Latest / Project Emerald Collective / Unlocking Body Wisdom: Seasonal Living, Trauma Release & Personal Power with Diane Summers
Transcript
- Eve: Welcome to the Project Emerald Collective. I'm your host, Eve McIntyre. Every week I sit down with women who have chosen to live differently. Designers, founders, creatives, psychologists, adventurers and change makers. People asking bigger questions about how we live, work, create and connect. These conversations aren't really about fashion. They're about living with intention. finding the courage to be yourself and discovering what becomes possible when you stop living by expectation and start living by choice. If that's the kind of life you're creating too, you're in the right place. Now let's go. Eve McIntyre: Today I'm joined by the beautiful Diane Summers, who is my yoga teacher and has been for many years. And Diane has a wealth of knowledge that she shares with her students at the studio yoga love freedom and that operates out of Hobart and Flower Pot in beautiful southern Tasmania. today I can't wait to jump into the conversation that is going to unfold. we're talking today about coming home to yourself through the body nature and rituals. So Di, can start by you introducing yourself and talking us through the different hats that you wear. Diane Sumers: my name's Diane, and I'm a yoga teacher. I've been teaching yoga for about sixteen years. I started my practice with my mum when I was about 13 or 14. She took me off to the Glenorkey YMCA and we practiced yoga there for a while. I'm also a mum to three beautiful adult children and a grandmother I'm a wife and a gardener. I guess they're the hats that I mainly wear these days. Eve McIntyre: beautiful. can you chat to us about the pivotal experiences that have shaped where you're at today and where you've got to in your journey? Diane Sumers: Well, they're all pretty big. So I guess the first, well, to shape where I'm at today, I had to go through quite a a big journey and it wasn't all sunshine and rises. So I guess the first thing that actually knocked me off kilter was I was engaged to be married and my fiance died two months before our wedding. So that sent me into a complete spiral of going out nearly every night and partying very hard to just anything but face reality and through that journey I met my first husband who was a surfer and into complete and utter freedom when we hit the road and a Volkswagen, a dog, and that whole Tasmanian thing where you take off and you hit the east coast of Australia, surf your way up to the top end. And through that I met some really interesting people. I met a woman who was one of the founding members of Greenpeace Australia and she was so interesting. She taught me about crystals and talked about opening up your chakras and all this stuff and I wasn't even 20 yet. So it was all sort of really new to me. I'd been raised by my mum was an interesting character too. She was really into the time of the sixties and seventies. she used to say things to me like, you know, the pictures of angels Di with halos, did you ever think that they might be aliens so I was opened up to this sort of stuff quite young and and I was quite open and then so through that the second thing that happened was we lost our second child through SIDS and that really blew me open that was not only shattering but Psychically and my nervous system was just blown wide open. So I had quite a few different experiences that I didn't know how to explain and I didn't know how to frame. So really othery type of experiences. I mean my whole room filling up with light, having visitations, all sorts of things. I'm pretty far out there, Eve, but I just didn't know how to frame. any of this and while I was familiar with yoga I wasn't familiar with the esoteric part of yoga and how it could be made sense of. I was having all these things happen in my body that I didn't understand. moving on down the track, I met my second husband we divorced. our marriage couldn't take the griefs that happens sometimes. It'll either make it stronger or it'll just you know And so eventually I met my second husband through my younger brother, and I thought, this this has to be good. This is someone my brother knows, And he is he's a lovely human, he's very stable and a good man. and we moved to the US, he's American, and all of a sudden I was in this different land and didn't know anyone, apart from Stephen, and then my children arrived as well, and we had. our youngest together. just to be taken out of everything I'd known and placed into this such a different society. It's sort of the same as Australia, but very, very different in a lot of ways and not knowing anybody. And I found the medicine will path, the Native American path, and that sort of made so much sense to me. This indigenous path just made so much sense. So it all sort of Accumulated together when I came back to Australia. We came back to Australia and I was looking at some yoga stuff online and I found, and I don't know how I didn't hadn't come across it before, but the sutras, the yoga sutras of Patanjali, and the yamas and the niyamas are like the commandments, the precepts of yoga and They just made so much sense. And I remember reading them the first time and just crying. It was like I'd come home and it's like this, this is what I need. This is this is it. This is the study. So the actual study of yoga that I need to immerse myself in. And I jumped in and I haven't jumped out yet. it's such, it's a it's a lifetime of study. I think anybody that tells you they understand and they know everything there is to learn in yoga have no idea because it's it's lifetimes I think it's lifetimes of study. so that's how I came to be where I am through lots of big experiences and just being very very fortunate with the people that I've met along the way who've been able to ground me and really hold me and I've been so lucky that I've had people like that in my life, primarily women and still women. I don't know where I'd be without my friends. I think friends are so valuable. You can love a man with all your heart and soul but lose all your friends and see what happens. It's yeah it's it's so valuable to have good people around you, good women around you. Yeah. Well, you know, I don't think there's a human alive or a woman alive anyway that hasn't had huge issue issues. You know yourself, you travel through these really big things and it can feel so lonely. And they're big things, but they do bring you to where you are. no mud, no lotus. You know, the beautiful thing grows out of the murkiest mud. You have to be in the mud to grow up out of it and bloom. Eve McIntyre: Yeah, so true. I love that analogy. so Di, what first drew you to yoga and energy work and supporting