I Am Strong!

I Am Strong!

So "a funny thing happened on the way to the forum..." or should I say yoga mat? I finally did what my inner control freak had been dreading, and that was transpose a practice. So for all those micro-managers like myself you will feel my pain when I tell you that today is actually day 24 and I did day 25's practice. My more 'hang loose' counterparts will be like 'so what?' LOL. What was my first reaction to this? To go all panicky and be like 'now what? The whole thing is out of order now! I failed. It's not...perfect...' Than something happened that gave me a "stop-the-presses" realization. I didn't do any of that. I didn't really care. I'm truly taking the first steps to release my monkey-mania.

I'm not going to fight Mercury Retrograde this time, but I'm going to let it work to re-form and re-fit my life, gently, sifting through, and methodically being the taste-maker of my existence; deciding what goes and what stays and what challenges I need to face up to once and for all and where I need to get clear in my life. Actually this is the second time I'm writing this because the first time my post mysteriously deleted itself. I'm guessing that Mercury Retro was at play again, helping me to refine my words for better consumption by the reader.

I decided that the mantra and yoga sequence in this practice were what I really needed more that the one that "belonged" on day 24. It just felt "right" somehow. Mercury came along to shake things up a bit and maybe even deliver a one two punch.  But that's OK.  The planetary alignments that are happening right now are teaching me that no matter if I get rattled or delivered a strong right hook, that I have the power to decide if it knocks me off my center or if it makes me stand stronger and more sure. I realized that I got this and so do you! The Universe, my yoga practice, meditation routine, crystal healing, belief in myself, my loyal friends and supporters, energetic healing, Mama Earth, Papa Sky, The Great Spirit, and all my guides and spirit helpers, they've all got by back to! We got this!

I Am Secure!

I Am Secure!

So Adriene said that this mantra could bring up a lot of resistance and it did. But I found more ease in allowing the resistance to flow and breathing into the areas of strain and discomfort that those words conjured up. This practice made me examine how I can find grace and balance in times when I am thrown off kilter. It made me ask myself 'how can I surf the waves and currents that I can either allow to disrupt the flow of my life or cleanse away my soul's impurities?' I'm examining that as I am working my way through Mercury Retrograde. It feels totally possible to go with the tide of this planetary pull and let it take me to somewhere safe and help me learn along the way of the journey. Can I view delays on public transportations and in scheduling as an opportunity to go inward and grab extra time to do chakra meditation or clarify details that I need to handle for the day? Can canceled plans with friends or lovers be a chance to get to know myself? If I get sick, could maybe that time be used to recharge and heal my body? Or if communications cause upsets, arguments, or disagreements, could I examine my reactions and take the time to learn the lessons that the experience is trying to teach me? Can I have the patience to improve myself and become better one day at a time? In this frame of mind can I find security even in times of unrest and strife? I feel as if I can start to learn how to do that. I feel a lot stronger in the face of adversity.

I Surround Myself With....

I Surround Myself With....

What do I choose to surround myself with? Love 💘?  Peace✌? Abundance? Hope? Joy? Security? How about, D all of the above. When I'm feeling this much gratitude, I can afford to be magnanimous. I came to the yoga mat today with a heart that was a lighter and more joyful than before, and it was simply because of my more positive outlook. I'm am starting to learn to live in the flow and it feels good. I'm starting to learn new ways of being and breathing in my skin and it's beginning to feel beautiful.

I Believe!

I Believe!

I realized with today's mantra that I often have trouble believing in myself. But going into this day's practice which I finished at the end of my day helped a lot. 21 days in and I'm still committed. I'm seriously thinking about going on every day for a year. That's 365 days of yoga! I figure I'll take it one day on the mat at a time. But New Year's resolutions aren't even here yet, and my Yoga Camp challenge feels like it's just the beginning of a new year of accomplishments and breakthroughs. I am in it to win it. 3,2,1 countdown ad takeoff!

I Am Worthy: OMG Day 20!

I Am Worthy...

This practice wasn't for slouches when it came to exploring the subconscious mind and all the messages we tell ourselves about our worth every day. Tell yourself "I am worthy" and see what emotions, feelings, pictures or images come up. This is such an intense part of self-discovery because often times we aren't just dealing from that time that our ex-boyfriend told us that we were not desirable or a friend stopped speaking to us over hurt feelings. These feelings come from deep within our inner child, from our ancestral lineage or even from past lives (if that is one of your belief systems like it is mine).  Maybe your mother or father didn't value you much, abandoned you, or your needs weren't paid very much attention to as a child.

