Yoga for when you don’t want to do yoga.

Lesson by @mistyglasses

Confession time. Apart from the odd twenty-minute practise here and there, Miss ‘I love yoga, you should try yoga, omg yoga yoGA YOGAA’, didn’t practise yoga for the best part of last year (spiritual plateau, if you were curious). I watched new yogis pop up on Instagram, re-read the benefits, knew how necessary on a personal level it would be to get my energy/prana/chi flowing and noted how much better I felt after one of those twenty-minute flows. But the cba hurdle (means ‘can’t be arsed’ if that’s unfamiliar) I had to get over to start each practise always had me torn between two mindsets – if you want it, make it happen (à la Liz Gilbert walking around her house saying random words to get that creative energy flowing) and waiting to feel like doing it… and I usually favoured the latter. However, sometimes, when I felt I had no time, when I’d been on my feet all day and only wanted to binge Netflix, when I was mentally drained, when I felt way too vulnerable to unfurl myself or when all I felt like doing was lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling – well, there’s a pose for that, that’s when a down-dog could’ve really come in handy. Yoga, with its’ push for self-awareness and acceptance, is so much more than just a physical practise after all. Of course, sometimes it’s best to trust your instincts and not force yourself to do something you don’t feel like doing, it’s just, in times like I described, monkey mind was often drowning out whatever my instincts may have been saying.

If you too are figuring out the balance between flow and force, the following basic poses and gentle stretches will get you tapped back in to help you determine how much to push yourself. 

And look, you don’t even have to leave your bed to do it!

1. Sit in a comfortable position, where you won’t be disturbed and relax your shoulders (rolling them up back and down will help this or even just lifting your shoulders towards your ears and just dropping them). Inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 7, then exhale for 8. Repeat this 4-7-8 pattern three or four times. This count will really help slow down your breathing and focus your mind to the present. As this won’t take much more than a minute, it’s great to do whenever you feel you need grounding. If you’ve more time or you feel you want to continue, some gentle seated twists would be great to massage your lower organs and stretch your abdominal muscles, often where stress is held. Place your left hand on your right knee, and your right hand behind you. Sit up taller on an inhale, then twist gently to your right on an exhale. Do this a couple more times before repeating on the other side.

2. Heart openers help with tightness in the chest and opening your heart chakra, helping release emotions. Start on your belly and extend your left arm to the side. Slowly roll over it so that you feel a stretch in your chest and use your right arm for stability in front of you (or if it’s comfortable, rest your hand on your lower back). Stay here for about five breaths before rolling back onto your belly and repeating on the other side. If you want to kick things up a notch, some other chest openers you could try, include cat-cow, camel pose, fish pose, sphinx pose or bow pose.

3. Legs up the wall is such a simple pose, yet the benefits feel so pronounced! Just move your hips as close to the wall as possible and walk your legs up. Let your arms rest gently to the side. In this position, gravity will help with circulation in your upper body and brain, you will feel a stretch in the back of your legs and your lower back gets some yummy relief. Fantastic if you’ve been on your feet all day and great coming off a flight if your legs or feet have swollen.

4. The physical nature of child’s pose is looking in, it is a physical representation of reflection. Aside from opening your hips, stretching your back and being fab for your digestion, this restorative pose offers relief, comfort and grounding, relaxing your entire body and slowing your mind as you curl into yourself. Start on your hands and knees, bring your big toes together and open your knees as wide as feels comfortable. Move your hips towards your heels and extend your arms out in front of you, letting your head rest on the floor (or bed) or a block. Stay here for at least five deep breaths.

I just wanted to say, that of course, yoga is not the be all and end all, it doesn’t solve everything and the way in which something works for one person won’t be the same for someone else. Finding what feels good (a phrase coined by Yoga with Adriene) for you, is always key.

Namaste!

[Next lesson: Yoga For Your Chakras: Muladhara/Root]

Lesson 12.3: How to Meditate

Greetings, all! I know it’s been a while since the last lesson, but I’ve been thinking about something and I wanted to introduce it as the third installment of the meditation lessons. You can find the first two here and here. So let’s get to it!

First of all, “thinking” in itself is probably contradictory to what I’m about to say. And as a human being in this society, I am susceptible to thought. To filling empty space with words. To classifying things that do not need to be classified - the self as human, these words as a lesson, this community as a mystery school. I do not mean to project rightness or wrongness onto my (our) constant act of classification, but rather I want to show you how being mindful of our obsession with words can make meditation possible.