others through the body? Diane Sumers: what drew me to yoga really was my mum taking me and I just found because I'd had childhood experiences that weren't really pleasant either. And what I found in in those classes was just such a sense of peace. Eve McIntyre: Mm-hmm. Diane Sumers: And even going through, I still find that that's the main thing I get from it is this this sense of peace. And I think in a class, when you're with other people, you're building this coherence, you're building the energy of the room. People don't come to yoga to to voice their opinion or to get on a soapbox or you know to air their grievances. They come to yoga to clear themselves and to immerse themselves in this environment. And it does build a peace. So the peace was the pull, I think, for me from the very beginning. The thing that really Prompted me to want to share the experiences that yoga had given me. not the big sort of esoteric experiences, but the grounded experiences was I became really, really unwell. I developed an autoimmune condition and I was just so burnt out. I'd I'd been going and going and going. I had other businesses and I'd push myself, children, work, everything, and I was fried and I found a branch of yoga restorative yoga and Stephen had gone back to the states for about three weeks and I practiced by myself at home twice a day every day restorative yoga and yoga nidra and through those two practices I became healthy again you know I I my nervous system restored. I don't like the term reset for a nervous system. I don't think it's accurate. I think we can nourish our nervous system and help strengthen it and restore it. But I think reset is an incorrect term. So I feel like I strengthened my nervous system. I strengthened on a cellular level through the practice of Yoga Nidra because you're withdrawing the senses. into the body. It's a very inward journey. We call it prachatara in yoga. It's the withdrawal of sense awareness back into the body or into the mind itself. And from that, when you're in that space, you can then use your awareness and your consciousness to communicate with your body and Tell your body or ask your body, and the cells listen. This is not yoga or woo-woo, this is science. Our cells listen and respond to everything that we receive, every stimuli, everything we see, sense, taste, touch, everything. We have a response in the nervous system everywhere. when you're deeply within the body and you can. Consciously communicate to the body, you are well, you are healing. That works. It works. Not once, not doing it once or twice. Like I said, I did it three weeks every day, two times a day, and I still do it. I needed to share that. That that's something, that's something that is so valuable. So as you know. You know, we do the practices that you are coming to, Eve. You've you've been to restorative yoga with me, you know, and yoga nidra, how that can work, but you've also been in quite physical classes with me. Like you're a you're you're a pretty strong human. Even at the end of those classes, we'll do a little bit of yoga nidra type stuff to bring everyone back down and back in. So it's not just about this ragistic fiery practice that you guys do. I must admit. those classes now. I I pull back from those I'm in my sixties now. I pull back from those classes a bit and I'm more about giving the instruction than actually moving along with you guys. So that that's why I needed to share. That's what brought me to sharing. Eve McIntyre: it is special and it does you can feel it restoring your body, restorative yoga and yoga nidra. for anyone that hasn't tried it, I would certainly recommend giving it a go. I love that it healed your body. That's amazing. Diane Sumers: Yeah, it's not to say that, you know, you have a condition and you get a flare or if you've got a vulnerability, if you don't look after that or you push yourself too far, whatever that vulnerability might be. It might be a sore shoulder, it might be you know, whatever. If you take yourself too far, it's going to resurface and then you have to look after yourself again. So it's an ongoing practice. Yeah. But it yeah, it it did, it healed it healed my body. Yeah. Eve McIntyre: Yeah, that's beautiful. what does living intentionally mean to you, Di? Diane Sumers: it's really quite simple, but again, it's taken this long journey to get here, like to realize what it is. So for me, living intentionally means honoring yourself. And and all these words, we hear these words all the time, living intentionally and honor yourself and all that. But what does it actually mean? For me, again, it's that connection, that inner connection, and actually. Feeling into and understanding what's required. primarily within my own body today. So the ability to say no. So okay, you know, today I feel like I want to be in the garden. The sun's out, it's cold, so I'll put a big jumper on later. but I know if I don't go into the garden today, I will have a sense of regret at the end of the day because I haven't done it. That me going into the garden that is living intentionally because instinctively and intuitively that has want that that intention is within me to go out there and do that. It might be to stick the music on, it might be to stick blondie on and jump around like a complete idiot. But if I don't do it, I haven't lived my intention for the day. It might be anything. It could be anything. It could be to spend the day in the kitchen. But to understand your intention to actually get to it, you have to be connected to yourself. It's not up here. You can have ideas up here, but unless something's embodied, unless you're embodied, you can't feel the authenticity of that intention. for me it's all through the body and the energy that the authenticity of your intention comes through because we can have intentions, but we might not know where they come from. They could be planted from the media and they might be an idea that doesn't make them an intention. And so intentionality, living that way, really does come back to an individual sense. of who and what you are. Eve McIntyre: Yeah. And going back to embodying that, how it feels in your body and listening to that is super important. So has your definition of living intentionally changed over time Diane Sumers: yeah, absolutely. it used to be An urgency. I used to feel a real urgency to get it done. and I'm not I'm not talking about the pressures of work, I'm talking about the pressures of learning my practice. So I would I would like I'd need I need to learn this. I'd there was such an urgency and it and that's dropped away. That is completely, thankfully, that has completely dropped away. I don't know whether it's My age or not having other urgent things to do or just realizing I do have