Awakening the happiness of the self revealed

I’ve accumulated several spirits, as I mentioned in my past entry, and it’s wild how everything is connected. I’ve been making a lot of connections with them to Celtic lore, especially Maive and the deer person thing that I have recently identified as Cernunnos. I don’t picture  them as deities, as most religions do or what not, but more like higher beings that are here to help people. I don’t like associating the word god with anything. For me, it has a lot of negative energy around it, like someone is constantly watching over your shoulder to make sure you don’t mess up in life. I don’t like that! I like having higher spirits that I’m in tune with walk by my side in life and look out for me, for better and for worse.

Maive, according to one of my weekend teachers, is a warrior spirit. She’s here to remind me of who I am and to not give up on myself. She’s a strong spirit and is always smiling and seems to enjoy giving me hugs whenever I meditate. According to Celtic lore, the warrior spirit definitely fits her. She’s a strong soul and does her own thing, though depending on where you check, it is mentioned to be wary of Maive, for she is a tricky one. I don’t view her as evil, but she’s definitely mischievous. I like that about her.

And then there’s the deer person, now known as Cernunnos. I originally found him through my power animal, the snake, and I couldn’t figure out who he was (or even what gender he was originally). After seeing him, that whole week I kept seeing deer. It was really wild. Celtic lore paints Cernunnos as this fatherly figure and in tuned with nature. There are many pictures of him in association with a stag and a horned serpent. I find it really eerie that he is always with my power animal. I’m not sure why he’s sticking around me, but he’s been very loving and kind, especially when I’m down and out.

Then there are the angels. I only have two that I know of right now: Michael and Zadkiel. Michael seems to answer me right away, especially when I need it. He’s the angel of courage and protection and appears to me in a long, dark attire. I can’t make out if he’s holding a staff or something, but there’s a lot of black. He’s easy to miss in my meditations, but if I can’t see anything, I definitely feel him, especially at the end of my yoga classes.

Zadkiel has been a new one for me. Lately, before I go drive in my car, especially for long periods of time, I ask for someone to watch over me. I’ve been extremely anxious driving at night and at least once a week for the past month or so, whenever I drive at night, I see the flash of blue light. Keep in mind, there are no other cars on the road and there’s nothing around that could make this light. After looking through my angel book, which says most angels come in the form of unexplained lights, I figured out it was Zadkiel, an angel for memory and mental healing. Further reading has unveiled that he’s also an angel of forgiveness and helps people heal from painful experiences in order to forgive others or even themselves. Definitely the angel I need with me. And just the other night at yoga during our final relaxation, he came to me, wearing robes the same color of that blue flash and just smiled at me. I think I weirded my teacher out when I started crying at the end of class, but I was so happy. Still am!

Lastly, there are two little elemental spirits floating around. They’re tiny and I’ve just discovered them recently: a water elemental and an earth elemental. When I was younger, I used to see elementals all the time when I meditated. They’re like the busy bees of nature, I swear! They’re everywhere and are very willing to help, especially if you have good intentions. I used to have several fire elementals back in high school, but then I feel out of my practice and lost touch. I wish I could write more on these new elementals, but I honestly don’t know why they’re around, seeing they just came to me this week. I like to think they will stick around and will eventually tell me their names. All I do know is that in ayurveda, the dosha I lack the most in is kapha and is composed of water and earth. 

nourish-mindbodysoul:

We have all been in Yoga class and heard “Bring your hands in prayer or anjali mudra to the heart center” But what exactly does this Mudra symbolize?

Anjali Mudra is a balancing mudra, it neutralizes or balances the positive/negative or male/female energies within the body. This creates a devotional feeling that calms the body and mind, basically centering ourselves.

I’m still here, still alive, still doing yoga. Been super busy with doing yoga classes, teacher training, other appointments outside of yoga, keeping up with my readings (especially anatomy), and get distracted by shiny things, like Project Runway. All is well and I’m keeping my chin up. Had a breakdown in my last teacher training class, but I managed to pull myself together and stick with it. Probably one of the most prominent times when someone came up to me after (my yoga teacher) and told me they were proud of how I handled myself. Seriously, that’s the last thing you hear from people after you have a breakdown in front of them. I’m more confident now and doing my best to take care of me. Aside from that, we’ve been focusing on more standing postures.

Been having some crazy experiences with my spirits. They keep coming out of the woodwork and flock to me. Not complaining! In one of my posts, I mentioned how I’m starting to link a lot of what I’m seeing with Celtic related thing. In the near future (probably tomorrow), I have to write a post about all of it to finally get it out of my head. It truly is crazy how this all works. I’m so grateful for the angel book my mom got me. I flip through it on a daily basis. And now I know I have angels watching over me or at least two so far who listen to me! It doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not: they do listen. And they have their creative ways of getting their message across to you.

I’m in such a lovely mood and feel so grateful to be alive. Namaste, everyone!

For all the yoga dudes out there, I apologize ahead of time, seeing this whole post is dedicated to me having my period and figuring out what the hell to do about it via yoga. Not really exciting for the male population, but I like to think the female population will appreciate it. 