As Osho says in “Zen: The Path of Paradox,” meditation is the absence of mentation. A true state of meditation, as I said in Lesson 12.1, is presence. Rather, the absence of mental activity. Our approach to presence often involves trying to live in the present moment or making an effort to be present. In reality, this takes us further from meditation. Meditation is not and cannot be about effort. It is about the lack thereof. We call it mindfulness, but really it is being mind-less.

Many people already understand this, but the problem is that our approach to it sometimes becomes aggressive. We are so used to trying in this world (trying to sound smart, trying to be spiritual, trying to understand) that even in the case of meditation, we try not to try. We know that we must be effortless, so we make an effort to not exert effort. This is where meditation becomes difficult for some people, even me. Merely sitting and being still is an act of unlearning, or at least that’s what it feels like. It is so different from what we normally do every day that it feels awkward, so our minds begin to compensate for how uncomfortable we are. The mind is not accustomed to not always running, always comprehending the constantly-moving faces and places it’s seeing and devising thoughts or stories around these sights. The mind is not used to being still. So it may try to run even faster.

The key is: allow it.

If you try not to think, you are not meditating. If you are thinking, you are not meditating. I know it sounds like a paradox, but there is a middle ground where your spirit truly lies, where God is: just be.

Keep reading

Lesson 2.3: Sacred Geometry - The Flower of Life

I think that the Flower of Life is the most widely accepted and popular form of sacred geometry. Everyone reading this probably (hopefully) already knows what it is, what it looks like, and what it means. But here’s a photo, in case you aren’t familiar or you just like looking at it as much as I do.

The Flower of Life has been found all across the world. It is not attributed to any one culture. It can be found in Egypt, Ireland, Turkey, England, Israel, China, Greece, Japan, and about twenty more locations. It’s probably in way more places across the world that we just haven’t discovered yet. In Egypt, it is carved in a wall in Abydos. The wall it was found on is one of the oldest walls in Egypt in a temple that is almost 6,000 years old. The Seed of Life is also found on this wall.

Drunvalo Melchizedek, the author of “The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life”, said that he was in communication with Thoth (Tahuti) of Egypt. One of the many things Thoth told him is that the Flower of Life holds everything in the universe in its proportions. He said, “It contains every single mathematical formula, every law of physics, every harmony in music, every biological life form right down to your specific body. It contains every atom, every dimensional level, absolutely everything that’s within waveform universes.” It is the source of all language, all emotion, everything.

Clearly, this is a powerful symbol.

Here you can see how the seed of life comes from the flower of life.

Have you heard of the Tree of Life? It is the shape of the kabbalah, but the Jews/Hebrews actually are not the origins of the Tree of Life. It is carved on two sets of three pillars in Egypt at both Karnak and Luxor, dating to about 5000 years ago, but the Egyptians were not the source either. Here is the Tree of Life over the flower. The Tree also sometimes has to extra circles, an extra one on the top and bottom, and it still perfectly fits into the Flower.

Remember how we talked about the vesica piscis? Every line in the Tree of Life measures out to the length or width of a vesica piscis in the Flower of Life, and they all have the Golden Mean (phi ratio) proportions.

There is a pyramid in the western mountains of Tibet that is solid-white with a solid crystal capstone. It is in almost perfect condition. It is only visible three weeks out of the year when its crystal capstone comes out of the snow. There is a room in the center of this pyramid. In the pyramid, there are no writings, no designs, nothing. But in this room, there is an inscription of the Flower of Life. That is the only symbol anywhere in this pyramid.

I guess that says it all, right?

This lesson has been a bit short, but that’s okay. Everything to come in the sacred geometry lessons will be related to the Flower of Life, and in fact, everything we ever talk about is related to it. There are also many information systems that stem out of the flower of life that we will discuss after this. So this is a never-ending lesson; what you read here is only a very short synopsis.

Sue Fitzmaurice (via purplebuddhaquotes)

to all my indigos:

Snapchat?

Someone sent me a message saying that they’d like to ask the indigos/spiritual people here for their Snapchats so that they can add you guys. Would you want to make a Snapchat group? 

If interested, reply to this with your Snapchat and you can look at each other’s replies and add each other! When there are 10 replies, I’ll make a group chat on there.