a strong awareness that we will all have the time to do what it is we need to do, not what we want to do so much, but what we need to do. There will always be enough time to do what we need to do. And we need to start thinking in time in a less linear way, beginning and end and middle, and more in a circular way. Because I'll use yoga again, you know, the learning that I was doing, and I thought I'd understood that aspect, and I come around and I come round and you spiral round and there's another perspective on that aspect. You keep learning and you come around, and it gets a bit deeper or a bit lighter. This, yeah, I guess the urgency, the urgency has dropped away and and the concept of time has changed. There'll always be enough time. Even if it's not this lifetime, but that's a nice another conversation, isn't it? We might you know, we might carry it through to the next lifetime if you're that way in in belief. But Eve McIntyre: Yeah, absolutely. Diane Sumers: Yeah. Eve McIntyre: so the wisdom of our bodies is something that's fascinating me. what are some of the signs that we've become disconnected from ourselves that you're seeing in your teachings? Diane Sumers: stress. Stress is the the biggest sign that you've become disconnected from your body. Because if you were connected to your body, that stress wouldn't have room. That's the biggest sign that you're living in your head. And we've all been there. We all do it. We've all been there and done it. Injury. Injury, self-imposed injury. I injured my shoulder really strongly. And it was because I wanted to practice this strong practice. You know, I wanted to do all the chaturangas and everything because I was feeling quite strong and I knew I had that injury. And my shoulder was saying, please don't. And I'm like, no, I want to. I was quite in my ego and and wanted to do it because I wanted to feel so strong. And then I couldn't move my shoulder for three months. So there's a disconnection example. But I'd say the biggest one is stress and sadness and just a general sense of malaise, unhappiness, because the body. Like we most of us don't realise how good the body is designed to feel and how good it can feel. We sit with it and we allow it to breathe. I guess the tricky part is we have to be willing to sit with the parts that don't feel good. And I'm talking about physically. It gets interesting because you can have parts of tension. And again, we've been taught fix it or push through it. You know, take panadol so it goes away. It hasn't gone away. You've just numbed down your nervous system a bit, you know. But to actually sit with, and I'm not talking about acute pain. I'm talking, you know, I'm talking about bearable pain. Try and breathe and tell yourself. That it's sensation, it's sensation in the body. Try and neutralize the quality of it. It's sensation. Try not to use the word pain or yuck or all that. And breathe and actually take your awareness into it and feel it. And start to soften it from the inside out. If it's too painful, hold yourself on the outside and just feel from the outside and work your way in a little bit. To be able to sit with that is probably the first step. And then you'll find parts of you that feel yucky for you don't know why. You might go into the body and you know you might have a pressure here or a yucky feeling in your tummy. And you hold your awareness there. And I'm talking softly, gently, not this strong focused laser focus on something. Just be able to hold yourself there. You might find that it unfolds, you might find yourself in tears because the body holds everything. The body holds everything and it doesn't lie. So you might have had an emotional reaction to something that wasn't appropriate to release at the time, or you weren't comfortable with, or you didn't want to accept, or you just swallowed something down, and the cells have held on to it. And I know that there's an argument at the moment. It's a quite a new argument. it's always been put forward that the body keeps score, Bessel Vanderkock, and he's informed a lot of my work. And they're saying now, no, it's the brain that keeps the score. Well, to me, the brain is the body, the the brain is part of the body, and yes, but the brain feeds into the nervous system, feeds into the body, feeds, you know, so it's all in the one for me. So you hold yourself in those uncomfortable. Parts of the body, you might find something unfold. And this has happened in class so many times. Like people will be in camel where the chest is open, the heart is open, and you know, they'll just cry. Or we're doing big hip openers where the psoas is being opened. Psoas is connected to the amygdala, and the amygdala stores stress. People would just cry. Like I couldn't hold pigeon on my left side without crying for. for a long time. So we have to be able to accept that as well as being in the body and feeling all the good things. You can't have one without the other. But yeah, so even a little practice, even a small practice, like we can find three minutes, five minutes a day to begin with. And we're not talking about hard meditations or anything. Lay on the bed, Just breathe and start at your toes and feel your body. Just feel your body. Start on your skin and pull pull yourself in through your skin. Just in your hand. Just practice feeling your feelings in your body. Not your emotions in your head. Because emotions don't leave it. emotions are a reaction to a stimuli. So the emotion doesn't come first, the stimuli comes first, and then we react with an emotion. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: If we don't deal with that emotion, that's what gets stored. And then we build a story around the thought or the reaction. The thought is the reaction to the stimuli. And then the then the emotion is built on that. We can clear that in eight seconds. That's been proven. You can clear a thought in eight seconds. What we do with that thought. So if you said something mean to me, you say Diane, your glasses are revolting. I've got a choice then. I can go, that's Eve talking through her lens about my glasses, whatever. Or I can go, she's so mean. And why is she so mean to me? And my glasses are really nice. And I love my glasses. Well, do I? Are they yucky? And like I can start building and then. Who else said horrible things about me all through back through history? And that is building, that's building. I can feel it in my smaller plexus getting tight. or you can just realize what's happening, feel, but you've got to feel the emotion, you've got to feel that energy and let it pass through you. Because if you don't, it's gonna get stuck in you. Do a nidra. Do a yoga nidra. it's a really nice entrance into the body. Eve McIntyre: it makes sense that emotions