Isel Asquith-Vallance

29/05/2025

The rain begins like a memory returning, hard, brutal, hammering the windows with urgent insistence.
Each drop a small reminder that time is not a straight line but a circle, folding us back into moments we thought were lost.
She is by the fire, the warmth of it reaching into her, not just to warm the skin but to anchor her soul.
A mug of tea cradles its own kind of heat — steeped leaves releasing something ancient into the air.
She sips and embibes the calm.

Her dog rests at her feet, steady as breath, his body a kind of gravity that pulls her inward.

Her cat, the eternal chaser of warmth, watchful and half-dreaming, curls into himself as if he knows a secret the rest of us have forgotten.

There is no need to speak.
The room listens to itself.
The fire crackles, the rain murmurs, the tea cools in the silence. Even the stillness has texture — not empty, but full of everything unnamed.

The moment hums with presence.

She thinks this is what it means to be here, truly here: to feel the world arrive in small things. Steam rising, paws shifting, logs settling in their slow burn. It’s not ceremony but something simpler — a quiet returning to the sacredness that lives in ordinary light, in warmth shared, in time spent without striving.

And as the rain continues its soft recitation, She lets go and sinks in.
This is enough.
This is everything

~ Isel x

11/05/2025

I've just reached 100 followers! Thank you for continuing support and being on your own spiritual journey with me. 🙏🤗🎉

10/05/2025

📕 I’m writing about a book about spiritual awakening.
I wanted to share with you just a small section of what I’ve written so far, and it really is just the first draft.
Lots more work to do, but I’m putting it into the world.
Thanks for reading.

03/05/2025

Hello Friends
Even in your darkest moments — when no one seems to understand the depth of your trauma, your grief, or the loss of who you once were — you are not alone.

Hope is not always loud. Sometimes it is a quiet breath, a soft nudge from your dog, a whisper from your soul: You are still here. You are becoming.

This transformation is sacred.
Your Light is not lost — only deepening.

30/04/2025

Welcome, friends.
Today, I want to speak gently and truthfully about a common confusion on the spiritual path—especially for those of us walking through the world as deep feelers, trauma survivors, and animal lovers.

The topic is this: What’s the difference between detaching from our feelings and denying them?

And why does it matter so much—especially in the delicate terrain of spiritual awakening?

Let’s begin here: Our culture often teaches us that pain, grief, anger, and even longing are somehow wrong.

Or worse, that feeling them makes us less spiritual.

So when we begin to awaken—when we start to sense the depth of stillness, the Light within, or the spacious Presence that lives beneath the noise—we might be tempted to use that awareness to escape the full weight of our emotions.

But the heart doesn’t work that way. And neither do our animal companions, because as always we have so much to learn from them.

Our animals feel it all.
Not with a story or a grudge, but with a fierce honesty.
They shake it out, they lie beside us, they breathe through their bodies.
They don’t deny their instincts.
They inhabit them.
That, too, is a kind of wisdom.

So let me be clear: denial of feeling is a subtle form of self-abandonment.
It sounds like
“I shouldn’t feel this,”
“This is not spiritual,”
or “If I were really awake, I’d be past this by now.”
It’s like looking away when someone is in need because it feels too difficult to be present.

Detachment, on the other hand, is what happens after we’ve honored the person in need. After we’ve knelt down, listened, felt, breathed, and been fully present with the feeling.

Detachment says: “Yes, this hurts. And I will not collapse into it. I am more than this wave of sorrow.”

Detachment allows us to feel without becoming fused with the emotion. It allows the river to flow through, not stagnate.

In this way, detachment is not cold or removed—it’s sacred spaciousness.

It’s the difference between being underwater and being on the riverbank, watching the current with love, knowing it will pass.

Spiritual awakening isn’t about bypassing our pain.
It’s about holding it in the Light.
Feeling it fully, even reverently, but not identifying with it as the whole truth of who we are.

And this is where our animal companions teach us, again and again.
They meet our pain without flinching.
They don’t try to fix it or explain it away.
They just stay.
And in that staying, something in us begins to heal.

So today, if you’re feeling the urge to push away your emotions in the name of awakening, I invite you to pause.
Sit.
Breathe.
Let your animal curl beside you.
And instead of asking, “How can I make this go away?” ask, “How can I be with this… in love?”

There is no awakening without feeling.
But there is a way to feel that sets you free.

Until next time—walk gently, listen deeply, and trust the quiet companionship of your own soul… and of your animal.

Isel.

p.s. link to an audio and meditation on this question is in the comments.

29/04/2025

New Spiritual Practice Audio: Sitting with Your Pet
In the quiet presence of our pets, something sacred happens.

This simple, gentle spiritual practice is an invitation to sit—not to train, fix, or do—but simply to be with your animal companion. No agenda, just presence.

Why is this important?
Because in a world that constantly asks us to strive and achieve there are times when we can’t even consider this because of pain or trauma, and sometimes the loss of personal identity makes even understanding who we are now our main priority.

Our pets accept us as we are and where we are and they remind us how to return to stillness.

