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Kundalini Yoga & Meditation as a Self-Care Practice

10/30/2015

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Eight years ago I was an emotionally frayed Social Worker looking for healing. My job as a crisis counselor was taking its toll in all areas of my life.  In the midst of emotional breakdown, I searched for something that would bring relief, support and strength. As fate would have it, I soon found myself in a Kundalini Yoga class. During my second Kundalini Yoga class I committed to a 40-day practice and began experiencing powerful changes including the physical and emotional healing I desperately needed. While my story is not extraordinary, the transformation I experienced, with daily practice and regular class attendance, was.

Last week, I was honored to share that story and the practice of Kundalini Yoga & Meditation with my fellow Social Workers at our Statewide NASW Conference.  My story simply illustrated how using Kundalini Yoga & Meditation in my self care practice alleviated symptoms of Compassion Fatigue and relieved physical & emotional pain.  While my story demonstrates what is possible, the power is in the practice.  Together, we practiced the various ways to focus the mind using mantra, mudra, movement, drishti (eye focus) and breath.  I taught my colleagues Yogic breathing and how breathing slowly & consciously releases tension & stress, thus increasing vitality.  They experienced the shift in vibration that occurs when we chant mantra.  Most importantly, they were equipped with the tools to create their own 40-day self care practice. 

Soon after my own Kundalini Yoga & Meditation practice began, I knew I wanted to teach and share this powerful technology with others.  Teaching in my community of Social Workers is truly a gift and honor.  We can all benefit from a self care practice.  Give it a try!!  Just 3 minutes a day for 40 days and let us know what shifts you experience.  

Note: This presentation was inspiring, engaging and practical, and it gave an excellent synopsis on the work of kundalini yoga and meditation as a highly effective and beneficial self-care practice.... with emphasis on SELF care. 
If you are interested in this or similar presentation for your group, contact Urban Yoga Chicago.

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4 steps to becoming whole

10/29/2015

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Simple and sophisticated at the same time, here they are.  (Please feel free to ask questions). 

1. End the shaming, blaming and justifying
…  
…unless you like drama, or are attached to being right over happy. Otherwise, it’s wasted energy that breaks you and others down. Own it, even dwell for a moment in the hurt, the sadness, the anger or the frustration. Be kind to yourself, find your take-away in that lesson and decide what to do next. Better to move along than to sit in hell.
2. Breathe. It soothes the nervous system, increases stamina, moves stress along, and slows down your crazy head. Long deep nostril breathing puts us in power, which we need to make choices that will heal and move us forward. 

3. Stay Hydrated. Drink tons of water (without ice). When we are not well hydrated, our muscles become sore and our mood and energy becomes low. Remember, both water and caffeine can increase energy. But one
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hydrates and nourishes and the other dehydrates and takes from our bodies (like calcium), depleting us in the long run. The boost that comes from adding sustainable energy will offer us more consistency in our actions, affecting our external world in a way that will feed our spirit.

4. Know your spiritual hungers and get them met. 
Spiritual hungers are hungers that we all have as human beings, regardless of race, gender, creed, economic or social status. Examples of spiritual hungers are hunger to be loved, touched, understood and heard. It is not hunger to be understood by_____. Simply hunger to be understood. Tune your mind to the difference.    ​  We might not be able to make a specific person understand us, but we can find someone (and most likely many someones) to understand, including ourselves. Which can lead to an interesting question: we want others to understand us, but do we understand us?      Identify what you hunger for and get them met. It could be as simple as asking a friend for a hug when you hunger to be touched. The more open you are about this, the less burden you put on specific others to have them met. The less burden you put on specific others, the less resistance specific others have around giving it to you.
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Recipe: Kabocha Squash

10/23/2015

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Here's a simple recipe for an excellent fall weather food filled with nutrition and warmth:

Ingredients:
kabocha squash
olive oil
maple syrup
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Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Wash the exterior of the squash well.
Cut squash in half-- remember to breathe and infuse loving energy into your effort!
Spoon out the seeds and fiber from the center of the squash.
Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil and maple syrup and massage them into the squash.
Cover face down into foil lined with parchment paper and wrap.
Bake for 45 minutes or until soft.
*Kabocha exterior is edible!!

Optional: cut squash into wedges and place in a casserole dish, mixing olive oil and maple syrup. Cover and bake. This takes less time--from 25-40 minutes.
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Self-care can happen anywhere

10/22/2015

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Meditation is Boring.

10/16/2015

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I read a blog recently from a well-respected writer who does not meditate. He personally thinks it’s boring. And because meditation zealots reacted 'incredulously' to his response, he set out to find out why people meditate. The answers were: to reduce stress and to become more mindful. To which, he argues, there are other ways to do that. Including “drugs, exercise and other behavioral therapies.” 
He is right. ​

I used to do 60-75 minutes of daily cardio plus another hour of weight training 3-4 days a week, and it totally helped my calm. I was prone to depression, and exercise kept it in check. While it didn’t help with my anxiety, I had 4 months of Prozac and weekly therapy for that (I was in my early 20s).  

