Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known affectionately known as “Amma,” is a world-renowned spiritual leader and humanitarian. Throughout her life, she has embraced more than 40 million people worldwide, sometimes sitting nearly 24 hours to do so. Amma’s humanitarian organization, Embracing the World, is an NGO with consultative status with the United Nations’ Economic Social Council, providing compassionate service to those in need around the world. Amma’s life is the embodiment of love, compassion and selflessness.

She recently returned to the United States for the first time since 2019. Public programs will be held in the LA Area this week.

Amma Appears in Kerala, India

During 1952’s monsoon season in Kerala, Southern India, a young lady named Damayanti had a series of auspicious dreams about the Hindu deities Krishna and Kali. In the dreams they had piercing black eyes and blue skin. In the last dream, she saw herself giving birth to baby Krishna, who then suckled at her breast. The next day, Damayanti realized she was pregnant. It was an uncomfortable pregnancy, and her husband, Sugunandan, feared the worst. However, the birth itself was quick and painless. The family doctor worried about the child, for she had not cried during birth and rarely made any sounds. Moreover, her skin was blueish. But in the end, the child, with piercing black eyes, was fine. They named her “Sudhamani,” which is Sanskrit for “ambrosial jewel.”

Young Sudhami c. MAM

Sudhamani could stand, walk, and sing long before developmental standards. She worshipped cows and cried in devotion for Krishna, humming his hymns and reciting his name. Her family was disturbed, having never taught her such things. Sometimes her brothers and sisters would find her in the coastal backwaters in a meditative state, lost to the world. Amma’s family were convinced the strange Sudhamani would bring shame to their family. She was severely punished for her odd behavior.

Amma In Ecstacy c. MAM

At nine, they stopped her schooling in order for her to cook, clean and care for her younger brothers and sisters. As part of her chores, she would walk to more than 30 homes a day, asking the inhabitants for vegetable scraps to feed to the family cows.

The young girl couldn’t understand why the ocean provided the same opportunities of abundance to every fisherman in and yet the circumstances in each home were so far-ranging. In one thatched-roof hut, a family would be well-provided for—healthy, happy and grateful—while next door a similar family would be hungry and hopeless. Next door to them, could be an elder, riddled with illness, with no one to provide care.

Sudhamani Contemplates c. MAM

So upset by this disparity, Sudhamani considered throwing herself into fire out of protest. As she contemplated these conditions, she heard an answer from within: “It is because of the individuals’ past actions that they suffer.” But she was not satisfied with this answer. She pondered further and said, “If a person falls into a ditch, isn’t it my responsibility to help them out? So, if these people are meant to suffer because of their previous actions, isn’t it my duty to also help them?” 

Show Us A Miracle

One day, Sudhamani and her little brother Satish were gathering grass for their cows when they walked past an open courtyard gate. The Big Sis stood perfectly still as she heard people reading the Srimad Bhagavatam (the stories of Krishna). When a bhajan (devotional song) began, she dropped her bundle of grass and charged past the gate. Her body vibrated out of control, as her posture and expression and way of moving began to assimilate those associated with Krishna’s. So shocked by what they were seeing, some of the attendees ran into town to tell the neighbors. Naysayers yelled out, “If you really are Krishna show us a miracle!” Sudhamani said, “You have the real gem inside you. Why do you want to see an imitation?” They ganged up, “Prove to us that you have manifested Krishna. Show us a miracle!” 

Young Sudhamani/Amma in Krishna Bhavana c. MAM

News spread through the series of Southern Indian fishing villages, and after some convincing, Sudhamani agreed to attend the next reading of the Srimad Bhagavatam. This time, Sudhamani asked a well-known skeptic to empty a copper pot and fill it with fresh spring water. She prayed over it before instructing the skeptic to stick his fingers in the water. They came out covered in yogurt. Again, she had him dip his digits into the copper pot. This time they came out covered in panchamritam—one of Krishna’s favorite puddings! The crowd murmured in wonder as the thousand were served from a quart-size container.

Amma’s mother, Damayanti, who had previously been a strong disciplinarian with her daughter—regularly scolding her and even beating her—later said of the evening, “Changing water into pudding couldn’t be done by an ordinary person. After that, I saw her as God.” 

News of Sudhamani spread, and seekers started to come.

Amritapuri Early Days c. MAM

Soon the backyard banyan tree wasn’t big enough for the followers so Amma’s father donated the family cowshed to be used as a temple. Sudhamani would welcome worshippers with a warm hug. People started calling her “Amma” because of her motherly manner, and in return Amma would whisper into their ears, “My darling, darling daughter” or “My darling, darling son.”

Embracing The World

People from around the planet came for Amma’s embrace. By 1987 the demand for her darshan-embrace was so high that, at the request of devotees in America, a world tour was arranged. At first it was in private homes and small church halls. Now, there’s a line outside New York City’s Javits Center practically all the way down to the Lincoln Tunnel. Longtime devotees, sincere seekers, and first-timers have ranging experiences from the karmic and profound, to the understated and subtle. There are extreme stories, like Dattan the Lepper—whose wounds, sores, and puss Amma sucked until his symptoms subsided. And then there’s this particular curmudgeonly gent of name and fame in Los Angeles who swears, “Nothing happens when I hug her,” yet year after year he keeps coming back. Something that always sticks out, is the worn-out widow who was contemplating suicide when someone handed her an Amma flier. The Hilton Hotel hosting Amma was on her way home, so she checked it out as a final stop here on Earth. The worn-out widow sobbed uncontrollably in Amma’s lap until it seemed like something inside her seemed to crack. Seven years later, she has the most radiant smile, while doing endless seva (selfless service) at Amma’s public programs.

Amma’s Children c. MAM

 Awaken Children

For three decades Amma toured endlessly through London, Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Milan, Tokyo, Toronto, Nairobi, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, all throughout India, and in the United States: Seattle, San Ramon, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, New York City and other cities. In each of these cities there are free programs that consist of discourse, bhajans [devotional songs], a prayer for world peace, and the blessing of darshan [Amma’s embrace]. Amma often leads the massive halls in an English bhajan called “Everyone in the World”

Everyone in the world should sleep without fear,
at least for one night, sleep without fear…
Everyone in the world should eat ‘til they’re full,
at least for one day, eat ‘til they’re full…
Everyone in the world there should be one day when here is no violence,
no one is injured, no one is hurt…

All people young and old should serve the poor and needy,
at least for one day, serve selflessly…

This is my dream, this is my prayer,
love is the answer,
love is the way.

Amma doesn’t just wish and pray for compassion and change, she leads by example.

 In a book written by one of her most senior disciples, Swami Krishnamrita Prana, Opening to Grace, a woman recalls, “Every day my father sharpened a butcher’s knife and kept it ready to kill my mother. Not one night did we sleep without fear. My sister and I shivered in fear if we ever saw our father’s shadow. Each day we would pray, “May night never come.” The father murdered the mother, whose body was returned home from the morgue in the middle of the night. The woman continues, “I drew the sheet back and saw my mother covered in stitches, totally unrecognizable. I don’t know what happened after that, When I regained consciousness people were sitting around me, fanning.”

Embracing The World, And The Next Generation c. MAM

The girls were brought to Amma’s orphanage where she held them close and encouraged their studies. Since many in the hostel had come from challenging circumstances the camaraderie became like that of a family they’d never known. Children learned of comfort and kinship. The girl got good grades, and graduated with honors, when Amma asked her to enroll in the Bachelor’s of Business and Management School of Amrita University. She graduated, worked for a few years, completed her Master’s degree and was offered a job at Amrita University. The girl (now a woman) is responsible for the sustainable development of some of the 101 villages adopted by Amma’s ashram. Eight weeks into the job, she met her future husband. He had a similar sad background and the two have found so much healing in one another. She says, “Thanks to Amma’s care and love, the family we will create together will be much happier than the ones we were raised in.

Love Is The Answer, Love Is The Way: Amritapuri Ashram

From the humble family hut where Amma’s darshan began, a booming metropolis has sprung. The original cowshed remains next to the Kali Temple, but the rest of the area is almost unrecognizable. Aside from the rooms for the monastic disciples, Amma’s Amritapuri Ashram includes apartments for householder devotees residents, hostels for students, and guest quarters for visitors. Temples and worship halls, clerical offices, classrooms and places to get food. Approximately 3,500 residents in total.

Amritapuri Ashram Kali Temple c. MAM

Across the river is the Amritapuri campus of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham NAAC (an autonomous accreditation agency under the Indian government’s University Grants Commission) has granted Amrita an A++ grade, the highest it can offer. Amrita has consistently found a place among the top 10 universities in India. It has nine campuses in total, multidisciplinary teaching and research institution with a student base of approximately 24,000+.

In nearby Kochi is the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (Amrita Hospital), a state-of-the-art teaching hospital that serves has provided completely free treatment to more than 5 million patients—more than $105 million in charitable medical care since 1998. And in 2022, a second such hospital was built near Delhi in northern India.

Rainbow Over Amritapuri + Kerala Backwaters c. MAM

Embracing the World: Love as Service Work

In his 2013 New York Times piece, Jake Halpern explains: “In 2003, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, then the president of India, was so impressed with Amma’s charitable work that he donated almost his entire annual salary to her organization. His enthusiasm may stem from the simple fact that Amma appears to do what politicians cannot. Mr. Chandy, the chief minister of Kerala, told me rather dejectedly, “The government has so many limitations, but Amma gives an order and next day the work will start.”

Amma’s umbrella charity “Embracing The World” have a diverse steams of focus including education, health care, gender equality & women’s empowerment, environmental protection, disaster relief, research, food, water & shelter. Her practical philanthropy helps to enrich each aspect of someone’s life. Examples include the following.

Earthquake in Gujarat

When the 2001 earthquake that struck Gujarat claimed 20,000 lives, Amma immediately dispensed disaster-relief teams and psychological support. Her volunteers constructed a total of 1,200 earthquake-proof houses, community centers, schools, temples, and even a church and a mosque. When the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami hit Kerala, villagers from Gujarat travelled to Kerala to return Amma’s kindness. They joined Amma’s teams who were offering food, housing, medical and counseling services to those effected. Children who survived the tsunami were give art classes to draw about their experiences, and swimming lessons to overcome their fear of water, which they had seen wash away their homes and loved ones. Together, Amma, her sevites built more than 6,000 new homes for victims to start their new lives.

Support for Farmers and Families

Crop failure and debt has caused hundred of thousands of farmers to commit suicide since 1997. With no hope for future generations, often entire families end their lives together. Amma’s charities have provided advanced farming, and environmental education to adults, while more than 100,000 children have received school scholarships and stipends. More recently a homestead garden project was launched. Seeds were distributed to upwards of 5,000 families who now sustain themselves.

Embracing The World Participants

Self-Relience, Education & Employment

Amma’s Amrita SREE program (Self-Reliance, Education & Employment) has provided 300,000+ women with vocational education, assistance in creating sustainable business plan, access to micro-credit loans and micro-savings accounts from government-regulated banks.

And much, much  more…(For a full list click here ). 

Mangala Arati c. MAM

Amma Amma Taye: Staying up All Night With Amma

Meanwhile, in America, the final night of Amma’s programs in each city—called Devi Bhava—Amma stays up all night until about 9 or 10:00 a.m. the next morning, embracing one and all, giving mantras, performing weddings, baby’s first feedings and other auspicious acts.

The standard scene is as follows: You arrive at the location and get a darshan token. Your darshan token is sort of like a deli-counter number, signifying when you’re up for your embrace. While extremely organized, no two experiences are the same. On the rare occurrence someone will arrive to no line, immediately receive a token and be whisked to the front of the hall for their hug.

Offering flowers and receiving hugs

The Experience with Amma

Most will wait for a some hours, receive their token, enjoy the program and enchantment, receive their hug and happily return home. Others will wait and wait and wait. Receive a token. Accidentally lose it in the bathroom. Walk to the parking lot defeated. Only to bump into the long-lost loved one they’d always hoped to reconnect with, an elder needing assistance who drops the most prescient pearl of wisdom, the stranger with the ideal job opportunity, or similar. They return to the hall to see their token is being called, find it on the floor, receive Amma’s darshan, feel like every cell of their body has been recharged, and return to their daily lives, a more authentic version of themselves.

And yet another group may travel, work and serve Amma never asking for a hug, knowing that to be in her presence is the blessing itself. The lilas [divine plays] are infinite, intricate and specific to each soul. As the tour staff says, “Amma knows you’re here!”

Giselle Receives An Embrace From Amma c. MAM

In the time between receiving a darshan token and being held in the arms of the Amma, there can be the aforementioned programs as well plenty of space to wonder and discover. Rooms, halls, and floors are filled with a carnival of activity. There is music, mediation, videos of Amma’s extensive humanitarian work. Service opportunities and sacred shopping to financially support it.

Available for purchase—with all proceeds going to Amma’s charitable mission—are Indian meals and snacks, coffee, sweet, snacks and chai. Books, audio, traditional India saris, Western T-shirts and sweatshirts, bath and body products (including aromatherapy oils), home, temple and worship items, Ayurvedic herbs, personalized chiropractic care and massage, radiance healing, astrological readings and much much more.

Engaging with the sevites who pour their heart into these products and projects is as educational as it is inspiring. They are quick with an Amma anecdote that speaks directly to your current (unmentioned) circumstance. Seeing many of the same faces year after year brings its own form of comfort — joyful and familiar. Deep and transformative.

My Religion Is Love

At the heart of Amma’s life and teachings is her message of universal oneness. It is rooted in that fundamental concept of Indian spirituality, that Amma embraces and dedicates her life to uplifting one and all. 

As Amma says, “My religion is love.”

Amma’s Embrace c. MAM

See Amma on Tour *Now*

July 13-16, 2024
Hyatt Regency Irvine
17900 Jamboree Road
Irvine, CA 92614

For more info click here.

July 19-22 Albuquerque, NM
July 25-29 Washington, DC
July 31-August 2 Boston, MA
August 5-7 New York, NY
August 9-11 Chicago, IL

For more information on the tour click here.

For more information about Amma go to Amma.org

Author’s Note; All photos are copyright of Mata Amritanandamayi Math and Amritapuri.org.

Amy V Dewhurst

To Check Out Amy’s Work Go To; Sense + Color, You Can Reach Her At IG:  Amy_V_Dewhurst  + AmyVDewhurst@SenseAndColor.co #PutYourGoodWhereItWillDoTheMost

www.senseandcolor.co

The post Free Hugs; Amma Returns To America appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Venerable Thubten Chodron is a pioneering American Buddhist nun, and founder of Sravasti Abbey. She has been working on The Library of Wisdom and Compassion book series with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet now available through Wisdom Publications.

LA YOGA was lucky to get an early look at this extraordinary undertaking, and an audience with the beloved Bodhisattva behind it.

Each Heart

Cheryl Greene grew up outside of Los Angeles, during the Vietnam War. Like many confronted with the mortality of youth, she questioned the purpose of life (and death). “I couldn’t find any answers really in any of the theistic religions, and so, I figured it must have something to do with helping people,” she explains. The seeker became a teacher and got married. The couple returned their weddings gifts to travel through Europe, North Africa and Asia.

Back at home, the newlywed saw a flyer for a Buddhist course. The Tibetan lamas advised students, “You don’t have to believe anything we say. Think about it, if it makes sense to you, accept it. If it doesn’t, leave it aside.” The revered scholar reflects, “What they said really touched my heart.” She started meditating, became Buddhist and realized,  “I wanted to become a nun…I thought oh, I really want to devote my life to this.”

The aspirant studied in Nepal, and India, landing in Dharmsala. In 1977, she was given permission to be ordained, and took the novice precepts. In the years since she has studied, taught and started dharma centers in Italy, Singapore, France and the US. She has become known to many as Venerable Thubten Chodron, respectfully referred to in the familiar as “Venerable.”

But First

In 1979, Thubten started attending talks by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet. She would have appointments to ask him dharma questions, “So that kind of established a personal relationship,“ she says. In the early 90s, there was a conference of Western Buddhist teachers. Chodron recalls, “I had the idea that because we’ve been receiving teachings from Tibetan lamas who didn’t know about Western culture, and yet his Holiness did. And so I thought ‘Gee, it would be really nice if his Holiness wrote a very short text that the Tibetan lamas could use as a root text to teach the Dharma.’ Because Westerners, there’s a lot of Buddhist ideas that we need to become acquainted with.”

Venerable Thubten Chodron and His Holiness The XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet

Chodron continues, “So I went to his Holiness and requested that he write that, and he said ‘Oh, very good, but first, we have to write the long version’. And so, he sent me away with a transcript of a teaching he had given, I edited it, that was the start of the book.”

Venerable would collect questions from Westerners, transcribe talks, and be sent off to monasteries and libraries, for years at a time. “So the manuscript kept getting bigger and bigger” she laughs, “by this time it was 2,000 pages.”

The original idea of a “small book” has sprawled into ten large ones now known as The Library of Wisdom and Compassion book series. It’s a compendium of Buddhist teachings, the ninth volume entitled Appearing and Empty  released this week.

Known for her depth, quick wit, and wide smile, Ven summarized each of the books for us.

1. Approaching The Buddhist Path

“When his Holiness starts teaching in the West, he goes on two planes. One plane is compassion and teaching everybody about the kind heart. The other plane that he gives to people in the West, because he says these are educated, intelligent people– is he starts talking about a cause and effect, and what we call the two truths; the conventional truth, the ultimate truth.

So in this first volume, we have a combination of talking about compassion, and service to society, how to help people here and now. So that’s volume one.”

2. The Foundation Of Buddhist Practice

“The Foundation Of Buddhist Practice talks more about rebirth, what is mind, the continuity of mind. It has a nice section about how to select spiritual teachers, the qualities to look for, and how to relate to spiritual teachers, because there’s been a lot of scandals. Here’s where His Holiness’s mind is so practical about; you have to check out people, you’re the one who determines if somebody’s one of your teachers or not. You have to look; do they have good ethical conduct? Do they have meditation experience? Do they teach the regular Buddhist path? Or are they making something up? How are they with their teachers? With their students?
Do they ask for a lot of donations? Or are they sincerely interested in their student’s path and helping them to attain awakening?

Then there’s a whole section also about karma, because Westerners are very interested, what is karma? How does it operate? And this whole thing about the idea of God who creates the world, and then either rewards them or punishes sentient beings, and how Buddhism is very different from that. So that’s the second volume.”

3. Samsara, Nirvana And Buddha Nature

“The third is Samsara, Nirvana and Buddha Nature. So there we go into more depth about what is our present situation as beings who are afflicted by distorted concepts, and by unrealistic and disturbing emotions, and how does that create rebirth. Is taking one rebirth after the other really a happy occasion or not?

So here are the four truths; our present situation, what causes it, and then, the path, and what the result is the true cessation. It talks about Buddha nature because we all have the potential, we have incredible potential to really practice and get out of samsara. So that’s volume three.”

4. Following In The Buddha’s Footsteps

“Volume four is Following In The Buddha’s Footsteps. The first part is talking about refuge in the Buddha, dharma and sangha. What is the Buddha? Are there many Buddhas? What is the dharma? What are the sangha?

Second part of the book is going into the three higher trainings. So ethical conduct, how to develop concentration, and then wisdom. Okay, so that’s volume four.”

5. In Praise Of Great Compassion

“Volume five is one of my favorite volumes. I mean, the whole thing I love all the topics, but this one especially, it’s called In Praise of Great Compassion talks about what is compassion from a Buddhist perspective. So again, this is very different than secular compassion. Secular compassion, you feel sorry for somebody. Buddhist compassion, you don’t feel sorry for them. You want to help them alleviate their pain and their misery, but it isn’t oh, you poor little baby, let me save you, okay? Because in Buddhism, you can’t save anybody people have to practice and create the causes themselves.

