Welcome to Inner Source.
A place to explore what it means to be you and make it lighter to live there.
Welcome all curious souls to Inner Source, my little corner where I write and my meditation & mentoring community.
Here I share my thoughts and ponderings on living in this world when sometimes it feels hard to truly be yourself and understand where that meets those around you and the wider world.
Inner Source wishes to honour that we are the authority on ourselves and explores what it means to be you. If we are to embrace and enact our authentic selves, it is within us to tease out the threads and weave them into an expansive path for life.
Life is full of contrasts and all the hues in between. However hard it can feel, sometimes we need to turn the coin over to see the other side to realise we cannot always have one without the other.
Still Point, my Meditation Circle, offers a space for paid subscribers, where we can gather together to develop our meditation practice and return to the quiet, centred place within ourselves. Through guided practice and shared reflections, I hope we can explore the path of heartfulness and connection in the stillness.
I believe when we return to this place and develop a clearer understanding of our inner landscape, we feel able to face life's challenges with fresh perspective and clarity.
Then maybe this adventure that is life can be just that - an adventure.
If you are looking for exploration of how we end up as 50, 40 or even 30 somethings having perhaps lost part of ourselves along the way, then I hope my musings may strike a chord.
We’re active people with lives busier than we would want, spinning too many plates and frequently smashing the one with our own name on it.
I invite you to pause, take a breath and make some space for stillness to feel your entire body and all the powerful things it has to say.
My own deeper self enquiry began while living through a lobular breast cancer diagnosis and treatment during the COVID pandemic. I see myself and the world through a different lens now. Other life events inevitably continue to shape and colour my view, not least my youngest child coming out as transgender, the death of my estranged father and my eldest leaving home for university - all in the space of less than a year. I am constantly learning how to absorb and make meaning of the lessons they bring.
Since making meditation practice part of my life I am finding a gentler, calmer path to tread and it is this I wish to share with you. As I continue to explore and gather more knowledge I peel away another layer to bring me closer to the essence of who I am - my source.
What is in ‘Inner Source’
Free Subscribers will get regular posts - personal essays, poems and ideas which tentatively hang under the banners of:
Understanding, accepting and loving ourselves for who we are and making it feel more effortless to live there.
How meditation and breathwork are such gentle yet powerful tools to find stillness and calm, not simply in the moment but in every aspect of life and interactions with others.
When we pay more attention and listen to our body - it tells us what we need (I am a physio too so I dig deeper into physiology and neuroscience at times)
How writing can open up endless possibilities for awareness of the world right there in front of us when we care to stop and pay attention.
All the ways I try (and sometimes fail!) to add structure to my day with routines, rituals and habits - something I like to call ‘The art of daily living’
Life is varied and intriguing so it is quite likely I will write about many other topics too so I thought it best to share a few posts to give you a flavour:
Gathering in community and pride
NEW for the Autumn
There will be Curiosity & Contentment droplets at the end of posts including:
Something I’ve learnt recently - a new revelation, discovery, interesting fact or maybe something I should have known already!
What is making the cogs of my brain whirr in curiosity or slow down with contentment from what I am currently reading, listening to or watching.
Who or what has peaked my interest on Substack
A contentment moment which made me smile.
Paid Subscribers (£7 a month or £75 a year)
For less than the price of a hot drink for you and a friend, when you upgrade you will become part of the Still Point where we explore questions on life, ourselves and engage with other like-minded curious souls.
When you upgrade to paid you will get
Invitations to my monthly Meditation Circle (online) which offers a place for people (with or without previous experience of mediation) to learn more about how I approach meditation and take part in a live practice together to cultivate stillness, allowing and heartfulness.
Access to the Seasonal Mentoring Group to explore questions we can use meditation to help us answer with the opportunity to ask questions about whatever is on your mind.
Weekly Curiosity and Contentment self enquiry prompts to guide you on the journey to your personal Inner Source.
Access to my full archive
Chat within the community (if you want it) where I will be active three days of the week.
Other paid-subscriber benefits include discounts on my online live Yoga classes, On-demand Yoga Class & Tutorials Library and Breathwork workshops.
