Each day we are faced with turmoil, whether in our personal lives or in the media content we consume. This constant barrage of negative news can have a significant impact on our health and wellbeing.
There are things we can do to improve our relationship with our consumption of social media and news. The easiest is Turn It Off!
That simple.
Ask yourself- is this content affecting me personally?
Is there anything I can do about it without bringing harm to anyone or anything else?
In a week, will this be affecting my life?
In a year?
10 years?
These are important questions to begin asking yourself in times of strong emotions. Due to the bombardment of information we have lost the ability to discern what is truly important in the moment.
We are the first line of defense for our mental health. Learning discernment, patience, and empathy can aid us in living a more balanced life.
Having a meditation practice allows us to find space in difficult situations. With time, we are more able to let go of those things which no longer serve us and we find room for peace amid chaos, stillness amid turmoil.
We begin to know the beauty inherent in all creation.
Namaste.
Are you new to meditation? Try a free guided meditation to bring balance and clarity to your day! Listen Now
Today we will take some time to think about “the fool’s” journey through life. This theme is represented in literature with works such as “the Epic of Gilgamesh” and ”Alice in Wonderland,” among many others. Joseph Campbell, an American writer and professor, described it as the archetypal hero story. These themes are prevalent in our lives as we grow from child to adolescent to adult, gaining insight and experience along the way. We begin our journey as the uneducated novice (infant) bound in pure awareness, with no sense of self – hence, the fool. Our modern language has negative connotations associated with the word FOOL; however, when examined through experience, we see that societal trappings and norms unencumber the fool. The fool experiences life in all its splendor, tasting experience for what it is. There is no shame, no guilt – only pure being. As babies, we have no sense of self (as in self-consciousness); purely instinctual beings. Our whole experience is based upon survival- cry to be fed, changed, consoled. All our energy is concentrated in the root chakra. As we grow, we develop a sense of separation, of otherness. It is at this point our energy moves into the sacral chakra. We experience the partition based on sex and slowly become aware of the power sex and sexual identification has in our lives. Like the fool/hero on the journey, we must come to understand that power is limited, controlling, and lacking Love. If our karma in this life allows, we move into the third chakra, some of us developing a stable sense of self, or we become lost in the anxiety of trying to fit in. Most people are living through the energy of the lower 3 Chakras. Progress moving the energy upwards becomes difficult due to our physical plane of existence constantly telling us we need more to be happy, loved, and fit in. Beings stuck here are trapped by instant gratification-always seeking outside of themselves. The fool/hero, however, can move beyond the physical plane of power after some time. This shift can happen gradually, or some trauma can rend open the heart instantly, allowing the experience of the power of unconditional Love. This subtle energy will enable us to bridge the gap between the lower and upper chakras. This Love can assist us further on our foolish yet heroic journey. It allows us to see the world for what is in pure Love. It invites gracious speech and action and opens our intuition to allow a depth of understanding: everything is exactly as it should be every moment. This is the most difficult pill to swallow. War, greed, and suffering are all intrinsic parts of human existence, and they are the opposite side of the coin of Love, compassion, and empathy. At a point in history, we began to see everything as duality (Eve eating the apple/Gilgamesh and Enkidu), and we lost the pure taste of awareness. Those whose karma is ripening for awakening feel the “something not quite right” in how we are told to experience life. The fool’s/hero’s journey is never straight, and it is a crooked path with many missteps and falls along the way. Take time to look at your life from the perspective of storytelling. Can you identify early life moments where energy stagnated in the lower chakras? In working with these ideas, we must remember that we are most likely not fully awakening in this go-round, and we are the fool – just beginning to open our eyes to the light of truth. This is a journey of many lifetimes, unpredictable and long. With this realization, which cannot be intellectualized, we begin to see the face of god in everyone we meet. No one is better than us, no one less than us. All god, all one; All beings are moving toward the light in their way, in their own time. The person that cut you off on the highway is god; the megalomaniac, hell-bent on persecuting other beings, is also god. It is all energy in form and all one. Ram Dass says, “ it is all grist for the mill.” Everything we meet is the path. Namaste
As we continue into week two of our chakra healing adventure, we will begin to look at how an imbalance in one chakra can affect the others. We will be working with the Vishudda (throat) chakra because most of us use our voices every day. The vishudda governs communication in all forms. It is how we express ourselves; how we express our beliefs, emotions, likes and dislikes; it shows up in our tone, inflection, and even our body language.
