place that supports them to create stability.

Their feminine energy is not in control, meaning they shy away from a timetable beacuse they want to be “in flow”.

Nor is their masculine energy in charge, disconnecting them from their intuition because they only care about numbers.

They are BALANCED.

And wowzers! Do I know that being in balance feels AWESOME.

It allows you to:

✅get shit done

✅structure your day

✅create & plan

✅achieve your objectives

✅take daily action to build your business

Doing these things is great.

But the way doing these things FEELS is even greater.

🌟You feel PROUD of yourself because you’re taking daily action

🌟You TRUST yourself because you do what you say

🌟You feel EMPOWERED because you prove to yourself that you can

But let’s be honest.

The key is not to be more in one or the other.

It’s to find the balance.

So you can be:

➡️decisive without being hard

➡️punctual without being rigid

➡️self-disciplined while still being soft.

I hope you enjoyed this week´s shorter-form newsletter.

My mum is visiting me in Peru so I want to prioritise being with her.

And that’s the balance – right?

Writing the newsletter, but a little shorter that allows me to spend maximum time with my mum.

Wishing you a beautiful weekend.

Abbey ❤️

p.s. – check out the song below I told you about in my newsletter. I think you’ll enjoy it. I wrote it when I was in the full throes of my feminine awakening. The chorus is pretty catchy…

p.p.s.s. – If you are looking to bring structure and consistency to your life so that you can CREATE the thing you came here to create, DM me on Instagram here with the word CREATE.

The post Why your feminine energy is keeping your stuck. first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post Why your feminine energy is keeping your stuck. appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

What if you make the wrong decision?

How can you know if a decision is going to benefit you?

There are so many things to consider:

🌟what you think

🌟how you feel

🌟past experiences

🌟your friends’ and family’s opion

And for those of us who are spiritually connected, it gets even harder!

🤷‍♀️what insights did you get from your last ceremony?

🤷‍♀️what is your intuition saying?

🤷‍♀️are the universal signs telling you yes or no?

There are so many factors to bear in mind, no wonder we often get stuck in uncertainty and doubt.

I am of the belief that everything is working for our higher good.

HOWEVER, I also know from experience that taking the wrong decision has cost me:

❌hundreds of thousands of euros

❌my health & happiness

❌the desire to live

When I was heamorraging money and my health was suffering, life got a whole lot harder.

Here is my story illustrating the consequences of a bad decision, followed by what I learnt.

MY STORY

In January 2020 I sat in my first Ayahuasca ceremony.

It was the catalyst for a Spiritual Awakening which lasted a good few years afterwards.

Although spiritual awakenings are often glamourised, the reality is that they are challenging and painful.

During my Spiritual Awakening I got very CONFUSED.

A lot of things I heard in the Spiritual Community sounded very sexy.

–“time doesn’t exist.”

–“no one’s opinion matters apart from your own”

–“everyone’s on their own journey”.

The truth is there is a lot of bullshit & manipulation.

If you are new on the spiritual scene, it’s easy to get confused and put certain people on a pedestal.

People who don’t have your best interests at heart.

That’s exactly what happened to me.

***Enter my ex, stage left***

For the purposes of this newsletter, we’ll call him Arash.

And that’s literally what he was.

A bad rash.

Arash was different from other men I’d met.

Despite only being 25, he was so sure of himself.

He was convinced that he knew the right way.

And he was very charming.

From the beginning, he was showing typical signs of Narcissicm.

But I was under his spell ✨. I couldn’t recognise the signs.

Very soon after he moved into my flat, he persuaded me he didn´t have to pay rent, and started meddling with my finances.

He convinced me to take 60k out of my savings and invest them into crypto with him managing the funds.

He had no idea what he was doing. But he was damn good at selling himself.

Around the same time I noticed he was irrascible – his moods would change from fun to demonic at the drop of a hat.

But he was charming and had a knack of persuading me it was my fault.

And because I wasn’t rooted in myself, I believed him.

Around a month into our relationship we said started talking about renting the local that was up for rent below my flat. Our idea was to have a place to hold drumming circles and the odd kambo session.

As we started looking around spaces, our idea grew and we realised would need different facilitators to hold sessions.

We made some pretty unfair agreements (which, looking back, are clean signs of maniupation).

We “agreed”:

❌ I would put 120k investment in and him nothing

❌ he would receive a 2k/month from the investment but not me

❌ he would be the CEO & take decisions & my job was to put the money in

Looking back…it sounds absolutely crazy.

Even more so when he told me I couldn’t get involved in the interior design because I didn’t have the experience.. He told me that my being involved would slow the project down…(despite him living rent-free in my beautifully decorated apartment).

So he brought in a girl that he’d met through a dating app.

And I had to pay her…

At the same time, Arash was being very shady about my crypto investment. When I asked him how it was doing, he got very angry and said if I wanted to know I had to organise a time to sit down with him.

Later on he said the opposite and said I needed to learn how to manage the crypto.

It makes me cringe now.

But when you knees deep into being gaslight by a Narcissist, you don’t see it.

Until you do.

The crypto market started crashing and I saw how my money was being flushed down the drain.