In addition annual subscribers get
A free, signed copy of my memoir The Space Between: Breast cancer & finding me (some restrictions may apply depending on country)
By upgrading you are also supporting my writing both on and off Substack ( my current book in progress is about my experience as the mum of a transgender child) so I offer the deepest gratitude from myself, my family and those I hope benefit from my words.
Founding Members (£250)
All of the above plus
A 90 minute 1:1 mentoring session to explore what you are trying to get closer to in life and how you might use meditation and other practices to guide you
Complimentary access to my online Breathing Space and Calm Space workshops to introduce you to breath work and support you in building your own daily practice.
I hope you too will find the joy and insight from having a meditation practice in your life and both Inner Source and Still Point can play some small part in that 🙏🏻
Why subscribe to Inner Source?
One of the most precious things that came from self-publishing my memoir The Space Between: Breast cancer & finding me was when readers saw beyond the recounting of my cancer experience and reached out to share that my words had served as an invitation to consider aspects in their own lives they felt needed greater attention.
I cannot change my story, I can only start from where I am.
To make meaning out of the suffering I want to serve others to help them perhaps reconnect with who they are and the life they really want without needing the catalyst of a life-threatening illness.
If you sense the forgotten or overlooked parts of you concealed in dark corners and you’re ready to ask the questions about who you are, how you can live and make every day matter in some small way - then there may be something in my words to nudge you forward.
Why upgrade to be part of Still Point?
If you even like the idea of trying meditation, trying again or trying a different approach upgrade to join Still Point.
Following through on our best intentions to try something different can be really hard without support.
Struggling to make time and stick with good habits rather than being distracted by the noise of the world is something we can all relate to.
Become part of a community of other people inquisitive about their lives, sharing common challenges in our day as we gather together in a safe space to help bring about change.
Still Point offers a complementary place alongside my writing to connect with other like- minded souls and explore the gift that meditation can be in our lives and how it alters our real life experience beyond the calmness of practice
About Me
I am a writer, mentor, meditation & yoga teacher with two amazing (almost) grown-up children, a loving husband and my adorable labradoodle, Jess. I love to walk, read, weight train, swim and practice yoga.
However this is also me ….
A perpetual busy person, energetically resilient but often exhausted trying to keep up with my own enthusiasm and passions. Constantly optimistic about what can fit into a day, cutting it fine right to the very last minute and thinking too much about too many things.
Moving my work onto Substack feels like a positive step to minimise the noise and focus on the important, fulfilling elements of running an online business and serving a community.
Writing and teaching sees me at at least reinvention number three.
Poor mental health - stress and depression - led me to leave my first career as a systems engineer in corporate sales, returning to university to study Physiotherapy and eventually setting up my own private clinic. I often say wherever we go, we take ourselves with us and despite finding a profession that had true, intrinsic value and was incredibly rewarding, the stress of running a small business too often overshadowed the enjoyment of being with my clients and helping them work through their problems. The COVID pandemic came and hot on its heels, my lobular breast cancer diagnosis, bringing it all to a resounding halt.
This gave me an opportunity to reassess.
All the values I claimed I wanted to live by were in fact in shreds on the cutting room floor, cast aside as the scissors cut out a pattern for my life based on continually striving for success.
Having cancer has inevitably changed my perspective and it is an ongoing exploration to feel more at home with myself. As part of my recovery I overhauled my diet, gave up alcohol, sold my business, vowed to make my life more simple and find a moment of joy every single day.
My passion is for life and for living, for being ourselves with all our faults and flaws and for accepting other people as they are.
The search for self compassion and compassion for others is never more true than in my work as an ally and activist here in the UK for transgender rights. My youngest child came out as transgender a few years ago. Being present for her, my elder son and husband is what truly matters to me.
Being a writer, meditator and activist is not where I expected to be in the second half century of my life, but here we are. I intend to make the most of it and I want to use all that I’ve learnt and all that I am currently experiencing to help other people.
The joy of living and being curious, compassionate and finding contentment in this adventure called life 🙏🏻
with gratitude
Jacqui xx
