I've Come A Long Way Baby!

Today I feel pretty on top of the world. I did 30 minutes of yoga with Rodney Yee. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing and trying no matter how much you want to stop. I can often have the determination of a pit bull terrier. Day 19. I can say that hope rains eternal for me right now. I've witnessed hard cold proof of my efforts. I was so strong in my practice that I was able to master the Urdhva Dhanurasana, or wheel pose, otherwise know as the back bend. With my eyes looking at the wall behind me I felt like jumping for joy. Instead, I put all the energy in to propelling my chest and hips forward to futher open up my heart chakra and just breathed into the pose to deepen in. OK, so my form could improve a lot but I'm completely in a back bend. I'm so juiced about this! A huge part of me can't believe that I've come this far. I feel like celebrating or something. I think I will too. I'll celebrate by doing 10 Urdhva Dhanurasana's in a row! Tomorrow is day 20. I can't wait to get back to my mat!

A Chronological Timeline...

Today was actually sort of normal and benign. I guess it went something like this: I noticed the alarm clock went off and has been ringing for a considerable time. Damn it's 7:16 am. I'm an hour overtime. Curse daylight savings time! Should I do my yoga at the office or on lunch break? No I'll do it here and be about 15 minutes late since there's no super-early appointments. Rodney Yee's AB's Yoga is full of boat poses and twists at the waist. Shower and dress to dash out the door. Breakfast is a bowl of Cheerios and soy milk. I have a cancellation for this evening. I'm bummed, but maybe karma thinks I need the extra hour. Next client is a Morning facial. She always leaves a smile on my face. Makes up for the cancellation. Wow my mind is full of the fact that I haven't done my daily isochronic chakra meditation yet. When will I squeeze that in.Text from a friend in the morning. I'll have to answer that later. My horoscope's a bit underwhelming. Get ready for the next client. Ahhh... finally I can meditate. Lunch for 20 minutes and I indulge in my latest Korean drama while eating. Then it's off to run errands all over town for 2 hours before my late afternoon appointment. I prep for the next treatment. Gosh, I still have 2 writing assignments to complete. And what about that short story I'm still working on? I giving myself 1 1/2 weeks to finish it, revision and all. Back to the real world I need to set up for my next client. I think I spilled some soup on my black skirt. I wiped it with a damp cloth. Did I get it all? My Yahoo IM is lighting up again. Why did I join Second Life? Like I need another thing to waste my time. LOL. I'll have to work late tonight.Guess I'll grab dinner when I can. I haven't done my speed reading exercise today. Working on a client. It's only 4:30?!?! Breath. Ohmmm...

Photo Credits: Renjith Krishnan 

Just Rolling Along...

Today's yoga practice was fuel to keep my day in perspective. It was another yoga lunch break for me. 30 minutes of high-powered sun salutations to brighten up my 12 hours of awake-time. Each practice tends to simplify my day and make it so much easier to center my various tasks around. I had another breakthrough during my chakra meditation this morning. Today all I had to do was close my eyes and I was able to gain a deep state of relaxation within the first minute of listening to my isochronic recording. There is something supremely satisfying about know that you are moving forward each day into a new era of being. Now the days are entering a pleasant flow from one sunset into the other, and I can see more and more of my true purpose with each and every dawn. I know that this is only a pit stop on the universal highway, but I'm enjoying my moment in the sun, and the ride -- cruising in this astral convertible, top down, hands catching the wind, tasting the freedom of boundless energy.

Photo Credits: winnond

Shedding Old Skin

Hope is a wonderful thing. Like rays of sunlight peeking out from behind an ominous cloud, it instills a sense of grateful being. This is what yoga and meditation inspires me with. Hope. And a feeling that I can ascend to something much higher within myself; become more whole, happier, healthier, and live life on a surer path -- a road where I know my place and the ground greets my feet with each passing step. And I now realize that I don't care how long it takes or how patient I have to be to realize the enlightenment that will come as my reward. I have a certainty and a knowing that it will find me before I even discover it has come. Then the fears that we all cling too, the ones we never even admit to ourselves will finish dropping away and there will be a time for something else that becomes effortless with the lost of resistance to it. Change. It's time to invoke the true meaning of the the yoga practice Kundalini and embrace the "awakening serpent" as each chakra springs to life with vibrant energy. Like a year that seasons cover the distance of, I will experience my personal periods of light and rain, shadow and revealing and breathe into each one. These are the lessons I'm learning with the fall of every drop of sweat that lands on my yoga mat. And as the days pass, the waiting for each joint and muscle to unlock seems more like a blessing then burden.Today my horoscope read,"Sagittarius, a new clarity is coming to you soon -- be sure to think things through slowly." Could it be that my new-found insight will come in the form of a deeply drawn breath or a brand new asana? Only the future holds the answer to that question. And I stretch into it with calm anticipation.