And how he didn’t seem to care.

His spell was starting to wear off.

The final nail in the coffin came after 11 months. He started screaming at me in the car, calling me his doormat.

By now he had lost the covert manipulation of a narcissist and was just being a full blown wanker.

Luckily for me.

Because it allowed me to SEE what was happening and cut him out of my life.

If you want to hear the whole story about the narcissistic abuse I suffered for 11 months, click here.

But this was only the beginning.

I was left with a huge centre to pay for in the centre of Barcelona.

I had signed the contract for 2 years.

We had just started renovations costing 80k.

The monthly costs just to break even were 4700€.

And we had zero clients.

You can imagine how I felt when the stark reality of what I had got myself into hit home.

The consequences were soon apparent:

❌ I stopped seeing my friends

❌ My herniated disk flared up

❌ I became hard and rigid in my interactions with people

❌ I lost weight

❌ I stopped laughing

❌ I became a rude and unfriendly from the pressure I felt

❌ I started questioning “what’s the point” of life

I managed to keep going for a year before my dad suggested I close Anahata.

He told me Anahata was a drain on me, and he was right.

Not only on my finances, but on my time, energy, health and happiness.

But the investment?

I wanted to find someone to take over so I could at least get part of my investment back.

I spent another 6 months looking for someone to take on the project.

A few people were interested but it came to nothing.

Eventually I set an ultimatum and decided enough was enough.

I realised that my health and happiness was more important than money.

I had learnt a good deal that would ensure I never make the same mistakes again.

I was finally putting myself first.

THINGS STARTED TO LOOK UP

Saying goodbye to Anahata only brought me relief.

In so many ways.

Over the next year I moved to the countryside, recorded my album, and moved to Peru to be with my love.

Since Anahata, every decision I have taken has nourished me rather than depleted me.

And I started to ask myself why that was.

Why was it that in a certain time in my life, when I was feeling lost, I took decisions that harmed me?

Whereas when I was feeling great and centered, I took decisions that fulfilled me?

I started to look into the formula, and I realised there were some thing that all good decisions had in common.

WHAT I LEARNT

#1: Find your own certainty. Not someone else’s.

Here’s why.

Being lost is uncomfortable. To avoid that discomfort, you will hold on to any direction. Even if it’s not your own.

In your desperation to find certainty, you may end up clinging onto any old unwashed vagabond’s idea to find yourself.

Certainty is a very attractive quality, especially if you are feeling UNcertain.

But certainty that does not come from YOU is where it gets dangerous.

It’s important to remember that I am talking in the context of taking BIG decisions.

(I am not talking about little decisions you have to make).

Let me illustrate with one of my own examples.

Last year I was invited to sing on stage with a friend at Mantrafest Ibiza. I was scared and initially said no. But my friend Anita was so certain that this would be good for me, that I was able to lean on her certainty. It turned out great!

But when it comes to BIG, LIFE-CHANGING decisions, like:

❌investing money

❌moving countries

❌having a baby

❌quitting your 9-5

You HAVE to find that certainty within yourself.

Because otherwise you take a decision and it turns out not the be the right one and YOU are the one who has to face the consequences.

#2: Take big decisions when you’re in a good place.

When I was in a bad place, all the decisions I took were coming from a bad place.

A place of:

❌desperation

❌disconnection

❌neediness

And decisions coming from a bad place lead to bad consequences.

In the Spiritual world people will say “there are no bad decisions.”

Well I believe that’s bullshit 💩💩💩

That line of thinking stops us taking the responsability for our lives and learning and sharing.

If I had had more awareness. If I had recognised the signs, I would have avoided losing hundreds of thousands of euros.

Of course in the end everything turned out OK.

I was able to turn my lemons to lemonade.

But having lived this experience, my advice to anyone taking a life-changing decision if you know you are not in a good place, is:

🥇STOP

🥈BREATHE

🥉ASSESS

Don’t rush the decision from desperation.

When you take a decision from a good place, you will not be running away from your problems.

But running TOWARDS your health, happiness and freedom.

#3 ASK FOR INPUT FROM TRUSTED SOURCES.

This is not to be confused with #1: find your own certainty.

You must absolutely find your own certainty.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for input from trusted sources to help you get there.

While it’s crucial to trust your instincts, neglecting the advice or perspectives of trusted friends, family, or mentors can limit your viewpoint.

Go out and seek diverse opinions and weigh them against your values, like, dislikes and goals.

If you are not sure what your values, likes & goals are then do the work to uncover them before taking a decision.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Let me give you an example.

I love working alone. I hate working with schedules. I love working digitally so I can move around. I value freedom, peace, vitality and creativity.

So…WHY ON EARTH DID I OPEN A CENTRE ?!…

…where I had to manage people, schedules and a physical building that meant I couldn’t travel around?!?! Where the pressure of managing a centre meant I had no room for creative expression and my vitality was at an all time low?!

Now that I know myself it seems so clear…but it wasn’t when I couldn’t see the horizon through the trees.

Let me give you another example.

I love coaching online. I love drinking Ayahuasca. I love holding Singing Circles. I love Peru. I value peace, vitality, creativity.