The Vishudda also links our inner true self with the self we put on display for the world. Most of us lead two lives. Our outer persona typically morphs into what others expect of us (or what we THINK they expect of us.) We have a role to play and show up willing to don what ever hat we have been asked to wear. Then there is our inner voice, the voice of our AUTHENTIC self. It is this voice which we need to bring forth. We need to release the fear of being ourselves.
Vishudda (Throat) /Muladhara (Root)
The root chakra grounds us, connecting us to the rich Earth energies. Support, courage, survival are the key elements of the root chakra. When the Muladhara is balanced, we KNOW who we are; we stand tall, grounded and sure footed in our understanding of our place in the world. When the root chakra is suffering from imbalance we become unsteady and can allow others to overly influence our decisions.
The imbalance of the root chakra can lead to issues with how we communicate because the energies of the root will entangle with the energies of the throat chakra. If we are lacking confidence in ourselves it show up in our speech and body language. We essentially have a hard time being our authentic self.
Our speech may begin to be colored with words of appeasement in difficult situations if the root chakra has been weakened. If we are unable to stand up for our truth, we may then have feelings of shame or inadequacy. If the root chakra is carrying an excess of energy, our speech can become clipped and insincere and we begin to dwell in the realm of the ego.
Return to Balance
In order to balance our root chakra and bring authenticity to our voice we need to ask ourselves the following questions:
Who am I?
What do I value?
Do my words, tone, and body language resonate with my inner truth?
Additionally, we can practice energy work to align our root and throat chakra.
Try this: Stand tall, barefoot in the grass. Relax your shoulders and your jaw. Take a few deep breaths and feel the Earth energy flow in to your body. You are rooted to the Earth energy, you are grounded and supported. Breathe in slowly and feel your breath swirl down your throat bathing your throat chakra in healing energies. Exhale fully, emptying the stale breath from your lungs. As you exhale, feel your throat relax and open as all of the stale breath (energy- thoughts and emotions) leave your body. Repeat these slow deep breaths; breathing in strength and truth; breathing out what no longer serves you.
This exercise can be repeated daily, strengthening our awareness of the flow of energy within the body while balancing our root and throat chakras.
If you are interested in deepening your practice or learning more about Reiki training, please contact me.
I wrote post this back in 2021 when my beloved friend Patty gave me the pendant. Patty passed away Tuesday and my heart breaks for her parents, loved ones and her beloved dog Marley. I am blessed to have known her these few short years. She was one of the strongest, most stubborn, kind hearted, intelligent person I have ever known. I will greatly miss my friend and colleague.
It is not the length of a life, But how many other lives were touched by the GRACE of that one,
Echoing their goodness into eternity.
When the divine touches a life, All of Heaven & Earth shine
With the ethereal light of that soul.
-Kristen Simonds
From 2021…..
A friend gave me this beautifully simple pendant yesterday. She thought I would like it because it is carved from a shell. She was right.
I sat quietly contemplating its simplicity- calcium carbonate which naturally forms a Fibonacci spiral in order for life to protect itself from nature, the very thing that created it. How amazing the circle of life.
The beginning of the spiral sits centered in the heart or we could say the spiral is the heart center. And shouldn’t it? Should love (unconditional Universal love) spiral perfectly outward from each of our heart centers? Our daily responsibilities allow us to forget our true nature, our authentic self. We become caught up in the identity and expectations others have for us and we forgot our expansive nature. We need to take time each day to remember who we are and where we come from.
We are children of the universe, each being as unique as a fingerprint, each with our own energetic identity. We are energy in form, a beautiful process of the Universe.
Let’s begin to remember our true self, lets open our hearts to LOVE. We can work with our Heart Charka to bring our awareness back to the divine.
Sit quietly and breathe slowly and evenly. Feel your breath move through your physical body. Feel the life force of your breath move through your etheric body. Place your hand over your heart center and breathe slowly and evenly. Visualize radiant healing energy spiraling in your heart center. Allow this energy to spiral in synchronicity with your breath. Feel this energy pulsate within your chest, filling your soul with LOVE & LIGHT. Know you are connected to everything. The universe moves within your heart. Breathe slowly and deeply. Exhale and feel LOVE spiral out from your heart center. With intention send this loving energy out into the world. Inhale and feel LOVE come back to you, flooding your body with light. Breathe out LOVE for all of creation. Breathe in LOVE for your soul. Continue with your breath softly and evenly. Feel your authentic self rise from within, feeling that divine presence deep in the core of your being. You are LOVE. You are the Universe experiencing itself. You are LOVE.
If we take time to practice working with our heart chakra we will begin to naturally radiate the light of unconditional LOVE. We will stop forgetting who we are and we will KNOW.
Dandelion Doorways 