I met Bodhi in meditation training with the late Sally Kempton many years ago. We sat next to each other, and I knew there was something special about this human, so I saved her space next to me every day to ensure I could be in her aura. She gave me my first singing bowl, which opened up a lot of other things for me on a deep, visceral level. We have been friends ever since. I don't have to see her daily, but I know we are connected. She's about to embark on a magical journey of living without the confines of societal definitions of what home is. I've been there, so I understand this journey very well. I managed to catch up with her while she wrapped up her Reiki training and put her things in storage to start living in the dark, so to speak. Bodhi has a potent relationship with the dark - she tells us what it means to her...
TP: Bodhi, tell me about your background.
Bodhi: I started meditation when I was 15. Now I'm 44. I began by accident. To be honest, I wasn't seeking it at the time, but I had a naturally inquisitive spiritual nature. I was always interested in religions, why people believe different things, and how they decide what they came to believe - so I was interested in religion. Still, I wasn't looking for anything in particular, especially since I was young. I was suffering from anxiety, and it just so happened that one of my school friends' father was a transcendental meditation teacher. He spoke to my mum one day about my anxiety and said why don't you send her along to one of my classes to see if it helps. It was like a homecoming. Everything changed from that point, and it just felt so natural to me to meditate, and life changed very quickly. I practiced Transcendental meditation for a few years, which led to exploring other modalities such as Buddhism, mindfulness, yoga, Taoism, Paganism, and Druidry, which I really delved into. I even dabbled with some new-age stuff, which I've now left behind, but yes, my journey evolved from learning meditation to Reiki to yoga and sound. There are so many journeys that have now all blended into one.
TP: You are one of the few who run events rather than weekly classes. Tell me a little about that. How many events do you run weekly/monthly?
Bodhi: This year it has changed a little. I lowered the number of events I'm offering monthly. I ran twelve last September at its peak, but that was unusual. I wouldn't normally run that many, and it was more about me not checking my diary properly, lol, and yes, too many things. I can do anything between four and ten a month, but it changes through the seasons; for instance, term times have always had an enormous effect, so it's never been consistent.
T&P: Because its not a consistent number, how does this affect you financially?
Bodhi: It can be difficult at times because I find that school holidays have a significant influence on my clientele. Easter is a big one, and it's the first big school holiday of the year, and everyone just disappears. This April has been notably quieter than any other I've known. But I try to earn as much as possible in the run-up to these Easter and Christmas holidays to ensure I have enough going through those quieter times and balance the fiancées throughout the year.
T&P: How do you approach self-employment?
Bodhi: Self-employment has changed since I became fully self-employed in 2019. It's not something I planned. I knew I needed to remove myself from my previous business, where I was on the books as an employee rather than self-employed. It was easier for my business partner and myself to be on the books as employees. Since then, I've registered as a sole trader. I didn't go into this with huge plans of what it would look like. I also wasn't sure if it would be temporary or permanent. There was no proper plan. I just started and leaned into trusting the universe, which is still the way I operate today.
It's a challenging and lonely road being self-employed. There is so much you have to learn and do for yourself. In all of this, it becomes essential to outsource professionals where you can afford it. So it's been a massive learning curve. However, I've had to navigate a few changes, including the pandemic, as things were still fairly normal in 2019, and then less than a year later, the pandemic changed everything. The things I thought I would do then altered again with the UK going into a cost of living crisis, which meant adapting again. You have to be adaptable and willing to adjust and accept that things will always be in flux when you're self-employed, especially in the world we live in today…
T&P: Tell me a little about your creations over the pandemic
Bodhi: Well, I had to move everything online. It's not something I thought I'd ever want to do, to be honest, and even if someone had suggested this, I would have rejected the idea because I love being around people. Obviously, it's a very different experience. However, the choices were limited, and I wanted to support what people needed. So, I just got creative and offered mediation and Reiki workshops. It was important to me to be live and interactive - I'm not really one for pre-recorded options. People kept telling me to put courses out, but I prefer things to be live and interactive; otherwise, there is a tendency to switch off as there's nothing to engage with. I need human communication, whether it's on a screen or in person.
T&P: Tell me about your relationship with freedom
Bodhi: People talk about financial, emotional, or spiritual freedom. I think more about freedom in terms of spiritual liberation. Monetary freedom would be nice because you could focus on other things. Still, part of your journey or relationship with money and finances is a path to spiritual liberation. There is a lot in our conditioning tied up in cash. So many complicated things are embroiled in how much we have and what we do with it because it is how we provide security for ourselves, and so our relationship with how we survive and the things we need for survival depend on money, which means we have to cultivate a healthy relationship with it and work through all that stuff to experience freedom for emotional, mental and spiritual freedom so it's not easy.