Considering all of this, it made perfect sense that I should move to Peru this year where I can all of the things I love. And where my energy feel strong and my creativity is through the roof.

Once you are clear on your values, likes, dislikes & strengths than you start to know yourself.

And once you know yourself, you know what is going to bring you energy and what is going to deplete you of energy.

So you can ask for opinions and you know in yourself if that opinion resonates with you or not.

From that knowledge, it is much easier to take a decision that will benefit you.

TO SUMMARISE

Taking a decision can be hard. Especially when you are lacking clarity on WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU WANT and WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD:

Gaining the certainty within you is the most important thing you can do for yourself.

BUT HOW CAN YOU FIND THAT CERTAINTY?

Here are 3 tips I have tried and tested, and that I use with my clients to help gain that certainty.

1) Write your morning pages until the clarity arrives. Every day, 2-3 pages. Normally it takes around 2 pages until the REAL emotions start coming out. This is where you want to get to. It’s like the bile in your kambo cermony. Getting in touch with the bitter emotions is what will help you arrive at clarity. If you don´t have time to write 2-3 pages a day…how much is your clarity really worth to you?!

2) Hire a coach. There’s plenty of support out there. Find someone you resonate with and ask yourself if you vibe with their content. If they are walking the talk. If they are investing in their own professional development with their own coach.

3) Pray. I have learnt not to underestimate the power of prayer. The universe is always there conspiring with us. Remember that 50% of prayer is GIVING THANKS. That keeps us in the energy of abundance and gratitude. So ask for what you want…but don’t forget to give thanks for that you already have.

And a final thing to take into consideration.

🚪🌟 WAIT FOR THE DOORS TO OPEN 🚪🌟

You may have the clarity & be connected in with yourself.

But until the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, you will still be pushing a stone up a mountain.

Otherwise you will be forcing things, and that doesn´t feel good for you OR the universe.

The universe will push back and obstacles will arise in your way.

Let me give you a personal example.

I realised I wanted to move to Peru 2 years ago. BUT I still had Anahata and I hadn’t got the financial structure in place yet to justify the move.

It wouldn’t have worked 2 years ago because I would have been running away from my life.

But this year that the pieces all fell into place:

👍🏼My coaching practise was established

👍🏼I had let go of Anahata

👍🏼I realised I had feelings for my friend who lived in Cusco

These were the moving pieces that finally aligned

THAT is what I mean by waiting for the doors to open.

THAT is what I mean by running TOWARDS something.

And when happens, it will be coming from a place of grounded certainty.

There’ll be no stopping you!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter

Love from Abbey xx

p.s.: if you are looking for certainty and clarity in your life, drop me an email and let´s chat.

pp.ss: I have.a new song out on Spotify called GATHER THE WOMEN.. Listen by clicking the link below,

The post Doing these 3 things means you’ll never make a bad decision again. first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post Doing these 3 things means you’ll never make a bad decision again. appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

New Age Spirituality will have us believe this is the “new way of working”.

That it’s “the new paradigm”.

I disagree.

Here’s why.

MY STORY

When I first became spiritual I completely rejected my masculine energy.

I would say “I used to be so in my Masculine” like it was a bad thing.

I started to judge all the “masculine” traits that made me a high-achiever, such as:

🌟EFFICIENCY. (I enjoyed through my task list like a doberman on cacao)

🌟CLARITY OF COMMUNICATION ( I always preferred getting straight to the point rather than beating around the bush).

🌟MOTIVATION (5am wakeups to study Chinese for an hour before work).

But all that changed when I became “spiritual”.

I started to believe that these traits were BAD.

After my awakening back in 2020, I was reading a lot of New Age spiritual literature. It talking about the old paradigm of working hard.

I believed that what I needed to do to CURE myself from this was to sit on a cushion and meditate.

I started to subscribe to the belief that in order to be spiritual I needed to “do less” and “be more”.

But this had consequences.

Because I was going against my natural tendencies.

I was trying to be a version of myself that I naturally was not.

✅I wanted to be in flow.

❌But the result was that I had no direction.

✅I wanted to honour my body.

❌But the result was I slept in and didn’t get anything done.

✅I wanted to manifest stuff into my life.

❌But I wasn’t putting in the ground work here in the material world.

On top of that I started spouting spiritual jargon like “time doesn´t exist”.

The result?

I couldn’t follow a schedule. I wasn’t able to maximise my day.

CONSEQUENCES

I started to feel blocked. I wanted to move forwards with my life and create and achieve…but I just couldn’t.

I didn’t have a goal.

Without a goal I had no objectives.

So I found myself floundering around.

This left my self-esteem near my knees.

I felt purposeless. Like a paper boat being blown around on stormy seas. I had no idea of where my True North was.

This left me comparing myself to others who seemed to have such clarity and direction in their lives. I USED TO HAVE THIS. WHERE HAD IT GONE?!

IF ONLY I´D KONWN THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW!!

If only I´d know that I was experiencing symptoms of my energy poles being out of balance.

But since I didn’t know this…I blamed MYSELF..

