Sitting at the Edge of the Earth: Mid-Summer, the North Sea, and the Art of Deep Reflection
When I first moved to Margate nearly eleven years ago, I immediately noticed how this specific landscape began to shift something deep inside me.
If you look at a map of the UK, we are sitting on the very end of the earth here, poking right out into the North Sea. Walking daily along a beach that faces directly north, looking out at nothing but the vast, open water, a profound realisation hit me: I had nowhere left to run.
When you stand at the edge of the land, all you have in front of you is a massive, highly reflective surface. It forces you to stop. It forces you to look reflectively at yourself.
In many shamanic traditions, we navigate our lives using the Medicine Wheel - a beautiful working theory for how we flow through our existence, not unlike the Five Element wheel in Traditional Chinese Medicine. We move through the seasons of our lives from the East (beginnings), to the South (expansion), to the West (holding and harvesting), and finally, we land in the North.
The North is the place of winter, of the bare bones, and of our deepest reflections. When we sit here in balance, the raw experiences of our past transform into true medicine, helping us grow wise, rooted, and strong. And here in Margate, we are physically aligned with that steady North energy every single day.
The Imbalance of Forging Forward
Over the last decade, I have seen thousands of clients in my healing space experience this same coastal phenomenon: a subconscious journey to the end of the line, where all that is left is integration and reflection of the path walked so far.
Mid-summer is a beautiful time to check in with this energy. While the sun is high and external life is busy, the wheel is already beginning its subtle tilt. Yet, so many of us resist the call to stop. We try to forge forward, pushing through exhaustion, trying to build more when we actually need to integrate what is already here.
When we resist the North, we struggle with profound imbalances. Often experiencing burnout and depletion: Forcing growth when the soil needs time to rest.
The "Bare Bones" effect: Sometimes, when we refuse to slow down, the universe steps in. Things that are not meant for us are abruptly ripped away, leaving us feeling raw, exposed, and depleted.
But if we choose to take on the work willingly—to sit by the reflective waters of our own minds—we can see exactly what we need to release and forgive. Once we clear that path, true, authentic growth can finally begin.
Shifting the Nightmare into a Dream
When we begin to reflect, it can bring up a lot of noise. We have a non-stop commentary running in our minds all day, every day. If we don’t actively take time to quieten them through meditation or practice, those voices tend to get louder and more abundant. Too many voices! Suddenly, we are frozen, totally overwhelmed and unable to make a single move.
When you look into the mirror of your life, what arises? Often, it's self-judgment or a victim mentality (which usually go hand in hand anyway!).
According to Toltec shamanism, we are all shamans, and our lives are an act of dreaming. There is the planet's collective dream, and there is your personal dream. When we spend our days listening to the inner critic, judging ourselves, and subjugating our true desires to please others, our personal dream begins to feel like a nightmare.
A spiritual path isn't about fighting these voices or staying trapped in the nightmare; it’s about becoming a conscious artist of your dream. We can sit, listen, and consciously choose which voices we let rise (turn up the volume on the supportive, loving ones) and which ones we soften (turn down the volume on the inner critic and victim).
When we bring the energy of unconditional love to our own reflection—and to our inner voice—everything changes. We begin to radiate that love directly out into our personal dream. As we fill ourselves up, that energy expands naturally. We begin to see others with more love, kindness, and compassion, too. We truly can heal our world, one heart at a time, beginning entirely with our own.
A Shamanic Practice: Mirror Work
To bring the physical alignment of the North into your daily life, I invite you to try a simple yet profound practice: Mirror Work.
This is a meditation with your eyes completely open. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and gazing into your own reflection provides a direct route to the core of your conscious awareness. It unmasks the stories, rules, and messages you secretly hold about yourself.
A Note of Gentleness: This exercise can feel incredibly challenging or uncomfortable at first. Some people really struggle to hold their own gaze because it activates powerful negative programming we usually try to avoid. If the inner critic wakes up with judgmental words, remember: none of us is perfect, and that is completely okay.
How to Practice Mirror Work
Find your space: Sit comfortably in a chair or on the floor in a quiet room.
Set the angle: Position a mirror so you can easily make eye contact with your reflection without straining.
Set a timer: Start with 5 minutes. If that feels OK, you can build up to 10. There is no destination here—the goal is simply to sit with yourself.
Settle your energy: Close your eyes and take several deep, slow breaths. On the exhale, visualise any physical tension in your body dissolving.
Open your eyes: Look directly into your own eyes. Notice your breath. Does its rhythm change as you look at yourself?
Observe the messages: Is the expression in your eyes critical or kind? If your mind immediately starts naming flaws, observe the thought, breathe, and let it pass. Watch how emotions move across your face. What does judgment look like? What does acceptance look like?