T&P: What is your relationship with money? Self-employed people can have issues asking for money and knowing their worth—tell me about this…
Bodhi: I've been working in spiritual circles for approximately 20 years, so I've seen a real difference in people's attitudes. In the 90's, not many people had a spiritual business. It was always seen as more of something you did as a service, so people mainly were doing this or offering their services out of office hours - so evenings and weekends, or if people were in the fortunate position where they didn't have to work, they could have been the only people offering this throughout the week. It was also something that was never promoted or marketed in the way we do now.
We didn't have social media then. You would use things like the Yellow Pages and magazine and newspaper ads, which were expensive, so not many people would do that as it would take a year to make that money back.
People have always wanted to make money from religious and spiritual things, but it wasn't such a big thing then. It was considered a spiritual service rather than a business and was generally affordable and accessible. I could always afford spiritual events on minimum wage as a student or young person. Always. Now, it's an entirely different story. Now, spiritual coaches are popping up telling people to charge what they are worth, and for a while, I thought about it. I agree you do need to charge a fair amount. But when does it become a fair amount supporting sustainable living that becomes extractive? I see many [people pricing their services so high that they become financially inaccessible to most, meaning they target wealthy people.
Are we much better than everyone else, and should we only have wealthy clients? Is that spiritual? I don't think so!
T&P: That's a big question, isn't it? This feels like it started in California. People charging $500 for readings - I've often thought I cannot do that because I would be pricing most people out, and those priced out are possibly the ones who really need it.
Bodhi: Yes. The very first Reiki master in the West was charging $10,000 for Reiki master training, and that was in the 50's or 60's, something like that. There have always been people who made it exclusive, and I don't believe spirituality and wellness should be unaffordable. Fine, if you want to make fashion, luxury cars, and makeup inaccessible because this isn't stuff that people necessarily need, but we all need access to well-being and spiritual services that resonate. Sure, people can go to church and temples, but that's not everyone's cup of tea, so there should be spaces that are accessible to all to connect to the scared, the divine in the way they feel is right for them without it being organized religion or some kind of dogma being shoved down their throat. Anything that is even remotely close to that costs a fortune now, and it's getting worse because that is not just London. Prices for spaces and classes outside London are creeping up to London levels!
T&P: Are there things you feel you are missing out on regarding being self-employed - pension, holidays where you don't have to return and tread water to make the cash flow easily again?
Bodhi: I had an income drop through the business last year, with fewer people attending my events. And my community has been together in some instances for over ten years. They will often send me these lovely messages stating that they would love to come, but they just couldn't afford it - which is always nice to know because they haven't given up on their practices or gotten bored, but for sure, it's been harder so things like holidays have not really been feasible. We just went down to Galsonbury for a couple of days and ended up putting it on Klarna!
T&P: It is what it is!
Bodhi: I guess - But just a few days in Somerset… I should probably think about pensions, and I know there are schemes that you can sign up for, but to be honest, by the time everything is paid out, if you want to put your money aside for emergencies, a pension is just another expense and with the horror stories we hear these days of peoples pensions not being worth what they thought, I wonder if this is just going to be helpful in the future - is it just another lie that we've been sold. Do I want to put anything into a pension that could just go down the toilet or be virtually worthless when I could do something else with that money? Some people say it's impossible to not have a pension, and I've also heard a lot of people being very disappointed with theirs - it's a risk, isn't it?
T&P: It's the whole trust thing again, isn't it? Tell me more about trust…
Bodhi: Trust are those virtues or qualities you must spend a lot of time cultivating by constantly being tested in trust. I've got 20-plus years of practice in trusting, so I'm getting better at it. I'm probably taking the most significant step toward trusting the universe I've ever had to take. Not just putting my things in storage but leaving the space I've called home with no clear plan of where I will be next weekend. I feel this powerful, intuitive sense that now is the time to get out and move on with my life. I've outgrown this place; even this town is a natural progression. I trust my intuition enough to do it, especially when it feels this strong. Whenever I haven't trusted my inner guidance, you know, listening to other people - everything f**ks up!