I thought there was something wrong with me and started to spiral into self-blame.

I thought I didn’t have what it takes.

I didn’t realise that the very thing I was running away from was the thing that would being me back into alignment.

My Masculine Energy.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE FEMININE?

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my feminine qualities too.

✨creativity

✨intuition

✨empathy

✨nurturing

It’s just that being TOO in my feminine had consequences.

I NEEDED TO BRING THE BALANCE BACK

I brought balance back into my life through a project that ultimately failed.

But it didn´t fail for the reason you’d think.

Let me explain.

At the end of 2020 I started a project called Anahata with my ex partner.

I invested a significant amount of my own money into the venture.

I rented a local with very high rent.

We decided on an opening date for January 2022.

What more motivation did I need?!

If you’ve ever had money tied up in a project, you´ll know that it gives you a humungous spark of determination to see that thing succeed.

You will go to any length not to lose your money.

And even if I hadn’t had so much money tied up in the project…the mere act of having an opening date and inviting hundreds of people along had the same effect.

I wanted it to work.

My name was on the line.

Since my money AND name was tied up in this venture, I had double reasons to make it work.

Suddenly I had found my purpose and motivation.

✨I would wake up at 6am

✨I would work all day

✨I would go to bed at midnight

Anahata was my baby and I wanted it to survive.

I was the mother and Anahata was my newborn. I gave that project everything it needed, even at my own expense, to see it grow and thrive.

No longer could I go to different retreats and workshops at the weekends.

I had to be home, working and creating.

This was very grounding for my often flighty energy.

I remember my friend Carla saying to me “this project has been really grounding for you Abbey. You have to be here now.”

And it was true.

During this process I learnt that google calender was my best friend.

I saw that all the traits I had rejected just a few years before were actually working in my favour.

They say you want something done, give it to the busiet person in the room.

A busy person is already used to delivering a certain output each day.

And that was definitely the case for me!

I was a machine.

And when my partner and I broke up, me and Jenny single handedly managed to get the project off the ground.

SO HOW DID IT END?

As many of you know, Anahata closed its doors in July 2023.

Despite the huge amounts of work we put into it, ultimately I realised that it was not my purpose or my passion.

Anahata has GIVEN me purpose.

But it was not MY purpose.

In the past I had a tendency to stay in things much longer that I should. You can read about that experience here

But now I could see clearly.

I realised I was investing a huge amount of my time and energy into a project that ultimately did not bring me joy.

And I had a vision of how incredible it would be to invest that time and energy into MYSELF. Into what I REALLY WANTED TO DO.

➡️How many more people could I help?

➡️How much more would I be able to create?

And so I handed back the keys to Anahata.

I made peace with the fact that I had lost all my investment.

And over the following year I:

🌳moved to the countryside

🌳created my coaching business

🌳recorded my album

You can follow my journey here

I don´t think that any of that woyuld have been possible without relying on my masculine energy.

It was this Masculine Energy that allowed me to:

✅show up even when I was tired

✅create and stick to objectives

✅work consistently towards my goals DESPITE the setbacks.

I´m also grateful to my feminine energy that allows me:

🌹to take my daily siesta in the garden

🌹space and time to create my music

🌹 to cook up my ideas for my insta videos.

The key is that both energies are BALANCED.

❌Too much feminine, and I would have had many ideas but not been able to create any of them.

❌Too much masculine and I would have become rigid and controlling.

Getting the balance right is the hardest thing.

And the most rewarding.

TIPS TO BRING BALANCE

If you feel your energies might be out of balance, then here are some ideas that could help you.

I have included ideas from the energetic, phyiscal, and mental planes so that all bases are covered!

1. DRUM. Grab a shamanic drum and start beating. Feel the Earthy vibrations and notice where in your body the sensations are strongest.
2. LIFT WEIGHTS. Pushing yourself physically and accessing your bodily power beyond everyday routine it a great way to get you in touch with your masculine energy
3. SET AN AGGRESSIVE GOAL AT WORK.. Do something that requires a mental push from you. Something you can focus all your attention on. If you are not currently working, consider creating a Meet-up event and inviting your friends. Don’t think too much about it. Find the venue, set the date, and watch the magic happen.

I hope this newsletter was useful to you!

Let me know if you try out any of these ideas.

And you have any questions feel free to reach out to me. I love to hear from you!

Love from Abbey xxx

The post Why your feminine energy is holding you back first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

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The post Why I skip my morning routine first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

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My friends got me. But many people didn’t.

I remember one friend saying people either loved me or hated me.

I didn’t like that. I wanted everyone to love me. We’ll come back to that point later.

Many people thought I was weird. But they said it with a smile as if there was something that amused them about my wierdness.

It took me 20 years to figure out why that was.

As you get older you start to appreciate weirdness as uniqueness and authenticity

But when you’re younger you don’t want to stand out too much.

Standing out is dangerous incase:

• you’re rejected from the crowd
• people judge you for being different
• the bullies come after you.

But even so, I couldn’t help feeling distinct from my peers.

