Creative Yogini

August 08

The Awareness Game - a presence meditation

A good way to get into the present moment is what my fiancé and I call “The Awareness Game.” We named it a “game” to help our 4-year-old God son  calm his mind and get him in tune with nature and his immediate surroundings. What started as a fun game, has turned out to be a really peaceful meditation that calms the mind, opens the heart, and rejuvenates the spirit. (See end of posting for kid's game.)

The Awareness Game can be done anywhere – at home, the beach, the airport, in a taxi, or at work, but I find it most effective when sitting alone in nature. The 1st step is to sit comfortably, either on your knees (in vijrasana) or cross-legged (in sukasana), with your spine nice and tall. Open the heart by relaxing the shoulders and letting the shoulder blades gently move towards one another. Close your eyes and focus your attention on your breath. On every inhale, feel your body receiving energy – feel it lift your diaphram, expand the rib cage, and fill the belly. On every exhale, feel the release of stagnant energy & tension – the diaphram moves down, the rib cage sinks in, and the belly empties. After 5-10 slow, deep breaths, open your eyes and observe everything around you. Your 1st scan may be a simple list of objects – a tree, water, ducks, flowers, grass, dirt, blanket, yoga mat, my body, my hands, sky, clouds, cars…. Then take your vision deeper. When looking at a tree, watch the wind make the leaves dance. What kind of dance would that be? Watch the way the light hits the leaves. Blur your eyes and the sunlight looks like Christmas lights on the tree. Start seeing things differently. The colors of the leaves, the shapes of the branches, the space between the branches, the pattern on the bark.

As you begin to see things differently, you almost feel as though you’re part of it all. Because you are. We’re all interconnected. The ways the water ripples after a duck swoops in to find a fish. The flutter of each blade of grass. The movement, shapes, and colors of the clouds.

Close your eyes bringing your external world internal. Deepen your inhalations and exhalations, ensuring the air reaches the pit of your abdomen. Bring your awareness to sounds. The buzz of a dragonfly. The song of a bird. The whoosh of cars going by. The splash of water. The wind through the trees. Open yourself to receiving all of these sounds with each inhalation. Hear the sound of your breath as it effortlessly floats in and out of your body.

With eyes still closed, bring your awareness into the scents filling the space around you. Perhaps it’s freshly cut grass, your perfume or body lotion, hopefully it’s not your sweaty arm pits…. Can you smell the water? The exhaust from cars? Does anything bring nostalgia?

Now bring your awareness into your sense of touch. Your ankles pressed into the ground, shin bones stacked over them, sit bones on the blanket,  backs of the hands brushing against the thighs, low ribs separating from the naval, shoulder blades moving together, the head gently stacked on top of the neck. Feel the wind blowing across your face, through your hair. The subtle vibration of the earth as the cars pass by. Tune into the vibration of all living things: the birds, bugs, trees, grass, water.

How do all of these sights, sounds, smells, and vibrations make you feel inside? Do you get hot or cold? Calm or energized? Happy, peaceful, sad, lonely, or angry? Don’t judge the feelings, just become aware of them as a spectator of your own body. The mind chatter may pop up at some points. Rather than getting frustrated and shoeing the thoughts away, peacefully invite them in with each inhale, and let them out with each exhale. Let your perception shift to being the audience member as if your life & thoughts were a running movie. Again, no judgment, just observe. How does your movie make you feel?

Bring gratitude and appreciation into your heart. It may be helpful to place your hand over your chest and think of all the things in your life that bring you joy and love. Watch these images pass through your movie screen one by one. And then do absolutely nothing. Be as you are, completely effortless and open. If your mind is quiet enough, you may receive an inspiring thought, what seems like an epiphany, when in reality it is your true self communicating with you. Just relax and be you. You are the light of the world. You are pure love.

When you feel ready, slowly let your eyelids separate, gazing a few feet in front of you. Slowly open your eyes to see your new world. Inhale the arms overhead and bring the palms together and down the front of your body – stopping first at the third eye center, thanking yourself for knowing the truth. Move the hands in front of your mouth, asking yourself to always speak the truth, and finally let the hands rest at the heart’s center, opening yourself to always feeling the truth. Close the eyes, bow the head, and give love, peace, and gratitude to yourself and then to the rest of the universe.

Namaste – the light within me greets the light within you.


The Awareness Game for Kids:

Ask them to sit (I know even this can be challenging!), and take in 3 deep breaths together. Ask them the following questions, using your intuition to help them really see, hear, and feel the world around them:









10:11 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 13

Crying is Healing

“Hush, hush, baby – please don’t cry.”

“Big boys and girls don’t cry. Only babies cry.”

“Are you going to cry now like a little baby?”

“Shhhhhh! Please just stop crying – you’re driving me crazy!”

Our entire lives we’ve been hushed, reprimanded, and made fun of for crying. No wonder we hold our feelings in. Societal conditioning has labeled crying as an act of weakness or a sign of depression. It’s time for us to uncover the truth about crying. What is it? It’s an emotional release. Let’s look at these two words. “Emotional” – so it comes from our emotions: sadness, anger, depression, fear, even happiness and passion. So these emotions are inside of us. It’s not something we think about; it’s something we feel, and most of the time, it’s unconscious. We express feelings with words, body language, and actions – frowns, pouty faces, crossed arms, physical violence, mean words… Why are all of these actions acceptable? And sometimes even encouraged? “Oh, he just needs to get it out of his system.”