T&P: You primarily teach meditation. Tell me more about this, as I've mainly spoken to yoga teachers who obviously teach the physical aspects…
Bodhi: I am a yoga teacher but prefer teaching more devotional aspects and building a relationship with the divine. So, yogic meditation, energy cultivation techniques, pranayama, and yoga philosophy. I love ceremonies and rituals, but they are not necessarily from any particular yogic tradition. The ones you create from the heart can be meaningful as they are things we can all embrace. What I love about yoga is that it fits very well with a reverent attitude towards nature, so it's not always about being seated; sometimes, there will be movement and walking practices. I love silent retreats offering silence or silent community hours where we just sit together with the possibility of sharing afterward. I don't feel I was meant to be an asana teacher. There are already millions in the world, and I didn't need to add to that number - there's more than enough!
T&P: As we come to that, I want to speak to you about competition - How do you feel about competition in your field?
Bodhi: I don't want to sound big-headed, but I don't feel I have any because I don't feel anyone has my exact experiences, beliefs, or faith. Of course, there will be similar people, but we all have differing personalities and ways to share our work. If anything, we complement each other. Competition, I believe, happens more with asana teachers because there are so many offering similar classes it must be harder to be unique. Its only when people get to know the teacher that they understand the uniqueness.
I have noticed a growing number of sound therapists in my area. Ten years ago, there were only five of us in the whole of Hertfordshire—now, there are easily five in my current neighborhood. But even in that field, there are significant differences. We seem to use different instruments for our events and have different approaches to them. Some go into the whole New Age Chakra balancing and cacao drinking type of experience, which is not my thing. I use a mixture of things, including chanting…
T&P: …And people jumping on the bandwagon…
Bodhi: That's it. You can buy a set of crystal bowls on the internet, and the next day, you're a sound healer—no one questions it at all. It's that easy, but it's disheartening that people think that's okay.
T&P: Yep. It is a pursuit or devotion - there's a skewed line there…
Bodhi: Yes. It feels like sound healing and cacao ceremonies have become commodified to the point where people just put them in their spiritual shopping trolley. They buy cacao from Holland and Barrett, get a set of bowls, and serve it without questioning whether the spirit of cacao wants them to be a vehicle for her medicine. Some people do it with absolute reverence, which must be honored.
I've seen so much of that. I won't actually go to an event anymore as long as cacao is involved (laughs).
T&P: LOL! Speak to me about the silence
Bodhi: I find that from my own experience of when I first did a silent retreat for myself, they were the most profound kinds of spaces and experiences I had. It made me realise that less can be more, and we need balance because the world is boisterous, full, busy, and chaotic. There's so much to take in, especially now that we have devices where we can always access information; we are addicted to them - it's hard to switch off. With everything happening in our world, we are not encouraged to counteract or balance it rather than buy more things and experiences. Being in silence and embracing a little stillness (stillness isn't imperative) is where I can go into the deepest states of rest and hear my intuition. Often, it is where my creativity arises - from those spaces because I'm free from external influence.
I always feel a million times better, even at home. I set my timer to 10-30 mins, and I'll just be silent.
Our relationship with silence has been impacted by the fact that people often use it as punishment or a way to oppress people, so we find it awkward and uncomfortable.
Silence can be used negatively, but that's not all of what silence is. It's important to remember that silence, like darkness, is neutral. We need both just like we need sound and light, but we've become conditioned to believe that both the silence and the darkness are something to be feared or shy away from - they are neutral.
So, silence and the darkness can be embraced as a sanctuary. Spaces and places to rest and grow and learn more about ourselves. I won't start running dark retreats just yet, even though I love them. Just starting small with the silence and eventually growing these days to weekends and maybe embracing the darkness one day…
T&P: Who is the person who chooses to go on a silent retreat?
Bodhi: It's quite a mixture, really. Introverts come. They're relieved they can go to an event and not have to talk to anyone. People who have practiced mediation regularly and feel like they want to explore beyond the techniques, those who recognise the need for balance. Some are curious and want to see what it's like to be quiet for a day. If you sign up for a silent retreat at the minimum, you sign up for two days so the days I hold aren't as intense and hold minimum commitment.
T&P: The name Trinity & Pope originates in New Orleans and is basically the 3 ingredients used as the base of all their dishes. Without these, the dish isn't authentic. Give me three words that sum up the essence of who you are as a woman, human, and teacher that allows you to move into authenticity and integrity when you share your work ✨
Bodhi: Devotion, authenticity and integrity.
You can find Bodhi and her work here
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