The Deepest Cleanse

Today's Kundalini yoga With Gurmukh and meditation sessions were highly enriching on an emotional level. With each undulation of my spine and swift movement of my arms, I could feel the stuck negative energy breaking free in way that was similar to a catharsis of the soul. I was able to rid myself of a lot of feelings that had been trapped in places that even I wasn't aware of. Occasionally during my Kundalini practice, a movement would get particularly difficult and I knew it wasn't only because of the challenge of the motion itself, but that it was something more intrinsic. I kept breathing through it and random emotions like anger, frustration, sadness, or disappointment would surface in my mind. I wouldn't stop, I'd just keep right on with the exercise and focus on my steady breaths coming in and out from my diaphragm. The results after this practice were phenomenal. I felt clearer, my concentration was through the roof, and it was as if a weight from somewhere deep inside had been lifted. This is what a cleansing of the spirit must feel like. My body and mind are gaining unison, working not as separate entities but as a team cheering for the continual improvement of my health. I'm starting to smile not only on the outside, but also on the inside!

Staying Centered

Self improvement is a funny thing. For some people it's about finances, others romance, and still others health. For me it's about an outlook on life, one that is well-balanced in all areas if not equally alloted. I'm on this quest to better myself emotionally, spiritually and physically and it's a learning experience each step of the way. I'm feeling phenomenal all the time, my stress level is lower and when troublesome issues arise I simply don't deal with them with the same level of panic that I used to. Even today when personal problems made me antsy, I fell back on my morning chakra meditation and was feeling leagues better in no time. I couldn't believe how much my mentality had changed. I felt so much more in control and aware of just what I could do to handle my situation. My yoga session with a Rodney Yee DVD had already focused my mindset and fine-tuned my body so I was in an even more relaxed state. I'm excited about where I'm headed and I'm not looking back. My horoscope today read, "Sagittarius, you should turn off your engine completely -- you need to take things even slower." I took that advice today both in yoga, meditation and in life.

More Then Simple Reflection

Meditation has become an increasingly valuable tool in managing my day. Balancing out my chakras has opened my horizons to just how powerful that this practice is. My thoughts are more clear, my day less stressful, and my goals seem that much more within reach; as if I can see the path ahead of me, the long stretching expanses and the obstacles that might arise along the way. Within my mind's eye I have become more alert, stronger, and self-assured. During my isochronic tone meditation, I started at the root chakra and could imagine the resonating red ball of energy stemming right from the base of my spinal column and radiating down to my toes. I could feel the energy stored there growing from the faint red that it used to be to a now larger glowing orb of light. I then moved to my sacral chakra region and the color orange sprung immediately to mind this time and filled my lower belly with it's soft brightness spinning in clockwise orientation. From there I progressed to the beaming lemon yellow that sat right between the upper swell of my ribs and spun around it's sunny rays showing even on the outside of my torso. At this point my body began to awaken and energize. As I had just completed an hour long session of Rodney Yee's Power Yoga, I really felt alive. As my mind accessed my heart chakra the whirl of color changed to a vibrant jungle green and in the center the vulnerable soft pink circle turning at the same speed clockwise. At each step as I progressed from chakra to chakra I would envision a white healing light that to me represented divinity, enclose each color completely and then cross it to bind it together with two bands of white energy. On to the throat chakra, a shade of turquoise turning slow and then faster and faster as it gained strength to open.Then I moved to the third eye, that confident dark hue of indigo swirling like a mysterious sea right in the middle of my forehead. Finally the crown chakra greeted my psyche strongly with vivid impressions of violet that intensified as I focused in on them. Then I saw all my chakras as spinning in harmony from bottom to top, and bathed them hot-white healing and crossed my body with that healing from top to bottom. That was today's meditation. I took the concepts from the book The Book of Chakras: Discover the Hidden Forces Within You by Ambika Wauters, and modified them to fit my own style of reflection. I received a tip from a close friend to not visually spin your chakras from top to bottom but actually across from let to right, and I find that the colors move more fully in their perspective places. It's a beautiful thing to know that your mind can transport you to an eternal destination of rest and regeneration that has no ticket fare. Within it you can train a place of sanctuary that is both priceless and rare. In an experience that is unique each time I try it I've found an immensely satisfying treasure if only for 15 minutes. Peace.

Photo Credits: Sura Nualpradid