• I didn’t like wearing makeup like all the other girls
• I wasn’t interested in going clubbing
• I’d rather practise the piano than go out and get drunk
• Eating certain foods would leave me feeling very depleted
• I didn’t like loud crowds of big groups of people

But I did these things anyway.

I wanted to fit in.

It’s only with hindsight that I realise I was always Highly Sensitive as a child.

To light

To loud noise

To chemicals

To gluten/lactose

To others’ discomfort

To criticism.

This brought up a lot of shame.

It was difficult being Highly Sensitive in a society that indoctrinates you that eating junk food, buying the latest gadget and drinking alcohol every night are what you should desire.

Luckily for me, my quirkiness also manifested as humour. This helped me out in many situations.

I used it to hide my High Sensitivity. I thought that was a bad thing that would leave me very vulnerable to attack.

It enabled me to stand up to the bullies.

Being funny is a gift because you can say things in a way that is very palatable. You can say things in a way and that even brings joy to the tormenter wishing to inflict pain.

But it’s also a hindrance.

I was unable to have a serious conversation because of my need to make a joke

I was unable to be a supportive partner because I was looking for every situation to be hilarious.

Just like Chandler from Friends, I was using humour as a defence mechanism to protect myself from the pain of reality.

My Awakening

When I had my Awakening in February 2020 (see article about my Awakening here) I saw the mechanics of my mind in full play and I rejected them.

I saw the way I used humour to deflect. As a result I began to associate humour WITH deflecting.

I also saw how many people use humour at the EXPENSE of someone else.

I started to think humour was a bad thing.

At around the same time I did an online personal development course called LANDMARK.

It was deeply damaging.

Over the course of a weekend it brainwashed us into disconnecting with our emotions or the emotions of other people so that we could be “free”.

It taught us not to react.

And the effect on me was that I began to think that it was weak to display normal human reactions.

I tried to erase parts of my personality that I thought were “bad” and only keep the parts that were “good”.

I created an avatar of myself that I thought would be more acceptable in spiritual circles.

And the result?

• I became very vanilla
• I lost my sparkle
• I didn’t want to express an opinion
• I didn’t want to offend anyone
• I tried to “get rid” of negative emotions like anger
• I became very serious

And the consequences?

• I fell into a Dark Night of the Soul
• People took advantage of me
• My health deteriorated
• I attracted a narcissist into my life
• I started a project that was never my dream and lost thousands
• I went against my friends and family

This phase lasted around 3 years.

So what changed?

With hindsight, I was always doing the work that would bring me back on track.

But I was fast-tracked back into reality with the failure of my studio, Anahata.

I think the BIGGEST lesson was having everything crumble apart and being forced to recognise that my life wasn’t working.

That this was not the way.

I learnt that it’s all very well trying to be all spiritual and sing for love and light. But, but when you have a centre that’s making huge loses, whose going to pay the bills!?

Not Shiva or Shakti…

Recognising my humanness, my fragility & my failure humbled me.

It brought me to my knees.

My biggest fear was failure because deep down I thought it would lead to abandonment.

But recognising that I was supported by friends and family DESPITE my failure changed something in me.

I realised that to fail was to be human.

And that to be human was to be loved.

If I could still be loved by others in my weakest moment, then I could love myself.

And loving myself meant loving EVERY part of myself.

My light and my darkness.

My good and my bad.

And from that moment on I was able to start embracing my weirdness again.

It didn’t happen overnight.

But slowly….

I started to smile again… I started to make jokes again…

And life began to look up.

I started seeing a Coach to create my online Coaching Business. This was single handedly the BIGGEST process of personal transformation I have ever experienced.

Around this time I also took a Strength Test (by Gallup – available on Amazon) and it blew my breath away.

I realised that parts of myself that I had been trying to “erase” were actually my strengths.

This was a game changer.

Before I thought I needed to sit and meditate away my need to achieve and be highly productive. Whereas after, I realised that being a HIGH ACHIEVER is an integral part of who I am.

By embracing these parts of myself I have able to create my day in a way that is conducive to my creativity. By using the first hours of the day when my energy is strongest to create and write, and the afternoon hours to coach and practise music.

My drive has increased because my commitment and consistency to my creativity is paying off and I’m seeing the results.

It’s like a self-feeding machine.

How does my weirdness inspire the content I create?

I receive a lot of compliments on the content I create on Instagram, especially the funny videos.

These videos were the brainchild of two things:

1) The Coaching I received from my coach Jeff Agostinelli

2) Accepting all parts of me, ESPECIALLY my inner weirdness.

In particular:

-the part of me that like to speak in different voices

-the part of me that secretly wants to be an actress

-the part of me that secretly wants to be a stand up comedian

-the part of me that feels ANGRY at incoherence

-the part of me that is obsessed by rhythm and melody

More than anything, my creativity came about by allowing myself to be ME. This meant laughing at myself instead of trying to be some spiritual person up on a pedestal.

A lot of the videos are me ridiculing myself for the times I have SAID AND DONE all of the spiritual nonsense I poke fun at in my videos.

The result?