Also in his defense, I do want to say that meditators ought to leave non-meditators alone if it’s not their cup of tea. It’s not for everyone. Having said that, as a meditation instructor and and devoted practitioner, I am a mixed bag about meditation floating out there as an effective way to reduce stress and to become mindful. It’s marketed that way because those are easy benefits to point to that people understand. Stress points directly to their pain, and mindfulness is a great way to reduce it. 

What it doesn’t point to is that who you know matters, and that person is you. ​
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Meditation brings you there, and depending on one’s level of resistance or participation in it, it can happen pretty quickly or take years. 

I can make a great case that simply observing how you work with others and relate to your family can do the same thing, but let’s face it, it doesn’t happen much. Also, running your own business or becoming a parent can quickly reflect back who you are. It’s an expensive way to get to know yourself, and most people won’t use this opportunity to get spiritual like that. 

I started meditating because I noticed that it was the only time that I got to truly witness myself totally undistracted by an external goal that I must achieve at the moment, like turning a profit, running 5 miles or trying to do planks or so many side shuffles, push ups and lunges. These activities are beneficial for other reasons, of course, but we don't run or start a business to meditate. As far as being distracted by my monkey mind, the mind is absolutely a distraction, but that is part of the witnessing process. The question is, what happens when I sit completely still and allow things to come up? What can I learn from the resistance of “doing nothing as precious time goes by” when there is so much to do in my day? What happens when I allow myself to be bored? And, what happens when my mind can find that quiet place? 

Therapy helps one to talk through internal conflicts and gain “professional” insight or guidance on how to deal. Self-help programs teach us different ways to unlock our blind spots, and they turn up the heat as a catalyst to help change how we respond or react to things so that the end result can be something different. 
What neither is good at is getting us into that space where we can see and feel things that combust from within, and at a very personal, intimate, cellular level. There is a divine intelligence in knowing at the more experiential level that often outperforms academic intelligence. 

Exercise pushed to a higher level can help us experience expansiveness and break through self-limitations, but many of us aren’t built for this, and often, this option, and its benefits, are temporary. My workout certainly did the job making me feel on top of the world as long as I kept up at that level. At some point, my body said no to it and to find something gentler. 

And none of these other options deliver a sense of oneness. This is important because it helps us become better human beings that consider the greater good while understanding that it must not be at the detriment of self. Nor do they necessarily change negative self talk. In fact, talking in detail about one’s problems is mantra affirming the negative. My teacher, Yogi Bhajan, said, “When a person is in a bad state, techniques imposed from the outside will not work. The pressure has to be stimulated from within” so that we may release the garbage in the subconscious mind (which imposes limitations) and experience Infinity (sense of limitlessness). This comes from regular practice and the discipline of taking self to that cushion every day, closing the eyes, and sitting in that boredom - or curiosity - with no one else other than self without being entertained, drugged or boot-camped. 

That daily discipline of going there opens up that space where we know we are truly okay. Life-long practitioners don’t do this as a remedy for stress and anxiety or any particular goal. They may start out for those reasons, but then they stay because they learn that there are gifts far beyond what we ever thought could come from it— stuff that enhances the fiber of everything that we do and understand. 

Some may be blessed with this without ever meditating, but they are the very few. The level of awareness that meditation opens up unlocks blind spots and self-limitations, and it provides the kind of clarity under which we start to make the right choices for ourselves. And it instills in the practitioner a sort of discipline that transcends any external gain. And when they can let go of those external markers, they are open to receive much more. 

Also, meditation is a lot more cost effective and without a whole lot of negative side affects aside from perhaps some moments of frustration, anger, crying, and sometimes boredom. 

Love, Savitree
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    Kundalini Yoga Quotes:

    “I’d never felt anything like it; it was just an opening of energy and a feeling of such liberation.” -Marika Bethel, owner, Glowing House

    “Within the first ten minutes, I thought, ‘[kundalini yoga] is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,’” -Gabrielle Bernstein

    "Kundalini Yoga is the crack cocaine of yoga; if Hatha is a mild weed high, Iyengar is a deep hash glow and Ashtanga is amphetamine, Kundalini Yoga blows the F*@&ing doors off." -Russell Brand
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  • Class Descriptions
  • Urban Practice (YouTube)
    • Urban Practice: Mantra Meditation
    • Urban Practice: Kriyas
    • Medical Meditations
    • Guided Visualizations
  • Music to Practice To
  • Blog
    • UYC Blog
    • HLF Blog
    • Savitree | Authentic Relationships
    • Jodh | Plant Based Warrior
  • Contact