When we sit with them in quiet connection, we remember who we are beneath the noise.

Benefits of this practice:
• Deepens your bond with your pet
• Anchors you in the present moment
• Calms the nervous system
• Opens a space for healing, for both of you

Whether you’re in a season of grief, transition, or simply seeking more grounding or spiritual guidance, this audio is a soft place to land.

Listen now and come home to presence—together 👇

New Spiritual Practice Audio - Sitting with your Pet In a world that rushes and and expects of us more than often we can give at certain difficult times in our lives, this is your invitation to slow d

26/04/2025

If you need a moment of peace today this is for you.
Click below to listen.

Find peace on the farm with the animals and Isel

25/04/2025

When the Night Feels Long

There are times when the darkness feels unending. When the old ways of being no longer hold, and the new ones haven’t yet arrived.

This is the in-between. The waiting. The wilderness. And if you’ve lived through trauma, you know this place well.

But here’s what’s true, even when we forget:
The Light has not left you.
Your body and mind and soul may feel shattered into a thousand pieces, but it is not broken—it’s becoming.

Even in sorrow, there is a quiet alchemy unfolding. A deep transformation.

Hope isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it looks like getting out of bed.
Sometimes it looks like breathing through one more hour.
Sometimes it’s the warmth of a dog curled up beside you, reminding you that love still lives here.

You don’t have to feel whole to be healing.
You don’t have to know the way to be guided.

There is something sacred in simply continuing.

Love
Isel x

24/04/2025

From my heart to yours

Hello and welcome. I’m so grateful you’re here.

This space was created for those of us who have known what it is to break—to carry trauma, grief, or a heaviness that has no easy words. And yet… through it all, we have also known the quiet, steadfast love of animals. Perhaps a dog who never left our side. Perhaps the presence of an animal who reminded us we are still whole, even in our pain.

This is a community for people of all faiths and none. For those who feel things deeply and have been called to understand themselves on a deep spiritual level. For those who have been shaped by struggle. And for those who know that healing isn’t always loud or fast—but that it can begin in moments of connection, presence, and love.

Here, we honour our experiences. We walk gently. We support each other. We listen.

You don’t have to have the right words. You don’t have to be in a perfect place. You just have to be yourself.
And if all you can do today is breathe and be here, that’s more than enough.

You are welcome.
You are seen.
You are not alone anymore.

With warmth,
Isel x

24/04/2025

The Dog Who Held the Silence

Thirteen years ago, everything I thought I was dissolved.

I was a neuroscientist. A dog psychologist. A behaviourist. A mother-to-be. And then, during the birth of my child, I was awake on the operating table during an emergency c-section. The pain and shock of that experience—of being awake and helpless—left me with PTSD, a condition called dysautonomia, and a body and mind I no longer recognized.

I lost my health. I lost my career. I lost the version of myself I had built so carefully, so academically.

And in the rubble of that collapse, I found silence.

Not the silence of peace—not yet—but the hollow silence that follows trauma, when the world keeps moving and you no longer know how to move with it.

In that silence, someone sat with me. Not a therapist. Not a healer. A dog.

My dog never offered advice. She never needed me to explain. She simply was. With me. Day after day, in the stillness. In the despair. In the moments when I wanted to disappear, she remained—a silent witness to my slow, painful becoming.

Over time, I began to feel something stir. Not in my body. Not even in my mind. In my spirit. And I realized something:

Animals know how to be with pain in a way most humans have forgotten.

They don’t rush to fix. They don’t fear silence. They stay present. They see without judgment. They wait without trying to change us.

This is how my dog became my first spiritual teacher.

And so now, years later, I find myself called—not back to my old life—but forward into something deeper. A path that blends my scientific mind, my neurodivergent perception, my love and understanding of dogs, and the spiritual truths that emerged in the long, dark night of my soul.

I am stepping into this path gently. Quietly. I am not a guru. I am not here to shout over the noise.

I am here for those who feel lost, for those who feel invisible, for those who are cracked open and raw—and who sense, like I did, that animals are holding a wisdom we desperately need to remember.

This is the beginning of that remembering. For me. For us. For them.

24/02/2021

We took a walk today in the torrential rain just because we needed fresh air, and popped into our little village shop while we were out.

We bought surprise chocolates for my sister and niece, delivered them then came home to get cosy by the wood burner.

Later that day look who surprised me with a beautiful boutique filled with flowers I adore.
I’m feeling very grateful, loved and completely in alignment with the Law of Reciprocity.

22/02/2021

It can be just so difficult when our little ones struggle with feeling big emotions.

Controlling your child' behaviour is not good parenting.
Regulating your own, despite your child's, is.

I know, its difficult and you are not alone.

Our as mamas and papas is not get triggered and join in the drama. Neither is it for us to make our little ones feel wrong for how they feel.

Feeling big emotions can be overwhelming, particularly in neurodiverse children and as parents it's so easy to get triggered, but there is another way.

One filled with love, compassion and connection.

If this is something you would love to be able to do then come and join our community at The Empowered Parent Academy FB group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/theempoweredparentacademy