http://www.knowingyourself.co.uk/

Knowing yourself, London (2025)

25/09/2025

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐠𝐞𝐞𝐬, 𝐢𝐬 𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐔𝐬
The real scandal isn’t families seeking safety — it’s the profiteers bleeding us all.

Lately, I’ve been seeing so much anger boiling over — refugees in hotels, English flags waved in pride, people shouting “our homeless first.” And I get it. When you hear the figure — £170 a night per person to house asylum seekers in hotels — it makes anyone furious. Especially when people are begging on the streets for £17 to stay in a hostel.

But let’s look closer. Because this is not the fault of refugees. This is the fault of a corrupt and badly managed system.

📊 Refugees & hotel costs

In 2023-24, the UK spent £3 billion on asylum seekers in hotels.

Hotels made up 76% of the asylum housing budget, even though they housed only about a third of people.

Cost per person, per night: £170 in hotels versus £27 in other accommodation.

That means the yearly cost jumped from about £17,000 per person in 2019-20 to £41,000 per person in 2023-24.

Meanwhile, 354,000 people in England are homeless or in temporary accommodation, and almost 4,000 sleep rough every night.

So where does that £170 go? Not to refugees. It goes straight into the pockets of hotel chains and private contractors with government deals worth millions. Refugees themselves? They receive:

£49.18 a week if they’re in self-catered housing (food, toiletries, clothing, travel).

£9.95 a week if food is provided where they live.

And they are usually banned from working while they wait — often for years.

That’s the reality. Not luxury — but poverty and limbo.

🏥 NHS: the same story

We’ve seen this pattern elsewhere:

In 2022-23, the NHS spent £3 billion on agency staff.

Nurses were hired at up to £2,500 a shift, while permanent staff struggled on low pay.

I once heard of a mental health nurse paid £600 a night to “watch” a single patient — sleeping on the sofa, laughing at the absurdity. He drove a sports car and was building flats abroad while the NHS crumbled.

This isn’t about care. It’s about contracts. Money bleeding out to agencies instead of investing in staff.

🍞 Schools & Covid: corruption on repeat

Schools tied into contracts with private caterers, paying fortunes for ultra-basic meals.

During Covid, billions in no-bid contracts were handed to government friends. Some companies didn’t even exist weeks earlier. Much of the PPE was unusable.

The National Audit Office estimates £15 billion lost to fraud and waste during Covid schemes.

❤️ The bigger truth

This is the real theft. Not from desperate families fleeing war. Not from children seeking safety. But from all of us.

Housing turned into investment portfolios for the rich instead of homes for people.

Public services outsourced to profit-hungry companies.

Billions drained from the NHS, schools, councils — while people are told to direct their anger at the most vulnerable.

And this is dangerous. Because when people don’t see clearly, their rage gets manipulated. It’s easier to blame the refugee family in a hotel than the faceless contractor pocketing £170 a night. Easier to wave a flag than demand real housing reform.

But fascism, nationalism, far-right politics — none of these will fix it. They only protect the profiteers and deepen the divisions.

🔑 So what now?

If we want a country to be proud of, let’s start here:

Demand accountability for corrupt contracts.

Build genuine affordable and social housing.

Stop outsourcing essential services to private greed.

Redirect our anger from scapegoats to the real culprits.

Because real pride isn’t in a flag. It’s in how we treat our most vulnerable.

Maria Veiga — Knowing Yourself ✨

Sources:

GOV.UK — Asylum support rates: gov.uk/asylum-support
Migration Observatory — Asylum & housing briefings: migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk
Reuters — £3 billion asylum hotel costs: reuters.com
Guardian — Asylum housing costs triple to £15bn: theguardian.com
IPPR — Decentralise asylum housing: ippr.org
Commons Library briefing — Asylum support: accommodation & finance: researchbriefings.parliament.uk
NAO — Covid fraud & waste: widely reported, e.g. nao.org.uk

24/09/2025

⚔️ History Repeats — And We Don’t Learn

Not many people know this, but during COVID I wrote a book about chocolate. In my research I discovered something chilling: the Aztecs — the mighty Mexica — were not just wise or attuned to nature. They were also greedy. They ruled the tribes around them with harsh taxes and unkind rules.

Their obsession with power and image led to madness. They burned forests day and night to create lime for painting their monuments white. Fires were kept alive 24/7. That destruction caused its own mini climate change. When droughts came, they panicked, begged the gods for rain, and made more offerings and sacrifices.

Sound familiar? Greed → destruction → crisis → fear → more madness.

The Spanish didn’t win because they were better. They won because the local people — exhausted and mistreated — sided with them, hoping for freedom. But the freedom never came. Instead, Central America was enslaved and silenced under a new empire. False promises led only to chains.

And here we are again. Today’s extreme politics — even in Spain — are full of the same lies. They promise “freedom,” but what they are really building is control. The new chains will not look like Aztec taxes or Spanish conquest, but the result will be the same: more power for the few, less freedom for the many.

Meanwhile, the forests are still burning, the planet is still heating, and viruses are still waiting. As the ice melts, ancient diseases trapped for millennia will be released. Pandemics will return.