Then it talks about how compassion is spoken of different traditions, it talks about how to develop compassion and so on, and it’s a beautiful book.”

6. Courageous Compassion

“Volume six is called Courageous Compassion. This is talking about once you’ve generated compassion, once you’ve generated Bodhicitta, the aspiration to become a Buddha in order to benefit other living beings, then what do you practice? So here it explains generosity, ethical conduct, a fortitude, as many people call that patience, I call it fortitude, because it means you have to have inner strength, yea..? Then joyous effort. So to have effort, you need to have joy. Then meditative stability, so your meditation practice and then wisdom.

The second part of the book talks about the paths and stages that bodhisattva’s practice. Bodhisattvas are those who are aspiring to become Buddhists for the benefit of all beings and have a certain level of realization of compassion and Bodhicitta. And how the path is for them, what kind of realizations they get at different levels of the path.

And it can be really inspiring if you have a sense of your Buddha nature and you think oh, if I keep practicing, not expecting to be Buddha by next Tuesday, or even 10 years from Tuesday. But if I have a long view and it’s going to take many lifetimes, I can actually attain these amazing states where I can, I have the compassion, the wisdom, the skillful means, the power to benefit others as much as I am capable of. So it talks about those stages of development.

So that’s volume six.”

7. Searching For The Self

“Volume seven is called Searching For The Self, and volume seven, eight and nine are all about the nature of reality, emptiness, the lack of inherent existence. And how the ultimate nature and the conventional nature both exist. And you need to be able to posit both.

So Searching For The Self is a kind of like an introduction to emptiness. It talks about some of the different philosophical views of what selflessness or no self means, what emptiness means. Because there’s different views, Buddha taught different things to different people because it was his way of being skillful and teaching people according to their own level. It talks about that, and it talks about yes, just the realizations that they gain along the path.

So volume seven gives a lot of that introductory material. What is emptiness? What are the different philosophical views? Why do we study different views? How do they help us really realize the point of it? And how it doesn’t mean that nothing exists, and still exists.”

8. Realizing The Profound View

“Volume eight carries on from that, and it goes into a lot of the, what goes into the prominent arguments that are used to refute inherent existence. Because emptiness isn’t just close your eyes and empty your mind. If it would just get rid of all thoughts and empty your mind, then a cow would be enlightened. Because it doesn’t have a lot of conceptual thought. Maybe that’s why they say holy cow, I don’t know.

Realizing the nature of reality isn’t just blank-minded meditation, it’s not stopping our thoughts. It’s generating a very astute focused mind, that can really say here’s how I think things exist, can they actually exist in the way that I think they do?

So volume eight really gets into that, and really makes you look at well, how do I think things exist? And then, it also talks a lot about dependent arising, because we say on the ultimate level, which is analyzing how things exist, they lack any inherent nature. They are empty of inherent existence.

The more you understand emptiness and selflessness, the more you understand dependent nature. And this is like super profound. So that’s volume eight, and that’s the second of my favorite, most fun.“

9. Appearing And Empty

“Then volume nine, it continues on about emptiness. But here, we’re talking about what’s called the two truths. Okay, so the ultimate truth that things are empty of inherent existence, and the conventional truth or another way of saying it the veiled truth. Truth for somebody whose mind is ignorant, in other words, our minds. It doesn’t mean people who vote for the opposite.

All of our minds, even on the conventional level, we don’t perceive things accurately. We perceive them with the degree of accurateness and the sense that we can tell a car from a table, and we know if you plant carrot seeds, you get carrots.

So we can identify the things in our environment, we can work on a conventional level and have court cases, and all this kind of thing, but we don’t really, so that’s on the level of appearances. So that’s the first part of the title, appearing. But all these appearances that appear to exist out there from their own side, actually, are empty even here in existence.

In other word, they exist in relationship to our mind. They don’t have their own nature that makes them what they are. They depend on how we cognize them, and how we designate them. So that’s volume nine.”

The tenth and final volume will likely release next year.

Dharma In Action

When asked the benefits of this series for lay people, spiritual seekers and practiced Buddhists alike, Venerable responded, “What all this does is it softens our mind up, and it opens our mind up. So instead of wanting to put everything in a category, give it a label and then think we know everything about it. It’s calling us to be much more flexible, much more open-minded, much more realizing that every single person is a combination of well, every single organism I should say, is a combination of contradictory thoughts and contradictory emotions. So they’re all basically alike. So who’s the enemy? And who’s the friend?” A topic she regards as timely, as our country once again contends with the division and upheavel of her youth.

Venerable teaches at a Buddhist Center

Convictional Faith

These days, Venerable and her community are celebrating 20 years of Sravasti Abbey an American Buddhist monastic community on a 300-acre property in Washington State. Founded by Venerable (and her two cats) in 2003, Sravasti Abbey is now home to twenty-eight monastics who engage in dharma, community and service daily.

During a recent Q+A there someone asked about the concept of “faith,” Venerable responded; “In the West, when we use the word ‘faith’, we usually think ‘blind faith’. In Buddhism, faith means trust, confidence. And this convictional faith is really important because it’s through thinking about things, and coming to your own conclusion that then you say, ‘Oh, that makes sense, that’s how I’m going to act.”

The Library of Wisdom and Compassion

Appearing and Empty was released this week, and is now available through Wisdom Publications here.

The Library of Wisdom and Compassion book series is available through Wisdom Publications here.

To learn more about Venerable Thubten Chodron click here.

To learn more about Sravasti Abbey click here.

Amy V Dewhurst

To Check Out Amy’s Work Go To; Sense + Color, You Can Reach Her At IG:  Amy_V_Dewhurst  + AmyVDewhurst@SenseAndColor.co #PutYourGoodWhereItWillDoTheMost

www.senseandcolor.co

The post His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet and Venerable Thubten Chodron; Two Truths appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Who is Yogiraj Siddhanath SatGurunath?

My Miracle Summer of 2022

SoCal Devotee

siddhanath.org/events/events-usa/

The post  Yogiraj Siddhanath SatGurunath:  My Guru and My Miracle appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Polish your mind to deflect the negative influence of ill wishes

Today, we live in a very stressful society. To add to the stress of everyday life, the world has become increasingly unstable due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Russo-Ukrainian war, and inflation, to name a few. It seems as if problems and troubles constantly appear, assailing us with worries, fear, and doubts. Although life’s events seem to befall us randomly, everything that happens in this world is subject to the law of cause and effect.

Because there is a cause for everything that happens in this world, we may be able to stop a negative circumstance from doing harm to us if we can discover its cause. Believe it or not, a lot of the pains, sufferings, and misfortunes that we encounter in life are actually caused by curses. A curse is a wish to bring other people unhappiness. Curses are everywhere around us, and we may not only be on the receiving end, but also be cursing someone without realizing it. How then, can we protect ourselves from these negative influences called curses?

Protect Yourself from Curses by Realizing that Like Attracts Like

The law of the mind we should be aware of when considering curses is that we attract those who are on the same spiritual wavelengths. Humans are like magnets; our thoughts attract spirits with similar vibrations. So, if you feel that you are being cursed–in other words, if you feel that other people have negative thoughts or feelings about you- you may want to check to see if you have any thoughts that are attracting them. Only when you know the cause, can you discover the solution. Once you know what is attracting the negative thoughts and emotion aimed at you, you will be able to find a way to repel them and protect yourself from harm and misfortune.

Polish the Mirror of Your Mind

What should we do if we feel that we are influenced by curses? Buddhism teaches that we can repel curses and protect ourselves by polishing our mind. Your mind works like a mirror reflecting the world and people around you. When your mind is like a clear and clean mirror, you can see the thoughts and feelings of other people just as they are. Those with negative or ugly thoughts would hate to have their honest thoughts come to light. By having a clear and clean mind like a polished mirror, not only can you tell what others are really thinking, you can also deflect any negative thoughts that are targeted at you.

But you won’t be able to repel them if the mirror of your mind is dirty. To maintain a clear and clean mind, take time to examine the state of your mind every day and wipe out any dirt or dust that may be sullying the mirror of your mind.

Removing Three Poisons of the Mind

Buddhism teaches that Three Poisons of the Mind, namely, greed, anger, and ignorance, stain our mind. To maintain a clean and clear mind, check to see if any of your thoughts and deeds arise out of these poisons, and remove them.

1. Greed

The first poison is greed. Greed is an insatiable desire for more than we deserve- status, fame, beauty, money, or reputation, for example- even at the cost of other people’s unhappiness. Greedy people usually do not realize they are being greedy, while it is quite obvious to other people. So if you want to know if greed is poisoning your mind, try to see yourself objectively by observing the words and reactions of the people around you.

To remove the poison of greed from our mind, we need to learn how to be content. When you are greedy, you tend to focus on what you don’t have. Try instead to focus on your gifts, be grateful for what you have, and find positive meaning in your life. Next, nurture a generous spirit by thinking about how you can give to the people around you and the world. This will help you get rid of attachments or cravings.

2. Anger

The second poison is anger. Anger is an animal instinct wanting to protect us from harm. When you fly into a rage, you lose control in the turmoil. The flame of anger hurts others, destroys relationships, and taints your own divine nature. When anger arises, take a deep breath. Try to find goodness in the person you are upset with and think objectively about whether there is anything you could have done or can do to improve the current situation. Restoring peace of mind is the key to curbing anger.

The world is full of people who don’t agree with us or listen to us, but we need to try to patiently cultivate understanding for those who criticize us. It is the spirit of patience, tolerance, and kindness that can help us understand each other. We can take the first step by aiming to cultivate a peaceful mind. If everybody were to find peace within, this world would naturally become a peaceful and beautiful place.

3. Ignorance

The third poison is ignorance, or lack of knowledge and understanding of the spiritual truths. Even those who are known to be keenly intelligent in the fields of science and technology cannot scientifically answer life’s basic questions, such as ‘Where do we come from before birth?’ and ‘Where do we go after death?’

Without a spiritual perspective, it becomes difficult to find the purpose and meaning of life.

One of the most important truths we should understand is that human beings were created by God and that we are born into this world to learn lessons and to cultivate our souls. Try to see your life from this perspective and see if you are making the right decisions every day in that regard. Practicing self-reflection, meditation, and prayer is the key to changing knowledge to wisdom, which removes foolishness from our mind.

Cultivating Peace and Clarity of Mind

We may not be able to completely avoid misfortunes, difficulties, and hardships in life. But if we take care to constantly polish our minds and fill our hearts with good thoughts toward others, our minds will tune with heavenly spirits, receive the light from God, and deflect the negative spiritual energy of others’ curses. By protecting ourselves from curses in this manner, we will bring more peace and happiness to ourselves and others.

Dramatization of the Release of Curses in The Divine Protector: Master Salt Begins

Mia Tomikawa is a consultant on The Divine Protector: Master Salt Begins, a new film from Japan about the Divine Protector, Master Salt, who is summoned by three young high school students to help them decipher the mysterious incidents that have plagued them recently. Master Salt expels the curse laid on one of the students by a jealous schoolmate, and the trio call her back to protect the other people in their lives who have been afflicted by others’ poisonous thoughts. Learn more about The Divine Protector:Master Salt Begins https://mastersaltmovie.com 

Mia Tomikawa

Mia Tomikawa is a producer on “The Cherry Bushido,” a film from Japan about a young Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) devotee and group of friends who unite to protect Japan from the threat of extinction by its neighboring country. She is also a consultant on The Divine Protector: Master Salt Begins.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, Mia Tomikawa moved to the United States in her late teens and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a BA in Communications Studies. She has a decade of experience in TV production in the US, overseeing all phases of video and film production, including casting, scheduling, and booking locations, as well as translation services.

In 2007, Ms. Tomikawa became Editor-in-Chief of IRH Press, a publishing arm of Happy Science, where she worked on the translation and publication of more than 30 titles. In 2018, she joined Happy Science’s media division to produce the award-winning film, The Real Exorcist. Happy Science is a global spiritual and religious movement founded by Ryuho Okawa. Its goal is to bring greater happiness and harmony to all people by integrating different religions and cultures.

mastersaltmovie.com%20

The post Protect Yourself from Curses from the Inside Out appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Gratitude is a Healing Power; Gratitude is a Spiritual Practice

As I lay on the massage table under the palm leaf ceiling, the curandero walked around me saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” in between phrases spoken in Spanish and other languages I didn’t recognize. He sometimes moved part of my body in what felt like a mix between a chiropractic adjustment and an assisted stretch, sometimes sang what sounded like a child’s lullaby. Mostly he said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you” throughout my healing session.

Miraculously, the next morning I woke up pain-free for the first time in five years. I was deeply relieved and grateful to be free of the chronic low back pain that had affected my daily life for so long. I hoped the healing would last.

Later that day, after teaching a yoga session on the retreat I was leading, I slipped and fell flat on my back on hard concrete in the pouring rain. My first thought was, “Oh, great, just when I finally felt better.” I wanted to cry.

The curandero’s words came to mind and immediately countered my fear of back pain returning. I repeated, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” in my mind. I stood up and slowly walked upstairs to my hotel room to rest, and simply reflected on giving thanks. I felt sincerely grateful for all of the beautiful moments I was experiencing that week, including the moment when I woke up pain-free. My logic: If the curandero’s main prayer was “thank you,” and it seemed to work a miracle, I could continue to pray in this way and hope to stay pain-free.

When I got up to join the retreat group for dinner, my back was totally fine and the healing of low back pain seemed to be intact. Thank goodness! You can bet I was grateful for the healing power of giving thanks!

Expressing Gratitude: A Life-Enriching Spiritual Practice

I was familiar with gratitude as a psychological tool and as a spiritual practice. In fact, the psychotherapists I had worked with over the years recommended keeping a gratitude journal, which I did. Growing up in a metaphysical religion, I felt closest to the Divine when I was feeling grateful for all the blessings in my life, which I attributed to God’s benevolence and care.

I later learned a new form of affirmative prayer which included Gratitude and Thanksgiving as one of the five key steps. The teaching emphasized that it was important to not only give thanks, but to energetically and emotionally feel gratitude for the good result being visualized.

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” –Meister Eckhart

Gratitude as a Spiritual Practice

Reverence and Faith

Sages and teachers throughout the ages and across cultures have included expressing gratitude as a spiritual practice. People practicing earth-based wisdom traditions often give thanks with offerings to nature. The Four Directions or Seven Directions Prayer, an invocation made by many North American indigenous peoples from Iroquois to Mayan, typically includes giving thanks in each verse.

In this beautiful rendition attributed to Seneca Elder, Grandmother Twylah Nitsch, giving thanks is an essential step in opening sacred space.

To the East, to the new day… Thank you for the moving airs, for the awakening of life.
To the South, sacred fire of creativity… Thank you for the teachings of … those things that carry joy and communion.
To the West, to the Dark Waters of Looking Within… Thank you for those things that teach compassion and nourish understanding.
To the North, the wisdom place… Thank you for the gifts of lodge and sustenance.
I pray to live upon this gracious earth with remembrance of gratitude and with respect.

The Teachings of Gratitude

Gratitude, as an act of sincere appreciation, makes one aware of the good in life, and promises to bring more good. This is reflected in the popular saying, “Where your attention goes, energy flows.” Whether taught through the lens of Law of Attraction or Yoga philosophy, the teaching emphasizes that when we focus on the good, we will likely see more good coming into our lives. In this way, expressing gratitude can be an act of faith.

Appreciation=Increased Returns

One way to express gratitude is appreciation, seeing and voicing thanks for the good aspects of something or someone. Another definition of appreciation is an increase in value–which again suggests that expressing gratitude for something good in life effectively brings more good!

Mindfulness and Gratitude are Connected

Gratitude offers an inspired approach to mindfulness. When you cultivate mindful awareness of your present moment, you can actively appreciate your ordinary daily experience. Washing dishes can be an act of appreciation and mindfulness when you give thanks for the warm water, the food you enjoyed, the beautiful pottery, or the person by your side.

Going for a walk can become a mindfulness and gratitude practice. You can say “Thank you,” with each step and give thanks for the weather, your able body, the scenery, or community surrounding you.

Elevate Your Life through Mindfulness and Gratitude

Gratitude elevates everyday existence just as mindfulness does. You become aware of the beauty in the ordinary and the goodness of the present moment. Take time to do something like notice your cup of coffee, tea, or water. Notice the good in things both small and big. Giving thanks increases this awareness. We learn in mindfulness practice that, rather than being caught up in thoughts or worries, present-moment awareness helps us savor and appreciate the precious once-in-a-lifetime experiences that make up a lifetime.

Modern Psychology and Neuroscience Weigh in on the Benefits of Gratitude

Gratitude Feels Good

Gratitude has its own intrinsic reward. It simply feels good to be grateful. Gratitude empowers you and gives a positive boost to your energy.

Expressing gratitude is not just an action. It also creates other positive emotions that benefit mental health and emotional wellness. People who practice giving thanks regularly feel more content, fulfilled, and balanced in life. Gratitude creates further expressions of kindness, compassion, and lovingness, helping us relate to others in more positive ways.

Cultivate a Positive Outlook on Life

Psychologists and neuroscientists confirm that daily gratitude contributes to feelings of general well-being and helps us sustain a positive outlook on life.

A 2015 study found that people who kept a daily journal of things for which they were grateful reported feeling more optimistic than others, and were also more physically active and healthy than those who wrote about negative experiences (Neurohealth Associates). They also confirmed the following benefits of gratitude.

Documented Benefits of Gratitude

• Gratitude and positive outlook improves sleep.
• Gratitude reduces anxiety and depression.
• The habit of giving thanks correlates to lower inflammation.
• Higher levels of gratitude reduces the risk of heart failure.

Enjoy Better Relationships through Practicing Gratitude

Giving thanks results in positive interactions and behaviors–for yourself and others. Imagine if, when the next conflict arises between you and a loved one, you were able to pause and access a feeling of appreciation or gratitude for the loved one and for the opportunity to grow. Gratitude expressed brings out the best expression of ourselves and others!

A person who appreciates others more often has more harmonious and joyful relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.

Gratitude Fosters Resilience

People who appreciate the good in life tend to cope better when inevitable challenges arise. Gratitude increases resilience when facing uncertainty or fearful situations.

Adolescents, particularly girls, have been shown to be “psychologically protected” from bullying and have lower suicide risk when they maintain a grateful mindset.

Gratitude Leads to Positive Expectations and Empowering Outcomes Follow

Appreciation and gratitude create positive emotions and expectations, which lead to empowered actions and decision making. When people express gratitude, they tend to be more proactive, which leads to more empowering outcomes.

The practice of gratitude creates a positive feedback loop which sets the stage for more growth and opportunity in one’s life. (Much like the practice of positive affirmations.)

Our Brain Benefits from Giving Thanks

In addition to our emotions benefiting from gratitude, studies show that our brain also gets activated in healthy ways, even “rewiring” the neural network to promote greater levels of happiness. Our brains grow with gratitude. One study correlated increased gray matter volume with proneness to gratitude. Another study found that people who express gratitude release oxytocin, the hormone which plays a key role in social bonds.

A study at UCLA revealed that feelings of gratitude activate areas of the brain associated with moral and social cognition, empathy and value judgment. Charged with gratitude, the brain helps us have positive feelings and less stress in our interactions with others.

Who doesn’t want more pleasure in life? Give thanks! Gratitude increases dopamine, the hormone associated with pleasure and rewards.