I have heard so many things to do when it comes to getting rid of those horrid cramps. For the record, I am on the pill ( I know, so much for being all natural, right? ) and I still feel like death. I’m more or less with terms when it comes to this monthly thing my body goes through. I’d rather feel like death than death a million times over. It’s sadly the lesser of two evils, but it could be worse, right? But amongst all the dos and don’ts, one of the biggest ones I’ve heard of is exercise in general. It’s suppose to help, depending on what your doing, but it’s slightly difficult to convince yourself to get up and jog for an hour when you’re too busy curled up in a ball in bed and stuffing your face with chocolate chip pancakes (ie - me).

And then there’s yoga! I’m convinced that there was some yearly yoga meeting years ago where all the schools of yoga came together to figure everything out and they totally skipped out on the PMS and menstrual cramps one, because NONE of the yoga schools agree when it comes to this. In short, it is believed that when a woman is menstruating, the flow of energy is heightened or what not and it all flows downward. Essentially, you don’t want to mess with this energy for whatever reason. Not sure if this is suppose to be an empowering thing for us ladies or if some old dude made that up thousands of years ago to limit our yogic practice, that’s more or less the gib of it. So with that in mind, some schools of thought believe you shouldn’t do yoga at all. Others believe you shouldn’t do any inversions, because it screws up with the downward energy thing. Others believe you should do inversions to help alleviate excess downward energy. Others encourage yoga during this time, especially certain postures. And then there are people like my yoga teacher who says, “Has anyone died from doing yoga during their period? No? So who cares?!”

I lean more towards where my teacher stands, because I honestly don’t think it’s a life or death situation, especially when you already feel like death! Though I am also for anything that will help me out in terms of making myself feel less like death. Sadly, I don’t think there are any yoga poses that will stop my craving for all things chocolatey, but after some research and poking around all this morning, I found some decent yoga postures that might help you ladies out.

Easy Pose (Sukhasana)

Honestly, this pose is good for just about everyone. It helps you calm everything in your body and just focus on breathing. And I’m all for calming stuff down!

Cat Pose (Bidalasana)

The whole cat/cow poses are great in general, but the cat pose especially for cramps. It gently works the area of your body that’s in pain and moves it around a bit without feeling like torture.

Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)

Can I just put it out there that I could do this pose every day for the rest of my life? I LOVE bow pose! It helps work out so many kinks in your body and is just a good pose overall. And on top of that, it helps out with your cramps and any gastrointestinal problems. Sadly, it’s not a beginner pose. What I’d reccomend to do is find a friend who will help you out (and hopefully not laugh at you when you tell them why you’re doing this). Have them stand over you while you bend your knees up and hold onto their hands. Together, you pull yourself up and your friend will pull you up further without you going “Oh crap, I feel like I’m going to die.” It’s a great way to get into the posture without hurting yourself. Though if you already have some back and neck issues, I wouldn’t dive into this pose immediately.

Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana)

Again, I could do this pose all day for the rest of my life. I feel like this is a baby bow pose, except you don’t engage your feet. Again, people with back issues shouldn’t go deep into this pose, and honestly, you don’t need to go that deep in order for it to be effective. It more or less does the same thing bow pose does in regards to pain and problems in the target area. Good stuff!

Reclining Hero Pose (Supta Virasana)

So a lot of the sites say to do fish pose…. and um… yeah, fish pose does jack for me when it comes to my cramps. Instead, I prefer reclining hero pose. The image above shows how to do it, but I do an advanced modified version where you also incorporate fish pose into (maybe that’s a different pose altogether, but I’ve always heard that modification called reclining hero pose). This pose is also fantastic. It focus on your abdominal area and everything around it. And it helps out with SO many things aside from cramps: arthritis, digestive problems, gas, high blood pressure, insomnia, the works! And if you’re doing the crazy modified version that I do, just be conscious with your neck.

And I did all of these poses today and I must say, it did help. I feel like partial death now! All I need is a pose to get rid of my chocolate craving and I’m set.

So I’m finally starting to get all this crazy anatomy stuff. I was really worried that it would never click with me, but after Tuesday’s class, I’m not so worried about it. We spent an hour on just the legs, go over the muscles, talking about what each area is responsible for, how to stretch those muscles, what poses are good for those muscles, yadda yadda. Then we taught sun salutation, which meant doing it eight times in a row. I was proud of not feeling exhausted after, so I must be doing well! Then we did some more standing postures and overall I’m feeling really confident about it. I’m trying to read through more of my books (you know, out of the 20 I have) and make sure I’m keeping on top of my anatomy stuff. That’s my goal for this week!

Been keeping up with my own personal yoga practice and meditation, too. We have to start thinking about what we want to do for our 40 meditation, ie: what type of meditation. I was pissed bummed out that we can’t do a breath work meditation, because that’s what I do and that’s what helps me. Nope, we have to do a chanting one. Apparently we get more out of it, but… not for me? I’ve yet to have a OH MY GOD moment when doing chanting meditation and most of the time it annoys me. I want to be quiet and no focus on what I’m going to say next or how long I’ve been doing it. It’s just too much for me. I guess in that sense, it gives me even more reason to do chanting work (grumblegrumble), but I was actually looking forward to doing my meditation. Now? Not so much… 

Either way, I’m excited about everything that’s going on. I swear I’ve been so busy with all the classes and workshops I’m taking! No complaints though and definitely no regrets. I was meant for this and it makes me so happy.