History is not just a story. It is a mirror.
And if we keep falling for their promises, we will end up imprisoned again, just like the Mexica did — only this time, the prison will be the whole planet.

✍️ Maria Veiga — knowingyourself

23/09/2025

🌟 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞! 🌟

Our first Laughter Yoga class in Peckham is nearly here — and people are already saying yes to more joy, more breath, and more lightness.

If you’ve been curious, now’s the moment — 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟒 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭.

✨ Why join?

Release stress and tension

Boost your mood and energy

Strengthen your immune system

Reconnect with play and laughter (no jokes needed!)

📅 Sunday 12 October, 4–5pm
📍 Bellenden Therapies, Peckham
💷 £10 contribution
👥 Max 8 people

👉 Book now: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1700760874559?aff=oddtdtcreator

Come laugh yourself back to life 💛😂

Maria Veiga - knowingyourself

22/09/2025

🌍 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐖𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠

We are living like passengers on a burning boat.

Private jets, constant business trips, “collect 100 countries before you’re 30” — all of this is destroying the future.

🔴 Private jets are the worst.
They pump out 5 to 14 times more CO₂ per passenger than a normal flight. Last year in the UK alone there were over 90,000 private jet flights, dumping half a million tonnes of CO₂ into the sky. Many of these flights were under 500 km — distances you can do by train.

🔴 Wars are a climate crime too.
The war in Ukraine has caused hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO₂ in just 3 years. Gaza’s destruction has a carbon footprint bigger than the yearly emissions of many entire countries. Burning forests, blowing up cities — that carbon is in the air for decades.

🔴 And the planet itself is boiling.
Scientists say the Earth is heating at the rate of several Hiroshima bombs of energy every second. Every. Second.

So why do we keep pretending it’s fine? Why do we buy “carbon neutral” certificates and think it makes our flights clean? Planting a tree tomorrow doesn’t cancel the jet fuel burned today. The atmosphere doesn’t care about certificates.

And what are young people told?
Work like crazy in tech or finance, make the money, travel everywhere, tick the boxes, “live life now because the future looks stolen.”
Then dream of retiring in some quiet place in nature.

This is madness. It’s not suitable, it’s not fair, and it makes everything worse for those coming after us.

At 46°C people cannot work. At rising seas, whole towns will be forced to move. Who is preparing for this? Where are the plans? Who is protecting those who will have to leave their homes?

We are wasting time.
We are wasting lives.
We are wasting the future.

I am angry because the truth is simple: the rich burn the sky while the rest of us are told to recycle.

✍️ Maria Veiga — Knowing yourself

18/09/2025

𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻 𝗪𝗵𝗼’𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 ‘𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗲’

“I’m fine” is code for “don’t ask.”
But here’s the truth: you deserve more than fine.

🗣 A challenge:
Today, tell one person the real answer.
Doesn’t have to be deep. Just true.

Instead of “I’m fine,” try:

“Bit off, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Tired. Not sure why.”

“Honestly? Not great.”

Truth makes room for breath.
And breath makes room for change.

17/09/2025

✨ Laughter Yoga is back in Peckham! ✨

After a magical Open Day session at Bellenden Therapies, I’m bringing Laughter Yoga back — monthly, starting Sunday 12 October at 4pm.

Laughter Yoga is the perfect antidote to stress: a playful mix of gentle breathing, movement, and laughter that lifts mood, boosts energy, and reconnects us to joy. No jokes, no performance — just laughter for the sake of laughter.

💷 Contribution: £10
📍 Bellenden Therapies, Peckham
👥 Spaces limited to 8 — book soon!

Come and laugh yourself back to life 💛😂
👉https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1700760874559?aff=oddtdtcreator

13/09/2025

Laptop is back!! 🙌

So happy — and thank you to all of you who sent positive vibes my way this week. What a ride it has been…

On Tuesday, 9-9-9, I sat down to write — and as things slowed, I decided to restart my laptop. That’s when it froze. Completely stuck in the restart cycle.

All week, my partner has been working at it — searching Apple forums, ordering a “pen” with the right software (only to find it couldn’t bridge to the newer version), and feeling that sinking moment of what now?

But I kept calm. I didn’t lose sleep. Somewhere, I knew this was an initiation, not just a glitch. And then, with some help, James found what couldn’t be seen. My files, hidden but safe, were retrieved, saved to a hard disk, and then reborn onto a freshly wiped system.

That’s the energy of 9-9-9 lived through us:

Endings and completion.

Emergency and chaos (999 is our UK emergency number).

The unseen revealed and restored.

Rebirth onto a clean slate.

And this wasn’t just any 9-9-9. It also happened to be the 252nd day of the year (2+5+2 = 9). A quadruple nine! No wonder the week has been so intense.

And today, Saturday afternoon, I opened Firefox — and there it was: the very words I had been about to write on Tuesday, still waiting for me. Held in space. A reminder that nothing was ever lost, just paused until the right time.

So yes — what a 9-9-9 initiation. Stressful, powerful, and strangely sacred.