are energy in motion. So they need to be felt and released. what is the body trying to communicate generally when we learn to slow down and listen? Diane Sumers: Depends on the person. It can wow, it can be anything from a physical need us interpreting thirst as hunger because we haven't really tapped into what being thirsty feels like. We recognize what thirsty is when our tongue gets dry or our throat gets dry or our mouth is a bit dry and we might feel it a little bit in the head that we we're thirsty. But those signals, hunger and thirst, are so close together, but we're so used to eating. Most of the time, we're thirsty, we're not hungry. Most people in the West, unless they're in very dire circumstances, aren't hungry. We're thirsty, we're all dehydrated. so it can be as as as you know, physical as the body trying to tell you you're thirsty. Or it can be as incredible as Your body wanting you to do something like this because your heart center just needs a little prompting to open up a little more. It can be your body. Wanting you to move, usually it's wanting you to move in certain ways. to either bring an energy up or to release an energy, it can be the body wanting you to breathe in a certain way so that you can obtain more energy in the body through the breath or to clear the head. It really does depend on the person, it can be the body. saying you need to lay down and rest or you need to get up and move and go for a walk. It depends on the person and the and the circumstances of their life at the time. Eve McIntyre: I guess having that strong connection, makes it easier to realize what you need at the time. Diane Sumers: And what we need to be able to obtain that is privacy and quiet and time. Eve McIntyre: Yeah. Diane Sumers: And that's what I see with my youngest daughter what I see with women in those age groups and up. Is they don't have time. They don't create the space. Just my and I'm not talking about everyone, of course, but that space needs to create be created. Women need to be able to step outside their family and work commitments and responsibilities and be responsible toward themselves and tend to themselves in the same way that they tend to their family. Because when the woman falls down in the family, the family falls apart. it's that simple. Like fathers, men have their role in the family and they do a fine job. But when the woman falls apart, the family suffers. We need to be able to take ourselves away even even ten, fifteen minutes in a day, it's not too much to ask. Kids have to be somewhere else. And whatever it is, if it's lighting a candle, if it's just sitting with yourself, if it's crying, if it's getting some oil, and we did this at circle, rub, rub it onto your feet. There's a nice way to get into the body. Avahanga, the the Ayurvedic practice of self-massage. Just nurture yourself. Just rub rub wrap yourself up in a blanket and pull it over your head if that's what you need to do. But we need privacy and we need time. Women need that. As much as we need each other, we need that. Eve McIntyre: that was a beautiful practice actually to get into the body. So highly recommend that. What does feel like to come back into the body? Diane Sumers: It can feel anything from coming home to extremely confronting. and I can only talk for myself, but there have been times when I haven't wanted to be in my body at all. So I've disassociated and you know that's really not uncommon in women. Through all sorts of experiences. even things like anger, we're so used to anger not being accepted, and that feeling of anger in the body is powerful. when that emotion comes in, it is powerful and it can make you move mountains. But held anger, anger that's old, anger that's hasn't been dealt with, that hasn't had an outlet, can feel so awful, so awful. And you don't realise what it is until you go in there and it's a horrible thing to have to clear. I don't think any amount of talk therapy can get to that. That's my opinion, can really resolve that. you can't talk your way out of that strong sort of emotion that's trapped that's within you that's making you just want to punch the next person that walks past you you're angry with your family and you're angry with the world that's a hard thing to come into the body and deal with that's really hard or it can feel like The best thing ever. I've stood in the supermarket and it's just been crazy and you can feel the energy, sometimes people are busy, people are impatient. there's a long line. And I've been able to just breathe and semi-close your eyes. It's called a drishy. So the drishi is the gaze and you can hold your drishy anywhere. Just lower the eyes down a bit, find somewhere on the floor and then just blur your gaze out. Breathe and come into the body and it's the happiest place and nothing out here matters. People are doing what they're doing, nothing out here matters. Eve McIntyre: Mm-hmm. Diane Sumers: That's a beautiful way to be. And the experiences like do an do a yoga nidra by yourself. Do a yoga nidra by yourself and hang out in the body sometimes. It's amazing. Okay, so the most familiar energy in the body, We've all experienced sexual energy. We know that's an energy. It's in the body. It's created through energy. So we've all felt the the thump in the heart, it's an energy. The lump in the throat is an energy. that tightness in the gut or the punch in the gut, it's an energy. It's all within the body. So we can come home into the body in lots of different ways. We can come into the body. It can feel, what does it feel like to come back into the body? Depends on the person and the time and the circumstance. It can feel like anything. Eve McIntyre: it's just important to allow yourself the space and the time to feel that energy and if it's not serving you to release it. Diane Sumers: I like this practice. we've got the palm of the hand, and you know what it is to touch a loved one's cheek and the way we feel it, or a child, or a pet, you know, a loved furry creature. We rub stuff onto ourselves. Take that palm of the hand and be aware what's underneath it. Eve McIntyre: Mm-hmm. Diane Sumers: Feel your own. Limb. Feel your limb receiving the touch of your own caring hand. Like have your intention of care in your hand. hold yourself, just your limb, and intend that care, put that care to that arm, and then have your mind in the arm. How does it feel to receive that? Take some time, take some time. That'll give you an idea of what it feels like to be in the body. Because your heart will start to open to it. Your whole body will start to receive. Your mind acknowledges, your brain acknowledges what you're doing. Your brain is processing care. You know, self-care. You've got to have intention back to intention with self-care. It's