How to Make Gratitude a Daily Spiritual Practice

Wake up Grateful

When we first wake up, our subconscious mind is receptive to positive conditioning, a perfect time to practice gratitude. Give thanks for a new day, a good night’s sleep, your comfortable bed, your home, the cup of tea or coffee that awaits you, and the day ahead.

Practice Gratitude in Advance

In addition to giving thanks for each day, give gratitude in advance for things which you desire or plan to experience.

Mindfulness and Gratitude

Let your appreciative mindset keep you in the practice of present-moment awareness, or living in the moment. An “attitude of gratitude” helps you elevate ordinary experience into something pleasurable and cultivates a sense of wonder, a beautiful spiritual quality. Admire a blooming flower, appreciate the “magic” of a butterfly or sunset, feel grateful for your free-flowing breath or strength as you exercise, and appreciate the fact that you can easily turn on a faucet and enjoy a hot shower! With mindfulness, you take nothing for granted, and feel gratitude for everything.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

In the evening or right before bed, take a few minutes to write down three or more things you are grateful for, as an overview of your day.

Express your Appreciation to Others Whenever Possible

Tell the people close to you specifically what you appreciate about them and give thanks when others enrich your life. This can take place both in small everyday acts and in the big things. Besides thanking others, share your appreciation and positivity in general. Telling others what you are grateful for in your life models this practice and makes everyone feel better.

Let Gratitude Reframe Negative Experiences

When you can, express gratitude for a challenge and look for the good in difficulties. You may need to feel and express other emotions that don’t always feel good before you can glean the positive; gratitude for your own resilience and growth may be enough.

Say Thank You

You can even do this out loud; at the beginning and/or end of your spiritual practices. Use your words to elevate your prayers, affirmations, meditation, yoga practice to conscious sincerity with feelings and the expression of gratitude.

Are you ready to increase your baseline for a more enjoyable, pleasurable, and healthy life and mindset? Find ways to add gratitude practices to your days.

Practice Gratitude on Retreat Over Thanksgiving

If you’d like to dive into the joys of gratitude as a spiritual practice, join me on my Thanksgiving-themed retreat in the beautiful Mayan Riviera, Mexico in November.

Retreat with Gratitude!

https://retreats.layoga.com/pages/come-home-to-aia-thanksgiving-retreat-with-enicia-fisher

Enicia Fisher

Enicia Fisher loves to hold sacred space for healing and transformative experiences by guiding people to come home to their body, breath, Nature, and Spirit. She has been curating, hosting, and offering healing retreats since 2012 in the US and Mexico. Founder of Sanadora Sanctuary Retreats and Sanadora Yoga International Teacher Training Program, Enicia has taught yoga since 2005 and has been practicing yoga personally since 2000. She loves yoga because of its mind-body approach and because of the healing power of integrating all aspects of being through the wide range of yogic practices: body, emotions, mind, soul, spirit, philosophy and mindset, and lifestyle practices.

Enicia created and leads Heart Alignment Yoga? and “heartfulness” meditation with an emphasis on Divine heart qualities and life-affirming yoga philosophy that inspires people to live with a deeper connection to their own heart, body, and spirit.
Enicia has a Master’s degree in Education, founded a small private school in Southern California, and is registered with Yoga Alliance as a highly trained and experienced teacher, E-RYT 500.

Enicia is a mother to two wonderfully creative and grounded young adults and is also an author currently preparing her first novel for publication. A Southern California native, Enicia now divides her time between her family base in Los Angeles and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Enicia began leading retreats in the Riviera Maya in 2015, and has offered ten retreats in the region since then. She lived in Akumal/Tulum for three years and continues to collaborate with local healers and ceremonialists on all of her retreats, in honor of the indigenous traditions and cultures being incorporated.

Enicia wishes to honor the Mayan guardians of the sacred lands of Tulum (Ekab), and her teachers who have shared their wisdom and practices:  Leon Xochitl Coatl, Adrián Salas Xopan, and Devi Chandra Ma from Quintana Roo, and Ashley Fiala, Doreen Madison, and David Kutruff from Shraddhaa Yoga School.

www.eniciafisher.com/

The post The Power of Gratitude as a Spiritual Practice appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Accept the Challenge to Raise Your Personal Bar

Today’s world presents new opportunities for growth. Many aspects of our lives are over, or are leaving our awareness. We have a new world before us where great things are possible for living our highest potential.

We are living in the era of a New Earth. This requires us to see beyond what has been or who we have been individually or collectively.

Gifts We Experience When Raising Our Personal Bar in Life

• Alignment with our true selves: Our Divine Presence.
• Clarity of purpose.
• Inspired action to create our hearts’ desire.
• Co-creative support from our unseen team of angels and guides.
• Peace, harmony, abundance and joy within our selves and in our world.

Our Inner World is Connected to the Outer World

The world we live in, and how what we see as “our ” world as individuals includes both our perceptions as well as our projection of thoughts, beliefs based on personal experiences and external influences.

Going forward as aligned individuals, we can take steps–and often leaps–forward gaining momentum and achieving new heights as determined by raising your personal bar. You–and your new world– influences the collective.

Remember: You are that powerful. When you are in alignment with your divine presence and Source. Your gifts and skills, your loving heart and meaningful intentions are a piece of the puzzle that is our new earth, our new world, and our new collective consciousness. Individual and collective consciousness made of inspired action produces results you may only dream of now, but are yours and ours for receiving and sharing.

Raising your bar means aiming higher and manifesting beyond limits that no longer align with your personal and spiritual goals.

What is Your Personal Bar and Where is It?

• Where is your personal bar? Is it self-imposed, or perhaps determined by external influences?
• Where would your bar be if you were to raise your bar unhindered, unbound and completely free? Can you feel it?

Check in with your guidance, perhaps through meditation or prayer, and ask for clarity to understand the steps you will need to take to go higher and attain more. Don’t play small, no one is going to judge you!! You are safe in this space to dream.

Open up Your Journal and Meditate on or Write Answers to the Following Questions

1. What needs to be healed within me to accept more from life?
2. Is my sense of self-worth where it needs to be to do this?
3. Are there relationships in my life to heal or release to move forward?
4. Am I willing to let go of my own will and accept the guidance of my Soul?

These are more than questions. They are opportunities for reflection and growth.

Challenges are allies and will show us where we need to heal, where we can go, and how high we can aim.

When you are happy, fulfilled, and achieving your personal goals you contribute to the collective emotional field.

When your soul is in alignment to the actions of raising your personal bar, your victory is in your grasp, you are aligned with spirit, and you are literally making a difference in the world.

We are all coded to be united in the energy, frequency, and vibration of heart-centered and empowered living. This is the way in which Light wins. It is your win and everyone’s victory.

Imagine your bar so high that your are in alignment with your Soul’s purpose, your life is on point, and you are living a beautiful and fulfilling life. Know, that without a doubt, when you are living this way and reaching new heights, that the whole world benefits.

What’s not to like about that? How could you not love that? We believe in living these principles ourselves. For example, our Compass Rose bar is set high, and has been for over 17 years. We have grown as healers and our community and clients benefit from this every day. Our calling is to continue to level up to meet the opportunities given to us as healers, teachers, coaches and mentors. Our personal lives are enriched as we serve others and celebrate their individual victories for empowerment. We know the effects of our intentions extend beyond the people we serve. For each person we can serve, ten more benefit.

Make a Commitment to Upleveling Your Life

Through a commitment to asking yourselves these questions often and raising your personal bar, you, too, can contribute to a best world. The world needs your Light, and your task is to unveil the beautiful being you are.

Share this journey, share your dream! Find another like-minded person to share the path as an accountability partner or work with a mentor, or go on retreat with a supportive group. For difficult challenges, consider working with a skilled healer who is fully present and in alignment with Source.

We invite you to reach out to us at Compass Rose for guidance and insight. We applaud you for taking the risk, raising your bar, and for the courage to engage with others for a new world.

Stacia Zadra and Daniel Naccarato

Stacia Zadra and Daniel Naccarato are Master Healers of Source Healing, Teachers, Coaches and Mentors of awakening, healing and ascension. They share their gifts and skills at Compass Rose Healing Arts in Spokane Valley, Washington. They can be reached via their website at changeyourcompass.com or by phone at 509-926-9803

www.changeyourcompass.com

The post Raising Your Personal Bar Serves the World appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

What You Need to Know about Vision Boards

Vision boards, Affirmations and Intentions. My close friends raised eyebrows when I got into all this “woo-woo” stuff years ago. Now these practices are becoming more mainstream (and sometimes even backed by research). It’s become easier to articulate and experience why they are worthwhile and actually make an impact in daily life. You may no longer be met with raised eyebrows when you want to learn how to create a vision board that really works.

In fact, my life has transformed dramatically (in good ways) since I started making vision boards for myself. I’ve been doing this along with setting intentions and writing affirmations. These techniques have supported the process of bringing my heart’s desires to life.

I have a particularly amazing and magical vision board story to share. After this, I’ll share with you some of the reasons why vision boards “work.” Take this inspiration to heart to understand how and why you might create some fun and magic in your life by making a vision board (or two or three!) for yourself.

My Vision Board Story

Back in 2012, I was ready for some life changes but I was not sure what needed to change. I was working on a “good” but unhappy marriage, raising and educating my two children, and seeking my “true calling” all at the same time. (Some might say “midlife crisis.”)

So, I made myself a vision board that included images of a happy couple driving in a car through lush tropical vegetation, smiling kids body-boarding in Hawaii, some sacred nature sites including Mayan temples in the jungle, images of women doing yoga in nature, lush green gardens, and a stone-built dream home. (I still haven’t been to Sedona’s red rocks with women doing yoga accompanied by Tibetan singing bowls, but I’ve practiced a lot of yoga with women and bowls in other locations!)

The image from the center for my vision board

In the center of my vision board I glued a very specific image. This was an image of a Thai Buddha sculpture sitting on a wooden cabinet with candles on either side. Behind this was a beautiful hand-built stone wall with a circular opening behind the Buddha. To me, this represented the sacred space of a yoga studio where I’d like to lead a retreat.

I didn’t read the captions of the images I was pasting on my board. So I didn’t know where this studio was, or where in particular any of the other images were. They represented things I wanted to do and experience. Or feelings I wanted to experience, as well as ways of being in the world that I wanted for myself.

My Vision Board In Real Life

Fast forward three years. In the fall of 2015, I was thrilled to be the lead teacher on a yoga retreat in a five-star, gorgeous boutique hotel on the white sands of Tulum Beach in Mexico. The first day, with the sparkling Caribbean Sea and its delightful breezes at my back, I sat down to teach the opening yoga class on the retreat and was shocked at what I saw. Directly across from me, presiding over the treetop palapa yoga studio, sat the very same Thai Buddha on the very same wooden cabinet in front of the exact hand-built stone wall with the circular opening behind it. I was literally sitting in the exact before-unknown yoga studio that was the central image of my vision board!

The story gets better. Recently, when preparing to lead a Vision Board Workshop on a retreat I was offering in another part of Mexico, I decided to look for the image online to share my story. With a little lucky internet sleuthing, I found the magazine page that included the image, and, lo and behold, it was in LA Yoga Magazine. This is the very same magazine that is now publishing my writing!

There were so many magic moments that I experienced on that first dream retreat. This led to a series of now 11 retreats in the Riviera Maya. Since then, my life has taken many new and “magical” turns. In the past seven years I’ve explored many sacred Mayan temples in the jungle. I’ve taken my kids kayaking in the Caribbean and snorkeling in countless cenotes. And we’ve all enjoyed many scenic drives with the windows down through tropical landscapes. The major difference is that the happy couple now includes a new life partner. (You guessed it–that’s another story!)

Vision Boards Really Work!

Vision boards can change your life, and for the better. The trick is understanding that some of the changes that you visualize will “manifest” in different forms than you may expect. I’ve learned that “The Universe” responds to my intentions. The Universe has the best intentions for me. But this sometimes means something quite different than what I am able to dream up for myself from my current perceptions and expectations.

Quantum mechanics, ancient wisdom, mystics and modern psychology all suggest that we interact with and impact the world through our perception. Physicists observe that they change the behavior of electrons just by looking at them! We interact with and impact the outer world in intricate energetic ways. Our inner work becomes a “blueprint” for our external life and experiences.

Vision Boards as Tools for Visualization

When you create a vision board, you are literally focusing your attention on things that you want to experience and feel. When you look at it often, over a period of weeks or months, you engage in a regular practice of visualization.

Olympic and other world-champion athletes use visualization and mental practices to enhance their performance. They rehearse mentally with highly detailed images and engaging physical senses and emotions. Visualization means literally seeing and feeling that experience (and success) before it happens.

Muhammad Ali was known to enhance his performance in the boxing ring by practicing visualization and mental rehearsals along with affirmations. These mental practices, at the very least, can boost motivation and self-confidence. This directly impacts one’s performance and life experience.

If my experience counts as anecdotal evidence, visualization combined with intentions, affirmations, and an openness to synchronicities which might seem “magic,” can usher in a whole series of life-enriching experiences. These can have the potential to change the entire course of one’s life.

How to Create a Vision Board

Feeling inspired to make a vision board? It’s a wonderful, relaxing activity to enjoy alone, or with a loved one or a small group of friends.

Supplies for Creating A Vision Board

• Stack of magazines with a variety of subjects.
• Poster board or other large piece of cardstock paper.
• Scissors.
• Glue stick or glue.

How to Create A Vision Board

• Give yourself an hour or two free of distractions.
• Pour a cup of tea, glass of wine, or beverage of your choice.
• Put on some relaxing background music.

Set the Mood for Creating a Vision Board

You can sit and contemplate or journal about some areas in your life that you want to include in your vision. Some of these can be the following: vision, career, home, relationships, travel, finances, social life, spirituality, health, and life goals. Or, you can simply start and “randomly” choose images that stand out to you.

Take Action in Creation

• Flip through a few different magazines.
• Stop to cut or tear out images (and words or phrases) that either relate to your heart’s desires and life goals, or speak to you.
• You might be surprised by what you end up being drawn to!
• Allow yourself to choose images that seem compelling to you even if you don’t know why.
• After you’ve amassed a pile of clippings, cut them more neatly and arrange them on the table in an attractive layout.
• Then start gluing them to your poster board, either overlapping or with space between them, as you prefer.
• Most likely not all of your clippings will fit, and it’s a helpful exercise to prioritize what goes on to your vision board.

The Vision Board in Progress as a Tool for Contemplation

• As you work with the images and words you’ve selected, reflect on the feelings, including emotions and senses, that the images convey.
• This “energetic” part of the vision board is just as important as the images you include.
• Imagine yourself in the images, and allow yourself to feel the joy, excitement, freedom and gratitude you would feel in the actual experience.
  (Look for one of my next articles on the power of gratitude in advance!)

Complete Your Vision Board and Make it Your Vision

• Once your vision board is complete, hang it up in a place where you will look at it often.
• You can also take a photo of it and use it for your screensaver on your computer or phone.
• I keep mine hanging over my dresser.
• Try to take a moment each day to look at, smile about, imagine and feel the feelings the vision board elicits.

Ask yourself if there’s one action step you can take each day that relates to working towards or experiencing the heart’s desires that you’ve represented in your vision board.

Create Vision Boards for Different Goals and Moods

You can create just one vision board for your life in general, or create a couple that focus on different aspects of your life. I recently made one for myself envisioning a more rooted home and relationship life, and a separate one focused on the next chapter in my career. Another fun exercise with vision boards is to create one and then pack it away to be opened up like a time capsule 1, 3, or 5 years later to see what has unfolded.

To work with the vision board more directly and intentionally, you might journal about it, meditate after creating it, or even write some related affirmations, intentions, and/or goals and action steps. (Watch for another forthcoming article: The Art  (and Science) of Affirmations and Intentions Done Right.)

Connecting to Our Subsconsious Mind through the Vision Board

Since our subconscious mind influences our actions and bodies in significant ways, just having the images in the “background” or in the back of our minds can have a noticeable impact. What we focus on impacts the world and our experience of it, so we might as well focus our attention on experiences that make us feel good, happy, and expansive.

You may wish to share your vision board with a loved one or trusted friend who you know will “see for you” all the good you’ve included. When self-doubt or nay-sayers try to caution you that your dreams may not come true, simply return to appreciating the feelings that the images invoke for you.

Watch and wait for the surprises and magic! When the synchronicities appear, don’t hesitate to act on your visions and dreams!

Enicia Fisher

Enicia Fisher loves to hold sacred space for healing and transformative experiences by guiding people to come home to their body, breath, Nature, and Spirit. She has been curating, hosting, and offering healing retreats since 2012 in the US and Mexico. Founder of Sanadora Sanctuary Retreats and Sanadora Yoga International Teacher Training Program, Enicia has taught yoga since 2005 and has been practicing yoga personally since 2000. She loves yoga because of its mind-body approach and because of the healing power of integrating all aspects of being through the wide range of yogic practices: body, emotions, mind, soul, spirit, philosophy and mindset, and lifestyle practices.

Enicia created and leads Heart Alignment Yoga? and “heartfulness” meditation with an emphasis on Divine heart qualities and life-affirming yoga philosophy that inspires people to live with a deeper connection to their own heart, body, and spirit.
Enicia has a Master’s degree in Education, founded a small private school in Southern California, and is registered with Yoga Alliance as a highly trained and experienced teacher, E-RYT 500.

Enicia is a mother to two wonderfully creative and grounded young adults and is also an author currently preparing her first novel for publication. A Southern California native, Enicia now divides her time between her family base in Los Angeles and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Enicia began leading retreats in the Riviera Maya in 2015, and has offered ten retreats in the region since then. She lived in Akumal/Tulum for three years and continues to collaborate with local healers and ceremonialists on all of her retreats, in honor of the indigenous traditions and cultures being incorporated.

Enicia wishes to honor the Mayan guardians of the sacred lands of Tulum (Ekab), and her teachers who have shared their wisdom and practices:  Leon Xochitl Coatl, Adrián Salas Xopan, and Devi Chandra Ma from Quintana Roo, and Ashley Fiala, Doreen Madison, and David Kutruff from Shraddhaa Yoga School.

www.eniciafisher.com/

The post How to Create A Vision Board that Really Works appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

A cousin of mine died just days ago. Have you noticed a lot of people dying lately?

Why do I mention death? Because so many people die with their music still in them. They have been so distracted by the world, they never found their soul’s purpose or had the courage to follow through with it.

Don’t die with your music still in you.      –Wayne Dyer

What is your soul’s purpose?

Do you know? If you don’t, I will give you two hints.

First, I strongly recommend giving-up the belief “I don’t know.”

Remove this phrase from your vocabulary. Your Higher Self knows exactly what your Soul’s purpose is.

You begin to download the knowing of your soul’s purpose by simply saying, “I choose to know my Souls purpose!”

You may need to say it a few times to open up your circuits.

“I choose to know my Souls purpose!”

And then relax, get on with your day, and you will be subconsciously guided to the next step, the next insight, which could be stumbling across a teacher, book, workshop, et cetera.

I am Joa Janakoayas, founder and senior faculty member of the I AM University of Spiritual Psychology at Mount Shasta California. As another option for you to consider, I invite you to attend online our Discover Your Soul’s Purpose workshop offered on August 29.

A Second Clue to Your Soul’s Purpose

Now, I would like to give you a second big clue of what your Soul’s Purpose is, which my cousin’s life illustrated.

My cousin was the second born after his older brother – who could do no wrong. He was no match for his older brother, who was an outstanding athlete, excellent student, very popular, and a kind of saint of the family.

So this younger brother developed a habit of seeing himself as “not good enough.” Seeing his brother getting all the attention for being “great” was so painful, he discovered “being a badass” at least got him some kind of attention, which was better than no attention, especially from his mother.

