yoga

Keeping practice simple

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Daily practice is important. It helps to connect us to our spiritual path, and to anchor us into our lives. Committing to a daily practice isn’t always easy. We often simplicity-01want to rush down the road, and simplicity gets pushed aside for complexity. I see this a lot in yoga. We often want to jump into the complexity of inversions and arm balances, and only use sun salutations as a warm up. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t reach for things that are complex, but we have to start where we are. Simplicity invites us to start at the foundation. In yoga, this may be simply showing up to your mat, having a seat and breathing deep
ly. Yoga is harmonizing the breath, the body, and movement into an integrated, embodied flow. Simply breathing is where we start, anything beyond that is magic.

Where are the foundations of your practice?  How often do you return to check in with that base layer of your Great Work?

In yoga, much of the other more complex poses and sequences are found in sun salutation. There is so much that happens in those 12 asana. There are some months, where I solely focus on building this base. Coming back to sun salutations, not as a warm up to my practice, but as the practice it self. There are some days when rolling out the mat and sitting on it are enough.

From that place of simplicity, I find myself able to reach for the more complex aspects of my practice. When things get out of control, or more difficult to manage, I return to the foundational work. I pause, sit and breath… from there I move, and I build until I arrive at a place that feels right for that moment.

How we define simplicity will vary from person to person, and practice to practice, and moment to moment. This is just an invitation to explore what you are currently doing, to invite simplicity into your work.

 

 

Moving the Body, Engaging the Storm

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indexThe storm is upon us.   The body follows the mind, and right now stress seems to be permeating the global experience.  Now, more than ever physical body spiritual practices important for connection and stepping into the storm.  Things are not easy for many right now (but when are they truly ever easy).  We are getting to step into our tests in new ways, and as we step into engaging spirituality, the divine, and intuition we cannot forget to include the body.  The body follows the mind.  When we are crippled by stress or overwhelmed by life the body reacts.  For many this means sore backs, achy joints, loss of mobility or even sickness.  The phrase “I’m worried sick”, become literal.

When we move the body, we are moving energy.  When we sweat we are building heat, we are breathing, we are engaging stagnation that might reside in the body.  This all helps us to move into the life experience we are facing off our yoga mats.  A lot of times I know my students come to class to get away from the storm.  They hope to leave it behind for the 90min that we are together.  They hope that by avoiding the chaos that it might disappear.  I encourage a different approach.  When we invite our chaos to the mat, when we invite it to the practice we engage the storm, we get to play in the puddles, and we move the energy.  We are not empowering the chaos, but we are proactively engaging it.  We burn off the physical and mental stress, and invite the body into the spiritual process.

You can use any physical body practice to do this work.  I recommend yoga because it elongate the body, opens the joints, we are engaging in focused breathing, and each asana is a meditation.  Spirituality is built into the yoga practice.  Start your practice with an intention.  If you are inviting life to the mat you could start like this: “Beloved chaos, I invite you to the mat… flow through me, ignite my body,  bring clarity to my mind, and let’s be at peace.”

Yesterday as I was walking home, my umbrella fell apart.  For a moment, I felt anger surge through me.  I did not avoid or run away from being angry, I sat with it.  Then I looked at my mangled umbrella, the up at the gray sky and laughed.  I l asked the rain to cleanse me, and perhaps that was the gift my umbrella was offering me.   I was able to engage the storm in a literal experience, and it was beautiful

Where is the storm in your life?  What do you do to engage the storm?

You are loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Namaste.

 

Mike Brazell

Pilgrimage to the Heart (Part 2)

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543428_10200973243806535_281176769_nI’ve really been taking my time writing this follow-up post.  There is a lot changing for me, not only in the way I am personally engaging my spirituality and path, but how I am relating to other.  Lots of wonderful movement is occurring, and my biggest lesson is stepping back and allowing the changes to take place.  I think too often I get in my own way, I feel that I “have to do”, rather than just hold presence.  Taking the trip to South Carolina opened me up to a lot of things that I needed to see.  I won’t be sharing all of the changes here, as those are meant just for me.  My journal is now my constant companion, as is a mala (I take different ones out depending on the day, my mood, and which one calls to me from my altar).