• I am HAPPY because I don’t have to hide parts of myself anymore.
• My CREATIVITY is on fire because the energy that I used to consume in HOLDING MYSELF BACK and PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE I WASN’T has been freed up.
• I am creating SOULFUL, DEEP CONNECTIONS because I am being myself rather than some holier-than-though social media guru.
• I am attracting aligned clients for my online coaching business
• I have created regular, sold-out Heart Singing Circles in Barcelona (join my next one here)
• I have recorded my first album, out in February 2024!

This is why I come back to failure and humility as being the biggest teachers. Once you fail you don’t have anything to fear. You see first hand that the sun still rises, you are still breathing and people still love you.

You learn from living what you DONT want what is really important to you.

And for me that is peace, health and happiness.

And now I feel blessed to have been able to find a path that accepts and uses all the parts of me:

• The sensitive part: to support other Highly Sensitive people through coaching
• The musical part: to lead singing circles and record my album
• The funny part: to make content out of the way I see life to touch people’s hearts.
• The wise part: to share my life experiences in this newsletter and see it growing week by week

And finally understood what my friend meant when she said “some people love you, others hate you”.

She was giving me the greatest compliment of all.

She was saying that I was AUTHENTIC.

And the price of authenticity is that some people won’t get you.

And that’s OK. It´s supposed to be like that.

It’s called POLARISATION.

The more authentically you express yourself, the more some people will be attracted to you and others will be repelled by you.

And the people who are attracted to you, they will be there for life!

When I was 16 I couldn’t understand why some people wouldn’t like me and some would love me. I wanted everyone to love me.

Back then I didn’t understand the rules of the game.

Now, every video that I post on Instagram, I lose around 10 followers. And I gain even more because the people who vibe with me share my reels and their friends add me.

Now I understand.

Summing It Up

Allowing yourself to express yourself freely is important.

Not only for you, your happiness and your health.

But also for others.

There is nobody else on this Earth with your uniqueness. There is nobody else on this entire planet exists who has your DNA and who has had your life experiences. The way that you understand the world and make sense out of it is EXACTLY the way somebody else needs to hear it in order for it to make sense for them.

By more radically embracing your authenticity and WEIRDNESS, you are going to help others who need your medicine.

So find your unique expression. AND TURN THE VOLUME UP.

If you are looking to get in touch with your inner weirdness and create what you are here to create, the following 3 questions may help you:

1) How were you different from other kids when you were younger?

2) What things kill your natural sparkle but you do them anyway?

3) What part of you have you been hiding in case you are rejected?

And if you feel like sharing them with me, I would love to hear from you!

I hope this helps!

Wishing you a beautiful week ahead.

Love from Abbey xxx

P.S: I have a couple of spots open for 1:1 coaching. If you are looking to unleash your inner creativity to find out what your purpose is and how to bring it to life, then I have a 12 step programme just for you. Book a time to chat here

The post How accepting my inner weirdness improved my creativity first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post How accepting my inner weirdness improved my creativity appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

– my discipline

-my productivity

-my daily routine

-my following a schedule

-my authentic expression

I only wanted to be in my “feminine energy” and didn’t want anything to do with all the masculine part that brings direction, purpose and drive.

In my desire to “be in flow” I lost all sense of structure. I justified this with spiritual jargon such as “time doesn’t exist”.

As a result my self-discipline went out of the window. And I paid the price:

-I lost my productivity

-I was unable to create my ideas

-I lost my daily routine

-I procrastinated

-I was indecisive

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I felt BAD about myself because I knew I could be doing more.

Recently my coach, Jeff Agostinelli, recommended I take a Strength Finder test by Gallup. It was life-changing.

I finally saw with my own eyes that one my my main strengths is being an ACHIEVER.

Achievers love to get stuff done; they love tasks; they are highly productive.

This changed my perspective about myself.

There was me this whole time rejecting the ACHIEVER side of me, thinking that in order to be spiritual we have to do less and be more.

And in the process I was damaging myself.

I had an idea that spiritual people didn’t need a schedule or deadlines or to exert massive amounts of energy to achieve their dreams.

And so I went against my self-discipline full throttle.

But here’s the thing.

Rejecting a part of us means we lose our integrity. We become less WHOLE.

This means we are unable to live up to our full potential because we are pretending a part of us doesn’t exist.

We are not living in integrity with our essential self and therefore we have less power to create.

“I am disciplined because I know the cost of not being”.

Jeff Agostinelli

When I realised this I started to turn it around.

-I got clear on my quarterly goals

-I translated those into daily habits

-I brought back a timetable.

-I worked to a schedule.

-I wake up early to make the most of the day.

And the consequences of refinding my self-discipline?

-I am building my coaching business.

-I am recording my album

-I am learning guitar, belly dance & voice yoga

-I am hosting singing circles in the city of Barcelona

-I am moving to the countryside

And most importantly, I feel good about myself

-satisfied at the end of a day

-fulfilled

-like my life is moving in the right direction

-like I can trust in my own capacity to create

Am I saying this to brag?

Absolutely not.

I don’t pretend that my life is perfect.

There is also a cost to self-discipline.

-I am extremely focussed, sometimes to the cost of friends and family.