So he played out the prodigal son archetype, which I imagine many of us can relate to in ourselves to some degree. I also went through a phase in my early years where I acted out being a rebel without a cause. I was so caught up in being wildly free of establishment I didn’t know what I really wanted and how to attain it. The beauty of the story with my cousin (and myself) is we came back home.

Sooner or later we all come back home to our Loving Selves.

We discover by simply being our Loving Selves we are more than enough.

Our Purpose is Loving

My cousin proved this by healing his relationship with his mother (which I also did). This was no small task!

According to Spiritual Psychology, the Authentic Self is Loving. And our definition of healing is: Love applied to the hurt.

When we learn to love that part of ourselves that seems unlovable, we come back home to the purity of our core Loving Selves.

Humanity’s Core Issue

Shame is humanity’s core issue. Everybody has it to some degree. Shame says, “I am not fully lovable as I am. But I might at least get some approval if I’m seen as one of the following.

…prosperous and wealthy; good looking; strong; intelligent and knowledgeable; a winner (out competing others); successful; popular.

So we put on a kind of “I’m great” mask to hide what we were really feeling. We set perfectionistic standards or impossible grandiose accomplishments for ourselves to prove we were good enough. This has kept us in a lot of stress, anxiety, and eventually illness.

And when we failed to get that approval from others for being who we thought we should be, we collapsed into despair. This is what shame does. It hinders our Soul’s natural generosity, creativity, beauty, grace, joy, and health; and it eventually destroys our life.

While carrying shame, we eventually give up our big dreams, and settle for a mediocre life at best.

Are your big dreams coming true? Or have you felt stuck on a plateau looking for how to get to higher ground?

Do you have this feeling there has got to be more to life?… more potential in you to express? … and more rewards to receive back from the universe?

The number one reason people struggle with manifesting their dream life is they don’t feel worthy.They don’t feel worthy of unconditional love, and their own natural greatness.

Every human Soul has infinite potential for good.

Dreams do come true when we get free of shame, guilt, and self-criticism. I’ve seen it happen with myself, and every year with our I AM U Masters students.

Your Dream Life is Your Choice For Growth

Your Soul and the Universe is always conspiring for your growth. It will give you big opportunities to step out of your comfort zone to live a grand life of service.

The question is, when you are given a grand opportunity to live beyond survival, will you shrink and cling onto what feels safe or will you seize the moment to feel the cold wind of the unknown sting your face with excitement?

We are either trying to be safe or we are free.    –Anand Mehrotra

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.    –Helen Keller

Will you play at 125% for your victory, or will you sit on the sidelines with all the reasons you can’t. Can’t should be a banned “4 letter word” in every household. If you are in an entrapping situation, know your consciousness put you there, specifically your subconscious beliefs. And only your conscious choices are going to get you out of the life you don’t want and into the life you do want.

Your soul wants you to expand, to live your greater potential, your big dream, your soul’s purpose.

Your programmed human self will tell you why you can’t. It will say things like: “Now is not the right time because I don’t have enough money.” Really, it’s never about time and money because time and money are forms of universal energies that always follow your intention.

When we say, “I don’t have enough time and money to do the big thing,” we are really saying, “I don’t have enough, the universe doesn’t have enough, I’m not enough, and I’m not valuable enough to be supported.”

All of these are lies many people live by that keep them playing small and settling for a meager existence at best.

While these illusions of “not enough-ness” are running in our heads, we tend to go for a compulsive way of numbing the pain of selling ourselves short.With many people today so much of the Soul’s potential is lost in this way. But this need not be you!

There are many influences, but in the final analysis, your life is the result of your choices. To consciously choose your thoughts, words, and actions for the outcome you desire, is to win your freedom.

–Saint Germain

If you are willing, the time to live a grand existence, to be in faith with your Divine Self, and your ability to pull off what you came here to do in this life – is NOW!

Our habitual thoughts, over time, take us to their resulting outcomes. It’s too easy to become comfortable in our old unhealthy habits. For example, “I can’t” can lead to becoming disabled. Spiritual awakening involves making powerful life-changing decisions.

Are you going to wind up disabled, or decide you CAN have all your dreams come true?

Every time you postpone going for your grand vision, you cut a little deeper groove of distrust in yourself and doubt in your higher power, making your life circumstances seem even more impossible to change, But however long you have waited, choosing to be supported with making a powerful decision with sincere faith in your divine support can move mountains!

Climbing the Mountain of Your Full Potential

The mountain of the life we are capable of can look overwhelming to our human minds.

This is the way I feel before I climb to the peak of Mount Shasta. I feel weak-kneed. My doubts come in, “Am I crazy? What was I thinking? Climbing 7,000 feet of vertical at my age?” Most people don’t make it to the top. But I do it anyway, one step at a time. I just don’t stop. I don’t listen to my human mind. I listen only to my soul’s choice. I listen to, “I CAN! One step at a time, I CAN have all my dreams come true!”

And you can too! If you are willing to trust your Self, and keep taking steps. To be honest, I feel overwhelmed now as I choose big changes (like hiring four faculty members) that will allow I AM U to grow. There is so much to manage that is out of the range of my human brain.

Faith shifts me out of fear.

I remember….

Faith got me this far, and will take me the whole distance of my choosing without having to know how.

Whatever your mountain is, that mission with your name on it, of living your Soul’s purpose and your soul’s grand life, don’t let your excuses stop you, Rather than getting frustrated by circumstances, you can find your value in every situation.

Your value is the unique expression of your Loving. There is always a person suffering more than yourself, and by helping others, you forget your so-called troubles – and this is your soul’s purpose!

Whatever you’re committed to, universal energy follows that, and that includes money. Instead of believing you’re insignificant and unsupported, you can choose to believe in your Loving Cause. Doing so, you are profoundly supported – including financially.

If you could use some confidence in your ability to manifest money, I invite you to our Money Flow Magic course at I AM U, starting August 20, 2022. In this course, we open our consciousness to receive unexpected income.

Know you can transcend any negative voices, become inspired in your Soul’s Purpose, and get supported with doing it. The world needs awakened Star Seed Soul’s like you–on purpose!

Your Soul’s purpose is Loving.

Magically – love conquers all apparent challenges.Your life is a miracle in the making – if you are willing to believe in your Soul’s Loving Purpose.

Again, I invite you to say out loud: “I choose to know my Soul’s Purpose.” Then follow the magical breadcrumbs to your Self-Actualization for the highest good of all.

Practice Discovering your Purpose

Imagine what your life would be like if you were free of negative emotions and beliefs about yourself.

Imagine living in your authentic peace, innocence, beauty, and joy, and fearlessly expressing your natural gifts. Imagine devoting one year to completely transforming your entire existence for the better, emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. We believe working on all four levels is required for sustained transformation and growth.

I AM University of Spiritual Psychology

This is what happens at the I AM University of Spiritual Psychology. We educate Spiritual Psychology Counseling, Holistic Health, Quantum Energy Healing, and Life Empowerment Coaching in one life changing year. Our promise is you will be attracting paid clients before you graduate!

Classes start September 2, 2022. Late registration is possible.

It is a profound year of getting free of your human issues, and freeing up your Soul’s Loving gifts.

At IAMU, you are going to be profoundly supported with trusting your Soul’s grand plan, and your ability to pull it off, with help from your classmates, teachers, and divine help from above.

Free of past baggage, your going to have clarity and confidence to do your Soul’s calling. Click here to reserve your free Discovery Session to find out more.

Joa Janakoayas MS

Joa Janakoayas, MA joyfully helps people embody and live the freedom of their Higher Selves. He is founder and senior faculty member of the I AM University of Spiritual Psychology in Mount Shasta California. Joa has earned two Masters Degrees in Spiritual Psychology, is Graduate of the Coaches Training Institute, and is developer of the Freedom-Code Quantum Healing Oracle.

www.iam-university.org

The post Know Your Soul’s Purpose appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Your Higher Self is Speaking to You

What is the Higher Self?

Your higher self is the core of you and knows exactly why you’re here on earth and what you’ve come to do.

Here are six common signs that your higher self is talking to you.

1. Song Lyrics

• This is often not a coincidence.
• Our higher self can often cue this kind of messaging which we call external intuition.
• Take note of the themes of the song as a whole and also the verses that mean the most to you in life right now.
• Song lyrics are easy for your higher self to use because we are often in direct line of a song whether it’s waiting at a café for our coffee, commuting with the radio on or simply listening to a nice playlist while cleaning.

2. People

• Whether it’s because we seek external validation or the possibility that we don’t have enough self-confidence to feel like we can truly steer our life.
• For that reason, our higher self can use the mouths of other people to drop timely wisdom, encouragement, or even caution so that we will act.
• We are more likely to pay attention to the thoughts and words of other people and take action before we take our own words to heart.

3. Social Media

• For many, that is endlessly scrolling TikTok or double-tapping on Instagram.
• If our higher self can send us a message via a creative piece of content, it has done its job.
• If you keep seeing the same theme, ad, or message; at times that can be our higher self utilizing social media to cue something tailored just for us.

4. Inner Dialogue

• It may not be evidently obvious when you first start out realizing how your higher self is talking to you, but as you gain confidence and trust, you will begin to differentiate between your own internal thoughts and the direct stream of guidance stemming from your higher self.

• Through meditating regularly, you can calm your mind and be more comfortable and familiar with your own dialogue.
• By becoming more aware of the conversation, you can recognize when there are any minor changes to what is occurring internally.
• (These new thoughts may likely be message downloads from your higher self.)

5. Dreams

• What better way for our higher self to send us messages than when we are laying down and comatose? This is a common time for our higher self to capture our attention with a message.
• However, it can be confusing when you awake from dreams that are inspired by your higher self. At times, these dreams can be abstract. They might require you to link together a series of dreams you’ve had rather than looking for the message from just one night’s worth of dreams.
• When you wake from your sleep and feel rested but still have a niggling curiosity about the meaning of a dream, this curiosity is often your higher self prompting you to dig a bit deeper.

6. Advertisements

• The advertisements that we see on a daily basis are something that can commonly vie for our attention.
• Let’s say you’re commuting from work to home and you see a real estate agency advertisement on a billboard on the freeway. The bold text reads,  “Are you ready to move?”
• This could be a little nudge from your higher self to consider a move in your home, career, or life in general.
• In those moments when advertisements seem too personal, they just might be. Check in with your higher self and ask for clarification or a second sign. (Most likely, that sign will show up immediately.)

Notice the Signs the Higher Self Shares

Cael O'Donnell

Cael O’Donnell is a Writer and International Psychic Medium whose content spans a global fan base with over 600k followers on TikTok. Through virtual private readings, online classes, live shows, and newsletters, he gives clients hope by connecting to the spiritual.

www.caelodonnell.com

The post 6 Ways Your Higher Self is Talking to You appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

What is Intuition?

Where does intuition come from?

“Intuition is like a muscle that we can grow.”

What is Intuition for?

Debunking the Common Myths around Intuition

Myth #1: Intuition only comes to “Super Spiritual” People.

Myth #2: Intuition is only for gifted Psychics

“Intuition is certainly not only for psychics.”

Myth #3: Your ‘Gut instinct’ is always trustworthy.

“At times hunches and instincts are more an anatomical response.”

Myth #4: Women are more intuitive than Men

Upgrade Your Intuition

Cael O'Donnell

Cael O’Donnell is a Writer and International Psychic Medium whose content spans a global fan base with over 600k followers on TikTok. Through virtual private readings, online classes, live shows, and newsletters, he gives clients hope by connecting to the spiritual.

www.caelodonnell.com

The post What is Intuition? Let’s Debunk 4 Everyday Myths about Intuition  appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

End of Year Reflection: Learn from the Past

It’s the end of the year, and it’s time to reflect.Time to learn from the past and use this information to create our dream future.

Some of the following reflecting questions are useful this time of year.

• What has this year brought me?
• What goals did I achieve?
• What memories did I create?
• Where did I still make excuses for myself to not go for everything I wanted and more?

Why Dreams Don’t Come True

In this article, I want to focus on why your dreams haven’t yet occurred from the beautiful 2021 intentions you set out to achieve. Many of us get so caught up in what has happened in the past and what is already familiar to us. We think that our dreams cannot occur just because of what people have told us in the past. I always find this sad because I often hear people say, “Oh, that won’t work for me.” Or, “my medical case, dream, or life is very special or different, so the odds just aren’t in my favor of my dreams working out.”

It’s interesting how much people cling so tightly to what the past has dictated their future could be so that their dreams never come true. It’s almost like an addiction to self-sabotage.

An example of this would be when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I was told I’d be on medication every day for the rest of my life, I would require a yearly special doctor checkup. And when I wanted to have children, it would be very challenging for me. In many ways, I was addicted to the feeling of being unwell, of not wanting to be at school, of thinking I needed special treatment because my cancer case was unique to happen to a 14-year-old girl, and two surgeries instead of one were required. I would often say I had cancer or battled cancer so that people knew I went through something traumatic.

When I made the commitment that I wanted to change my life, I was able to take the massive action necessary to leave my past in the past and create a new future. I was able to do this even when I was told it wouldn’t ever be possible for me. In this article, I will share the specific action I took that guided me to get off the medication I was meant to be on every day for the rest of my life.

So I was directed to trust that I could travel the world without relying on Western Medicine to be right there if something went wrong. This specific action led to the birth of my company, Colleen Gallagher International, which has transformed my life and tens of thousands of others worldwide. I want to share these secrets with you to learn from your past, let it go, and take action to live your future dreams right now.

Secret number one: Awareness.

Secret number one is that you must come into a state of awareness that no one is forcing you to suffer in this life.

You are the only one who is making yourself suffer. What I mean by this is that if your end-of-year reflection does not align with the dream life that you know you want to live, that is because you are allowing yourself to stay in a state of suffering instead of going into a state of thriving. You let your past dictate what is possible for you in the future.

I allowed myself to suffer from cancer; I felt guilty to be alive when other children I knew died. I felt guilty that I didn’t have to suffer through money to pay for my treatments; however, many others did. I thought I needed to be right by a doctor if anything went wrong. And until one day when I had a doctor visit that transformed my whole idea around health and wellness, I realized that it was me and me alone that was going to have to heal my life, and for me to dictate how my future would be, not what anyone else said it could be.

Secret number two: Self-forgiveness.

I had to forgive myself. It was from the previously described state of awareness that I had to forgive myself for choosing to suffer for nine long years of pain as I share in my first book Live Your Truth.  It was me so willingly allowing myself to trust all those people telling me how I wanted my life to be. I had to forgive myself; I had to look in the mirror and forgive myself for all the ways I acted out to seek attention and all the times I said no to opportunities that would have brought my dreams closer out of fear for my health. All the failed relationships during which I chose work or being emotionally chaotic and using cancer as an excuse.

I had to forgive myself, and that takes a bit of time. The process of self-forgiveness often looks like sitting in front of a mirror and looking in your eyes to say “I accept myself, I approve of myself, and I forgive myself for doing the best I knew at each given moment in my life.” Once this process takes place, you are now able to enter secret number three.

Secret number three: Take Action.

Secret number three involves being in a state of taking action that will bring you closer to living your future dreams right now.

Before this point of acceptance and forgiveness, any action you would have taken would be out of the mindset and beliefs that whatever you do to make your dreams happen isn’t going to come true because of past stories told by yourself and others.

For example, when I graduated from college and was working in a corporate job, I thought I could only live internationally by going to an international school or working for a company abroad because these actions would guarantee health care and a salary. Once I realized that you could get your own visas to live in other countries and travel on your own without a corporation, I realized what I had been told in life wasn’t necessarily true. We could always alter our reality, to create a life we want to live.

I learned I was acting out of default instead of designing my life by choice.

Once I could accept that I chose to suffer, I could forgive myself.

Then, I could act, believing my dreams would come true with that action instead of thinking the same old story, that nothing will ever change.

Secret number four: Learn from the Past.

Finally, secret number four is to learn from the past so you can build the courage to take the leap of faith towards your dreams. As we enter a new year, this is a perfect time to take this action and live this secret.

Look within your past. Write down all the moments you are most proud of in your life. For me, these included beating cancer, traveling the world, seeing how I could empower people to transform their lives, et cetera. And I realized that in order to do those things and seemingly defy the odds at winning in those areas, I had to take action.

So, I began to join webinars by people who would travel the world full-time. I began to write a book. I then created my first online course. Then I built my online education company, Colleen Gallagher International.

For you to learn from your past you must observe what brought you joy from your past actions – what you are proud of from your past.

Take Action to Learn from the Past and Recalibrate Your Life

Then repeat those experiences in the present. These actions guarantee results. They allow you to create your dream reality in the now, instead of suffering from past stories that are not true.

These are the four secrets I repeatedly use to recalibrate my life, release the past that brought me to $10,000 months, then $20,000 months, and travel first class and luxury instead of economy and Airbnb. If you want to go deeper on this, I recommend my two-part workshop called Recalibration.

I used this repeatedly to redo what no longer worked so in every moment, the past never dictated my future, but I consciously created it from pure desire. I took the action that I knew would make me proud and this is what I hope for you!

Colleen Gallagher

Colleen Gallagher is an intuitive business and personal development consultant. She has survived childhood cancer, is a global citizen, an advocate for everyone to have an opportunity to live their dreams and an academic who is currently pursuing her Ph.D is Psychology with a focus on Global Leadership and Change. She is an author of multiple books, including her latest release An Uncompromised Life, and the host of The Colleen Gallagher podcast. Her greatest success is seeing her clients fall in love with life by overcoming trauma and life challenges and create a lifestyle career that impacts the world. Colleen empowers leaders and businesses to come to a newfound clarity of their mission, so that they can better understand their gifts while taking calculated action to grow their businesses. Colleen offers these experiences through online courses, in-person retreats, her podcast, books and products. Currently, Colleen resides in Los Angeles, California.

colleengallagher.co

The post How to Learn From the Past to Create Your Dream Future appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Winter Solstice: A Time of Reflection and Renewal

Winter Solstice has long been a magical time of year. As the light of the Sun begins a new solar cycle, the Earth’s Aura is revived in mystical ways, awakening a presence of Spirit. During the longest and darkest nights of the year, we can honor this time by allowing ourselves the space to reflect upon our innermost feelings and desires. This is a sacred time of rest and reflection, a space of nurturing and rejuvenation, a nourishing and cozy cocoon.

In the darkness of winter we rest and dream, as we gather strength for the season of renewal. Nature teaches us that drawing inward for a time is present in all living things. It is necessary for growth. When we acknowledge the gifts of Spirit we cultivate a greater capacity to receive our own inner light. During this Winter Solstice, we can honor the Divine Light within, that guides our way through times of darkness.

Many of us find winter to be challenging because we are getting so much less sunlight that our mental health suffers. Music, especially in the form of sound healing, can help to provide a vibrational lift during the long dark nights.

The Energy of Sound

Sound and light are both vibrational energies, and it is said that if a piano keyboard extended out indefinitely, eventually the keys would produce light rather than sound. To listen to music is to receive a form of energy that is related to light. Because of the denser nature of its waveforms, it can penetrate deeply into our bodies and help to balance the mind, soothe the heart, and uplift the soul.

Here’s a short Winter Solstice ceremony you can do at home.

• Set up a simple altar with two candles and any other sacred items that are meaningful to you.
• One of the candles represents the past year, and the other symbolizes the coming year.
• On a piece of paper, write down anything you would like to release from the past year.
• With gratitude, fold the paper and place it near the candle as you light it.
• Close your eyes.
• Take a deep breathe in.
• As you exhale, release it to the Spirit of Fire.
• Now open your awareness to dreaming and envisioning. What you would like to experience and manifest in the coming year. How big can you dream?
• Write it on a piece of paper, fold it, and place it near the second candle as you light it.
• Close your eyes.
• Take a deep breathe in.
• Feel deep gratitude for your journey and honor the lessons and growth you’ve experienced along the way.
• As you exhale, release it to the Universe.
• Expect Miracles.