I had the opportunity to sit with my past in interesting ways.  I found a stack of my old journals.  Many of them leading up to my transition to DC, and I even found one that I kept for my first year in the Navy.  Seeing my personal transformation through these texts really brought me into a deep place of gratitude for where I am, and all the beautiful trials and tribulations along the way.  Getting to be with family helped me to root, to ground, and to just be me for a bit.  I didn’t have to be a teacher, a student, a psychic, a healer, and sometimes when we have the opportunity to step out of our roles we shake the wrinkles out–then we put our multicolored coats on once again.

Now that I am back into my routine, I am getting to live a lot of the changes that I experienced on my Pilgrimage.  I am in the process of de-cluttering my life on many levels (internally and externally).  I am looking at where I am and where I am going a bit differently, and am allowing the changes to take place through a place of deep and unconditional trust.  I am reconnecting to part of my path that are calling to me, and am being kind to myself a bit more.

Spiritual transformation takes many forms, and sometimes we have to step into and out of our lives to gain perspective.  One of the things I did when I went to on my trip was to ask the universe to give me clear signs as to the changes I needed to make… and so my perception opened, and I listened deeply.

I’m going to be writing a series of articles relating my processes moving forward and reflections on the deeper changes that are taking place.  Fasting, writing, loving, being, meditating, yoga, silence and a bit of solitude are now part of my experience.  My processes are mine, but it is my hope that we can share, learn from one another, and grow through the beauty of our shared experience.

 

What changes are you making, and what is changing you?

When you venture into a retreat, take a pilgrimage, or attend an event–how do you integrate what you bring back from the experience into your life?

 

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Michael A Brazell

Michael@michaelbrazell.com

http://www.michaelbrazell.com

 

Finding Stillness

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thIn a world that is moving at the speed of thought, where do you find stillness?  How do you define this sometimes elusive concept?

I find stillness in yoga.  There is movement occurring with my body, but my mind and my awareness are centered within.  There is stillness on my mat, the earth she holds my space and keeps it sacred.  I can feel the space between the inhale and the exhale, and stillness rests there.

I also find stillness in the hustle and bustle.  Every morning I get on the metro train and make my way to work.  I like closing my eyes and getting lost in the rumble of the train, the ambient noise of those around me, feeling whole within that presence.  Sometimes stillness is not about holding ourselves apart from the world, but going into it more fully.

There are times when we need to rest the senses, to take a break, to reconnect to self.  This can be as simple as a warm soak in the tub, or taking a trip into solitude.

How do you define stillness, and where do you find it?  Where does it find you?

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Namaste.

Mike-

Touching Oneness

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onenessThe other day at the metaphysical shop I manage I had the joy and opportunity to talk to one of customers about oneness, and what it means to be connected to “the all”.

The conversation started with him asking me about meditating and using meditation to enter into higher states of consciousness and alternate realities.  Usually when someone brings this type of discussion to the table my first question is, “Why do you want to go to those places?”   His response was, “Because I want to feel like I am one with everything.”

Often in “new age” paradigms we look at these “jumps” in consciousness as ways to access a higher state of connection to those around us, to the world, or to God Herself.   Ram Dass states it best, that as we move “up” through these realities we are actually just entering into other states of illusion.

So, as we sat, I aligned my souls, and asked my intuition what the best answer would be in this situation, and this is what she said:

“Beloved, as your feet touch this beautiful earth you are connected to all that is.  As your lungs take in the air that sustains your life force you are connected to all that is.  All that is exists here, and now.  The leave the beauty of this reality is to escape true oneness, here oneness is tangible.  When you leave the body, the oneness you are feeling is temporary, brief, and powerful.  Your purpose is to find that same connection here.”

We both sat with this for a few moments, and took a deep breath… made a point to feel the earth beneath our feet and appreciated the oneness we were able to encounter.

We often forget that we live life in this reality.  We have to find those moments of connection here in this plane of existence.  Everything on earth is connected beneath our feet, our sacred Mother Earth holds all.  Our breath is our shared religion.  We all breathe and share the air around us.  The universe pulses to that primordial exhale, that big bang of creation, the inhale was the gathering of the forces needed, and here we are… an extension of that initial orgasmic breath.