Let’s look at the 2nd word, “release” – letting go, getting rid of something that doesn’t serve us anymore. What in the world is wrong with letting go of emotions that don’t serve us anymore? This sounds…I don’t know…healthy! We think crying means that something is wrong when really it’s the first step to making things right. I would like to reclaim crying. It’s a reclaiming of ourself. And you know what? It feels good. Really good. Of course there are times when it may hurt a little bit as it’s pouring out, but water is symbolic of emotion. And after it’s released from our bodies- we feel a little bit lighter, with a new perspective on our world.

What happens when you hold it all in? The Temper Tantrum. Those two words use to make me crazy- “Just ignore her – she’s having another temper tantrum.” We all have a right to have temper tantrums. When you hold emotions inside, it’s like you’re cooking a pot of mystery stew inside of you. Letting everything in – all of the veggies, meat, potatoes – we let them heat up, mix up, bump into one another, and boil. Things start to irritate us that never bothered us before. So we boil more….then…..it happens…that little extra sprinkle of salt in your stew….your best friend was supposed to call you to go to the movies and she didn’t…oh my god….it’s an explosion. The stew boils over the pot and out come the tears. Your friend always does this to you; she’s so unreliable, how could you ever trust her again. Not realizing that this “incident” was a necessary tip on the iceberg so you could let it all out! You should thank your friend for being the loving person that sent you over. Because now, you can let it all out and heal.

What happens when you skip the Temper Tantrum and hold it in even longer? When you’re so talented that you can keep the stew at boiling point without ever letting it overflow? Your stove will break. Your heart rate will climb. Your body may send you a message with some type of physical pain or illness whether it be a headache, broken arm, a heart attack, or even cancer.  Physical pain is always a language. It’s your soul, (a.k.a.- the “real you”) saying, “pay attention to me! I’m hurting a need to be healed!” Emotions can be super easy to ignore but pain and illness cannot. It forces you to stop what you’re doing and focus on you.

We Westerners have been trained to look for quick fixes to solve pain – pop a pill for any ailment. Sure it might alleviate symptoms of the ailment at that moment but rest assured, if your emotions are not released and healed, they will resurface again in another form of physical pain.  I won’t even get into the topic of medicine right now – how the leading cause of death of people between the ages of 75 and 100 is misuse and mis-diagnosis of medicine. What’s supposed to cure us is killing us.  I’ll save this topic for another blog…

Your true healing won’t come from a pill. It will come from a tear – and feel free to overdose on them because the more you let out, the more you’ll heal yourself. Have you ever experienced this?

My bottled up emotions surface as severe stomach aches or more frequently, migraines. They drive me crazy, make me angry, which makes the pain even worse. With migraines, I can’t do anything and sometimes I can’t even see straight. The migraine and lack of vision isn’t enough? Let’s add a tablespoon of nausea. And then I find myself hovered over a toilet. Well, there’s one form of release. But wait, a tear comes out from my pure frustration. Then two or three. Then before I know it, I am whaling. Gushes of tears are accompanied with some pretty major snot and drool, not to mention screams and moans. You would’ve thought my pet monkey died or something. (OK, I don't have one, but if I did, I would be really sad.)

To help it all come out, I recommend lying in child’s pose on top of a pillow. Face first in a pillow, I can scream all I want and the neighbors can’t call the cops for suspicions of domestic violence. The pillow actually ends up being a pretty good tear and snot absorber as well. (I know, gross… but come on, you can always wash it.) But when it’s all out, and a lot does come out, it’s like someone took a wet blanket off of me. I am lighter and big surprise, my headache is gone – no pills necessary. No more physical pain at all. Side effects? Lots of smiles.

I’m 26 years old and I’ve just learned why and how to cry. I cry all the time, especially when I feel the slightest form of physical pain. A lot of time I let go of things I don’t even know about– but it feels good. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of times our emotions are unconscious; we are unaware of the root of our emotional release. To find out the symbolic meaning of your physical pain (i.e.- Why is my thumb hurting? What does my broken ankle mean?) Check out Louis Hay's You Can Heal Your Body, www.scribd.com/doc/359921/Louise-L-Hay-Heal-Your-Body. Each time I let go or “empty out," I feel like there’s more of “me” to fill up my mind, body, and spirit.

So if you don’t believe me, I challenge you to try it out. There aren’t any negative side effects. I’d invite you to a crying party but that’s kinda awkward.  Please give it a shot and share your experience. Crying is healing. So let yourself heal.

7:13 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

April 11

Recipe: Organic/Raw Detox Salad Dressing

I'm slightly obsessed with creating homemade organic salad dressings, sauces, dips, and soups- there's no end to the creativity and they're really hard to mess up! Here's one of my favorites:

• 3 tablespoons Braggs organic, raw apple cider vinegar
• 5 tablespoons Braggs organic, 1st cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil
• juice of 1/2 organic lemon
  
• 2-3 bulbs of organic ginger, peeled
  
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt or Himalayan crystal salt

• 1 clove of organic garlic
• fresh organic mint, basil, and/or cilantro
• replace lemon with organic lime or orange
  
• 1 organic carrot
• 1 tablespoon of raw tahini (for creamy, non-dairy)
• 3-4 cubes of raw cheese (for creamy, dairy)
  

Combine all ingredients into a blender and pour over your favorite salad & veggies.



3:46 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

The "Secret" Meditation

Many of you may have read the book or seen the film, "The Secret." It's all about the law of attraction - what you put out into the world is exactly what you'll get in return. If we create a positive energy force around us, we will attract beautiful things into our lives. Yes, the book & film do focus a little too much on money & possessions, but there are wonderful things to learn and experience by applying "The Secret" to your meditation. This is just one of many ways to bring an abundance of love and happiness into your life. Try it out- there are no side effects!





When it feels right for you, slowly open your eyes. The world may look different. You may feel lighter. You may feel happier and at peace. Keep your faith strong and wait and see what happens in your life!








4:30 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)