-Sometimes I get stressed and I need to remember to REST.

-I often put too much pressure on myself to reach my goals.

But pressure is important in the process of creation.

That’s how diamonds are made.

I have experience both sides of the coin.

And I know that my life is easier, I acheive more and I feel better about myself when I cultivate my self-discipline.

Therefore I intentionally choose this every time.

If this is something you are also interested in experimenting with, I have put together a fail-safe method. Following these steps will hone your self-discipline and improve your productivity:

1. Get clear on your WHY. Your MOTIVATION is the backbone of everything you do. Without it you will get lost. What do you want to achieve? I´ll give you a clue here: it’s important that this something you are passionate about or something that you yourself have suffered. This is the ultimate motivation and the only thing that can lead to profound engagement (more on this in the next newsletter).

2. Translate your why into a tangible goal: the WHAT. If you want to start a creative project where you can support other people with a particular problem, your goal might be to get your first client. If you want to start sharing your passion of singing, perhaps you want to start a singing circle.

3. Get clear on your WHEN. Pick a date and hold that in your line of vision so that your brain understands the timeline. This makes it more real and much more likely that you achieve it. Rememebr: where attention goes, energy flows.

4. REVSERSE ENGINEER. This is the fun part. Here you take your goals and then work backwards. You look at what morning routine and habits are going to support you to achieve these. If you want to start supporting people in a particular area, you could start a daily habit of reaching out to people in your network. Research will help you gain clarity about what exactly they need help with. If you want to start a singing circle, you could practise singing 30 minutes each day.

4. GET IT DONE FIRST THING. My own experience has taught me to get these done at the start of your day. Get your practice out of the way before you go on to other things. Get your most important work done first thing while your mind is still fresh. Then you have already achieved something. You feel good about yourself because your actions are aligned with your goals. You have a winner’s mindset that you can carry through to the rest of your day.

In summary

I want to remind you that the purpose of self-discipline is not to punish yourself.

Self-discipline does not have to cut your flow.

Quite the opposite actually.

Self-discipline gives you the structure you need to flow with more grace and direction.

I like to use the metaphor of the banks of the river. The water flows down the river, but without the banks of the river supporting it, the water would spill out without any direction.

So it is with life.

The water is you.

The banks of the river are your self-discipline and structure.

It might be fun for a while to live without banks.

You may feel “free” for a time.

But deep down you know that real freedom comes from a life that allows you room for your deepest expression.

And to express yourself fully takes commitment, direction and self-discipline.

If you would like some support getting your self-discipline in order for maximum productivity, or are looking to implement habits that support you moving towrads your goals, get in touch.

You can simply reply to this email or click the link below to book a call.

I hope you enjoyed my newsletter.

Love from Abbey x

The post How I found my self-discipline & productivity again after a spiritual awakening. first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post How I found my self-discipline & productivity again after a spiritual awakening. appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

If you’ve ever been through a “dark night of the soul” where everything in your life starts going against you and you feel like you’ve lost your POWER TO BE PRODUCTIVE, then keep reading.  I have a personal story for you. 

I see many people lose themselves in spirituality.

I was one of those people.

Although ultimately my Awakening led me to the healing of my body, financial abundance and radiant, vital energy, it wasn’t always this way.

Along the way I encountered a very dark night where I rejected many parts of myself including the productive part of me that enjoys material things, structure and “the system”.

I was very ungrounded and wasn’t able to create here in this physical reality, with the result that my productivity was halted for a good few years. 

Let´s get into what happened:

1. I rejected my masculine energy.

When I discovered my feminine energy I didn’t want anything to do with my masculine energy. I didn’t get that the important thing is to bring them into balance. 

I would say things like “I used to be so in my masculine” as if it was a bad thing and I rejected structure, discipline and time in order to be in my feminine – in order to be in flow.  

This had huge consequences for me as for 3 years I was unable to produce anything or stick to a timetable because I had a subconscious belief that, being a woman, it was “bad” to embrace my masculine energy and get shit done. 

I thought spirituality was all about meditating and being OK with not achieving.

This played out with me often showing up late to meetings and allowing others to disrespect my time in the same way in the name of “being in the flow”. 

In my desire to let go of control, I lost sense of my time boundaries, my structure and what was OK/ not OK for me. 

2. I put the opinions of other “more spiritual” beings above my own.

Because I was new on the spiritual scene, I looked up to others and thought they knew so much more than me.

Especially the ones who were very convinced of how spiritually advanced they were. 

This was the worst thing I could have done for myself.  I allowed people to walk all over me and I lost my boundaries.

I got into a toxic relationship and my partner told me that my energy was too much; I needed to relax; my fiery energy of achievement and focus was not good for him (telling me this at 11am from bed as he’d just woken up). 

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a problem with someone waking up at 11am- everyone has different schedules. But when you are doing that and making someone else feel bad about waking up earlier, then we have a problem. 

As a result I lost my fiery spark or motivation and drive, believing this was “bad”. I lost my boundaries and allowed my ex to persuade me to manage my money for me (and lost it all); I started a project called Anahata that was never my dream and invested my life savings into it; and I lost sense of my own intuition because I DIDN’T TRUST IN MYSELF.