Here is a quick exercise to embrace the oneness all around you:

  • Stop and breathe deeply.
  • Exhale just as deeply.
  • Feel the earth beneath your feet.
  • Take a slow step forward, feeling your foot fully connect to the earth.
  • Now the other foot.
  • Breathe in.  Feel connected fully to the air filling your lungs
  • Breathe out.  Feel the air you exhale fill the space around you.
  • Feel the limitless earth kissing your feet.  Feel the presence of all that walks this earth, all that has come before, all that will come after.
  • Feel the air around you embracing the limitless space around and above you.

You are Loved. You are Beautiful. You are Divine.

Namaste and Blessed Be.

Mike

 

 

Defining Wellness

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What is wellness, it is a word that we hear tossed around a lot in fitness, nutrition and spiritual circles, so let’s take a deeper look.
Wellness (as defined by dictionary.com)
1.the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, especially as the result of deliberate effort.
2.an approach to healthcare that emphasizes preventing illness and prolonging life, as opposed to emphasizing treating diseases.
wellness2There is a reason the fitness industry is a multibillion dollar a year industry fitness and wellness are overwhelming topics.  Even in the above definition you will see several trigger words that can often act to cause confusion and a surrendering of power to those you think know more than you.  When engaging fitness, wellness and nutrition it is of course important to seek out guidance and information, but we MUST still engage our intuition and discernment.  Too often do I see people toss out intuition and discernment with the promise of quick results, and impossible goals.  In the above definition you see the following:  state of being healthy, deliberate effort, and prolonging life.  These phrases are ones that can cause the most confusion when making the decision to move into a place of greater health and well-being.
One of the first things that you should do is make a commitment to YOU.  What are your reasons for wanting to move into greater states of health.  If you do not have a journal by now YOU SHOULD. Journals and logs are your best friends on the spiritual journey, and fitness/wellness are part of that journey.
Keeping a journal is one of the first ways to bring wellness into your life.  A commitment to daily logging of your calories, your workout routines, but also your intentions, moments of gratitude, your emotions, insights, dialogue with your intuition, anything and everything.  A journal is sacred space, and too many of us keep a separate journal for each aspect of our lives, this can often divide us.  Keeping one journal (for at least a while) where you write everything allows you to get an overall picture of where you are.  I know many people like keeping electronic journals, but often with these you only get narrow focus on what is right in front of you, non-electronic journal allows you to flip forward and back, to shift around, add notes to, cross things off.
One of the reasons I am stressing the importance of a journal is that you’re going to need it for the next part of this blog.
In order to move into wellness, healthy living, and fitness you’ll first have to define what these are to you.
What does healthy living mean to you, what does it look like, feel like, and what would it take for you to move in that direction?   These are questions to meditate on in your journal.  Contemplative meditation allows us to arrive at our own definitions.  When we OWN wellness, fitness, and health we can begin embodying those principles.  We know where we are, and are less likely to linger in murky waters.  Remember also that your definitions can change daily, and should.  As you grow and evolve on your path to wellness, so will your definitions.  What changes are you making, and what is changing you.  Some days emotions may dictate you take a day off, others those same emotions may dictate a powerful workout to burn off energy.
What are your intentions for moving towards wellness, fitness and healthy living?   Intentions are more important than goals.  Often when it comes to fitness we set goals that may seem impossible, “I am going to lose 15lbs in 3 days!”, or “I am going to work out 7 days a week for 6 hours a day” or any number of the passing fads that present false promises and unrealistic goals.  Intentions are much deeper, they are in the moment, they have greater purpose and we can live them now.  An example would be “Today, my intention for my great work of wellness is to love myself through the movement of my body, to nourish myself with greens, and to breathe in this moment fully.”  Intentions can be single words that you carry with you through the day, “Today I carry love in all my actions, thoughts, words, movements, and nourishment”.  Find what works for you.  Setting intention allows us to have a place to start, it allows it to show up daily and to commit to our life fully.  In a later article I’ll talk about setting positive/healthy goals that are in alignment with your intentions.
Make lifestyle changes.  Wellness and Fitness are a way of life.  When you feel healthy, whole, and nourished you are able to rest more fully, engage your life with more passion, and wield magic from a place of full power.  Your journal allows you to look back on your journey, to see where you were, where you are growing, and where your struggles exist.  It allows you to find appreciation and compassion for ourselves.
In coming articles I’ll take these ideas deeper, we’ll move towards lifestyle changes, and as always feel free to post your questions in the comment section below.
What holds you back from moving towards health, wellness, and fitness?
How do you define health?  Wellness? Fitness?  Are these definitions mutable or are they rigid?
You are ALL loved.  You are ALL Beautiful.  You are ALL Divine
Namaste and Blessed Be.
Mike Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

