Accepting Change With An Open Heart: A Fall Meditation
As the season shifts from summer to autumn, there seems to be an anxiety driven response to living life. Responsibilities once again become real and we tend to sacrifice ourselves in order to achieve our goals.
Nature is changing all around us and there is very little energetic stability so it is only natural for us to feel overwhelmed with all that must be done and rather than harness that energy, we begin to doubt our capabilities, judge ourselves or compare ourselves to others.
Rather than pulling away from these feelings, it is critical for us to lean into them so that they no longer limit us from what we are truly capable of.
You have the power and ability to achieve everything you want in this life and as nature teaches us during these transitional seasons, change occurs gradually, choice by choice. Nature takes her time to transition, the leaves change color over many days and it takes months before branches are bare.
This meditation helps us to be more accepting and open to the change that is occurring all around us. It frees us from anxiety and opens our hearts to possibility.
Meditation for Embracing Change
1. Sit in a comfortable place, I prefer bundled up outside, with your sits bones grounded and lengthen your spine. Bring your fingertips and thumb to touch creating a circle with your hands and hold this circle on your belly (wherever you feel is most energetically speaking to you).
2. Focus on your inhale and exhale until you feel a sense of peace.
3. Bring your awareness to your heart chakra at the center of your breastbone and breathe here. Take long, slow, deep inhales drawing love, patience and acceptance into your heart space and with every exhale, call out the mantra Y-A-M (pronounced yaaaaaam) releasing anything that is no longer serving you including fears, anxieties, judgments, comparisons or self-doubt. Continue with this until you feel intuitively ready to move on, try for a minimum of 3-5 minutes.
4. Now bring your attention to your root chakra at your perineum. Feel yourself connected to Mother Nature and know that you embody all of her wisdom, beauty and divinity. As you inhale draw in security, connection, independence and trust and as you exhale, call out the mantra L-A-M (pronounced laaaaaammm) releasing the judgments and expectations you place upon yourself go. Stay here until you feel intuitively ready to move on, try for a minimum of 3-5 minutes.
5. Focus on the energy of your belly behind the circle and feel the power of your inner strength. Feel it move through your entire body. This is your guiding light.
6. Bring this energy up to the space where you feel any anxiety, doubt or fear and allow your strength to help you release this tension.
7. Envision it leaving your body and allow your inner strength to coarse up and down your body from your root chakra to your sacrum, through your chakras to the top of your skull.
8. Breath and rest for a few moments and when you open your eyes, take a moment to sit with Mother Nature in the midst of her change, before carrying on with your day.
A Guide for Opening & Connecting
Learn the art of mindfulness and loving kindness — the foundations for living with an open heart — in The Yogi’s Heart, a guide for opening and connecting. For it is only when you approach life from a place of openness can you embody connectedness with all things.
About the Author
3 Breathing Techniques To Unite Mind & Body
“The mind is the king of the senses, and the breath is the king of the mind.” -Hatha Yoga Pradipka
It was only until I discovered yoga years ago that I started to learn how to breathe properly. First off, I noticed how much I took my breath for granted. It was years of breathing in second-hand smoke as a child and suffering from depression and weight gain, etc. before I realized there was more to my breath than struggle and strife.
There are so many powerful breathing techniques (Pranayama in Sanskrit) that can treat myriad maladies, from depression to mental clarity, energy levels, and weight loss; the list goes on and on.
3 Pranayama that will help unite you in mind and body:
4-Point Yogic Breath
This breathing technique helps open the channel of the energy of the entire spine (Shushumna) and helps to clear blockages, energy spots along the spine (chakras) and the abdominal region, as well as increasing lung capacity. This technique also aids in weight loss, as you focus on bringing energy into the stomach and lungs.
- Sit up straight in a comfortable seated position
- Place your left hand on your belly and right hand on your chest. Breathe in through the nose, filling the belly first then expanding into the chest second.
- Exhale, starting with the chest and then stomach, creating a rippling wave through the hands as they rise and fall with your breath. The whole torso is breathing belly-chest, chest-belly, creating a 4-pointed yogic breath.