not just sitting in a bubble bath. You've got to have intention with self-care. Once you have that intention, then the brain has processed intention not only through the thought of intention, the sense of touch, the receiving of touch, then that's processed through the whole body. Eve McIntyre: Mm-hmm. Diane Sumers: So back to intention. Eve McIntyre: touching on yoga and presence and our inner connection. why do you think so many people feel called to yoga to begin with? Diane Sumers: Different reasons. I think some people come for the fitness aspect. It was promoted very, very, very strongly through the nineties and two thousands, I guess, and on as something to give you the yoga body, which is just insane. other people have come to it as a last resort with their health, that they've tried everything else. And the doctor might have suggested, try yoga for your blood pressure or something like that. Some people come for community, other people are coming for the meditative aspect and for the philosophical aspect of yoga, the deeper practices. lots of different reasons. And I just want to touch on that yoga body. If you're practicing yoga, you have a yoga body. Eve McIntyre: it does have those benefits of keeping you fit, but it's got so many benefits mind, body and spirit. Diane Sumers: in the texts especially in the sutras, I think asana, which are the poses, are mentioned eight times, eight times in total in the practice of yoga. Like it's a minimal branch. Eve McIntyre: how does yoga help us to move beyond thinking and into feeling? Diane Sumers: Moving beyond. The dross of day-to-day living. there's a beautiful quote out of the Bhagavad Gita, and it is Yoga is the practice of the self with a little s. So the self through the self with a little s. So through the body and through the mind to the self, capital S. So to our higher self. so it does help us move beyond the mundane and into a higher reality, and that higher reality is spirituality, and when we can bring spirituality, and I'm not talking about religion, spirituality into our day-to-day life, our life becomes richer. And richer and richer. We learn how to accept others for who they are, and this has been one of the hardest lessons for me. And I'm just now understanding how to really put it into practice. How to accept others' behavior without It being something that affects your energy. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: And the way we do that is to understand that every single person on this planet came to this planet with their own lessons to learn. They came through their own filter, their own way they were raised, their own lessons and traumas that they've lived through. They have preferences. And so when, and again, that thing say somebody says something mean to you, they're talking through their experiences. So if you look at it from a spiritual point of view, you have to then step back and you have to say, and this is from the Brahmakumaras Rajoga teachings, this is a soul on a journey. I'm a soul on a journey. I can respond by thinking negatively about them and what they said, or I can send them a blessing. I can actually say at that time when they're mean to me, I can feel it. Breathe and go. My thought form is: you are a divine soul on a journey. What they said is is personality. It's not who they are. What they were saying to me. Was directed My personality, I'm a soul on a journey, you're a soul on a journey. So we have to get higher out of the personality, more into a spiritual way of seeing other people and the world in order to create some more peace on this planet, because we're being fed stuff to trigger us into anger and reactivity every single day. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: And unless we can look at it through a different frame. what we're going to put out so thought is like thought is powerful consciousness is the most powerful thing on the planet everything that you can see that's man-made was a thought Eve McIntyre: Yeah. Diane Sumers: everything that you can see in nature to begin with was a vibration now we can go back and forth on what what created that vibration the power of our Consciousness is huge. So we can diffuse things, we can be that peace. We can build that peace. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: We can react and we can keep rubbish going. It's it's yeah, so I think coming back to the to the question, I think yoga has that capacity to bring us out of that and bring us into a more spiritual. mindset and not only that bring that spirituality into every day-to-day existence because it's one thing to be spiritual and and try and keep your mind up here and then it's another thing to have to go and live it and be in confrontation and put that into practice. So yoga shows us a way to be able to put that into practice. Eve McIntyre: Mm, yeah, absolutely. and it does help with your reactions, I've found as well. So you're not reacting. Diane Sumers: Yeah. But then we get back to okay, you didn't react, but what did you do with what you felt? So you're only human. So if you did feel something yucky, then you do really need to go and go either scream in a pillow or breathe or move or shake. Dancing's a really good way to get, it out. Eve McIntyre: that's true. I love that you're so knowledgeable about nature and seasons and ritual, what can nature teach us about how to live? Diane Sumers: Okay, so firstly I do have to say my knowledges come from others and I have a very dear friend, Jane Anderson, who ran women's circles for a long time and teaches the medicine path and shamanic studies. So I do have to credit Jane with that and my friends, who are all very nature based. But what I think nature can teach us, I was lucky, I was really lucky. So my grandparents had a little bit of a farm in the Durant Valley, I was always in nature, I was lucky, very fortunate. it can teach us how to move, it teaches us how to how to be. all we have to do is look at the seasons. in summer, what's happening? The plants are in full expression, the fruits out, the flowers are out, everything's vibrating, it's alive, it's a young season. And so that's our time to be energetic, to be big, to be out, everything's High energy. And then we come into autumn. What's nature doing? The roots are going down. The trees are putting their roots down, or the roots are down, but they're drawing nutrients up. And they're drawing their stores up in preparation for winter. They're dropping what they don't need. They're dropping those leaves down. It's our time to start thinking about what it is we need. It's a yin-yang season, so it's still young, but we're coming into yin, the deeper, quieter seasons. So we can start to think about what it is we need to nurture. We've come out of this