Winter Solstice Sound Bath

Join Jenny and Seth at Light on Lotus for a Winter Solstice Sound Bath on Tuesday, December 21 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM. $30. Light on Lotus, 12513 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066.

Jenny Deveau and Seth Misterka

Dynasty Electrik is Jenny Deveau and Seth Misterka. We were initiated into the practice of Svaha Yoga, a Shamanic energy technique, by Master Energy Practitioner, Lisa Ishwari Murphy. We believe the vibrational power of sound has the ability to transport the listener to a state of deep meditation and relaxation where the chakras are balanced and the energetic body is harmonized. Dynasty Electrik has earned critical praise, had music featured in television and film, and toured globally. In addition to sound healing, we incorporate DJ elements and live instruments to create a unique fusion of electronic music and psychedelic experience.

www.dynastyelectrik.com/

The post Rituals for the Winter Solstice appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Your Heart: A Source of Healing in the World

The heart is an instrument–the most powerful instrument there is. And like any other instrument, we need to learn how to use it in order to access our ability to be an agent of help and healing in the world. To live from the heart is the highest expression of experiencing life at its fullest. One could even say that to live from the heart is to live in oneness with the highest energy possible, the energy of the Higher Self, the energy of Source.

When we train ourselves in how to bring the loving, wise energy that comes through the heart into our lives, the power of that transformation is not contained only to ourselves and our immediate relationships. When one person expands the openness of their heart, it has the power to encompass the world as a whole. Usually, love heart energy is personal. Sending heart energy to people on the planet is never personal and is much stronger because there are no attachments connected to it.

As we attune ourselves to the energies of the heart, over time we experience new lessons that take hold and begin to manifest as positive change. We learn to favor these energies in place of our previous behaviors which caused us to remain trapped in on-going, attached patterns. This transition is key because with constant use, the heart becomes the compass for learning how to relate to ourselves, others and the world in a way that evolves us forward in a positive direction.

See Through your Heart for Healing

When you start to see the world with the heart, your eye will open to its many inequities. Allowing yourself to feel compassion for those suffering is the first step towards being an agent of help and healing. Discerning positive pathways is the next step towards aligning your life in service for the highest good of yourself and others.

Our hearts are intrinsically linked towards the positive evolution and healing of our world. The evolution of our hearts is therefore correlated to the evolution of the world around us. As we progress towards being more compassionate beings, the effect of our growth spreads outward, like the butterfly effect, setting an example of inspiration to those around us.

By its very nature, energy is not enclosed but flowing through all of our world and the universe. When we send energy to others we are not exhausting our intrinsic energy reserves, which are limited in potential, but rather connecting to our Higher Self and consciously asking to flow with that higher, universal, energy.

Connect to Our Ability to Access Healing in the World

Let’s embark on an exercise to step into this flow and build positive momentum for a place in need.

• Take a minute to contemplate the world around you.
• In your heart, find a place or situation where you recognize suffering.
• When you have focused on this place, hold it into your heart’s energy flow.
• Allow yourself to become one with this place or situation.
• Really experience it.
• Open yourself to the feelings that arise from being there.
• Breathe in the sensations of the scene.
• Breathe out your heart’s willingness to help.
• Feel the energy of the heart stirring with compassion and equanimity for the scene.
• As the energy expands and fills your heart, offer this statement, “May my heart energy flow into this place. May my heart energy heal any of these disturbances. And may my heart energy be of benefit to this place and those that are suffering.”
• Relax into the flow of the energy as it moves effortlessly from your heart to that destination.
• When the heart is content with the energy that has been offered, release the place from your heart’s center.
• Conclude by thanking your Higher Self for this work.

Through this exercise you become a willing instrument in channeling that higher energy to those in need.

Trust in the Heart for Healing

As we grow in our trust of the heart, the spirit within begins to guide us in fantastic new ways. We become inspired and open to the world around us, open to a new world of creative thinking. We hone our capacity to recognize right from wrong and the confidence to act from that knowledge. We experience the wonder of diverse, fresh, new ideas and our perceptions expand to perceive the world in new ways. Challenges take the shape of opportunities and these opportunities bring new avenues of fulfillment to our lives.

Opening the heart is a transformative process, a process that will grant you the ability to love, share, give, receive and to grow. By learning to live from the heart, we learn the most worthwhile aspects of being alive.

Living from your Heart

For even more meditations and discussions on how to connect to the heart, take in the latest course, Living from Your Heart, made available free of charge by Higher Self Yoga. This course is based on my book, How To Live From Your Heart: Deepen Relationships, Develop Creativity, And Discover Inner Wisdom which includes compelling stories and exercises that provide you with practical ways to listen with your heart; relate to others from your heart; and to be open to new, exciting possibilities.

Nanette Hucknall

Nanette V. Hucknall is a recognized authority on relationships, healing psychological wounds, overcoming obstacles and self-empowerment.

She is an award-winning author, teacher, psychotherapist, career counselor and painter. Through her books, classes, lectures, and retreats on the teachings of the Higher Self, she has deepened the lives of hundreds of spiritual practitioners in their work to align with the higher consciousness.

Nanette works out of her home in the beautiful Berkshires.

www.nanettevhucknall.com

The post How to Use Your Heart to become an Agent of Help and Healing in the World appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Journey to Rishikesh: Bridges, the Ganga, and Ashrams

Rishikesh is laid out on two sides of the Ganges (correctly, Ganga) River, a bustling downtown on the western side and a quieter area on the eastern side. The southeastern quarter centers itself near Ram Jhula, a swinging footbridge named after Lord Rama, the divine hero of the Ramayana, while the northern part is centered around Lakshman Jhula, a similar bridge named after Lord Rama’s brother, Lakshman. Lakshman Jhula is where most of the hotels, shops, and restaurants for tourists are. The Ram Jhula area, also known as the Swargashram (literally, Heavenly Abode) area, is lined with ashrams.

In September 1996, the Green Hotel was the only hotel in the Swargashram area of Rishikesh, sitting on a small lane that runs parallel to the Ganga, just behind the ashrams. Of course, Lonely Planet did not mention that in order to reach there, you have to schlep your bags across a nearly half-mile-long footbridge. So, when we arrived at the Ram Jhula taxi stand to discover that our hotel was across the water, the driver instructed helpfully, “You cross bridge.” No mention of the large, convenient motorboat that pilgrims can use to travel easily from bank to bank of the river, no offer to find a coolie—the driver simply pointed his finger toward the swinging footbridge, more than 300 yards past where he had to drop us off.

You couldn’t find a hotel that doesn’t require schlepping our bags across a river? I berated myself as we found ourselves sharing a bridge, barely two feet wide and precariously suspended a hundred feet above water, with stray cows, sugarcane-laden bullock carts, fruit and vegetable vendors, motorcyclists, and two-way foot traffic. I was sure we had walked onto the set of the Indian version of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Finally, hot, sweaty, and already done with India, I followed Jim through the doors of the Green Hotel.

“How do you get back to the river?” I asked the clerk after we’d checked in and dropped our backpacks in the sparsely furnished room. The Ganga called me. As we had crossed Ram Jhula, our luggage strapped to our backs, the river flowed quickly and deeply below. Each year in the monsoon, the water level rises tens of feet and her springtime gentle flow becomes a rush of summer waves. By mid-September, the rains subside. A brief afternoon storm in Delhi was our only experience of the tail end of the monsoon. However, the Ganga was still brimming from mountain rains and melting glaciers.

The hotel clerk directed me down a narrow alley that ran in front of the hotel between two large ashrams until it dead-ended at a small road lined with tea stalls on the banks of the river.

I did not want tea, however, or any of the jewelry or religious statues for sale in the marketplace. I wanted to put my feet in the river. After walking upstream along the riverbank a few hundred feet, I found clean marbled steps leading down to the river.

Pilgrims gathered on the lowest steps, pouring water over their heads from small brass pots or grasping tightly onto chains while they dipped themselves once, twice, thrice in the rushing river. Parents held their naked children close to their chests, scooped up water, and let it drip through their fingers over their children’s bodies. Rubbing the holy water onto their own and their children’s heads, backs, stomachs, and legs, they chanted “Jai Gange!” “Jai Gange!” (Glory to Mother Ganga), and the children squealed. At the far end of the long row of steps sat some meditators with malas (strings of beads) in their fingers, palms open on their knees.

As I walked down the marble steps to the river, I eyed a spot slightly downstream, far enough from the bathers to protect me from their splashing children. I stood, staring at the flowing water and at the dark green mountains on the opposite bank.

And then it happened—an experience that twenty-five years later, I still struggle to articulate. From the landscape of river, mountains, steps, and bathers came an image of the Divine. Woven into and out of the treads of my visual field, occupying every frame of perception, out of the light and colors and shapes and hues and textures of the world I had been watching came a divine form, an image of divinity that blended into and yet stayed distinct from the background.

The next thing I knew, I was seated on the steps without remembering how I went from standing to sitting. I was sobbing, breathless, yet with no experience of either the sadness or happiness that typically accompanies tears. The tears were not foreign or external, not due to some effect or impact. Rather, they were myself flowing out of myself as the waters of Ganga flowed by my feet. Waves of water outside and waves inside.

The image of the goddess Ganga formed out of every color, shape, texture, and aspect of my visual spectrum. Here She was. And here I was. Yet, it wasn’t really a Her; rather, it was an All, an Everything. And I, I was part of that Everything.

There was nowhere I ended and All began. There was nowhere She wasn’t. I stared—eyes open into Her form over the flowing river. I had come home.

I sat on the cool marble steps, crying into the river. They were tears without thought, not the type I usually cried. These tears were not connected to any idea or memory or anything someone had said or done. They were simply tears of being in the presence of truth.

Minutes, hours, days, and lifetimes passed while I sat beside Ganga’s flowing waters. My mind had become nonverbal. The only thought that arose periodically was, Oh, my God. It came not as an intellectual thought but as an outburst. Oh, my God, it is amazing! Oh, my God, it is so beautiful!

As I shifted my eyes from the river to the families on her banks, to the marble steps, the background of my visual field changed—first, flowing water, then, bouncing children and pious parents, then, the inanimate structure of the steps. My visual field had become split into foreground and background. The background changed based on where I looked and what I was looking at: a person, a pillar, a rock, a statue. But the image of the Divine stayed as the foreground of my visual field and did not change. Whatever I saw—a child, a mother, a marble pillar—I cried. Each varying background was the undulating canvas of color and energy on which the Divine was painted.

At some point, Jim came down. “Hey,” he said in words I no longer understood. “Pretty beautiful, no?” My mind was still nonverbal—all senses and awareness and knowledge had dissolved like salt dolls into the watery soup of my consciousness. I was unable to tease apart the various ingredients from the rest of the soup. Words, too, blended into the soup, unable to be extricated. I looked at him and cried as I smiled.

“Wow,” he said as the tears poured out of my eyes, onto my clothes, and onto the marble steps between us. He sat down quietly next to me.

Hollywood to the Himalayas

© 2021 Hollywood to the Himalayas by Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati. Excerpted with permission of Mandala Earth and Insight Editions, L.P.

Join Sadhviji to Celebrate Hollywood to the Himalayas

Attend a powerfully transformational event with Sadhviji and special guests Daphne Tse and Cooper Madison at USC University Religious Center, 835 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA on Wednesday, September 29 from 5:45pm – 7:30 pm. Register here for tickets to Hollywood to the Himalayas.

Sadhviji Bhagawati Saraswati

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati serves as on the United Nations Advisory Council on Religion and on the steering committees of the International Partnership for Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) and the Moral Imperative to End Extreme Poverty, a campaign by the United Nations and World Bank. She is also the Secretary-General of the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, an international interfaith organization dedicated to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene; president of Divine Shakti Foundation, a foundation that runs free schools, vocational training programs, and empowerment programs; and director of the world-famous International Yoga Festival at Parmarth Niketan Ashram, Rishikesh—which has been covered in Time, CNN, the New York Times and other prestigious publications and has been noted by both the Prime Minister and Vice President of India. Sadhvi has lived for the past 25 years at the Parmarth Niketan ashram in Rishikesh, India, where she oversees a variety of humanitarian projects, teaches meditation, lectures, writes, counsels individuals and families and serves as a unique female voice of spiritual leadership throughout India and the world.

www.parmarth.com

The post A Personal Journey of Transformation: From Hollywood to the Himalayas appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

What does it mean to leave the past behind?

The past is such an interesting concept to talk about. Is the past really in the past? So many of us think that the past is behind us; it is simply a memory. We must begin to understand that the past is alive, it lives inside us. It is a practice to leave the past behind. We must actively choose to let it go and design a future we want instead of living by default. Until that process occurs at some level, we will always suffer.

Each person’s past carries many memories. These range from painful to joyful. They include automated routines and habits, and may involve living based on how our parents, family, schoolteachers, and other influences, lived. To leave the past behind and work towards a clear and fruitful future, we must start to understand that all we have is right here, right now, this present moment.

From this present moment, you have an opportunity to shift your future as you input new information into your brain. With hope, your present moment and future will improve. Before reading this, you were operating out of your past habits, only what you knew how to do, to get a specific future result. My goal for you is to recognize that every present moment is shaping your future based upon your previous knowledge, habits, and memories until you begin to actively change this.

Three Steps to Leave the Past Behind and Move into the Present

Step one: Become focused on your thoughts and communication in the present moment.

I know this is a BIG concept. This took me some time to grasp, to understand. The first step in leaving the past behind is to become hyper-focused on the present moment. Cultivate a moment-to-moment habit to become the curious observer of your thoughts and the language you are communicating.

You would be surprised by how much you reflect upon or bring up past drama instead of past joy. You would be shocked at how often you refer to problems in the past. “Well, this is how it was always done even though it takes forever, and I hated doing it.” Or “people are always driving badly.” “People are so selfish, only thinking of themselves.” Or with frustration saying, “I already know how this is going to go.” This is all your past that you are bringing into the present moment to create your future.

You are speaking your past into your future, even if your past isn’t the reality you want.

Step two: Begin to actively choose different thoughts to leave the past behind.

Speak new and different words in the present that will empower you to leave the past behind and align with your chosen future. For example, if you are running late and it is rush hour, instead of saying, “Well, I’m going to be late traffic is always bad;” try saying, “I’m hoping for a miracle, take me on some back roads, and I get there right on time.” If you stop, pause, and read those two sentences out loud right now, you will feel a difference in your body. One of them feels like, “Oh brother,” like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. The other feels good; it fills your body with hope and optimism.

Practice your power of choice. By choosing to speak a world you want instead of a world you are used to, you are beginning and deepening your journey to self-empowerment. Because you know you are choosing to co-create with the Universe, to work towards a clear and fruitful future that you want, you are excited about instead of living life on default.

There is nothing more powerful than getting into a state of knowing that you were the one who created your life exactly how you wanted it, and no one around you stopped you. This habit allows you to leave the past behind. The past no longer hooks you with invisible chains and heavy weights. Instead, your future becomes clear and limitless.

Step three: Set time and space for yourself to daydream your future.

This is essential! Set time aside and have space for yourself, to daydream about your future. Just as you would call a girlfriend, have a phone call with your mind. Sit and watch what thoughts come up in your mind. Notice how quickly you want to move into action to respond to everyone around you to avoid looking at your automated habits, conversations. Notice the moments when you are avoiding yourself creating a future by design instead of the default.

This simple habit of self-avoidance is a destructive habit that keeps us in a state of suffering. Our mind is designed to keep us safe. When our mind cannot see something into the future, it feels unsafe. Then the mind goes into a fight or flight attack mode as if a giant tiger was about to eat us because our mind does not know how to handle the unknown. The mind works in polarities: life or death; safe or unsafe. Tune into the heart. The heart allows emotions to enter our life.

Living into the Unknown: Call on Yourself

The future we want to create and be proud to live will be into the unknown as we want something different from our past. In this time of setting time aside to have a phone call with yourself and your mind, you can begin to make the unknown future you want to be known. So, your mind isn’t afraid of it, yet knows where it is focused on going.

Dream Big: Question Yourself

Here are a few questions to start to ask yourself. While asking yourself these questions, allow your mind to wander, to dream, to imagine the things that seem “too big.”

• What do I want my destiny to look like during this lifetime?
• If I could wake up and my life could look like anything, what would that be?
• What stories from my past am I telling myself that hold me back from the future I desire to live?
• If I could be, do, or have anything in this life, what would that look like in my future?

This process that I’ve shared is something you can intend to return to monthly, weekly, and daily. Eventually, it becomes a moment-to-moment habit. It is important to set aside the time to do this process repeatedly in order for this process to become an automatic habit. You will begin to catch yourself when the past tries to sneak in to create a future you don’t want. You will start to override the past thoughts and habits to align with your desired future and destiny. And then you will watch as the magic unfolds.

This is the same process I’ve used personally. It has empowered me to create a phenomenal lifestyle business in three-and-a-half years. This process has led me to be self-empowered and made me wise beyond my 27 years of life on this earth. I love this process because I am nothing special. Learning to let go of past traumas to bring beauty and wisdom into the future, creating our dream career and life is possible for every one of us.

Support for Your Journey

What is the biggest obstacle to this work? Ourselves. The journey to self-empowerment, releasing the invisible chains of the past weighing all of us down, self-education, and having a telephone call with our mind are practices to move us forward. No one in the world can stop you from doing this except you. I offer a mindset and meditation audio to guide you during this process if you feel called to be guided and led instead of alone on this journey.

I hope this serves.

Colleen Gallagher

Colleen Gallagher is an intuitive business and personal development consultant. She has survived childhood cancer, is a global citizen, an advocate for everyone to have an opportunity to live their dreams and an academic who is currently pursuing her Ph.D is Psychology with a focus on Global Leadership and Change. She is an author of multiple books, including her latest release An Uncompromised Life, and the host of The Colleen Gallagher podcast. Her greatest success is seeing her clients fall in love with life by overcoming trauma and life challenges and create a lifestyle career that impacts the world. Colleen empowers leaders and businesses to come to a newfound clarity of their mission, so that they can better understand their gifts while taking calculated action to grow their businesses. Colleen offers these experiences through online courses, in-person retreats, her podcast, books and products. Currently, Colleen resides in Los Angeles, California.

colleengallagher.co

The post Leave the Past Behind for a Clear and Fruitful Future appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Intro: Remembering 911

I grew up in suburban New Jersey on the commuter line into New York City. I worked my way through school as a junior account executive for a brokerage firm on Wall Street during the dot com boom of the late ’90s and early ’00s. Back then, the streets of lower Manhattan seemed to be paved with gold. A short while later they were covered with concrete, ash, and unanswered prayers.

In August, 2012 I secured a publishing contract for the book Heartbreak Yoga. It was intended (and pitched as) as a collection of  yoga asana postures to help one navigate romantic heartbreak. When I sat down to write it, the following chapter was the first thing to spill out. I didn’t know that was buried in there all those years later. Turns out all the vinayas, deep breaths and Hanuman Chalisas really did help to clear the gunk out of my heart.

Thank you to FMT + LA Yoga for publishing this first-hand account of the imprint September 11th left on me, and countless other in the New York Area. May all find the healing that they need. Om Namah Shivaya. (Following excerpt reprinted with permission from Changing Lives Press. Copyright Amy V. Dewhurst 2013.)

