this month

I've felt myself waning. My mind has been a jumble of distractions and stress. Having surgery has really affected my personal practice; energy spent on moving preparations have left me with little else to go on. I miss my practice, and yet when I unroll my mat I feel a sense of confusion. I don't know what to do or where to go with it. I've become separated from my flow. Disconnected.

The move is in a week and a half. I feel like if I can get myself through the final touches of it all I'll have more time, or energy, or clarity, or whatever it is that I need, to connect with the Universe again.

I had such big plans for this month last month, and nothing has truly manifested itself. I suppose this is how things typically go. The one thing I can say for certain is that this challenging month hasn't pushed me away from my desire to learn more about yoga; it has been an opportunity for me to truly take my practice "off the mat" and apply what I have learned to my busy, daily life. Some days are more difficult and scattered than others (and this healing process has been way less than pleasant) and I definitely have a lot more practice and learning to do. But it feels good to know I'm starting a new chapter in my life.

on meditation

Elena Brower on meditation.

This finally makes sense to me! I'm seriously lacking in my meditation practice; something about it has always eluded me. I've had trouble truly grasping it. My monkey brain, obviously, is seriously flighty. I've been giving this huge amounts of consideration lately and have generally been thinking about how beneficial a steady meditation practice would be for me right now [and always]. Reading that short piece by Elena pushed out the last little bit of haze in my mind concerning meditation. She's brought the heart into the picture! Lucky for me, I spend a lot of time in my heart as it is. [People have told me before that I actually feel too much. Is that possible as a human? To feel too much? I'm not sure about that...] I've always understood meditation as a quieting of the mind. Reaching that stillness seems easier when I consider what my heart is doing while my mind is slowing down. Elena's approach makes so much sense to me. I literally felt a breath of fresh air and renewed inspiration after reading her wise words.

:)

under-developed

My beautiful friend Lacy is currently doing her teacher training in anusara yoga. She's been throwing lots of tips and resources my way lately. I don't know much about chakras so she sent me this chakra test. It's pretty simple but helpful, and I found it to be pretty accurate for my person.

My root, throat, and third eye chakras are under-developed. I don't know much about the chakras, so this is a good opportunity to see where I'm unbalanced in my life and practice. My test results showed that my heart chakra is pretty open, and that is comforting because I've been focusing on "leading with my heart." That's one of the phrases I've heard the most over the past 4 years I've been practicing, and recently I've been taking it to heart. (Har-har, pun intended). But really, lately my practice revolves around expanding my heart. Knowing that my efforts to open my heart are working I think it's time to start incorporating some focus on the other chakras. Before I took that little quiz I noticed that sometimes I'll close up the back of my throat or clench my jaw in a pose. Closed throat chakra. I think this is a good place for me to start.

Source

I don't have too many resources on opening the chakras, but I'm working on it. And of course I'll post whatever I find here. Right now though, I feel so incredibly blessed to have the positive influences in my life that I do. I practice with my best friend and my boyfriend when I can, and my other friends offer tons of advice! Like how to open chakras by focusing my awareness and then spiraling it. I'll definitely be practicing that!