Monday Mantra :: In and Out

We are in waning moon time, with the end of the week (FriYAY!) bringing us a new moon.  This means it's the perfect time to clean house, both literally and figuratively.  Clear out the clutter from your counters, closets, drawers and the clutter from your thoughts, emotions, and energy. 

What is no longer working for you?  What leaves you feeling uninspired and stuck?  Where in your life could you use some breathing room or a breath of fresh air?

This week's mantra gives you a practice for calling in what you need and for letting go of what you're ready to release.  A way for you to clean the house of your body with your breath: 

On your INHALE, say in your mind and hold the intention: I BREATHE IN LOVE.

On your EXHALE, say in your mind and hold the intention: I BREATHE OUT FEAR.

Continue a few reps, filling in the blanks for what you want to breathe life to and what you want to release.  Here are a few more examples to get you started: 

I breathe in peace and I breathe out stress.
I breathe in calm and I breathe out anxiety.
I breathe in abundance and I breathe out scarcity.
I breathe in energy and I breathe out depletion.

This week's mantra :: I breathe in ______ and I breathe out _________ .  

Monday Mantra :: Connected

Last week's mantra focused on being grounded.  This week, we'll put our attention in the opposite direction.

In a theatre technique I trained in, we studied the qualities of gravity.  Gravity is pulling on all of us, all things, all the time.  Assisting us in our grounding.  What we theatre artists discovered is the drama (and good hero-worthy story-telling) was found in the character's WILL TO LIVE.  With the concept of physics at play, the will to live had to be strong enough for the character to stand up against gravity and move about the world.  

When we, the leading characters in our own lives, have that will to live, the will to RISE, we send energy in two directions.  Not only can our feet be planted firmly on the ground, but our crown's can be soaring and open to the heavens and we become powerful, authentic, connected characters.  

With much change happening in the world around us, feeling connected to our authentic selves and our community is extremely important and valuable.  So this week, I invite you to take a few minutes each day to feel into this connectedness: 

Take a deep inhale and exhale.

Bring your awareness to the tip top of your head (where awareness goes, energy flows).

Say to yourself: I AM connected.  

When you feel stuck, confused, frustrated, closed-off, unmotivated, or any other heavy sensation, this mantra exercise is a perfect tool to use to realign yourself to the highest good and your highest self.  If it's helpful you can imagine a beam of light coming out of the crown of your head, like the branches of a tree, shooting up into the sky.  Or maybe visualizing the clouds, the stars, the sun, the moon gives you that feeling of rising up and feeling one with the universe and all things.  When we connect this way, we can remember there are endless possibilities and we are never alone.  We can know that there's hope and hero-worthy, story-telling moments to be told.  

This week's mantra :: I AM Connected.

**I will be holding space for community at several different spaces in St. Paul as ways for us to connect to one another and ourselves.  Restorative Yoga and Reiki on 1/22 will be a sweet and savory way to connect with your body in a healing way.  An amazing group of people are already gathering for Breathwork on 1/27, where we dive into clearing our blocks, habits, emotions with the breath.  And on 1/29 there will be the opportunity to journal, share, and reflect in a new moon circle.  If you feel called, it would be lovely to have you. 

Monday Mantra :: Grounded

We are constantly surrounded by information at our fingertips.  Articles to scan, social media pages to scroll through, video clips to watch, and a plethora of other distractions or important knowledge to consume and digest.  It's amazing that within seconds we can look something up we need to know or find directions of where we need to go.

With all of this, we very easily start to live up in our minds and miss the connection to our bodies, unless we make a conscious effort. When you are in need of clarity or have the desire to hear your own truth (rather than what google tells you), GROUNDING comes into play.

And grounding can be super simple.  This week, I encourage you to take note of your feet.  Set an alarm on your phone, write it on your calendar, post a reminder to your bathroom mirror, do it when you get out of bed in the morning, when you're eating a meal, and/or before you drive your car.  Do it once a day or do it multiple times a day:

Take a deep inhale and exhale.

Feel the bottoms of your feet on the earth.

And say to yourself: I am grounded.

That's it!  Where awareness goes, energy flows.  Just by bringing your awareness to your feet, your energy begins to ground.  The more you practice this, the easier it is to move about the world connected to both your beautiful mind and your beautiful body.  

This week's mantra: I AM Grounded.  

Monday Mantra :: LOVE

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  

2017 brings the return of the blog... little love notes each week for empowering, inspiring, and supporting you in coming home to yourself. 

{artist :: Silvi Alcivar, @poetrystore}

The above picture posted on Instagram on NYE reminded me of an experience I had a year or two ago when I participated in a group breathwork workshop at my favorite healing center in Brooklyn, back when I lived in New York.  At the very end of the session, I had a powerful visualization.  For me, breathwork brings about lots of images and other-worldly journeys.  During the quiet of the normal breathing this particular time, I had a vision of my adult self sitting in the hospital bed with my dad when he was dying.  For those who haven't heard this part of my story, my dad died from cancer when I was 12, but in this moment post-breathwork, in my mind and heart, I was bringing the past into my present for healing. All of our family and his friends were around us while the two of us were sitting up, side by side, in his bed.  In this dream, I asked him if there was anything he wanted to tell all of us, since he had made it to the other side.  Some words of wisdom or comfort he'd like to impart to us now that he was one with Spirit.  He said this:

"Love.  Just love.  All you need is Love."

At the end of the day... the bottom line... when we reach the end of our road... all we need is... simple (although perhaps difficult and challenging at times).  We need love.

My wish for you this 2017 is for more love.  To love anyway.  To love always.  
Love is love is love is love.

Start with yourself.  Shower yourself with love.  And this will cause a ripple that showers the rest of the world with love.  

This week's mantra: I AM Love.