Sadguru

Root Down: Balancing the Root Chakra During the Holidays

Traditionally, Thanksgiving celebrated Mother Earth and her abundant harvest.  This connection to the earth—feeling rooted in our own basic needs, survival and home—can begin to fall on shaky ground as the holiday season approaches.  During the holiday season, we may find we are swept away into emotional family dramas rather than attending to our own needs and desires.

The first chakra, the muladhara or “root” chakra located at the base of the spine, is the energy center closest to the earth.  It corresponds to our basic survival and is foundational to our sense of belonging and fulfilling our core survival needs.  When that energy center is open, feelings of security, confidence to fulfill our desires and the ability to make nourishing choices are present.  When that energy center is blocked, we may feel fearful, lack clarity and be unable to feel comfortable or “at home.”  

Some ways to promote free-flowing energy into the root chakra include yoga asana and meditation. 

Asana:

1. Child’s Pose
2. Butterfly Pose
3. Cow Face Pose
4. Corpse Pose

 Meditation:

1. The mantra “Lam” can be repeated silently to yourself during your meditation practice.
2. Practice affirmations such as “I am grounded,”  “I am connected,”  “I am safe,”  “All is one.”

Who is your teacher?

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind." -- Kahlil Gibran

I don't know about you, but this time of year triggers the "back-to-school" in me.  No matter how old I am, I can't seem to escape that feeling of anticipation and excitement to see who my teachers were, to see old friends and meet new ones and to learn new things. I always considered myself fortunate to have had amazing teachers throughout my formal education and in my life.  And, beyond the classroom, there are the great teachers who come to us in expected forms and places.  I recall how illness has been one of my greatest teachers, calling on me to slow down and listen to my body rather than to continue on a path of imbalance and oblivion.  It was the teacher of illness that lead me back to yoga, another of my great teachers.

I found myself sharing that back-to-school nostalgia with my yoga classes this week. Beyond nostalgia for school, I asked them to draw one of their great teachers to them during their practice and I did the same while I was guiding the class.  As I continued to weave the idea of great teachers into class, I continued to connect with teachers who had shared their wisdom with me.  One of the teachers that popped into my head was one of my high school math teachers--someone who I had not thought of in a long time.  Math was never one of my favorite or easy subjects, yet, that did not seem to matter when I sat in my seat in this teacher's classroom.   It seems a teacher's wisdom can take us beyond the confines of a certain topic or subject that we have labeled "good" or "bad" and lead us to unexpected places.

After yoga class, several students mentioned to me that they found themselves in tears during their practice as they recalled the teachers who had touched them.  What would happen if you took at few moments today to pause and remember and thank your great teacher?

Restorative Yoga & Meditation

“I believe that the physical is the geography of being.”       --Louise Nevelson

 It may seem counter intuitive to spend much time talking about the physical body when meditation is supposedly dedicated to one’s deep, personal, inward journey.  Yet, the physical reflects the spiritual and can set us up to embark on our spiritual journey.  Most of us carry tension, especially in the area of our hips, low back, neck and jaw and block the flow our physical bodies.  These blockages can keep our energy at the level of the physical making it difficult for us to connect with the energy of our deeper selves.  How can we relieve these physical blockages so we can connect with spirit?

 A regular asana practice can help us become aware of where the “physical” might be in any given moment.  Through our yoga practice, we have opportunities to release tension held at the level of the physical body as we breathe and set intentions to move past these blockages.  Interestingly, most practices do not invite us into Savasana until the end of the practice—the space where we can let go, surrender.  What if we could let all of our tension go from the beginning of our practice and start to unwind the stressful knots in our muscles and thoughts? 

Restorative Yoga can be a lucrative accompaniment to one’s “regular” yoga and meditation practices.  Judith Hanson Lasater, a pioneer in Restorative Yoga (see her book, “Relax and Renew”) refers to the practice as “active relaxation” and says “Restorative poses are poses of being rather than doing.”  We are so used to movement in most everything we do as we busy ourselves rushing from here to there.  Do we ever quite relax, even in our yoga practice?  Using various props that support the limbs, Restorative Yoga is designed to allow the muscles to disengage--to completely relax.  The supported postures in Lasater’s style also encourage different directional movements in the spine asking the body, breath and mind to respond in relaxation.

Experience a taste of Restorative Yoga at the Stapleton Corepower studio on Friday evenings.  Allow your body to completely relax and notice how your mind responds and how your meditation evolves.

Heat Escaping Postures

The heat of summer provides opportunities to focus on our asana practice in new ways.  Just as nature’s harvest gives us cooling fruits and vegetables like watermelons and cucumbers, there are postures in our yoga practice that offer ways to cool and soothe the body and our summer, “Pitta”-like heat.  

If you are taking a guided class or are working on your own practice, consider placing your focus on postures that will release excess heat from the body, taking into consideration postures that will release excess tension from the mid-abdomen and small intestine.  The “seat” of Pitta is in the small intestine and liver and during the summer, it is especially important to help excess heat escape from these organs.

Twists, forward folds and backbends (practiced in moderation) help to rinse out excess heat from the body:

Half Lord of the Fishes: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/485

Prasarita: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/693

Camel: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/688

 

Postures to help release tension from the mid-abdomen and small intestine:

Bow: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/875

Cobra: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/471

Boat: http://www.yogajournal.com/basics/1193

Fish: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/786

Postures that help release heat via the hip bones:

Tree: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/496

Triangle: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/494

Half Moon: http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/784

Many Pitta types tend to be attracted to the challenges that head stands and arm balacing bring to a yoga practice.  In the summer, favor shoulder stands which do not tend to heat up the body as much as other inversions.

Rather than becoming overheated this summer, practice awareness of your body and celebrate the postures that nature has given us that provide cooling and soothing effects to our body and mind.