Sun Gazing Changed My Life

On my first morning we arrived a bit late at the beach and the sun was already rising out of the ocean. The others ran ahead over the sand dunes. I was still drowsy from our pre-dawn start and lagged behind. I thought they were being a bit silly. Would a few seconds really make that much difference?

But something got activated in me that day and I fell in love with the sun in a completely new way. I became devoted. I longed to capture every one of those precious moments when it first appears.

Returning home to the city I couldn’t continue a beach practice but I found a great lookout high on a hill that was only 10 mins drive away. Every morning I’d be set up with my blanket on the grass to catch the first emerging rays. It didn’t take any willpower to become such an early bird overnight. I was so compelled by the devotion. What extraordinary majesty there is in the sun. Sometimes an overwhelming feeling of reverence would move me to tears.

We’re told the sun will damage to our eyes if we look directly into it. According to sun gazers, this isn’t quite true. The right golden hour timing affords protection.

It’s certainly not wise to look at it when its high in the sky. But when its close to the horizon in the first hour after sunrise and during the last hour before sunset, it can offer the most extraordinary healing.

It helps rescue the radiance of the soul from the weight of the human experience.

Information online suggests starting with just a few seconds on the first morning and adding only a few seconds each day. But I found that 13 minutes was a good starting time for me and that has been pretty consistently the case for others I’ve supported. Increasing by 1 minute each day also seems to be a safe pace.

I worked my way up to 40 minutes. Some days it was too cloudy to get the full amount of time and some mornings it was raining so I’d seek out the sunset instead.

In the early stages of sun gazing there is a lot of deep cleansing that goes on. All sorts of old rubbish beliefs and emotions get cleared out. There is the potential to use sun gazing to galvanise our goals and desires but not so much in the beginning. The first stage should be one of releasing and letting go. Once there is a more stable foundation of inner calm, then the scene is better set for planting seeds of intention.

One of the most significant shifts that happened for me occurred at the 3 week mark (I’d reached 25mins/day). I had the clear realisation that my best friend was significantly undermining my potential to move forward in life. It was disturbing and upsetting and it took a couple of weeks but we parted ways. Despite the challenge of turning away from someone who had seemed such a close friend, I found I had the inner resolve to do it.

The other big change involved finding my home. I’d moved interstate nearly 2 years previously and it had been one of the most testing experiences of loneliness and instability. I’d moved from one share house to another, never feeling really at home. Several times I experienced intense stress at not knowing where I was going to sleep the next night or when I did, I often didn’t know how I was going to pay the rent. The feeling of homelessness was one of my biggest wounds at the time.

Two weeks after I reached the 40 minute mark (8 ½ weeks) I took out the lease on a house that filled me with absolute joy. Oh the relief, pleasure and gratitude!  It soothed my soul in incredible ways. And so perfectly, it had a deck facing East.

My sungazing practice slowly became more sporadic but some time later I felt compelled to resurrect it. Despite being out of practice, it seemed okay to start back with the full 40 minutes.

On the first day I had a huge emotional epiphany around my power as a healer.

On the second day I came up with a potent new approach to align people with their soul expression.

After a week I suddenly tapped into much greater level of organisation and productivity with my business. I began to invigorate my life with the long absent thrill and adventure that makes me feel so alive.

After 2 weeks I felt so deeply altered that I had to change my name!

After 3 weeks I’d suddenly caught up on 2 years of overdue taxes, found a new gym, struck upon a delightfully supportive business collaboration and a new friendship wonderfully balanced in reciprocity.

At week four I felt the whole tapestry of my life being rearranged. My feeling of home was changing. After 2 years in the house I'd loved, I knew it was time to make the move out of the city to establish myself in Byron Bay.

The mismatch became much more apparent with the guy I’d been connecting with for tantric exploration and I called it quits. Again, a separation that made me sad but one that felt necessary in order to be clear about inviting people who truly support and appreciate my brightness and power.

This second round of sun gazing brought further awareness to how I had actually based my life around allowing others to keep me from my full power of personal expression. More and more I saw how I’d wasted time and energy attempting to help people who had no interest in change. I began to sense how I’d put my own success on hold out of some feeling of obligation to keep pace with everyone alongside me.

The sun helped enormously to untether me from the many mechanisms I’d employed to dull down my shine.