It took me 2.5 years to find my productivity – my power to create in the world – again. 

This was the hardest lesson of all and it taught me not to trust someone’s words but instead to look at their actions; to trust in my intuition and look with my heart instead of with my eyes. 

3. I got obsessed with plant medicine as a means to escape

Don’t get me wrong – it was a lot of fun and brought me a lot of empowerment.  But what started out as a healing experience became an obsession and I started to drink a lot of plant medicine as a means to escape this reality.

I started to think this material world wasn’t real and that anyone who hasn’t had the experiences with plant medicine that I had had were crazy. 

I judged the masculine values of productivity and a structured working week as being a negative part of The System. 

It’s true that I received huge emotional and spiritual healing; I found my life purpose and my life took a 180 degree turn around, but eventually after drinking more than 100 times in 3 years I started to ask myself the question “what are you looking for?”

I don’t regret going so deep into plant medicine…and I believe it’s important that everyone follows their curiosity…just never to stop asking yourself the question “why am I doing this?!”

I noticed after drinking Aya sometimes it would take me 2 weeks to come back to reality and to be able to get back into my routine and a structured week that favours productivity and creation. 

And since right now I am in a productive phase of my life where I am creating my coaching business, I prefer to have all my mental faculties sharp and focussed. 

Is it working for me? Yes it is 🔥

Interestingly I have a podcast about my Ayahuasca Adventures. You can check it out here ✨

4. I went fully against the system

This was the craziest bit (and also a very normal stage of your spiritual awakening). 

I went against the structure and production of society, seeing it as just another byproduct of the Patriarchy.

If you haven’t yet had an experience which opens your perspective to view society in this way (be it through at Awakening; through plant medicine; through questioning) then the next part could be triggering for you. But stick with it and remember that I am still a fully functioning member of society and haven’t run off to live naked in the forest (at least not yet).

Seeing the system in another light was extremely painful for me. It was a change of my world view that went against everything I believed and it felt like a death. I couldn’t talk about it with many people in case they thought I was crazy.

I started to see:

1. how societal indoctrination starts at age 4 when we enter the school system
2. The medical system is designed to keep us ill (did you ever heal from prescribed medication?)
3. The food sold to us in supermarket is dead, also designed to keep us ill
4. The inputs received from radio, television and advertising are designed to keep us in a state of perpetual fear (primarily the fear of death)
5. Most people trust the system and follow along because they have not yet had an intense enough/ painful experience to snap them out of it. And if they had they are not open to do the extremely painful work of looking within.

Because I saw this and didn´t accept it, I believed I had to FIGHT against it, with the result that much of my energy went on complaining and fighting rather than CREATING. 

That was an important stage in my development and I understand that when we are breaking out of one belief system we often swing to the other extreme before we find our balance – our middle ground. 

But now I have safely come out the other side and although I STILL believe much of this to be true, I am an integrated member of society and how I use this belief to drive my creations rather than hinder them, ultimately giving me MORE ENERGY, PRODUCTIVITY AND DRIVE.

Now I have reached a place where I am literally in AWE of the structured, productive system we live in.  I am so grateful for: 

1. How The System runs like clockwork
2. The sheer extent of human intelligence in the designing and upkeep of our cities
3. How technology helps me create my business, support my clients and connect with loved ones 
4. The usefulness of public transport!
5. How humans are capable of creating and producing immense wonders 

I feel gratitude to the system AND AT THE SAME TIME I believe it doesn’t have our best interests at heart. Holding both of these beliefs to be true at once allows me to:

1. make my own decisions about what is best for my health and my body
2. exercise my power to CHOOSE (even when we are made to believe there is no choice)
3. heal myself through diet (I healed my Hashimotos autoimmune disease and underactive thyroid naturally despite my doctor telling me I couldn’t)
4. Be careful of what inputs I choose to watch, read and listen to.
5. Focus my productivity into something that lights me up,  helps others & positively affects The System in which we live.

The Kabbalists say the point of spirituality is so that we can live in this material world and not only do I believe this but I am EXPERIENCING this to be true. 

Now I have come out of the other side of my dark night and am feeling HAPPY, GRATEFUL and SUPER PRODUCTIVE 🔥🔥.

I look forward to going to bed just so I can wake up the next morning feeling great and bringing into reality all my sparkly ideas. 

But most importantly I have learnt :

✨everything in moderation (including moderation)

✨never trust someone who tells you to trust them 

✨when you feel the pull to deep dive into something like plant medicine, go for it (and document your experience) but always BE AWARE OF YOUR WHY 

✨to work with the system in a way that energises me, serving both me and my clients

It’s time to ground the shit out of spirituality, my friends.

If you would like some support in integrating your Spiritual Awakening with your PRODUCTIVITY AND POTENTIAL, get in touch with me and let’s explore if we are a fit to work together.

Love from Abbey x

The post Is losing your productivity a necessary byproduct of a spiritual awakening? first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post Is losing your productivity a necessary byproduct of a spiritual awakening? appeared first on Abbey Sykes.