by admin | Apr 19, 2013 | Uncategorized
Do you ever get the feeling the world is moving too quickly? With the fast pace of our lives, we can experience a sense of living outside of ourselves, of not truly being centred in the here and now. With this we can begin to feel a loss of connection to ourselves and others around us. Yogi Bhajan, who mastered Kundalini yoga, predicted that people would be experiencing what he termed Cold Depression at this time; a general sense of apathy and disconnection. The issue with Cold Depression is exactly this experience. We shut down and don’t realise how removed we are from our true purpose – to experience a full and rich life, appreciating the subtleties and senses moment to moment. THIS MEDITATION HELPS SHIFT OUT OF COLD DEPRESSION. It’s also great to use for anxiety. Try it for yourself: Mudra: Bring the hands together and link the fingers, index finger pointing up. Cross the thumbs (left over right for women, right over left for men). Bend the elbows and have the hands a few centimetres away from the chest. Eyes focus at the tip of the nose. Chant the mantra WAH HAY GURU. Chant “Wha” at the navel (meaning bring the focus there), “Hay” at the heart & “Guru” at the lips. Chant however you like, in a monotone or with tune. Time: 11mins. To end: Inhale and suspend the breath, with your intention to give the apathy, stagnation, cold depression, anxiety up. To surrender it to the universe. Exhale and repeat twice more. ...
by admin | Apr 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
Transitions. The in-between times. That often uncomfortable space of not knowing. A time when there is no particular focus, no guidelines. Just waiting. When things can feel uncertain and you can feel so vulnerable that you look to anything to not be in that space. Desire for knowing that everything will be okay. Question: what would it be like to stay here in this space? What, instead of the need for certainty, we just sat in the unknown? What would that be like? THE MANTRA SAT NAM SHOWS US HOW. Sat Nam means truth name. Truth is the name of God/universal oneness/the connection & evolution of all things. Our name is how we introduce ourselves and identify ourselves. Sat Nam / Truth Name is the living of truth – the self with the universal. Living Sat Nam is engaging with the unknown with an attitude of truthfulness. This attitude carries with it the highest intention and with that comes strength. Sat Nam is not the assumption of truth as content or as a body of knowledge, as we define truth in our day to day. Sat Nam is recognising Divine truth as an unknown. We can never really know the truth of why things happen or how they will actually eventuate. In accepting that, we allow for the playing out of our destiny and hold on to Sat Nam to provide strength and stability. Living Sat Nam means we can be honest with ourselves and with others while accepting the outcome of our actions. Taking this attitude to the yoga mat means: Staying present to the in-between from one...
by admin | Apr 3, 2013 | Uncategorized
Feeling down? Lost all interest in not much. Ready to just continue staring at the wall, or sigh into boredom? Sometimes it’s okay to allow ourselves some time to indulge in melancholia. Melancholy can bring with it it’s own sense of comfort and quiet. However, if that momentary melancholy is turning into long-term uninspired, boredom and you’re depressed, then it’s time to take action. Exploring new possibilities, taking a risk and pulling yourself out of your comfort zone is taking action. Action is the expression of acceptance of life in the physical body and it’s interaction with the world. That term “pick your self up, dust yourself off” applies here. STRUGGLING TO FUEL CHANGE? Work on your third chakra. One way to activate strength in your sense of self is to work on your navel centre. The navel centre is the inner core muscle in the navel area. Core strength is located just from just below the belly-button up to the solar plexus. Energetically this area is connected to the third chakra; Manipura. Manipura chakra is all about establishing the “I exist therefore, I am worthy” belief. It’s the area that, when strong, supports us to finish projects and brings focus to our goals in life. To explore and take risks, we need to feel we have a strong base to hold on to. That base is your sense of self. Some great postures for taking action and working on Manipura Chakra are: 1. Plank pose – strengthens your core. When done correctly, plank pose uses core strength to bring the body into a straight line. The front thighs...
by admin | Mar 28, 2013 | Uncategorized
As human beings we do not and cannot exist in one single state. Rather, we are in a constant state of change and flux, as is our lives. We move in and out of various emotional states all the time. As indivduals, we have a tendency to judge our emotions. If we like an emotion, we welcome it in. If we don’t, we try to keep it out. Neither of these responses are useful, and here’s why: The desire to hold onto a good feeling takes us out of the moment where we are experiencing that feeling. We want to hold onto the feeling, just as it is, because we are afraid of feeling the loss of the good feeling. We only partly allow ourselves to feel the full expression of love, joy, happiness, as we hold off due to fear of an eventual loss. If we don’t like an emotion, we tend to reject that emotion and try to push it away. We might start doing things that distract us from feeling the emotion we don’t want to feel. Avoidance only serves to intensify the emotion. There is a Buddhist saying “what you resist persists”. Rejecting emotion is like saying “don’t think about chocolate” – so then all you can think about is eating chocolate. In trying to avoid a negative emotion, we create inner conflict as the emotion only intensifies. If we bury the emotion, it will come out at another time, most likely in an inappropriate way and with a lot of subconscious build up along with it. So once we accept that the emotion is there, then what? Well,...
by admin | Mar 21, 2013 | Uncategorized
Happiness is one of those highly sought after emotions. As a society we tend to want to to feel happy all the time. Culturally our definition of happiness tends to be a feeling of lightness and joy, delight, elation. So what if we actually felt happy all the time? Is it really possible and would it be truly satisfying to be in this emotion 24/7? As humans, we experience moving from one emotional state to another. We know we’re happy because we know what it feels like to be unhappy. We need to experience one to know the other. If we happened to set ourselves up in a situation where we could feel happy all the time, we would in fact not be happy at all. We’d get bored and the state of being happy would not hold it’s impact. Perhaps we should re-look at our desire for happiness and consciously reflect on what it is we truly want. If we think about how we want our lives to be, it’s likely we want to feel inspired, fulfilled, at times challenged and at other times not. We want the highs and the lows, to have a varied, full and rich life. To have a full and rich life, we must accept and experience the full spectrum of emotions, yes? The trouble is, as a society we have an aversion to emotions that are not deemed “happy”. Why are negative emotions so unwelcome? Why do we feel ripped off if we experience sadness, disappointment, longing, anger and a myriad of other such emotions? Why is it such a big deal to cry?? I...