Return to the gaze: If you find yourself caught up in a spiral of self-disdain, gently bring your focus back to your reflection. Let the thoughts wander if they must, but hold your gaze with kindness.
Tip: Try doing this mainly without makeup on, though it can be a fascinating experiment to notice how your internal dialogue changes when you are fully made up.
Transforming the Old Programs
If a thought or feeling arises during this practice that makes you feel small or unloved, remember: it does not belong to you. It is simply an old program or belief you inherited, absorbed, or were taught along the way.
If you feel ready to release that program or belief, wonderful—below are a few physical rituals to help you do just that. But if you aren't ready to let it go yet, that is okay, too. Look at it as an opportunity to practice loving yourself anyway. You might look in the mirror and say to your reflection: "Even though I hate my nose today, I love and accept myself anyway." It is a gentle, honest start, and it is exactly how we begin to soften the inner critic and turn up the volume on true self-love.
To help your subconscious release these thoughts, you can bring a physical ritual into your practice. Write the negative thoughts down on a piece of paper or a wild leaf, and then:
Burn them safely in a fire ritual.
Add them to your compost heap, letting Mama Earth physically compost and transform the energy for you.
Take the leaves down to the North Sea, letting the moving coastal water wash them away.
By doing this inner work—by intentionally turning up the volume on self-love, compassion, and self-acceptance—you change your magnetic signature.
Notice how your world begins to shift over the coming weeks—not just the face in the mirror, but how you show up, co-create with others, and finally step into a place where you recognise your true worth.
Extra Support: If you find this process brings up deep layers that feel heavy to navigate alone, you don't have to walk through it without a map. Here are three beautiful resources that offer different ways into this inner landscape, depending on what you need most right now:
'Mirror Work' by Louise Hay. Best if you need a gentle, day-by-day structure. This offers a beautiful, 21-day guided journey specifically designed to help you face your reflection. It provides practical daily prompts to navigate fear, release old anger, practice deep forgiveness, and build a loving relationship with your inner child.
'The Mastery of Self' by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. Best if you want to explore the Toltec teachings further. This book builds deeply on the idea of the personal and collective dream. It shows you exactly how to wake up from the "nightmares" created by your inner critic, dismantle the illusory beliefs you've inherited, and live as your authentic, loving self in any situation—whether you're sitting in meditation or stuck in coastal traffic.
'The Warrior Heart Practice' by HeatherAsh Amara. Best if you are feeling emotionally overwhelmed or stuck. This book provides a clear, practical four-step process (using the metaphor of the warrior's heart) to untangle your heavy emotions and confusing stories from your absolute truth. It’s an incredibly powerful framework for moving out of victim mentality or self-judgment and into a solutions-focused, clear-minded space.
Deepening Your Journey: Shifting the Script
The truth is, this blog post would turn into a book if I tried to explain every single way we can clear these stubborn old patterns! If you have sat with your reflection and noticed just how loud or dug-in those inner voices are, please know you don't have to untangle them all by yourself.
In my practice, I work with two incredibly powerful modalities to help you fast-track this shift:
Clinical Hypnotherapy: Your mind functions much like a computer, and your subconscious is constantly running programs behind the scenes to try to keep you safe. But many of those programs are completely outdated. With over 30 years of experience as a qualified hypnotherapist, I've come to trust the wisdom encoded in landscape as much as in plants. I specialise in helping people access that subconscious space, clear out the software that no longer serves you, and completely realign your inner dialogue. Bringing conscious awareness to the problem through meditation is a beautiful first step—but hypnosis allows us to safely rewrite the code at a much deeper, faster level.
Shamanic Healing: If the heavy energy feels less like a thought and more like something stuck in your energetic body, we have beautiful, time-honoured shamanic ceremonies to help release, clear, and cleanse away those ancient beliefs, freeing you up to move forward in lightness.
If you are feeling the call to quietly and profoundly realign your inner world, get in touch to find out more about booking a 1-2-1 session with me.
Join the Circle: The Shaman’s Way 13 Moon Journey
If you are looking for a bigger, fully supported shift within a community of benevolent witnesses, I invite you to join us for The Shaman’s Way.
Our next cohort begins in October 2026. Together, we will follow the path of 13 moons over the course of a single year, taking a profound journey right the way around your own Medicine Wheel and your personal dream.
It is a deeply transformative space designed for anyone wishing to dive into practical shamanism, master the art of self-reflection, and realign their life to create a better world—one heart at a time.
Spaces for our autumn cohort are open now. If your heart is nodding, reach out today to claim your spot around the fire.
