I know a lot of people strongly dislike Valentine's Day, whether that's because of the commercialism that goes along with it or the sight of smug couples or the idea that you should only tell your loved one how you really feel one day of the year. Whatever your reasons for perhaps not liking this day it's not going anywhere and so it's nice to try and make the most of it. I like to think of this day as a nice opportunity to practice loving kindness, not necessarily tuning in to just one person but trying to tune in to all living beings. I'd like to share with you a favourite meditation of mine from the book "beat stress with meditation" written by Naomi Ozaniec called The rose of the heart:
"Sit in meditation and become aware of your heart centre. In your minds eye place a rosebud at the heart centre. As you watch, see the rosebud gently unfurl it's petals. Let each petal represent a quality of loving. When the rose of the heart is founded and fully open allow yourself to generate feelings of universal love. Radiate this subtle quality like rose perfume. Let it be carried on the air. Let the rose bloom in the heart." If you tend towards feelings of loneliness on this particular day of the year this meditation will help you feel close to others. If you tend towards having unruly attachment towards your partner then this should help to balance that out. I hope you enjoy this beautiful practice. Namaste x
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In this busy modern world it's very difficult to identify quite how much we're holding in and holding on to, it's not until we stop, slow down and look within that we realise the amount of accumulated tension in the body and the mind. This is revealed when we finally have some time off, get a massage, sit down to meditate or roll out our mat for yoga practice. For me this is one of the main reasons why I keep returning to my mat and why I love teaching yoga so much, learning and teaching the art of letting go. So what are some of the ways in which we hold on and hold in and the ways yoga helps us move past them. Let's start with our breath. THE BREATH One thing you'll hear most yoga teachers explain is that in our practice our breath is the most important thing, without the breath there is no yoga. I was recently listening to a teaching about Pranayama and how they've discovered that the correct translation is not "to control the breath" but actually "to free the breath". This really makes sense to me as the biggest obstacle to our being able to breathe properly is that our breath is restricted. To free the breath we need to learn to let go of that gripping that takes place in the body. The way most people breathe these days is at odds with how we are designed to breathe, when we inhale we should allow our belly to swell and expand so that the breathing diaphragm can descend and the lungs can inflate to there full capacity, when we exhale we should allow the belly to hollow so the breathing diaphragm can move upwards and push the breath all the way out of the lungs. There should be this beautiful play between inhaling new prana in to the body and detoxing the body on the exhale. Now, you only have to look around at the beginning of class when you ask people to breathe in to their belly to see how unnatural this feels to people and how difficult they find it. Due to body image in this day and age we spend most of the day trying to hug our tummy in and maintain that svelte figure, (just look at all the shit lady Gaga got from having a tiny bit of tummy fat), we often wear clothes that are too tight for fear of what it means to have gone up a clothing size and for women we're normally incased in incredibly uncomfortable padded and wired bras because heaven forbid anyone should see our nipples! Add on top of that the effect that stress has on our gut and its ability to relax during tense moments it's no wonder we find it so hard to let go in this area. In our yoga practice we learn to breathe deeply in to this area, every inhale breathing in relaxation and every exhale breathing out tension, we learn to not care about sticking our tummies out and how this effects our silhouette and through this simple practice we learn to start accepting ourselves just as we are and marvelling at the wonder of how incredible our bodies are when we allow them to do their thing! GRIPPING IN THE OUTER BODY The human body is actually designed to support itself from the inside out, we have deep core muscles that sit nice and snug towards the spine and their job is to keep us upright without needing to call upon the outer body muscles such as the shoulders to hold us up. However, a product of these modern times is that we have little awareness of these core muscles and the important role they play. Due to poor posture, often sitting or standing in a slumped way for sometimes hours at a time these deeper spine supporting muscles have weakened meaning that the outer body has to take over. The outer body muscles are not designed to keep us upright in this way and so this means that more often than not these muscles are over stretched and held in contraction for far too long, the fascia begins to re mound itself in these new positions so we end up with things like tech neck, incredibly tight and sore shoulder muscles that hunch up towards the ears, tension headaches due to extreme tightness in the muscles of the neck and a build up of knots in the muscles that we then need to go and get massaged out. In yoga we learn to strengthen our inner body and dissolve away outer body tension. This is why you'll hear yoga teachers saying things like "drop the shoulders away from the ears", "relax the jaw", "relax the hips" "activate your core". Over time we learn to undo these habits so that we start to live our daily life with improved posture and less gripping through the outer body. Some of my students have told me that they can hear me saying "relax your shoulders" at times throughout the day and that they remember to relax and take some deep breaths before continuing with their tasks. Next time you're sitting or standing try and tune in to this habit of gripping, see if you can notice where in your outer body you're holding on, it might be the shoulders and the neck, it might be clawing through the toes or gripping through the hips. See if you can start to stand a little taller and begin to draw the belly back towards the spine and see how this allows the outer body to let go as you support yourself from within. THE MIND People are starting to realise that yoga isn't just about exercise or becoming incredibly bendy but that it offers us the ability to leave our problems and worries at the door and connect with our inner spiritual selves. Many students describe the feeling of calm and relaxation that yoga gives to them as being the main reason why they keep going back for more. There is just as much gripping that takes place in the mind as there is in the body, maybe even more. The mind is either holding on to past events, unable to forgive, understand, accept and move on or its tensing up about the unknown future. Rarely is the mind ever in the present moment. The problem with this is the present moment is where inner peace lives and it's also where our life takes place, too long dwelling on the past and daydreaming about the future and life too quickly passes us by and it dawns on us too late that we didn't show up to our own life!! I'm reminded of a quote from Harry Potter "it's ok to dream Harry but don't forget to live". Yoga encourages us to let go of these habits and to train the mind to dwell in the present moment. We use mindfulness to pay attention to our breath throughout our practice so that eventually our yoga practice becomes like a moving meditation and therefore a holiday for the mind. Undistracted by past and future events, worries and concerns we get to know the vast spaciousness of our mind and the immense peace that this brings. Hopefully you you can see for yourself some of the incredible benefits that yoga has to offer and if you haven't tried it yet I hope you feel inspired to find a local class. I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes "yoga is not about touching your toes but what you learn in the way down". Namaste x |
Urban PriestessWelcome to my Urban Priestess blog, here I share my tips and tricks for seasonal and lunar living. Archives
December 2019
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