big summer energy burning season. So we've burnt through a lot of energy in summer. We're really active. So now what do we need? replenish ourselves you know we start thinking about the food that we want maybe a bit more slow cooked maybe calming down a bit gathering the stores you know letting go letting go of what we don't need that's a great thing in autumn think about what it is you don't want to carry through winter because winter's dormancy winter's quiet winter's yard completely yeah so we're all quiet So in that dormancy, in those seasons of winter, what do you want to, what do you want to have carried with you? What do you want to be nurturing in winter? You want to have let go of the issues or tried to let go of the issues that are causing you trouble. You don't want to be carrying that through into winter because winter's the moment. You're going to be sitting with that for a long time. So, and then we come to winter and it is this. Deep nurture, it's stillness, it's warmth, it's the fire, we look outside and okay, the sun's shining, but there's this quality of Deep yin and yin is the feminine, it's the depth that's the feminine. And so we can go inside, we can go really deeply inside ourselves and think about what it is and feel what it is to be a woman, to be a mother, to be a grandmother, to be a a woman without children, to be a crone, to be a maiden. Whatever you are. It's that time of feeling. And then we come out of winter and we're into spring. And spring is when things start to bud and things, the crocases and things start to come out of the ground, and we emerge from winter and we've sat with ourselves and we've let go in autumn. We've sat with ourselves, we've nourished ourselves, we've eaten all the know the slow cooked and the root veggies and and all that stuff and we sat by the fire and we've played board games with the kids we've nurtured the family and we come out moon spring and it's like now projects can get born. what do I want to be in the world? What do I want to see in the world? What can I bring into the world? What can I bring into life? What can I bring into life in spring. So nature, nature teaches us everything about how to be. Everything. Yeah. And when you think about we are nature, we're not part of nature. We are nature. our water in our bodies is no different than the water. in the rivers. The minerals that are in the rocks, the fire in our belly and the air. We're breathing the air in I breathe in. And then I breathe out and I feed my beautiful monsteria and it breathes out and feeds me. we're not part of nature, we are nature, we have the extra blessing of being part of the stars as well. We've got minerals from the stars in our bodies as well. it's an amazing thing, it's amazing, and the more we look at The body and the world, and the more we look at the new sciences of quantum biology, Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: it is fascinating. Like the role that the sun plays in the photons that it sends down, how it interacts with the photons in our bodies and the excited electrons in our bodies to create energy and energy fields. Quantum biology is the medicine of our time. So, you know, once upon a time it was all mechanical medicine and then it became chemical medicine when we discovered hormones and all that sort of stuff. And we've sort of been stuck in that for a long time. And now we have quantum biology and it is just it's a game changer. It it gives it gives credit and validity to terms like the energy body. And you know, I've the West needs things like validity when talking about chakras and things like that. The Western mind typically needs some t sort of scientific validity to grasp it. And that's what quantum biology is doing. Eve McIntyre: Amazing. Sounds so fascinating. I need to read up on that. is it so important to live in rhythm with the seasons rather than constantly pushing forward? Diane Sumers: Well, for women it's crucial because we're talking about qi and blood. So in traditional Chinese medicine, the concept of qi and blood, we're pretty familiar with qi as energy because these are the terms that the West has used and and we see it. build your qi, build your energy and all that sort of thing. For women, it's more important to build blood. Blood is your strength. And we lose blood throughout our lives through menstruation and birth. and we deplete it. And then we get into menopause and it's a whole nother thing. If we're if we work against the seasons It doesn't take much to imagine what would happen if you made yourself really withdrawn and quiet and still. in the big summer months you wouldn't feel good Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: you wouldn't feel good the same as if you wouldn't you don't feel good and and that's this is where women have really become depleted we have pushed through winter we have pushed through autumn it's not good for us men are different men are different men are designed differently they can they they actually become stronger we don't we don't we deplete We deplete so quickly, especially in the winter. And there are ways, and I'm not saying don't do anything in the winter. I one of my friends is amazing. She's amazing. She's probably out there rowing on the hewn at the moment. But she will be inside by about three or four o'clock with her woolly clothes on, with something spicy and nourishing on the stove, and a book. And and taking deep care of herself after doing something like that. I'm talking about the women that are getting dressed at 6 30 and getting up at six in the morning, getting dressed, getting breakfast on the table, getting kids to school, then getting themselves to work, working all day long, getting home. Kids have probably been in daycare, getting home, having to get the kids home, get dinner on, watching some TV while you're eating dinner. And then falling into bed at half past ten, eleven to start all over again the next day. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: You might cope with that in the summer. Because again, we're connected. We're connected to the sun. We're connected to the energies of the planet. In the winter, that's not there. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: And we should be inside by dark. We shouldn't be outside. We shouldn't be in an office or or in a place of work under electric lights just because we can turn the light on. It's dark out there. You should be home. And I know that's a really idealistic way of living, but that's the reality. That's how we become stronger by honoring nature's cycle. Pushing through is depletion and especially during the yin months. Eve McIntyre: I love your rituals why do they matter so much in modern life, do you think? Diane Sumers: They create time to pause and to bring us back to the realities of being a human being. So We're still pretty much the same human beings. We have the same amygdala that we've always had. You know, we've evolved in different ways, but we're still the same sort of human beings that we were, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago. these rituals are thousands and thousands of years old as well, and they're global, like the solstice isn't just you know Celtic or Nordic or they they honor the solstice in in Asia as well. lots of cultures, most cultures, they create a time to pause and reconnect with the earth and what we are as humans and we know intrinsically, instinctively these things. That's why it feels good to do it. There's a term, I don't know if you're familiar with it, Luddite, and it was used as a bit of a cut on people that don't like to go along with the times changing. Like, you know, I've been called a technological Luddite. The term came about with the birth of the industrial age. At the same time, the the electric light was invented, and the electric light was put into the factories. And there was a gentleman named Ludd. And what he noticed in his village were people were he was in England and the people were leaving the villages to go into places like London and earn money. And then they were coming they were leaving in the in the dark and they were coming home in the dark. And what he noticed was all these skills in the village were falling away, like the blacksmith the same stress, the what have you. the village was falling apart as well. Like it wasn't holding together. And it was because the electric light had been put in factories. people were just going and coming in the dark. And so he wrote to Parliament and industry and asked for the hours to be changed and to the lights to be turned off. And that's where the term Luddite came about. But pre all that ritual was part of everyday life like people in in communities would get together and celebrate solstice and honor it celebrate harvest and honor it celebrate women and men coming of age and honor it all sorts of things how fun was Willie Smith's midwinter festival imagine that was our village we're all out having fun and sharing, you know, the dark and the fire and the whassel and it was fantastic. And so that would be part of every village, to mark important times in the in the calendar. Eve McIntyre: Tasmania does do that well actually, marking the seasons I've found and especially Steiner education, which I've been really impressed with. so can you chat to us about your favourite winter rituals? Diane Sumers: my favorite well the everyday ritual is parking parking myself on the fire hearth and playing with my fire. and I can do that for ages, sometimes to the annoyance of my partner, because he'll set the fire and get it going and then I come in behind him and adjust it and make it different. I love cooking. I've found a real joy in it. just taking the time and this is really important too. So when you're cooking, so have everything ready. Don't ever cook with the news on or angry or gossiping or anything like that because the energy will go into your food. That's Eve McIntyre: Yeah. Diane Sumers: honestly it will. And then you feed it to yourself and your family. So I like to put on some nice music, like to put on a bit of Palo Santo or some incense or something and just make a time of it. So see that urgency that I would have had once upon a time to get it done. Get it done because there's something else to do, that's gone. Now it's cooking day. That's all it is. Saturday's cooking day, nothing else, especially in the winter. And I can do that because I'm lucky now. You know, I'm in a space now, I can just do that. other winter rituals. I will actually do a bayanga self-massage. I sit in my room and I'll light a candle. I have a little my bedroom's quite cold, so I'll put a little heater on in my some music and I'll just spend a lot of time on my hands, my feet, my arms, my leg, my face, my both my legs, my head. I'll get oil into the hair. And so I'll spend time doing that. I really and I feel so nurtured doing that. The garden for me is is a real source of solace. I love it out there, but you've got to get so rubbed up in Tassie. I can sit out there and play in the dirt, I've done the big weedings and all that. That got done. So now in winter all it is is picking out those few weeds that came through and they're everyday sort of rituals, but they do bring me back to myself and they do bring me back to the seas. And sitting outside, at night time rugged up, it's not one I do a lot of, but when I do do it, that's really beautiful. And just realizing that we're on this planet. That has now tilted itself a little bit away from the sun. You know, that's why that's why it's winter. And and we're in this system, this solar system. And we're just I'm sitting on this this celestial orb that's moving around and other celestial orbs are moving around. And it's just, I don't know, it just takes you out. Like that's reality. That's not out there anything. That's reality. I am sitting on this orb that's moving around, this system with other orbs moving around or having a gravitational pull on each other. That's reality. So it's good to put your head back into the reality of reality rather than social reality and contrived reality and conditioned reality because those things have had control of us for far too long. Eve McIntyre: Mm, absolutely. what do you notice in women who are feeling stretched in many directions? How can we practice presence? Diane Sumers: I feel like for women that are stretched in many directions, giving them something else to think about is kind of productive. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: So even that even that aspect of okay, here's how you practice presence, it's something else to do. I think first and foremost would be create that five, ten, fifteen minutes for yourself. privacy just to be able to either like and you might sit there going you know in the beginning that that might be the reality to get through to be able to sit for 15 minutes and just go you know to become to come back to presence everything is coming back to yourself everything is coming back to accepting what you feel, being able to accept what you feel at the moment. So if you are feeling stretched and tense, you have to accept that you're feeling stretched and tense. You have to accept that. You can't go, nope, I've got this to do. Nope, I can't, I'm not, nope, I'm okay. I'm okay. I shouldn't feel this way. That's the most cruel thing. This this idea that I shouldn't feel this way, I should be able to cope with all this. That is the biggest lie and the cruelest thing. And I feel so sad and sorry for women that are in that