I’ve learned a lot about how I handle grief over this last couple of weeks. I have realised that the depth of my pain is something I would prefer to move past with speed in order to get to the point of the pain, the point of the message, the point of the loss that I feel so greatly.

Just a short ten days ago I lost a teacher. She died at the young age of 41 and in the brief time of her life in this realm she delivered a depth and quality of work that most of us will only dream of. 

I am trying to not to be devastated by the loss of her and to cut to get to the point of the pain, to cut to the message and to understand the point of this loss  and more so, the point of this path I crossed with one who moved me so much, who I got to work with for such a few short precious moments.

Meeting Guru Jagat was all the things that meeting a great teacher should be (at least for me). She was confronting and her tenacity jarred in ways that I realised, way before I started working with her, were precisely because I wanted to be more like her. 

I had to work through my resistance to some of her words, through some of her ways, through things that were not anything to do with her but everything to do with my judgments about myself, being a woman of substance and sovereignty and true power in this world and keeping the f**k up.

She made me feel like I was not keeping up and it pissed me off at first. Who was this loud mouthed spiritual teacher with punk rock vibes, incredible presence, utter radiance with humour wit and great, great intelligence to make me feel like I should keep up?

But everything about her was who she was to tell me to keep up and she was so right to. 

I joined Guru Jagat’s women’s programme this year. This was for several reasons. I am a firm believer that women need community. It is one of the reasons that I have hosted women’s groups, courses and spaces since 2014. I am in three women’s groups at the moment and they all tend to different areas of my growth. Guru Jagat’s programme was the programme I knew I needed to accelerate my spiritual practice and therefore my work in all domains of life. 

In our first session together she put us into smaller groups - these were our councils. My council is an extraordinary group of incredible souls who I will be forever grateful to Guru Jagat for placing across my path.

Every time there was an opportunity to join a class with Guru Jagat, I joined online. Every day during my morning walk I listened to her teachings. Her words accompanied me at some point in every day through mundane tasks and on the yoga mat. 

‘Do your best. Do your best. Keep up.’

She reminded me that I have huge things to deliver in this life. Teachings that came with me from the last I think. She wanted me and all of her students to prepare meticulously to deliver our work through conscious spiritual practice, through showing up and through industry all delivered with creative flourish. Although I knew this before I met her she has gifted me a fire behind my intentions that I will be forever grateful for. 

I am so sad that I didn’t know her for longer. I so wish I had had her guidance and wisdom and laughter around me for much, much longer. 

On the precipice of delivering what I was put on the planet to do I was so happy to find her, was so happy to find a teacher. In Guru Jagat and her teachings I understood why we all of us throughout our lives need great teachers. We are not here to float about in this existence hoping for the best. We are here to deliver something. Something profound that we and only we can offer up. Teachers are vital and not just because we are empty vessels in need of new learnings. Rather, because we come with offerings and our teachers bear witness to these offerings and propel us towards that destiny with full hearts and knowing smiles and the utter confidence that we will get this done..

As I try to get to the point of the pain, the point of the message, the point of the loss that I feel so greatly I find myself leaning into practices and community that without Guru Jagat I would not have. As her student my job is to do my best now and to keep up, for heaven’s sake keep up with her, with the radiance of magnificent women like her in my lineage and great women who I am yet to meet.

My annual women’s leadership programme ‘Sovereign Woman’ will start again in January 2022 and this programme as well as the book I am currently writing are forged in the fire of my creativity and now touched so deeply - with such immense grace by the power and influence of my teachers’s often uttered words, ‘Do your best, keep up, I believe in you greatly.’

I am looking forward to meeting so many of you within the container of Sovereign Woman, offering teachings to so many of you and building community with you over the coming months.

As ever warmest wishes,