That One September: Pain Is Part Of The Deal

“Pain is part of the deal. When I think back to that time, I was so sure someone must have the answer. I wanted someone to tell me how to make my life-pain free. Looking back, I can’t imagine who I thought got through their entire lives and managed to avoid the pain. Now I realize there is not now nor has there ever been a single person on this planet who has successfully avoided the pain of being a human. Pain is part of the deal.” –Gurmukh Beloved Kundalini Yoga Teacher and owner of Goldenbridge Yoga, Los Angeles, CA

It was a typical middle-class, suburban community smelling of freshly cut lawns. Behind picket fences were well-meaning but nosey neighbors and Detroit-built SUVs. The teens made out on church retreats, smoked spliffs on their way to varsity practice and sang Syd Barrett Songs as they aced the SATs. Proud parents snapped photos at prom parties, comparing curfews, report cards and whose virginity was still believed to be intact. Fourth of July Fireworks fell down on Memorial Fields as “The Boss” blasted from beer trucks. We were proud to be “Born in the USA.”

City Tragedy Touches Small Town Life

There were the typical triple “our town” tragedies: horrific earth-shattering car accidents, awful overdoses and the stand-alone suicide. This community came together in joy and grief like a Grecian epic, getting good at repurposing embroidered black funeral wear for Little Suzie’s wedding just by adding a colorful wrap.

Then there was that one September when we perfected the skill. Our small pond police chief would go to Ground Zero to get the bodies, as Claire at Beaugard’s would make a place for them to rest. The main street was short and the words were few. “Todd. Thursday.” No one needed to say much more than that—time and funeral parlor location were well understood. I was working on Wall Street and going to school in the city. Based on proximity, willing creativity and the irrepressible urge to grieve optimistically, I took over “Celebrating the Life of . . .” collage duty. The college kids would comment on my compositions, coming home on weekends for wakes.

My group of Jersey Girls became like a team of professional, fashionable mourners, trading in our standard issue 20-something Steve Madden shoes for more reasonable flats. The grief/heat combo of standing room only funeral services always concluded with a fainting or two. I observed early on it was the girls in three-inch-plus heels who had to lock out their knees to stand up straight that were usually the first to hit the floor. But who could blame them? They wanted to say goodbye to their first loves in style. “It’s what he would’ve wanted me to wear,” she said, uncharacteristically strong. We stood together sobbing as Scooter, her 20-year-old atheist, anti-establishment boyfriend’s corpse was being carried out of the Catholic Church, draped in an American Flag.

First the leaves fell, then the snows came. Stockings were hung from the chimney with care, in hopes that “The Missing” would soon be there. New Years’ Resolutions consisted of “Please God, if you bring ________ home, I promise, I will never ________ again.” It was around Valentine’s Day the DPW finally cleared the crowded commuter parking lot. If there was no DNA discovered, they would donate unclaimed cars to the fire department for “scared straight” DUI drills during driver’s ed.

We buried empty caskets, and with them, mom and dad’s dream that little John-o’s job in the big city would afford him a slightly better life than they had had; an extra AC in the den, power windows & vacations “down the shore,” even during leaner years.

Searching the Faces of Survivors

Meanwhile, Back at Work . . . combat soldiers with uzis had been deployed downtown. The Bull and The Bear were barren. Subways, sidewalks, StairMasters and bar stools were all eerily empty. Government issued IDs allowed entry to the cobblestone streets of Old New York. There you would frantically search the faces of survivors striding past.

Desperate families would plead with handmade flyers, “Have you seen my dad/mom/husband/wife/brother/sister/son/daughter/lover/neighbor/ rabbi/priest/dog/cat/fiancé/ friend . . .?” A regretful shake of the head was the default response. You couldn’t make eye contact with the families. You could barely breathe from the ever-escaping fumes.

There was a woman at The New York Sports Club who would ALWAYS take my treadmill during my assigned time. She would pretend she couldn’t see me waving the sign-up sheet in her direction over her Financial Times newspaper. She would pretend she couldn’t hear me shouting “Excuse me, your time is up!” over her Sony Discman tracks and StarTAC cell phone calls. She would pretend she couldn’t respond, having just taken a big sip of Pepsi from the can. She would pretend she couldn’t feel me tapping her shoulder. Of course not, she was winging her bony Rolex & Harry Winston-clad arms around trying to fling me off. I hated that bitch and her gorgeous red Kate Spade bag. She loathed me, Miss PYT, probably 30 years her junior, flagging around the stupid treadmill sign-up sheet, indignant about time.

Her tycoon husband had left her for a younger woman before I had even been born. She learned to day trade out of divorcée defiance, victoriously taking over 51 percent of his brokerage firm. You know what they say about a woman scorned—she joins the boys’ club at Harry’s in Hanover Square and smokes Cuban cigars just a few minutes after burning the bras. She felt, despite NYSC standards, she was entitled to the extra fifteen minutes of cardio at my workout’s expense. “Show some respect for your elders!” she spewed.

That ornery old bitch was one of the first recognizable faces I frantically scanned in early October. With overwhelming relief, I fell into her ugly old chicken-arms. I cried grateful but silent sobs, as she wailed aloud, “Thank God you are okay, I have been looking for you everywhere, I knew you commuted on the PATH Train, I thought . . . Oh God, Sweetie, thank God you are ok. Thank you God. Thank you God. Thank you God.”

Remembering 911

But that story was just one in a million (1 in 2,997, to be more precise). Never again did I see the funny, sweet guys from Fire Company #5 who teased me each time I emerged from the World Trade Center’s basement mall, Banana Republic bag in hand:

“Uh, Oh, somebody didn’t make it home laaaast night.” “Woo-hoo, walk of shame shopping trip.”

“Hey Bertolino, your girlfriend’s cheatin’ on ya.”

“Ah ha ha ha . . .”

The homeless woman who slept on the steps of Trinity Church: “Alms for the poor? Thank you. God bless you.”

Gloria, the woman who worked at Mangia Deli, who took the lunchtime delivery orders over the phone:

“Amy, Kerri & Dan? One twenty Wall Street, right? The usual for you guys?”

My personal trainer Blythe: “One more rep, you can do it, I believe in you . . .”

My friend Todd: “Hey, I’m going to make the 7:14 train, can I grab ya a Heineken for the ride home?”

My friend Jen’s dad, Mr. Fialco: “Give your old man a call. Tell him I’ll drop ya home on my way. Save ’im a trip to the train station.”

And many, many, many more . . .

What wasn’t conveyed in those overused images of the towers tumbling down was the innate silence the city suddenly fell under. Well, that and the smell. I’m not brave enough even to begin a description of the smell. A re-watch of Schindler’s List, Born on the Fourth of July, or Glory may help you imagine it. Sucking in dry wall dust during a renovation might help you breathe it. Add to that the paranoid fear of a cop driving behind you after you’ve had three glasses of wine at dinner, or the way your hair stands on end in historically spooky spaces— Alcatraz, Amityville, Auschwitz. There. That’s the zygote of a description. I’m braver than I thought. You probably are too.

I tell you this grim tale not as a victim, but as a survivor of earth-quaking, building-breaking, heart-shattering, soul-squeezing, mind-numbing, God-questioning, wholly humbling, totally vulnerable, on-my-knees, “How could this have happened?” heartbreak. Some forthcoming melodramas may have seemed hysterical and ungrounded otherwise.

With love and respect to all who survived, and especially to those who didn’t, I’m grateful to have had the following experiences. I missed my train that Tuesday morning.

Amy V Dewhurst

To Check Out Amy’s Work Go To; Sense + Color, You Can Reach Her At IG:  Amy_V_Dewhurst  + AmyVDewhurst@SenseAndColor.co #PutYourGoodWhereItWillDoTheMost

www.senseandcolor.co

The post That One September — Heartbreak and Remembering 911 appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

How We Can Show our True Nature and Find our Inner Shine

A few months ago, I interviewed Krishna Das for my Feel Good podcast, and I was struck by a story he hold me about attending the Maha Kumbha Mela in India in 1989. It was one of those stories that sticks around, that really resonates and that you ponder on from time to time.

In the story he describes how one of the senior devotees of Neem Karoli Baba, also known as “Maharajji”, was an older man called Baba. Krishna Das noticed that some people were being disrespectful to Baba at this enormous event with millions of people, and Krishna Das began getting upset.

It was then that Krishna Das describes:

“Baba grabbed me, and he pulled me into Maharajji’s room, and he closed the door. He unlocked a dresser and down under the back shelf, he pulled out something wrapped in funky, dusty, old newspaper all yellowed with time. He unwraps it, and it’s a lota, a metal pot or a metal cup that you use to bathe, et cetera. He is holding this cup in front of me and he is saying, “Do you see, do you see, Krishna Das?” It was all rusty and dirty and dusty. And I said, “No, Baba, I don’t see.”

He says again, “Do you see? He left this for me. His last time here, Maharajji’s last time in this house before he left the body. When he left, he left his lota.” [This would have been 16, 17 years ago]. He says again, “Do you see? Do you see? “You don’t have to shine.” And he wrapped it up again, put it back under the shelf, locked the dresser and left me standing there.”

Everything we do is designed to make us shine in our own eyes, in the eyes of others. But you don’t have to shine.

We Are Whole and Complete

This story is a very poignant reminder that we must remind ourselves, time and time again, that we are whole and complete as we are. It matters not whether others can see us or not, for we are the ones that can see ourselves. It is from this deep connection to the True Self, what the Yogis describe as the formless essence within us, that we can move through life, with the knowing of our inherent completeness, and our inherent worth.

Often, we may long for others to see us, to validate us, to help us feel “shiny.” We are human after all, and each of us is on this grand journey, where at times we may align with the True Self over the ego, and vice versa. When we are aligned with the small self, the ego, it is then that we try to “add on” to our worth, and we try to prove that we are enough.

In modern life, it’s common to want to be “shiny” on social media, to say something super interesting in a conversation so we stand out, and all the ways it plays out, big and small. When we peer closer though, we see that it is merely the cry of our egos that wants us to feel that we have to keep shining and doing to be enough. It is not the truth.

Sometimes when I recount this story from Krishna Das, it actually makes me tear up. I grew up with the belief that love comes from doing and achievement, and I was definitely chasing “shiny” for a lot of my life. There is a lot of pain in constantly chasing, because we are never okay just being ourselves.

Now, the deeper I get into my meditations and practice, I release this more and more. It still comes up, but the light of awareness and re-centering are strong enough, over time, to reverse these tendencies and reframe our perspective.

Just like that rusty, dusty old lota that Baba showed to Krishna Das, the surface will never and can never really reveal our real shine. The real shine comes from the True Self, from the Divine part of us that is Spirit within. We do not need to try to shine superficially, for the more we meditate and connect to that great power within, we realize that we are already shining, whether we try to or not.

Kimberly Snyder

Kimberly Snyder is a multi-time New York Times bestselling author, spiritual and meditation teacher, nutritionist and holistic wellness expert. She has authored 6 books, including Radical Beauty, which she co-authored with Deepak Chopra. Her highly anticipated 6th book, You Are More Than You Think You Are: Practical Enlightenment for Everyday Life, (Hay House) published on January 25th, 2022.

She is also the founder of Solluna®, a holistic lifestyle brand, Practical Enlightenment Meditation,™ Solluna Circle and the host of her top-rated Feel Good Podcast.  She has worked with dozens of top celebrities to feel their best, including Drew Barrymore, Reese Witherspoon and Channing Tatum, and has been featured by numerous national media outlets, including Good Morning America, The Today Show, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Kimberly resides in Los Angeles and Hawaii with her husband and her sons.

Kimberly Snyder Author Photo by Kevin Estrada

www.mysolluna.com

The post Why We Don’t Have to Be “Shiny” to Show our True Nature appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Empower Yourself with Crystals

As I always say, add a crystal to it!

How Crystals Are Powerful Tools During Yoga

Sharing My Own Practice as an Example

Petrified Wood

Affirmations

• I have patience for the steady growth toward my goal of spiritual transformation.
• I am strong and steadfast, living my beliefs.
• I am grateful for the lessons of my past.
• Peace be still.

Chakra: Root (1st), Third Eye (6th)

Selenite

Affirmations

• I AM aligned with the Divine.
• I AM spiritually, physically, and mentally aligned.
• I release any feeling of doubt, fear, jealousy, or negativity.
• I align with my spiritual wisdom, higher consciousness.

Prehnite

Affirmations:

• I AM open and receptive to all that is good.
• I see the good in all things
• I AM alert & awake, understanding what is important
• I accept that change is beneficial for my evolution

How to Use Crystals as Powerful Toos in Your Yoga Practice

1. When setting an intention before the class, choose an affirmation associated with a stone or crystal.
2. Place your stones or crystals on or near the chakra that they are aligned with. For today’s class, when sitting for meditation I placed the petrified wood at my root chakra, the selenite on my crown chakra (I have very curly hair, so it didn’t move, haha!), and held the prehnite in between my hands in prayer at heart center.
3. Repeat your affirmations while you put your stones and crystals into position. I used the following phrases for today’s stones: “Peace be still. I AM aligned with the Divine. I see the good in all things.” 
4. After intention setting, place your stones at the front of your mat or surrounding your mat during class. There is no right or wrong here. Do what feels right to you.
5. Throughout the class or practice, you can repeat the affirmations to yourself each time you see the stones.
6. During savasana you can do the same thing as during meditation, just lying down. For example, today I lay down with the petrified wood under my root chakra, placed the prehnite directly on my heart chakra, and put the selenite on the mat above my crown chakra, repeating the affirmations.

Amplification of Intentions through Stones and Crystals

Robyn Vie-Carpenter-Briscoe

Robyn Vie-Carpenter-Brisco is a certified life coach, a certified laughter yoga instructor and is currently a Licensed Spiritual Practitioner Candidate with Heart and Soul Center of Light in Oakland, CA. Her book “Let’s Get Stoned – using stones and crystals to create a life that rocks!” was released in fall of 2017. This self-proclaimed “Goddess of Joy” has clients all over the country, while making her home in Baton Rouge, LA.

You can follow Robyn on Instagram and Twitter as @Goddessofjoy, her business Facebook page www.FaceBook.com/goddessofjoyrvcb and watch over 50+ videos on her YouTube channel  bit.ly/38KxgF1GoddessofJoy

bit.ly/38KxgF1GoddessofJoy%20

The post Crystals are Powerful Tools: Your Stones and Your Mat appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Synchronicity, Spirituality, and Safety at Rythmia

The Synchronous Quest of the Human Spirit

What does It Mean to Be Spiritual?

Challenges in the Path

Standing Still at the Fork of the Road

The Shadow Side of the Spiritual Search

The Path of Preparation

Facilitation of Spirit at Rythmia

Tracking Miracles at Rythmia

Medical Screenings and On-Site Safety

Notable Rythmia Guests

Magic Supporting Miracles

Taylor Godfrey

Taylor is a Mother first amongst many other pursuits. Wearing many hats of servitude, she is a Writer, Shamanic Energy Practitioner, Astrological Intuitive Guide, Birth-Death Doula and Yoga Instructor. The core of all her work lies in dismantling the toxic indoctrinations built within humanity and restoring individual’s connection to their highest and best. She encourages healing through authentic embodiment, redeeming the power of the voice, and in living one’s sovereign birthright. She is a life-long student, loves wandering, foraging in nature with her daughter, baking, belly dancing, homeschooling and sitting in coffee shops with friends having meaningful conversations.

The post Beyond the Purge: Modern-Day Spiritual Healing through Ayahuasca  appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Transformation in the Embrace of our Bravery

Waking Us Up to Our Hearts

Cynthia Abulafia

Intimacy with the Unpleasant

The heart is the beginning, the middle, and the expansion at the core of all human transformation.

So we begin the arduous process of falling in love with our imperfections because this is the only way to remember the largeness of the heart. 

Cynthia Abulafia

Cynthia brings an eye for detailed instruction to her challenging and creative classes. Her attention to detail brings her class deeply into the experience of the body, breath, and heart in order to tune attention to its finest point– believing that the purpose of the practice is to simply notice ever deeper into the silence that is the root of all form.

Her passion for biomechanics, non-dual self-inquiry, and the beautifully rooted grace of the yoga asanas themselves shines in her classes. She believes time on the mat should be playful, fun, sweaty, and a celebration of this amazing dance we call experience.
In addition to teaching asana she teaches courses in yoga philosophy, subtle body, human anatomy for yoga and yoga ethics.

She has been instrumental in the creation and leadership of Yoga Soup’s 200 Hour Teacher Training, is E-RYT 500, YACEP (she teaches continuing education), IAYT (Yoga Therapy), and Pilates certified, and holds a Masters in Nutrition. She has over 25 years of study with world class teachers in several schools of yoga, including Yoga Therapy, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Vinyasa Krama with Srivatsa Ramaswami, modern flow blends originating at Yoga Works in Santa Monica, and many beloved meditation, Advaita, non-dual Tantra, kundalini-Shakti, and self-inquiry teachers.

Cynthia believes strongly in educating students about Kundalini energy (not to be confused with the system of yoga in the same name). The poses of Yoga are designed to wake up our subtle body, and yet when this happens- as it inevitably does for many people- we often find ourselves without a compass or a safe community. This site will offer writings and explorations on topics related to the body, the breath, the subtle energies, non-dual literature and self-inquiry, Kundalini energy, & meditation techniques in order to facilitate understanding and conversation around these complex and beautiful topics.

www.cynthiaabulafiayoga.com

The post Transformation is Life: Finding God and Love in our Imperfections  appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

In the era of social distancing, there are so few ways to consciously gather as a community and experience collective healing. In recognizing this widespread need for holistic restoration, Modern OM has emerged as a shining guide for mindfulness seekers everywhere. 

With a conscious curation of spiritual teachers across the world, Modern OM has launched a forward-thinking online initiative to connect people to the countless mindfulness modalities that exist in an effort to find the one that’s best for them. Though the idea may seem simple, the execution requires a thorough, committed process that could only be done by someone like Myk Likhov. 

Modern OM is the brainchild of Likhov, who poured his Wharton MBA expertise into his personal passion for self actualization nearly 13 years ago and has since watched it take off into a global business. 

“It’s really brought me deeper into my personal path, into more of an alignment with my purpose and my mission,” Likhov says. “I left the yoga business a decade ago, and returned to the world of finance and startups, but then serendipitously ended back up in Miami and everything took off.” 

From Wharton to Wellness

Still, Likhov’s business-savvy has proven to be a major asset to his success in the wellness field. After graduating from world-renowned Wharton Business School, he made an unorthodox decision to move to Miami to start what became the city’s most successful chain of yoga studios, Green Monkey. 

It was that company that ultimately led him to the idea for Modern OM. 

“Modern OM inadvertently started as a family business,” Likhov explains. “We started off mostly selling products, such as malas and other intentional accessories.” 

These products are still very much of a fixture of Modern OM, yet it was the way they decided to publicize them that ultimately became the lifestyle brand’s flagship offering. 

“In order to build awareness around our product offering, I started offering meditation sessions in my loft,” Likhov says. “Those meditations eventually ended up taking on a life of their own and soon we became Miami’s most active mindfulness community.” 

Pre-COVID, Modern OM had an extensive offering of in-person mindful sessions and initiatives, partnering with Soho Houses and various other local venues to host conscious gatherings. In fact, Modern OM’s digital footprint was pretty small.

However, with the onset of the pandemic and stay-at-home orders, they found themselves relating to one of the most profound proverbs there is: Necessity is the mother of invention. 

So, observing the necessity for continued wellness practices amid the general public — perhaps even exacerbated by the looming pandemic — they invented a personally-curated meditation platform that could cater to distance learning. 