Fueling Practice with Intention

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yogablog2Most people come to yoga class for the physical workout.  The body feels alive after moving through the asanas, energy is raised, and we settle into meditation to close practice.

At the beginning of class I like to have my students take a moment to center on the breath and set an intention for their practice.  On the inhale we bring intention into alignment with the breath, on the exhale we extend intention out into the world around us.  Setting an intention as we go into our practice allows us to practice with purpose.  We can also dedicate the energy of our practice to a place in the world, or someone in our lives that might need a little extra energy.  When we move with purpose we have a greater connection to our bodies, our minds and our spirits.

I also recommend my students keep a yoga practice journal.  Writing down the intentions back into the world when we leave our mats.  With each breath we take we pull our intention down into our bodies.  Each out breath pushed intention into the world, and fueled with movement gives birth to creation.  Yoga means “to yoke” or “to unite”, but what are you yoking yourself to.  Often people come to class to escape, or they bring their problems to the mat hoping to work them out.  If you focus on a negative thought as you move through practice you’ll be breathing that thought into all aspects of your being.  Shifting to a positive affirmation allows us to align with purpose and not defeat.

You don’t have to wait for class to set and breathe in intentional space.  Take a moment right now and do this simple meditation:

  • Focus on an intention, a positive word, an affirmation
  • Take a deep breath into the body, down deep into the core of your being
  • Hold the breath for a count of 4
  • Exhale just as deeply as you inhaled, let your intention embrace the reality around you
  • Continue this process for as long as you need.
  • Even just doing this for a single round is powerful.

Doing this process at the start of the day allows you to bring connection into the start of your day, the same is true if you do this before bed and take intention into the dream world.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine!

Namaste

Michael A Brazell

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michael@michaelbrazell.com

 

Namaste Mudra- Engage the Sacred Elements

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namasteNamaste mudra is a powerful hand position.  We often begin and end our practice with it.  It is also called prayer position.  Namaste is a common salutation that is offered in many yoga classes, it means “I bow to you”.  It is an offering of self to those that share the class and the space with us during our practice.  It is also a term that has grown in popularity thanks to yoga becoming more mainstream.   The hand gesture is a physical extension of this greeting and salutation.

This hand position is much more than meets the eye.  When you are able to create deeper connections to these simple (and often taken for granted actions) you see the power that simple gestures hold.

First the action of bringing the hands to heart center.  Many of us first meet this hand position as children.  When learn to pray into our hands in the hopes that the divine will hear our prayers.  The beautiful thing about this idea is that it is true.  When we pray into clasped hands held at the heart we are praying down into the hear center.  Think of the fingers as the tip of the microphone, and the heart being the seat of the soul (or that place where God Herself sits within us).  Praying into the heart center is taking the prayer into the body so that the divine can hear it, and since we are extensions of divine will we hear our own prayers, and so does God too.

The five fingers in namaste mudra represent the five sacred elements as they move through us.  Sacred air as it moves through our lungs.  The sacred fire that burns deep within our hearts.  The fluidity of our blood, bones, muscles and joints.  Sacred earth as it supports, grounds and protects us.  Spirit as it move in and through us.  Bringing the hands to the heart in this position is bringing awareness and connection to those primal elements that make up our sacred being.

The all that is within me, acknowledge and bows to the all that is within you.

Take a look at these simple actions.  See the power in all of our gestures, and look for meanings beyond the initial layers of experience.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Namaste.