All of these things can knock you of center and damage the root chakra. This yoga practice pulled up not only mine own thoughts of unworthiness, but also all the ways in which I may have made other feel unworthy. It also pulled up a healthy amount of guilt which goes into sacral chakra healing. But as we've already discussed, the first 5 chakras are very linked. That is not to say that the 6th and 7th chakras aren't. We are all connected holistically to every part of our being, body, mind, and spirit. But the first 5 chakra's seem to interconnect quite a bit more in my opinion. Whatever the case, you can use this practice and other yoga practices along with affirmations to go deeper. It's a powerful thing. And this going deeper can lead to healing.

The good news is that with some effort you can heal and repair the root chakra. There are many ways to do that from meditation, to crystal therapy, to visualization and affirmations, yoga, dance, grounding exercises, visiting nature and connecting with the dirt under your feet. And it can be a lot of fun! In these activities you learn to fall, get back up, laugh, play and cry and then fall and laugh and pull yourself back to your feet again and again. You learn to approach life with acceptance and forgiveness. I am learning to forgive myself and others, be tolerant of even the people who annoy me and learn lessons from why they are or were in my existence and to stay open to all the experiences, heart breaking, wonderful, loving and amazing that come my way! 

I Respect!

I Respect!

Today's mantra challenged my ideas about respect. I was able to reflect on the ways in which I respect myself and others and what ideas that I hold true for myself about my boundaries and areas where I might transgress on the boundaries of others. It was illuminating. I have been wearing my red jasper and black tourmaline crystals to ground me and help me to understand even more about my personal space and where those ley lines reside. I have been doing a lot of musing around my first chakra whose mantra is "I Am". I focused on all the ways that I am respectful both of myself and others and how respect relates to the confines of the personal space.

We wear stones for grounding, but these stones also serve as a barrier to the energetic borders of our personal space. When we wear a black tourmaline it is also for protection from negative energy, entities,  thought forms and the like. These all relate to how much we own our bodies and how comfortable we are inside them. Can we sense when our space is being violated, or when we are violating other's space? Part of these lessons of course continue up the chakras, especially the first five chakras like an energetic daisy chain.

When we ground into our own self, our boundaries, our truths and our intuition, we become even more powerful and whole beings capable of making great changes in the world. And part of that realization of self, includes our respect for ourselves, others and all the things that make up the universe.

I Surrender...

I Surrender...

Today wasn't perfect, and that's actually great. In my quest to explore the boundaries of my body, I wanted to approach my practice today with a sense of abandon, and just simply let go. I've been focusing in on my root chakra and reflecting on what Mercury Retrograde might mean for me as it dials back it's trajectory on December 3rd. I wore two grounding crystals, red jasper and black tourmaline to assist in healing my root chakra. I thought about what Ken Dychtwald was saying about some my body imbalances in my root chakra that cause me to grasp for control on hold on too tightly out of fear and my past trend of rationalizing them and my current mode of acceptance. I knew that today would shake up this stuff in some way. I felt it.

I realized that I might not make all my deadlines when I was on the BART today, I got to class and made peace with that. I left my backpack inside the my office at The Guardsman, the City College of San Francisco Newspaper where I've spent the last year as a reporter and now a culture editor. That backpack had some stuff I needed in there, including my "Energy Oracle" tarot deck and my copy of "Bodymind". On the way to my jazz improvisation class where I sing, I bumped into a women who should have pushed all my triggers. She asked me if I wanted to go to a bible study. I told her I was more spiritual than religious, and what could have turned confrontational, actually helped me realized just how far I have moved beyond my bitterness of having been raised in a cult religion and my migration to a place of acceptance. More root chakra issues. I plan on exploring my inner child and facing more root chakra places where I am stuck. All in all, I'd say that today went pretty well. I plan to practice meditation and tap deeper into my root chakra. There is more gold to be mined there. No doubt Mercury will further help me to uncover any other unfinished business inside my root chakra. I am making it a point to consider all the ways in which I can unpack and let go of all the stuff, psychic debris, attachments, persons, energies, places and things that no longer serve me. I am ready to completely unveil a new me on the inside and the outside! It's time for an ultimate cleansing of mind, body and soul.