Summer solstice,
The day when there's maybe an appreciation for the light that's here right now.
Take a few breaths,
Let your body really feel into that.
As we bring our awareness into the longest day,
The summer solstice,
What comes to mind for you about that?
Our experience is rarely one thing,
It's usually more complex.
You might have lovely memories of summer,
You might have some not so good ones.
Letting all of that be present,
Let your breath nourish your body,
Let your muscles soften.
And if we were to take a moment to notice the sun in our body,
The solar energy in our body,
From a yoga meditation perspective,
It's the manipura,
The chakra at the navel center that has our fire,
Our digestive fire,
Or how are we digesting our food,
Our experiences.
Do I have sufficient digestive fire to digest my food and to digest my experiences?
Let your awareness rest in the navel center.
Notice any sensations or energy.
What comes to your thought stream as you're focusing on the sensations on the navel center?
Sometimes we have too much fire,
We're irritable,
We have reflux,
We have problems with our digestion that are related to too much heat.
Sometimes we have too little heat,
We need to stoke our fire.
Big correlation here with the nervous system,
Of course.
A level of food,
Let's sit with that in the navel center for a moment.
How well do you digest your food?
And what comes to mind that would help you to have a better digestive system?
In Ayurveda,
The sister science of yoga,
They talk about don't drink a bunch of cold water when you're having your meal because it dilutes the digestive fire.
To leave a third of the space in your stomach empty so there's room for the air to combust with the food.
There's a lot of wisdom about digestion and digestive fire.
Is there anything that comes to mind that you feel like,
You know,
I could make an adjustment there?
I could try out something a little bit different for a while,
See how that goes.
And it might be some pranayama practices.
Yoga has many practices that work with all the different systems in the body.
One of them is Kapalabhati,
Which works more with the lower part of the belly,
And then Bhastrika,
Which is sometimes called the breath of fire,
Which works directly with the navel center.
There's alternate nostril breathing,
Nadi Shodhanam,
Which balances the solar and the lunar.
See if it's comfortable enough for you to stay with awareness in your navel center and your belly.
If it's not,
You can move your awareness broader out to your whole body or to your breath.
Take a deep breath,
Inhale and exhale,
And we'll focus a little bit differently now.
What is your sense of how well you digest your life experiences?
It's not directly related to digestive fire in the intestines and the stomach.
How do you digest life?
Could you use a little more fire,
More energy?
Do you have too much hot energy,
Too much heat?
If we're in a sympathetic activation like fight or flight or a dorsal vagal freeze response,
And without casting any blame or shame for our nervous system,
We could maybe sit with that for a moment.
Is there anything that I could do that would help me to digest my experiences?
Moving to your heart center,
We digest our emotional experiences in the heart center.
Let's sit with that in the heart center.
What would help me to be more attuned,
To be able to stay in my body more?
What would help me to digest my emotional and life experiences?
And then we might bring in a warm glow of light in the heart.
Let go a little bit of the inquiry and let ourselves be blessed by that internal sun,
The warm golden glow of light in the heart center.
As we breathe,
We might notice the light.
Sometimes when we breathe in,
The light strengthens,
Radiates out into the rest of our body as well,
Warming up our muscles,
Letting our body soften.
As we're in summer,
Notice if your body is warm or if there's a coldness,
Maybe cold or tight muscles.
We could always move a little.
We could bring our awareness,
Let our muscles soften.
If you were to bring the warmth of a summer day into your body right now,
Let your body soften and warm up.
We could cultivate being warm hearted,
Moving with ease,
Connecting with others.
In the summer,
We might be out in shorts and sandals.
We're not wearing heavy snow boots and we're not huddling up against the cold.
We could bring that to mind,
Let our body experience that right now through memory.
For some people,
It might be lying on a beach or sitting in a garden or out for a walk.
Our body is warm and fluid,
Moving well.
Our heart is warm and open,
Easily digesting our emotional experiences.
And not in a perfect way,
Just in a way of,
Here we are.
We're in our heart,
We're in our body.
Appreciating the warm,
Golden glow of light in the heart center,
Letting our body soften and relax.
And if any insights came in as to how you might like to digest food experiences a little bit differently,
Then we could bring that forward.
We could allow ourselves to have more grace in terms of our experience.
We can always bring kindness and compassion and the warmth of our own heart into our life.