Michael A. Brazell

www.michaelbrazell.com

www.blogtalkradio.com/michaelbrazell

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The Yoga of Falling Down

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fall2One of the things I see most often in the yoga classes I teach is the frustration that so many feel when it comes to balance, or to getting the new postures just right.  There is a “perfection” mindset that a lot of people bring to their mats that can add a lot of resistance to their progress and their path.

What a lot of people do not realize it that all the falling, the being off-balance, and the struggle is where the real yoga lives.  Once we own a posture the work to get there is done.  It is in all the off-balance, catching ourselves states of being that the body, mind and the spirit are working in overtime.  When you are off-balance the senses heighten, the core engages to stabilize you, the breath becomes engaged to add power, and spirit shines through when we get back up and keep trying.

 

Yoga is beautifully frustrating.

 

We live in a culture where we see beautiful people doing a lot of perfect asana (postures) on the cover of magazines and in videos.  We often take these images to our classes and our mats.  I feel that it is our job as instructors to help guide each student the beauty that is found in imperfection.  Our bodies are beautiful when the move through the postures.  Yoga is not about being perfect, yoga is about showing up.  Yoga means “to yoke” or “to unite”.  Showing up is always the hardest part, and anything beyond that is icing on the cake.  Frustration is also not a bad thing.  It keeps us moving through the postures, it keeps us evolving our craft, our practice.  We learn to open up to the divine that rests in the process.  When we show up to class we want to be sure that we are setting an intention.  That we move through the postures and carry that intention into all our many parts.  We want to embody the intention fully.  Our bodies become conduits for energizing intention, our breath aligns and fuels will and desire.  When we finish our practice we meditate and move intention into reality.

Falling down is an important part of the yoga process.   What we do in class is an extension of what we do outside of class.  A simple meditation that can be done in a yoga class is to sit with the action of falling or coming off-balance.  Reflect on a time in your life where you may have fallen, or were shifted off-balance.  Bring that image back to your practice and bring balance to that past event.  If there is something in your current life that is causing you to be off-balance, bring it to the mat.  The intention of bringing balance into that area of your life will live on once you leave class.  Life is not something we leave with our shoes when we enter the yoga studio, nor is yoga something we leave on our mats when we go back out into our busy lives.  Using your yoga to help generate energy for the other areas of your life help you to unite with all aspects of self.

When is a time where you felt off-balance?  How did you react?  What can you do right this moment to bring balance into your life?

Falling is a beautiful thing.  Fall with grace and rise with power.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

 

Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

www.blogtalkradio.com/michaelbrazell

www.facebook.com/yogawitch

Re-aligning with Purpose

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So, I took a bit of a break from working on blogs, writing and just about everything else.  When we engage spiritual work for a living we have to give ourselves space to take a step back, to re-examine our purpose and to decide what new directions we wish to explore.  Life is a dance and we sometimes need to take a break and wait for our favorite song to come on before we step back onto the dance floor.  One of the big things I know is that we have to give ourselves space to say no, to hold silence, and to rest.  So, I’ve been in hibernation.  Now, it is time to come out of the shell of my silence and bring into the work and world something new and engaging.  Life gets busy, and we forget to take time to reflect and align with the stuff that calls us.   My yoga practice has brought me a lot of balance (pun intended).  I find that with my yoga practice that regardless of how I feel emotionally that just moving my body helps the emotions to flow.   Some postures can be angry, some can be humble, others can open the valves of sadness, and others bring unconditional joy.   We hold a lot of who we are in the physical body.  It is often the piece of the puzzle that many of us forget to engage.  This body is the one living this beautiful experience.  Sometimes the beauty we live is a bit brutal, and the body remembers this.  It holds it, and we feel it.  I use my practice to move through this.  Over the past few weeks I’ve felt many emotions move through me and my practice.  The second action is journaling.  My journal helps to capture these moments for self reflection, so that I can sit with the narrative of my life experience and see the dance an its many parts.   

So, there is going to be more writing, more self-reflective posts and I am also going to be breathing life back into my other blogs.  Its time to move through the shell and to commit to this experience fully.   

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.