Welcome,
I'm Caroline.
I'm so glad that you've arrived.
This is your invitation to return to center,
The very center of your being,
The very center of who you are,
The very center of what drives you.
An invitation to steady your inner flame and to reconnect with the spirit,
The passion,
Your why,
Your purpose behind your teaching.
We welcomed in the season of summer recently,
A time of expansion,
Warmth,
Outward expression,
Of longer days,
More movement,
More connection.
But with that comes the potential for burnout.
In traditional Chinese medicine,
This is the season of the heart and the spirit called Shen,
The part of us that holds joy,
Clarity,
And presence.
And when the fire is too strong,
Shen becomes scattered.
We might feel ungrounded,
Overextended,
Even a little anxious.
But when we remind ourselves to return to stillness,
We return to balance.
So let's begin.
Find a comfortable seat,
Or if it feels like a better idea for you to lie down,
Feel free to do so.
And wherever you are,
Just take a moment to allow your spine to lengthen gently.
And soften that space in between the eyebrows,
Around the corners of the eyes,
The corners of your mouth.
Notice how it feels to relax the tongue away from the roof of the mouth,
Maybe even a wiggle of the jaw side to side.
And slowly allow your gaze to soften,
Perhaps even closing your eyes,
If that feels comfortable.
And just allow yourself to land,
Allow yourself to be held by the moment,
To be held by this pause.
And then take a moment to bring your awareness to your breath.
You don't need to change it or control it in any way,
Just bringing your awareness to the breath,
Just noticing it.
Notice that feeling as you inhale,
Everything starts to gently soften and expand.
Notice that feeling around the exhale as you soften the belly and the breath slowly works its way out of the body.
And just following your breath with its natural rhythm,
The natural ebb and flow,
As it comes and goes without any need to control it.
And just simply observing,
Just noticing.
And then can you begin to bring your awareness now towards the chest,
The energetic space of the heart center.
And as you take your next inhale,
Can you inhale into this space?
And as you exhale,
Just slowly letting the edges of your day begin to blur.
And as you inhale,
You're visualizing the breath and your full awareness.
As you inhale into the energetic space of your heart.
And every exhale is that opportunity to become aware of the edges of your day,
Just slowly starting to melt away.
You begin to find yourself arriving back into the center of your very being,
Not the roles that you hold in your day-to-day life,
Not the doing,
Not the to-do list,
But that quiet knowing behind it all.
And just notice how that feels to arrive back into the very center of your being in this moment.
Now imagine a gentle summer field,
Golden,
Expansive,
Quietly alive.
And visualize yourself sitting in the center of this field.
And in your chest and your heart space,
A flame begins to glow.
It flickers,
Not with urgency,
But with steadiness.
And there's a feeling of warmth,
A feeling of clarity.
And this is your heart fire,
Your shen,
The spirit behind your words,
The spirit behind your teaching,
The spirit behind your presence.
And we let this flame grow slightly brighter with every breath that we take.
And with every breath that we draw into the body.
And we let the flame become slightly steadier with every exhale.
And as we inhale,
We imagine expansion.
And as we exhale,
We imagine that sense of grounding.
And as we inhale,
We return to center.
And as we exhale,
We ground,
We release,
We let go.
We follow this breath as well as following that steadying flame in the center of our being.
Now we gently ask ourselves,
What nourishes me right now as a teacher?
What sparks joy in my classes?
Where might I be overextending or burning out?
And let whatever arises come without any judgment,
Allowing this to be a moment of just noticing,
A moment of just feeling.
And we don't need to fix anything right now.
We just need to reconnect,
To be with our own flame,
With this feeling of presence.
And we feel the breath once more in the heart space.
And we let the body rest here for just a moment longer.
And this is where your teaching begins,
Not in your mind,
But in your heart space.
Not in your plans,
But in your sense of presence.
We begin to gently return to the here and now as we wiggle our fingers,
Perhaps our toes.
We let the breath become fuller,
Still with no control.
And as you return,
Can you carry this image of your steady flame with you?
Burning not too fast,
Not too low,
Just enough to light your path and to warm others as well.
Thank you so much for being here and practicing with me today.
And may you move through this season of summer with joy,
Clarity,
And an anchored heart.