(Cushion) Crawl Out of Your Shell

Modern OM has coined their online mindfulness initiative Cushion Crawl — and it’s more than just an inviting and endearing name. They offer a different mindfulness session, hosted by a different facilitator, each day. At the time of our interview, Cushion Crawl was on their 307th consecutive day of this offering, closing in on the one-year mark. 

“Consistency really is key with this offering,” Likhov shares. “Our external world is so uncertain right now, so Cushion Crawl is giving people something they can rely on everyday in these otherwise unreliable times.” 

Cushion Crawl’s rolodex of teachers spans eight countries, consisting of 150 total mindfulness practitioners vetted by Likhov himself. 

“When I search for potential facilitators, the main thing I look for is integrity,” Likhov says. “We want to introduce teachers who are engaging and supportive of the community, who value building relationships with others over exclusivity.” 

What separates Modern OM and its sister initiative, Cushion Crawl, isn’t just the consistency of the daily offerings. The variety of methodologies they offer is what especially attracts beginners to the mindfulness journey, who are still trying to find which modality speaks to them. 

Cushion Crawl sessions vary from traditional Chinese medicine and astrology practices to more esoteric modalities like channeling and embodiment. This diversity, along with its continued product offering, is what makes it a self-proclaimed “one-stop Soul shop.” 

“It’s almost like Cushion Crawl and Modern OM are a discovery platform for all these facilitators as well,” Likhov says. “Even if you’re advanced, you’re not going to know of all these modalities and facets of mindfulness. Most people don’t have time to find these interesting facilitators on their own. That’s my job. People can use our platform to assess and find something they like.” 

A Little Bit of Everything

In addition to hosting 150 facilitators (so far) from eight different countries, the Cushion Crawl initiative has also reached nearly 4,000 participants from 15 different countries since the start of COVID. Since Cushion Crawl is a membership program, these are recurring participants, who use the platform as a way to find their mindfulness niche — or simply engage with a community. 

Modern OM’s overall efforts, however, have reached more than 10,000 participants worldwide. 

Cushion Crawl’s format is broken down into theme days, with each day of the week representing a different mindfulness modality. These include: Meditation Mondays, Practical Tools Tuesdays, Spiritual Wednesdays, Breathwork Thursdays, Expression Fridays, Movement Saturdays, and Wisdom Sundays.

“Most other groups and companies pick a style, they have a very narrow range of practices that they share, and we’re not that,” Likhov explains. “There are so many ways in and we want to share as many of them as we can find.” 

My own Dance of Liberation™ practice falls under Movement Saturdays, which in general are about the physical manifestation of mindfulness through some form of embodiment. Likhov has joined a few sessions himself, and is even a carrier of our notable SunDancer pendant from the sacred jewelry line, The Winged Ones. 

Likhov wearing his SunDancer from The Winged Ones collection.

“I love facilitators like Parashakti who have this smooth practice, rooted in ancient wisdom,” Likhov shares. “I love how the energy flows and what it is that she does. We’re really aligned in how we see community, how we want to support each other, how we want to grow. Getting into the body is one of the surest routes to get out of the mind.” 

In addition to the daily theme sessions, Modern OM offers an online book club, journaling club, and even a laughter group. 

When asked to discuss the nature of the laughing group, Likhov couldn’t help breaking into a chuckle himself. As a progressive business owner and mindful practitioner himself, he’s always ahead of the curve, and foreseeing the many health benefits of laughter is one of those trends he’s well ahead of. 

“Laughing has so many scientifically proven benefits, it releases so many hormones and chemicals that support mental and physical health,” he says. “In retrospect, it’s interesting that we rely on external things to make us laugh. What if nothing funny happens? Once a week, our community gets on to enjoy a practice based around laughter that comes from within.”

The Future of Cushion Crawl 

This is just the beginning for Modern OM and Cushion Crawl. The digital push brought on by the pandemic has reshaped the landscape for mindfulness practice everywhere, and this new level of accessibility only adds to Likhov’s visions for its future. 

Modern OM was already one of the most active and consistent mindfulness communities in Miami. Now, with their digital presence, this could easily expand to the entire online world. 

“Digital is a big deal in that we’re no longer limited,” Likhov says. “The curation process is worldwide now. We can choose from the best quality facilitators in Miami to the best quality in the world.”

Furthermore, the offering has expanded to offer full-blown Masterclasses, typically hosted by facilitators with particularly niche and intriguing specialities. They sign on to host 5-8 sessions live online, and some popular topics include past-life regression (from a second generation past-life regressionist), psychedelics and sacred medicine, and yoga philosophy (from a Rishikesh-based PhD Yogi). 

Likhov ensures the success by being hands-on with every aspect of the process, including the participation. At the time of this interview, he’s joined in on 300 of the 307 sessions hosted thus far — and this is in addition to his own personal mindfulness practice. 

With his guidance, Modern OM and Cushion Crawl are sure to spread awareness of Higher Vision.

“I would like what we do with Modern OM to inspire and empower as many people as possible to find their own path home, their own path inward, because there are so many different ways in. And the right one is the one that is right for you.” 

Join the Modern OM online community for daily mindfulness practices hosted by experts from across the world.

They will be hosting a 7-Day Reset Challenge from April 5-11, with a Dance Reset virtual workshop hosted by Parashakti on April 10. Enroll now! 

Or sign up here for their ongoing online membership and use the code CRAWLTRIAL at checkout to get your 7-day FREE trial.  

Membership is risk-free with no contract. 

Parashakti

Parashakti’s shamanic healing work is born of more than two decades of experience facilitating workshops, trainings, and retreats around the world, in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico, Bali, Guatemala, Indonesia, Israel, and Greece.  As a lifelong dancer, her path as a healer followed a severe injury – a period of what is often called shamanic dismantling, after which her mission shifted towards healing. Over the last 20 years, Parashakti has developed the Seven Foundations and the Dance of Liberation™, as maps for her spiritual practice, living and breathing these foundations in daily ritual. Dance of Liberation™ has been practiced by over 10,000 dancers around the globe. It’s was born of a mission to help people experience ecstasy – without taking it.
Above all, Parashakti is dedicated to serving community and creating a sacred container where people feel safe enough to experience their deepest essences, honor their voices, and shine their brightest light. Join her on the Dance floor: www.parashakti.org

parashakti.org/

The post Modern OM Opens the Door to Online Mindfulness Exploration appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Crystal Healing as a Form of Energy Healing

Crystal Jewelry Supports Change that Comes from Within

The healing and positive power of crystals have been used for thousands of years by ancient civilizations (and maybe even your neighbors). Crystal healing is a belief that semi-precious stones hold a unique power to help heal the body and mind or power our intentions. This “power” has been used by shamans and gurus, or those who practice earth-based religions such as Wiccans and Druids. Although there is no definitive or scientific proof to back these claims, those who practice the art of crystal healing believe that the power lies in the beholder.  With that in mind, I have designed a unique line of pieces where I transform nature’s most basic elements into stunning accessories meant to celebrate life and the world around us.

Crystal Healing Basics

According to practitioners, semi-precious stones and crystals such as amethyst or quartz contain vibrations and energy that connect us to the Earth. These vibrations help us channel and manifest particular intentions in our lives. They also help us connect with the Earth. For example, quartz alone makes up 12% of the Earth’s outer crust.

The work of Marcel Vogal theorized that crystals have the power to transfer thoughts and energy from the human body.

How do Crystals Work?

By holding a crystal or keeping it on your person, the stones can interact with your Chakras. Chakra is a Sanskrit term, and it means “wheel” or “disk.” It is the term used to describe the wheels of energy that flow within all living things. The human body has seven different Chakra energies, and crystals can amplify these and help focus your intentions.

Choosing the Right Crystal

Some people may know precisely what healing crystals they need, while others have no idea what to choose. Check out Gogh Jewelry’s crystal healing reference guide to help you decide which stones are best for the intention you wish to bring into your life.

Once I Choose a Crystal, What Do I Do with It?

Before you start wearing your healing crystals, you’ll need to first cleanse and “program” it. To cleanse your crystals, you can use a variety of methods, but burning sage or placing it the sun or full moon for a few hours should do the trick. This method will take away any previous programming or negative energy that the stone might be holding onto.

Once they have been cleansed, hold your crystal or crystal jewelry in your hands, and take a few deep breaths. Focus on the intentions you want, such as positive thinking, fortune, or even love. Focus on your faith, whatever that may be, and chant either out loud or in your head, “I desire this crystal to hold the intention of . . .” and finish the sentence with your personal needs. Do this at least three to five times.

Get Started with Crystal Healing

One of the best ways to utilize the power of crystal healing is to wear your crystals and intentions directly on your person every day. At Gogh Jewelry Design, I have created beautiful jewelry that contains these powerful stones and positive intentions just for you. Begin your journey into the world of crystal healing today!

Gemstones Meaning & Healing Power

Abalone

Abalone reminds us of the beauties of the ocean on a sunny day. Ocean symbolizes love, life, and flow, and Abalone shell contains the energy of the ocean. It is also used as an amulet for people who are involved in ocean or water. Abalone shell is a gemstone with a unique pattern. Many kinds of colors are on the black surface.

Agate

Agate is THE stone everyone should have for protection. Agate is believed to enhance intelligence, and make its wearer more articulate. It attracts strength, protects from bad dreams, stress and energy drains. Carry an agate when you have to make an important decision. Agate’s most noticeable properties overall are balancing yin/yang energy, courage, protection, healing, and calming.

Amazonite

Called the stone of courage and the stone of truth, Amazonite empowers one to search the self and discover one’s own truths and integrity, and to move beyond fear of judgment or confrontation with others to live in alignment with those beliefs and values. It provides the freedom to express one’s thoughts and feelings.

Amethyst

Amethyst is the perfect stone for you if you are facing stressful times in your life.  This crystal helps people cope with stress by supporting mental calm. It also provides protection from addiction. Amethyst is a stone traditionally worn to guard against drunkeness and to instill a sober mind. It has been worn by Egyptians as protection from self-deception, as well as a protection against witchcraft. Amethyst is a gemstone often worn by healers, as it has the power to focus energy. Amethyst is the birth stone for February.

Aquamarine

Aquamarine has a rich color and has long been a symbol of youth, health and hope. It increases one’s access to courage. This gemstone was believed to protect sailors, as well as to guarantee a safe voyage. The serene color of aquamarine is said to cool the temper, allowing the wearer to remain calm and levelheaded. Its pale, cool color beautifully complements spring and summer wardrobes.

For centuries, this timeless gemstone has been a symbol of youth, hope, health and fidelity. Since this gemstone is the color of water and the sky, it is said to embody eternal life. It was long thought that Aquamarine has a soothing influence on married couples, making it a good anniversary gift.

Carnelian

Carnelian is known as the self-esteem gemstone because it is such a powerful motivator. It helps you to overcome the various parts of your personality that may be holding you back allowing you to step out into the world and claim your destiny. As a major grounding stone, carnelian helps you to focus on where you are currently at in life and to get you through times of stress so you can concentrate on your confidence. If you happen to become a little loss for words, don’t sweat it, just draw upon the energies of carnelian and allow your inspiration to bloom and your creativity to find solutions.

Citrine

Citrine is said to be a gift from the sun. As a healing gemstone, citrine brings happiness, joy and optimism into your life. Citrine is one of only two minerals on the planet which do not hold or accumulate negative energy, but dispels and transforms it. Citrine helps people laugh more, as well as feel fundamentally safer and more positive about reality.

Clear Quartz

Clear Quartz is known as the “master healer” and will amplify energy and thought, as well as the effect of other crystals. It absorbs, stores, releases and regulates energy. Clear Quartz stimulates the immune system and brings the body into balance. While you are wearing your crystals as jewelry, the crystal vibrations work continuously on your imbalances.

Garnet

Ruby red garnet is known as “the Stone of Happiness”. It enhances your internal energies to bring forth an intense level of inner joy while increasing your presence. Garnet is also known to raise your healing power during illness. Legends say that Garnets light up the night and protect their owners from nightmares. Garnets have long been carried by travelers to protect against accidents far from home.

Hematite

Hematite has an excellent grounding and balancing energy, as well as being a powerful aid to stimulate the mind. They enhance memory and evoke deep thought. They have a highly protective energy and are good to help women who lack courage.

Jade

Said to be a “Very Lucky Stone”, Jade is associated with peace, serenity, memory, vitality, harmony, wisdom, and long life. Jade has been used traditionally to increase  courage, wisdom, justice, mercy, emotional balance, stamina, love, fidelity, humility, generosity, peace, harmony, lungs, heart, thymus, immune, kidney and blood detoxification and the nervous system. It is a very popular gemstone projecting universal love, health, wealth and long life.

Jasper

Jasper protects against negativity and aids in grounding you to the stabilizing energies of Earth. It balances yin and yang. Jasper sustains and supports through times of stress, and brings tranquility and wholeness. It encourages honesty with one’s self, provides courage to assertively tackle problems, and aids quick-thinking and promotes organizational abilities. Jasper stimulates the imagination and transforms ideas into action. It supports during prolonged illness and re-energizes the body.

Labradorite

Labradorite contains energies that boost ones ability to repel anxiety and depression, and inspire the wearer with a sense of enthusiasm and self-confidence. It inspires perseverance and strength when constantly bombarded with conflict. Labradorite aides in relieving insecurity, and boosts confidence in ones own abilities. It has within it a deeply felt resonance that is very powerful, and it can be used to bring amazing changes to your life.

Lapis Lazuli

Lapis Lazuli is a symbol of truth, as it brought you to see yourself for what you really are, and at the same time helps you to accept those parts of yourself that you may see as undesirable. The Philosopher’s Stone is supposed to bring self-awareness, enlightenment, and to open the mind to all possibilities. Lapis is very well known for its purifying and healing abilities. On the elemental side, Lapis Lazuli is known as the water stone.

Lava Stone

Lava stones are excellent for calming emotions thanks to its grounding qualities. Formed from cooling magma, lava is thought to symbolize rebirth, and aid in releasing emotional baggage. These stones are great accessories for aromatherapy since they hold essential oils for up to eight hours as they are porous. You can add a drop or two of your favorite essential oil to a lava stone.

Onyx

Onyx helps one have self-control and anchors one’s flighty energy into a more stable way of life. It is this stone of inner strength and endurance, helping one to carry even the most difficult task to completion. Onyx is supportive in situations such as acquiring a goal, working on self-mastery, a weight loss program, an exercise regime, or even just feeling the need to focus your energy. This gem is also great for someone who has an abundance of ideas, but lacks the discipline to carry those ideas out.

Pearl

Pearl is the “Stone of Truth, Faith and Love.” The energy it holds enhances personal integrity and helps provide focus and deep meaning to the object of your attention, bringing you wisdom and spiritual guidance. Pearl signifies sincerity, faith and loyalty to your cause. Pearls help one connect with the Goddess, the ultimate feminine energy. These have been used to treat disorders of the digestive tract and muscular systems, as well as to aid fertility and to ease childbirth.

Prehnite

Prehnite is a stone of unconditional love and it enhances inner knowledge, showing the path forward to growth through attunement to divine energy. Prehnite connects the will and the heart. In so doing one’s actions attain the highest good.

Rose Quartz

Rose quartz is an excellent heart-healing gemstone. This pink-hued crystal carries a  gentle and soothing energy and gives comfort to anyone whose heart has been wounded.

Rutilated Quartz

Rutilated Quartz is considered to be the crystal of truth. This means it can promote self-realization, since self-discovery means finding the inner truth about our own being, purpose and destiny.

Tiger’s Eye

Think of the qualities of the Tiger. Patient, focused, determined, alert, with perfect timing and slow, deliberate action. This is Tiger Eye’s gift to you. It is a healing stone that promotes the balance and strength needed to get through difficult phases of life.  Tiger’s Eye can help relieves doubt and bestows decision-making with vision and clarity. It helps a person cultivate greater practicality.

Tanzanite

Tanzanite is an extraordinary gemstone. It is named after the East African state of Tanzania, the only place in the world where it has been found. The almost blue magical color of a perfectly cut Tanzanite is one that not only suits confident young women; it is also excellently suited to underlining the individuality of the more mature woman.

Tourmaline

Tourmaline aids in understanding oneself and others. It promotes self-confidence and diminishes fear. Tourmaline attracts inspiration, compassion, tolerance and prosperity. The watermelon tourmaline is a rare variety that displays three different colors in the same crystal – green (the skin of the watermelon), pink (the sweet fruit) and white (the rind). The colors of the watermelon tourmaline occur 100% naturally. This is rare in nature.

Turquoise

Turquoise is a purification stone. Its energy is excellent for depression and exhaustion, it also has the power to prevent panic attacks. Turquoise is believed to bring luck and to possess powers, including the ability to promote wealth, attract love and bring happiness. In ancient Persia it was once believed that the wearing of turquoise talismans would protect the wearer from death.

Choosing Stones for a Purpose

This guide will help you choose the perfect stone to suit your life goals – some know exactly what healing crystals they need, others have no idea what to choose. Here is a quick reference to use when choosing a stone for a particular purpose:

Abundance: Citrine
Anxiety: Labradorite, Aquamarine, Malachite
Bad Dreams (avoiding or relieving bad dreams): Agate
Balance: Agate, Jasper, Onyx, Garnet
Calming: Amazonite, Amethyst
Compassion: Tourmaline, Tanzanite
Change: Labradorite
Communication: Amazonite, Aquamarine, Carnelian, Lapis Lazuli
Courage: Aquamarine, Carnelian, Jasper, Hematite, Tiger’s Eye
Creativity: Carnelian
Depression (relieving): Carnelian, Citrine, Rose Quartz, Turquoise, Labradorite, Amethyst, Tiger’s Eye
Discipline:  Onyx
Energy: Clear Quartz, Jasper
Enjoy the Journey: African Turquoise
Empowering: Amazonite, Tanzanite
Feminine Energy: Pearl, Tanzanite
Fertility: Moonstone, Rose Quartz, Pearl
Freedom to Express Yourself: Amazonite, Tanzanite
Good Luck: Turquoise
Grounding: Hematite, Onyx, Lava Stone
Happiness: Citrine, Garnet
Healing: Clear Quartz, Rose Quartz (heart)
Hope: Aquamarine, Garnet
Intuition:  Amazonite, Turquoise, Labradorite
Motivation: Carnelian
Love: Rose Quartz, Pearl, Garnet, Prehnite
Negativity (reducing):  Jasper
New Beginnings: Labradorite
Optimism: Citrine
Protection: Agate, Amazonite, Jasper, Turquoise
Self-Awareness: Lapis Lazuli, Tanzanite
Self-Control: Onyx
Self-Esteem: Carnelian, Citrine
Self-Love:  Pearl, Silver, Gold, Crystal, Chakra Stones
Sobriety: Amethyst
Strength: Amazonite, Carnelian
Stress Reduction: Amethyst, Aquamarine, Hematite, Jasper, Jade
Tolerance: Tourmaline
Tranquility: Prehnite
Travel: Amethyst, Aquamarine (water), Garnet
Truth: Lapis Lazuli, Pearl, Rutilated Quartz
Understanding: Tourmaline

My intention for Gogh Jewelry Design is that it is a grounding and comforting identifier for these times. It’s likely that moving towards freedoms and returning to “normal” life will also be anxiety-inducing. All the more reason to utilize energetic talismans for grounding or soothing. Gemstones can be worn to support change that comes from within!

Szilvia Gogh

Szilvia Gogh is a Professional Scuba Diver, Stuntwoman, Yogi and Jewelry Designer: SzilviaGogh.com.
Learn about female scuba enthusiasts: Miss-Scuba.com
View Szilvia’s inspirational jewelry: GoghJewelryDesign.com

The post The Art of Crystal Healing appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Parashakti (left) and Jennifer Joy Jiménez (right) displaying their unique Conscious Dance styles.