state because I've been in that state for I was in that state for many years. It is awful. It is cruel and it's not fair. It's not fair to anyone. To say this is what you have to do to be present, I think is just giving someone who's already stretched another thing to have to do. I would suggest carve out five, ten, fifteen minutes. And you might feel bored. Boredom is a really common one. You might feel lost. You might think this is stupid. I don't know what to do. Make yourself stay by yourself. Private. Five, 10, 15 minutes, whatever you can manage. Get through it. until you can get to it, until you can get to a sense of first relief Eve McIntyre: Mm-hmm. Diane Sumers: and then maybe release and then maybe home and peace and calm. It's not an instantaneous thing. it doesn't happen overnight. But unless you're willing to, honor yourself. And your own integrity. Then It's not gonna happen. And it does fall into things like integrity and dignity. Because being stretched and being being like that, you will lose your dignity. You will lose your dignity as a woman because you will become a frazzled Harrodin. You will. And then then then you've just got a guilt trip to deal with. Eve McIntyre: the can just gets kicked further down the road. You just gotta deal with it when it became becomes bigger and bigger. something I wish I had a learned y ages ago. Diane Sumers: we should have been taught as and again it comes back to the village of women. We should have been surrounded by women going through all these different stages organically, like we were once upon a time, you know, and and then we would have had the grace to and the strength to be able to stand and be what we are, I think the most important thing is carve out some private time for women. in the world today and see where that takes It's a journey. It really is. It really is. Eve McIntyre: Mm, absolutely. So, what advice would you give to your younger self, Di? Diane Sumers: How young is? Eve McIntyre: g any whatever comes to mind. Diane Sumers: Okay, so my my my little self, I'd say speak up and speak loud. my teenage self, I say it doesn't matter what they think, late teens, early twenties would be slow down and feel this, get some help. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: my 30s, slow down, get some help. 40s, slow down, get some help. Your instincts are spot on. Your intuition is spot on. You know exactly what you need and give it to yourself. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: I think that that would be it. You know what you need. Give it to yourself. Yeah. Eve McIntyre: I love that. this podcast is all about taking your power back as a female. And what does that mean to you? Diane Sumers: Once upon a time it would have meant standing my ground no matter what. Taking my power back now at this age means knowing what will deplete me and not doing anything that's going to rob me of my energy My strength or my integrity because it doesn't matter what the issue is or who it is, if you're going to allow yourself to be robbed of your energy and your strength and your integrity, then What's the point? What's the point? You're of no use to anyone. You're of no use to anyone once those things have gone. So taking my strength back means knowing what things will do that to me and not allowing those things to affect me. And that's again coming back, on lots of levels, like the energetic or the physical stuff. I know what will deplete me. I know how I need to nurture myself. I've learnt. And I do those things. I do those things, they're non-negotiable things. there's people that believe breakfast's not necessary and fasting's a good thing and all the rest. Okay, for you, for me, I eat a breakfast, a cooked breakfast. I have stew for breakfast, I have curries for breakfast, I I eat like dinner for breakfast, and then for Dinner, I might have fried banana and sesame seeds with yogurt or something, you know. That's my tea. So I know, and these are non-negotiable things. I won't argue anymore. I will not. And that's where this beauty of spirituality has come in in action, where I am able to look at that other person and go, soul on a journey, living through your own sand scars. their patterns in the brain. That's not me, and I can actually send you a blessing. So, because the first person to receive a blessing when you offer a blessing is yourself, because your mind, your thought is a blessing. The closest thing to your body, the closest thing to you is your mind. It's your mind. So what is going in your mind is going in your body. So when you offer a blessing and understanding, you're the first one to receive that. It's the closest thing to you. That's what's vibrating through your system. If you react in an argument, what's vibrating through your system? Anger, fear, violence, frustration? I want that in my system. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: A long time to be able to implement that. But I feel like I've got that now, which I'm I'm so thankful for. So that's a non-negotiable. yeah, think those sort of things. Eve McIntyre: beautiful. what is one conscious choice women can make this week to feel more connected to themselves? Diane Sumers: Time time, privacy, Feel what it is you need and make a move to do that. And I'm not talking like the big things like I need to move house. I'm talking about I need to lay down, I need to go for a walk, I I need to sing, I need to shout, I need to whatever. One thing back to that private time. Private time so that you can figure it out. Figure it out. What is what is that one thing that you need? first and foremost, you need space away from everything else that's drawing you in a thousand different directions to find out what that thing is. Yeah. Eve McIntyre: Mm. Diane Sumers: That's what I'd say. Time and space. Yeah. Eve McIntyre: Thank you so much, Dive. Love this conversation. You've got so much wisdom to share. Diane Sumers: I'm lucky. I have been fed wisdom by very wise people and those wise people are still in my life so I'm very very very blessed and thank you for your energy it's always such a joy to have you in company Yeah. Eve: Before we finish I'd love to leave you with one question. When did you last feel like most like yourself? Not the version shaped by expectations, deadlines, or everyone else's opinions, but the real you. Maybe that's something worth sitting with this week. If today's conversation has resonated with you, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing the episode with someone who may need to hear it. Every share helps us reach more people and grow a community that's choosing to live with greater intention. Until next time, remember, take your power back, one conscious choice at a time. I'll see you in the next episode.