Maria Veiga — Knowing Yourself

08/09/2025

🌑 After the Eclipse – Monday Reflection 🌑

Last night the Moon turned crimson, veiling and unveiling all at once. A Blood Moon eclipse is never gentle—it strips us back to truth. What surfaced for you? What felt heavy, raw, or ready to go?

The work now is integration. The eclipse has done its part—the rest is yours:

✨ Notice the silence. Eclipses often leave us feeling emptied. Don’t rush to fill the space. Let the stillness hold you.

✨ Trust what fell away. The people, habits, or patterns that felt shaky under this red light are not meant to walk with you into the next cycle.

✨ Anchor the lesson. Journal a simple line: “The eclipse taught me…” Write whatever comes, no matter how unfinished.

✨ Ground back into your body. Walk barefoot on earth, drink water slowly, eat something nourishing. Let spirit and body reunite.

The Hermit whispers: illumination doesn’t arrive in the noise, it comes in the quiet after the storm.

Step gently today. A new rhythm is unfolding.

—Maria Veiga
Knowing Yourself

07/09/2025

✨ Sunday 7.9.2025 — Eclipse of the Sacred Blood Moon ✨

As night unfolds this Sunday, we stand beneath a portal of transformation. A total lunar eclipse cloaks the Moon in crimson—a cosmic invitation to release the old and step into luminous rebirth.

This eclipse arrives during Pitru Paksha, a time when the veil thins and ancestral support surrounds us. We are offered a rare chance to cleanse, to forgive, and to reclaim what was lost in the shadows of lineage and memory.

Ritual for the Night:

Create Your Sacred Space
Set a circle with candle light, incense of sandalwood or sage, and space for stillness.

Invite Your Ancestors
Speak aloud:
“I invite the wisdom of my ancestors. May their guidance illuminate my path.”

Release in Silence
Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Feel the red-tinged lunar light absorbing what no longer serves. Visualize a gentle release—fears, inherited pain, outdated stories.

Write & Burn
On a small piece of paper, write what’s ready to go. Safely burn it in your candle flame, offering it to the eclipse’s purifying presence.

Anchor in Gratitude
Whisper:
“I release what is no longer mine to carry. I call in clarity, courage, and compassionate wisdom.”

Gaze or Meditate
Whether you see the glowing Moon or not, open to the energy behind the light—a quiet witness to your soul’s turning.

This evening is not about theatrics—it’s about reclamation.
Lean into the Hers—your inner Hermit, the silent keeper of your own light. The Moon does not vanish—it transforms, as do we.

06/09/2025

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠… 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡.

Not everyone is ready to face their trauma.
Not everyone feels safe enough to cry.
Not everyone even knows they need help.

And that’s OK.
Sometimes the medicine we need is simple.
Sometimes what we need is… laughter.

✨ Laughter Yoga is my antidote to these overwhelming times.

It’s not therapy. It’s not shadow work.
But it does lift the fog.
It rewires your nervous system.
It boosts your happy hormones.
It gets your body moving, breath flowing, heart open.

You don’t have to wait until things get worse.
You don’t have to be “ready.”
You can just come laugh.

🌀 First session: Sunday 12 October at 4pm
📍South London
⏰ 1 hour of joy and release
💸 Only £10
👥 I need at least 6 people to go ahead
📧 Email me to book: maria@knowingyourself.co.uk

You are welcome, just as you are.
Come laugh with us.

—
Maria Veigaco.uk

05/09/2025

✨ The 9-9-9 Portal is Coming ✨

We are walking towards a rare alignment: Tuesday 9-9-2025 brings us the 9-9-9 Portal. Day, month, and year all add up to 9—a vibration of completion, closure, and spiritual awakening.

🌑 Just two days before, on Sunday the 7th, we pass through an eclipse—shaking what is unstable, surfacing what we’ve outgrown. This is the stripping back, the uncomfortable clearing that prepares the ground.

Then comes the triple-nine gateway:

9 is the Hermit—illumination from within. The lantern of wisdom that lights only the next step.

9 is also the final number before the cycle restarts. It asks us: what needs to end so something true can begin?

This month itself carries the Universal 9 energy, amplifying the theme: healing, release, forgiveness, soul-level maturity.

Astrologically, Mercury is steady in Virgo, asking us to speak with precision and discernment. Uranus continues its pressure for radical change—what is false, outdated, or heavy cannot survive this wave. Together, they insist on truth and alignment.

This is not a time for wishful manifesting or bypassing with “love and light.” This is a time to stand in your wisdom, to let the old burn away, and to trust the unseen threads of your becoming.

The Hermit reminds us: the treasure is not outside—it’s in the silence, in the courage to face yourself, in the lamp you already carry.

🕯️ Preparation for this week:

Notice what feels heavy or finished.

Sit with what you’ve been avoiding—it’s asking to be released.

Journal the sentence: “I am ready to complete…” and let the words flow.

Light a candle on Sunday the 7th and again on Tuesday the 9th to mark your threshold crossing.

This is the moment to close the chapter with grace and step into a higher octave of yourself. The 9-9-9 portal will not pass again in our lifetimes.

Are you ready to walk through?

—Maria Veiga
Knowing Yourself

Knowing yourself

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