Overwhelmed by pandemics and protests, people are looking for reassurance that life can be okay again. 

Typically, in the last few months, I’ve been on the other end of the Zoom call. I’ve been the guide, the teacher, and the healer. When I haven’t been offering virtual one-on-one SoulHealing sessions, I’ve been co-facilitating online retreats dedicated to Conscious Dance and the power of Eagle Medicine. 

However, not too long ago, I was given an opportunity to sit and witness as a participant, in a women’s only Full Moon gathering, thanks to an invitation from my good friend and Soul Sister, Jennifer Joy Jiménez. 

I stood in awe at how, even in this virtual Zoom world, she had managed to create a sanctuary for women to gather in sisterhood and just “be” — be heard, be seen, be supported, and be accepting of one another. 

“My ‘why’ I are the incredible women I serve, who come to me feeling over-worked, under-rested, depleted, sluggish and often carrying deep wounds regarding their relationships with their bodies,” Jennifer says. “They can’t be the ‘change agents’ they are meant to be in this world if they are struggling with their relationship with their body and are out of sync with their inner self, and life. I love helping them remember the truth of who they really are, come home in their body temple, connect mind-body and spirit, and fully reveal their inner confidence and divine radiance.”

Upon watching Jennifer provide a safe, cathartic space for these women, I knew that a special partnership could be based around our complementary talents. Jennifer’s prowess revolves around offering a release, by letting go of negative self-concepts, and empowering women to thrive in their body temple, inner confidence and aliveness. My work revolves around reintroduction and rebirth, helping craft a new self-concept that can lead to favorable changes in one’s life. 

A Likely Friendship

When I first met Jennifer Jiménez, founder of TranscenDance™, transformational life coach and international leader in personal development, I felt an immediate, other-worldly connection — the kind when your physical being first crosses paths with someone that your emotional and soulful being feels like it’s known a lifetime.

Our first encounter took place at a OneDanceTribe live retreat in Garrison, New York. At the event, Conscious Dance teachers from around the world are invited to host sessions for their various Conscious Dance modalities and weave all the workshops into one overall fabric of mindfulness. 

In a discussion of our signature Totem Animals (also referred to as ‘spirit animals’ colloquially), we found even deeper synergy. My Totem Animal of the Eagle — in alignment with my decades-long practice of Eagle Medicine — and Jennifer’s Totem Animal of the Dove were perfectly in line. These soaring, graceful creatures represented our respective adoration for movement, divine feminine energy, and intuition. 

Together in Garrison, just before the pandemic swept the state in early March, we danced, connected in sisterhood, and flew wing-to-wing for the first time.

Path to Prosperity

Bound at the hip in sisterly connection, Jennifer and I shared about our expeditions to the world of spiritual healing. It was in Garrison that I learned of her incredible journey from penniless professional dancer to thriving, abundant entrepreneur.

In addition to founding the Conscious Dance modality of TranscenDance™, Jennifer is also the founder of the highly successful Health & Well-Being Division at the Brave Thinking Institute. 

Jennifer (center) with TranscenDance™ students at a Facilitator Training in Costa Rica in February 2020.

“I feel like my Conscious Dance work has taken her throne, like I’ve helped her achieve her greatness… and now I can focus on strategy, innovation, and creation on a larger scale,” Jennifer reflects. 

Jennifer now resides in Orange County with her soulmate of 25 years and their three amazing kids. Perhaps what drew me most to Jennifer during our initial meeting is her ability to take universal spiritual principles — such as the science of well-being, and mind-body-spirit connection — and combine it all with transformational life coaching to help her clients, mostly women, create extraordinary results in their lives.

Jennifer (far right) with her husband and kids at their Orange County home.

During her workshops, she takes seemingly esoteric spiritual concepts and offers practical, tangible tools to easily shift the mental blocks and limiting beliefs that keep most people stuck for years.

In Jennifer’s Vibrant Healthy Woman coaching program, she hosts a monthly Full Moon Gathering. These events are intended to offer an escape from the business of life, while simultaneously providing a safe space geared toward sisterhood, connection, sacred ceremony, luscious conscious dance, and freedom of spirit.

The Red Tent

In the last decade, there’s been elevated interest from women surrounding the idea of gathering during the Full Moon. This idea was popularized after the release of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, a first-person narrative loosely based on the story of Dinah from the Bible. 

The Red Tent refers to the tent in which women of Jacob’s tribe must, according to the ancient law, take refuge while menstruating or giving birth. During their time in the Red Tent, these women find mutual support and encouragement from their mothers, sisters, and aunts.

So, how does the concept of the Red Tent translate to today’s world? 

The Red Tent, or otherwise referred to as the Moon Lodge, is simply a gathering of women that occurs during the New Moon, when women are most in need of support, rest, and reflection. This is a timeless tradition observed by ancient cultures, which serves as a regular forum for empowering women’s sense of selfhood.

Author Vanessa Olorenshaw best summarized the purpose of the Red Tent Movement in an article for the Huffington Post: “The Red Tent movement is about creating regular feminine spaces for women to share their stories, rest and gain strength to meet the challenges of our time and their daily lives. This is work that we believe will make a difference not only to women themselves but also to all the people around them. In short, we ‘know’ that the simple act of creating safe and empowering feminine spaces is life and world changing work.”

Jennifer’s moon gathering, which I had the privilege to attend, lived up to these visions of the Red Tent. It provided a nurturing, sacred space to explore being vulnerable yet truly empowered and authentically expressed. 

Jennifer (center) on her annual women’s retreat in Tulum, MX.

Still, for some women, the idea of joining in a women’s gathering might bring up emotions of often feeling uncomfortable, judged, and criticized by other women. Though popular culture would paint such feminine gatherings as unavoidably toxic and venomous, they are undoubtedly life-affirming and mutually supportive.

With Jennifer so elegantly leading the way, I witnessed women letting their guard down, dropping into their inner wisdom, sharing and shedding tears, and joyously lifting each other up in celebration. They soaked their spirits in soothing and inspiring music, receiving a sound bath from a Mayan medicine healer, and dancing under the light of the Full Moon.

A Summer Solstice Invitation

In light of this weekend’s alignment of the New Moon and Summer Solstice, Jennifer and I have decided to partner up to offer an exclusive workshop for women on June 20 at 5 pm PT. Combining our forces as luminary healers and spiritual guides for women, we will host an incredibly powerful and complimentary Summer Solstice Gathering via Zoom.

“The New Moon represents this idea of going back to your roots, and that has always drawn me,” Jennifer shares. “The idea is to help women with this rebirth, and the Summer Solstice is all about honoring the love, light, and pleasure of earthly existence. The seasonal shift prompts a revolution from within; a spark that lights the possibility of new beginnings.”

Our aim is to create a sacred gathering space for women, in which we will take them on a soul-searching Vision Quest. The ultimate goal is to offer a free 90-minute mind-body-spirit experience with a movement portion that will evoke undeniable New Moon Energy. 

We will enter into a mystery school together — a Moon Lodge — designed to help us as women renew, restore, and relate. 

I’ll be bringing the qualities of renewal and restoration to our Summer Solstice gathering via my East Gate teachings, highlighting how women can seek new beginnings, even in turbulent times, and how we can do so through the use of a power object, like the ceremonially blessed Winged Ones that are offered as part of my East Gate initiation. 

Hand in hand, we invite any woman reading this now to take the leap and join us in ringing in the summer season. Whether your desire is to invoke your inner goddess, inspire body positivity, or shed toxic emotions, you’re invited to step into our metaphorical Moon Lodge. And yes, please feel free to invite your female friends; mothers, daughters, sisters, colleagues, or any woman in your life who could use the energy of new beginnings and rejuvenation. 

—————————————————————————————-

Click here to sign up for the FREE Summer Solstice Gathering with Parashakti and Jennifer Jiménez on June 20 at 5pm PT. Space is limited!

One lucky participant will be selected to receive a COMPLIMENTARY power pendant — the SunDancer (pictured above) — from the Winged Ones jewelry line, along with access to the East Gate activation program (a $680 value). 

—————————————————————————————-

Special thanks and WINGS OF GRATITUDE to Jennifer Jiménez for her time.

To learn more about Jennifer’s work with the Brave Thinking Institute, click here. 

To learn more about TranscenDance™, click here. 

Jennifer can be seen donning her very own Winged One in this photo (left), in the style of The Visionary with Labradorite stone.

Parashakti

Parashakti’s shamanic healing work is born of more than two decades of experience facilitating workshops, trainings, and retreats around the world, in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico, Bali, Guatemala, Indonesia, Israel, and Greece.  As a lifelong dancer, her path as a healer followed a severe injury – a period of what is often called shamanic dismantling, after which her mission shifted towards healing. Over the last 20 years, Parashakti has developed the Seven Foundations and the Dance of Liberation™, as maps for her spiritual practice, living and breathing these foundations in daily ritual. Dance of Liberation™ has been practiced by over 10,000 dancers around the globe. It’s was born of a mission to help people experience ecstasy – without taking it.
Above all, Parashakti is dedicated to serving community and creating a sacred container where people feel safe enough to experience their deepest essences, honor their voices, and shine their brightest light. Join her on the Dance floor: www.parashakti.org

parashakti.org/

The post Uniting Women for the Summer Solstice appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Rose Quartz Soars & Reunites: Self-Transformation Rituals for Change

“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.” – Lao Tzu

Protesters march peacefully through my Hollywood neighborhood on a weekday afternoon, touting signs and posters that relay one main message: A cry for the end of racial injustice. We’ve heard the concept that change starts from within. Often, however, the urgency for change eliminates the process of self-reflection.

Demonstrators photo by Logan Bik

For me, these last three months have been fraught with self-reflection of the familial nature. My mother was visiting me from Israel when the COVID-19 pandemic. The subsequent stay-at-home orders made it difficult for her to return home. What ensued was three decades of tension condensed into three months of isolation together in my one bedroom apartment.

Despite her profession as a therapist and mine as a spiritual healer, we both experienced communication breakdowns. And at times, we experienced emotional instability. So, we each began to make compromises. After living without a television for 12 years, I finally decided to invest in one. I hoped it would behave as a bonding mechanism.

Sure enough, it did. We ended each day with our newfound favorite comedian, Sebastian Maniscalco, whose humorous anecdotes on the nuances of familial relationships lent an air of lightheartedness to our tension. Tears of laughter developed into tears of joy between mother and daughter. Two individuals who also dealt with conflicting lifestyles.

As those three months of sharing every meal together, and laughing and crying together, slowly formed into the end of our time together, my heart became filled with a gaping emptiness. Since seeing her off last week, I’ve recognized how deeply I miss my mom’s company. Our futile differences created a wall between us for so long. A wall that I wished we had torn down much sooner, especially now that I’ve witnessed the euphoria of our unity.

Parashakti and her mother photograph by Yair Golov.

My sense of loss was exacerbated further upon witnessing the unjust and unwillful death of George Floyd. A man with a family just like mine, one who wouldn’t see him smile or laugh again.

Focusing on the Present

If this year has taught us anything, it’s a lesson on the futility of planning. The Native American teachings of Eagle Medicine contain a strong focus on the future. The Eagle represents change and possibilities, all things rooted in what’s to come.

Even as an avid practitioner of this Eagle Medicine, I find myself asking some of the following questions. How do we dream forward, in the essence of the Eagle, when we’ve witnessed the unexpectedness of the Planet?

This makes it more important than ever to come into the present. Our rituals for change can include meditation, dance, journaling, or other introspective practices. Let us ask ourselves: What change should we inspire from within ourselves in order to improve the world around us?

Parashakti photo by Masayo Benoist

In addition to being a symbol of renewal, the Eagle also represents an invitation to see the bigger picture. Its overwhelming ability to soar to unfathomable heights allows it to canvas all the land that is below. It can thus review the totality of its landscape. In turn, Eagle asks us to review the totality of the landscape that is our lives, and determine what truly matters. Eagle asks us to investigate and view our own rituals for change.

Questioning What Truly Matters

For me, the realization of what truly matters comes in the form of family ties. Given and made, by blood and by choice. “Family” might be the conclusion many come to. And it could refer to a need for reconnection or perhaps a need to cut the cord and fly free.

I think on the time I spent trying to “fix” those around me. My family in Israel used to call me the “Missionary” for my Yogic lifestyle (which they related to living in an ashram) and staunch attempts to change the way they live. When I wasn’t preaching the healing powers of superfoods, I was — and this may sound mundane — aiming to convert them to the ways of the Vitamix. And, though my mom is a loyal Vitamix user today, the bigger picture is that I see the error in my actions.

I wanted to eliminate the differences between us, in lifestyle and in beliefs. I felt that contrasts were roadblocks instead of learning opportunities. These last three months under lockdown orders with my mom sent me into a sort of forced acceptance. And it’s one that I’m grateful for as I look back.

More than anything, the experience has allowed me to see that, in order to deepen relationships, we must really be willing to do the work. We must be willing to confront difficult emotions and dormant prejudices to achieve new beginnings.

This question of what truly matters not only exists on an individual level. It exists on a societal level as well. And currently, it can be answered with a resounding “Black Lives Matter.” Much like our individual responses to this query, we must be driven to listen.

Healing Ceremonies for Harmony

New beginnings and rituals for change have become something of a running theme in my life. The onset of COVID-19 turned all my professional opportunities upside down. In fact, I built an entire program with rituals for change around this concept of starting anew, which I refer to as The East Gate.

Through the use of energetically-charged and ceremonially blessed jewelry, I lead people into the discovery of the unknown in their own lives. Naturally, the aforementioned jewelry I use to conduct the journey comes in the shape of the Eagle, and features all kinds of stones.

Now that the beaches have reopened in Los Angeles, I pack up my traveling altar and head down to the ocean. The stone I find myself turning to and dancing with the most in recent days is Rose Quartz.

From left to right: Visionary Winged One Pendant designed by Parashakti & SunDancer Winged One Pendant designed by Kabartsy. Photo credit: Eric Allan.

This blush-colored rock represents universal love. It is often used in the healing of the heart, and in friendship and relationship mediation rituals, in which two wounded parties can re-establish harmony.

With so much tension and injustice plaguing our world right now, I’ve been bringing Rose Quartz into nearly every Zoom meeting and meditation session. I’ve even been wearing it proudly to the grocery store, around my apartment, and (especially) amid my loved ones.

Due to its ability to connect to the heart chakra, this powerful stone is known for fostering empathy, peace, and understanding — all values that desperately need to be applied to the current climate.

Dance as a Healing Art, part of Rituals for Change

When I wandered down to the beach yesterday, I decided to practice what I know best: Movement as Medicine. In my personal practice, known as Dance of Liberation, I lead workshops on mindful dance and encourage dancers to wear blindfolds while they let their bodies pave the way for healing through movement.

Parashakti with blindfold for Dance of Liberation. Photo by Masayo Benoist

The blindfold encourages self-reflection. When you’re not fixated on the movements of others, thus allowing you to let go of how others perceive your own movement, you channel a special kind of connection. This connection often contains a newfound self-love, while still allowing you to retain a sense of community, since you can feel the presence of your fellow blindfolded dancers.

As I donned my rose quartz and dipped my toes into the cool salt water, however, I decided to leave the blindfold behind. This time, I wanted to be presently aware of my surroundings, understanding how essential it is to mobilizing external change.

Parashakti Dancing by the Ocean Photo Credit: Eric Allan / Parashakti is wearing white leggings from

As the pandemic looms, so many people are wondering what they can do to support their brothers and sisters when protesting is not an option. Perhaps that solution is self-reflection. When we’re not signing petitions or donating to noble causes, we can sit with ourselves, educate ourselves, educate the people in our lives, and adjust small habits. We can eliminate hurtful language, check in on impacted friends, and continue to spread the word.

We can clutch our Rose Quartz in one hand as a prayer for peace and raise our fist with the other as a simple ritual for change. Introspection is not inactivity. Quite the contrary, it is an acknowledgement that systemic change starts with self-change. It’s no coincidence that the influential Eagle is the Spirit Animal of my practice. Native to North America, this magnificent creature has aptly become a symbol of freedom.

And as we fight for the freedoms of our black brothers and sisters to be restored, we should use the Eagle’s symbolism as a driving force for reform.

Rose Quartz as Part of a Ritual for Change

Parashakti has just launched the Rose Quartz stone in her Winged Ones line. These power objects are part of her East Gate program. This is a multi-faceted healing journey for those who are undergoing hardship and looking for positive rituals for change. She is currently donating 3% of each purchase to Color of Change, a racial justice organization committed to fighting racism in communities across America. Click here to purchase your Winged One & be part of the movement!

For a comprehensive resource on how you can support the Black Lives Matter movement and victims of police brutality, please click here. This page consists of links to memorial funds, petitions you can sign, ways you can help demonstrators, and more.

You can also see a complete breakdown below. A huge, soaring THANK YOU to all those who helped lay the groundwork for this list:

• Donate to the victims of police brutality
• Support the demonstrators
• Give directly to our dear friend Haile Supreme who is organizing on the ground in Minnesota
• Another comprehensive list of bail programs for demonstrators
• Other important places to donate
• Donate to Black owned businesses
• Donate to The Loveland Foundation to give therapy to Black women and girls
• Fight police brutality: Campaign Zero

Links for white folks who want to help:

• If you only look at one thing, start with this comprehensive resource
• Your opportunity + invitation to become an accomplice
• Read + take action: 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
• Sign up for Rachel Cargle’s #dothework 30 day course
• Learn how to be anti-racist at Monique Melton’s Shine Bright School
• RSVP for Daybreaker’s Study Hall on How To Be Anti-Racist

Educational resources on police brutality:

• Check out aworldwithoutpolice.org for a super comprehensive study guide on what you want to know about police + our society
• Watch Phillip Atiba Goff from the Center for Policing Equity in an actionable TED talk on the history of the US police force
• Watch “13th” by Ava DuVernay on Netflix on the history of slavery, jim crow, and mass incarceration

Resources for demonstrators:

• ACLU on knowing your rights while protesting
• VICE: Know Your Rights: Filming the Police
• How to navigate facial recognition technology

People & organizations to support/follow:

• Follow Rachel Cargle @rachel.cargle
• Follow Monique Melton @moemotivate
• Follow Layla Saad @laylafsaad
• Connect with the Movement for Black Lives
• Connect with Black Lives Matter

Winged Ones Photos

A SPECIAL Prayer of deep Gratitude to our in-house Winged Ones photographer, Eric Allen. His gift of creative energy, flow, and healing through photography captures a depth of truth, authenticity, and magic. View Eric Allen‘s brilliant work!

Parashakti

Parashakti’s shamanic healing work is born of more than two decades of experience facilitating workshops, trainings, and retreats around the world, in Los Angeles, New York, Mexico, Bali, Guatemala, Indonesia, Israel, and Greece.  As a lifelong dancer, her path as a healer followed a severe injury – a period of what is often called shamanic dismantling, after which her mission shifted towards healing. Over the last 20 years, Parashakti has developed the Seven Foundations and the Dance of Liberation™, as maps for her spiritual practice, living and breathing these foundations in daily ritual. Dance of Liberation™ has been practiced by over 10,000 dancers around the globe. It’s was born of a mission to help people experience ecstasy – without taking it.
Above all, Parashakti is dedicated to serving community and creating a sacred container where people feel safe enough to experience their deepest essences, honor their voices, and shine their brightest light. Join her on the Dance floor: www.parashakti.org

parashakti.org/

The post Self-Transformation Rituals for Change appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.