Setting YourSelf Up for Success
OFF THE MAT
Weekly Thought Offering:
When you can look a thing dead in the eye, acknowledge that it exists, call it exactly what it is, and decide what role it will take in your life then, my Beloved, you have taken the first step toward your freedom.
-Iyanla Vanzant
Weekly Journal Prompts:
A person/place/thing in my life that I lean on that...
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Weekly Mantra:
I deserve to feel...
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Hello Sadhakas!
This week ON THE MAT we are in week 3 of our shoulderstand exploration. This week we move our focus to lift off! It is an exciting thing when we play with inversions ON THE MAT. In addition to each inversion's unique Pranic abilities in general, these inversions challenge our relationship to gravity as well as our muscles ability to work in totally different patterns from our daily life. This helps us create a more resilient structure. Just the mere practice of them requires focus. That focus is a kind of meditation. That focus is calming and grounding to our central nervous system. While you are distracted in the moment of trying to figure out how to get your feet off the ground, your lower mind gets a much needed break from the worries of the world, #winning all around!
OFF THE MAT there are some really profound aspects being explored this week. Lifting off the ground in an inversion is also teaching us about our relationship to flight. I have seen many times a direct relationship between a yogi's ability to "let go" of the ground and lift off into an inversion and their ability to trust life and let go enough to fly themselves.
Does that make sense or resonate at all with you?
In particular with this inversion, which for most of us is an "easier" lift off to trust because we have such a large base, there is still an important aspect of flight that we need to explore. What foundation are you trying to lift off of?
ON THE MAT our foundation needs to be just the right blend of height and symmetry (I go over the details of how to do this in the "Weekly Message" video on your member page). Given that blend, lift off feels like gliding and we love the weightlessness and peace that are inherent in this shape. Dare I say it feels even a little childlike "wheeeeee"! Without it there is fear and angst.
OFF THE MAT if we feel a desire for flight (change, growth, abundance, shifting into our higher self) and we are experiencing challenge. We have to ask, what is our foundation and is it setting us up for success? Sometimes we self sabotage, or go to the wrong people with our most vulnerable self, or turn to substances to give us what we know they can't. Somehow we are then surprised that they they don't give us what we knew (should I say what your Inner Teacher was trying to tell you) from the beginning they couldn't. This is a week to take a deep dive into those spaces and through radical self love, uncover some of the cracks in your foundation and make a path toward patching them so that you too can soar with grace.
Yup I will say it again, even that childlike "whheeeeeeeee".
With great respect and love,
Nicole
P.S. As a very important side note, now more than ever, our mental health depends greatly on us having a safe and secure network of people who we can trust
to hold us and hold us up when we need it. We need to be that support for others.
Never be ashamed to reach out for help. We all need a lifeline to get back
in the boat from time to time.
