For this practice,
Sometimes it's nicer for people to be laying down with their arms spread apart from their body and their legs separated so that you can really feel the full shape of your body and really tune into that center line where the chakras are.
So you can do that on the ground or in a bed.
You can also be sitting upright in like a couch or a chair or on the floor.
It's not super important how you're sitting just as long as your spine is nice and straight.
As you're getting to a comfortable position,
Just checking in that your shoulders are aligned over your hips and that your pelvic floor is aligned with the back of your neck or the base of your skull.
You can feel the crown of your head and your tailbone actively kind of reaching or relaxing in opposite directions.
And if your legs are extended and you're laying down,
You can extend that feeling to the soles of the feet as well.
Just encouraging the full length of your spine.
And if you're in a space where you feel safe to do so,
At any point you can allow your eyes to gently close.
And then you can mark your arrival into this new space with a deep cleansing breath.
Maybe a slow,
Long and deep inhale through the nose,
Feeling that natural filter that is your nose.
Pausing maybe for a moment when you are full and just noticing what that's like.
And then slowly letting that breath go again through the nose.
Pushing a little bit more air out of you,
Even once you think you're empty.
And then just pausing and letting your breath return as needed.
So you can do a few more breaths just like this.
Exaggerating your inhales,
Pausing at the top,
Exaggerating the exhale and pausing at the bottom if that feels good and if it's something you want to continue.
But at any point you can release the control or the guidance over your breath and start to step back and allow your body to breathe on its own.
And as we begin this practice today,
I encourage you to bring some awareness and start to notice the steps that we take to get to where we're going.
So I'm going to start with the breath and start to notice where we're going.
Each little part of this practice can be used at any time in your own life.
These are all little keys to relax the body and relax the mind.
So just starting to bring awareness to the fact that you have the power to get to your own.
You don't need guidance necessarily.
It can be very helpful at times,
But your meditation practice is your own thing.
So just opening yourself up to that idea that you have this power already.
And as you're listening,
As you are breathing,
Notice where there's any tension located in your body.
You can start with your face.
Just notice maybe if your forehead was starting to scrunch,
Maybe if your eyelids were starting to pull closed or try to be more closed than just gently closed.
Maybe your jaw is really tight,
Your tongue pressed up.
Maybe in the neck and the shoulders,
Just start to become curious about where your body likes to hold its tension.
For many of us,
It is in the shoulders and the neck.
The hands,
The forehead,
The jaw,
The stomach,
The hips can be anywhere in the body.
I'm just noticing your key points in the body where your thoughts tend to reside.
And just by being aware of them,
Actively releasing them.
So feeling the forehead get a little bit wider,
A little bit taller.
Feeling the corners of your eyes separate slightly just by releasing them.
And just by being aware of them,
Actively releasing them.
Feeling the corners of your eyes separate slightly just by relaxing all of these muscles.
And feel your jaw just hang into place.
Feel your lips relax.
And feel all of the muscles in the face,
Including the ears,
Including the hairline,
And the scalp.
So I guess all the muscles in the head.
Feel all of them just start to separate slightly from the bones,
Un-gripping from their rigid positions.
So that any expression that was on the face just melts away with the tension.
Even if just for a moment finding that sense of pure stillness.
And allowing that to continue to sink down the body,
Down the neck.
And as you come into the chest,
Feeling it spread across your shoulders and collarbones.
And as it does that,
Your collarbones start to broaden and your heart begins to come forward.
Feeling a sense of pride across the heart center,
The heart leading the body,
And not hiding behind the shoulders or inside the chest.
And letting all the muscles of your arms be heavy,
Relaxed.
All the muscles in the hands.
And just letting the weight of the hands and the arms continue to grow that space between the shoulders and the ears.
Grow the sides of your neck,
The back of your neck.
Let you feel the crown of your head reaching in the opposite direction as your heart.
So encouraging the length between your heart through your neck,
Through your brain stem,
Into the brain,
And through the top of the skull.
Really just clearing and elongating and opening the path between your heart and your brain.
Noticing how your breath is doing.
Noticing how the muscles in your face are doing,
The hands.
As you continue to let this softness spread down into the lungs and the rib cage.
So that the ribs are just resting,
Protecting,
Almost hugging your lungs.
Feeling that gentle expansion on the fronts,
Backs,
And sides of the body with each breath in.
And letting that softness and stillness sink its way into your stomach.
All the muscles in your lower back that wrap around to your abdomen.
So that all the muscles in your trunk are almost like hugging your organs,
Resting lovingly on the organs in your stomach.
Feeling that protection,
Feeling that support of your muscles and your bones and your blood,
Just all the contents of your body that is keeping everything within you.
And that barrier between your insides and the outside.
And then just keep letting that feeling sink down as you come into the lower belly.
As you come into the hips,
The pelvic region,
The pelvic floor,
The glutes.
And just feeling this whole sacred and soft area.
Sacred,
Soft,
And strong at the same time.
And just actively communicating to your pelvic region that it is safe to relax.
And maybe your way of doing this is just by thinking about this area.
Sometimes relaxing the muscles and softening the areas in our body is as simple as thinking about it.
Or maybe just repeating the name of the body part over and over in our own minds until we can feel that connection.
Because it is your body.
Of course you can tune into whatever body part you want to.
Just a matter of remembering that power that you have.
And then actively releasing,
Decompressing the thighs,
The knees,
The shins and the calves.
The soles of the feet and the toes.
And as your attention is on the soles of the feet,
You start to feel a sense of warmth radiating onto the soles of the feet.
No matter what position they're in.
Just feeling a warm light from the earth.
Just tuning into the actual core of the earth that is beneath the feet.
And just allowing that warmth to radiate up.
Just noticing that that warmth is radiating up.
And letting that sense of warmth grow to encompass the length of your legs.
And shine onto your root chakra at the very base of your spine.
In between the sit bones.
And almost seeing a sort of disc or a wheel that exists here.
Noticing what color it looks like to you.
Most commonly associated color with the root is a ruby red.
But I like to leave room for whatever colors you see in your mind's eye without trying to focus too hard on seeing a specific color for a specific chakra.
The word chakra is the Sanskrit word for wheel.
So each chakra is a wheel in our body.
An energetic center in our body.
And they rest in the center line of the body from the root right here at the base of the spine and go all the way up to the crown of the head.
So the idea is that the energy within your body sometimes can get stuck at certain wheels.
Sometimes the wheels will stop turning or turn slowly.
Or sometimes they'll turn too fast and be overactive.
So these chakra balancing or chakra restoring,
These chakra practices are about restoring that sense of balance to your energetic centers.
To getting the wheels to rotate at that perfect pace so that the energy can flow as it's meant to up and down your body.
So starting with our root.
And the feelings associated here is safety,
Security,
Our sense of groundedness and connection to the physical world,
To our home,
To our family,
Our friends,
Our physical earthly things.
And when this is out of balance,
We can feel things like insecurity or flightiness or a sense of being unsure in where we are or unsafe.
But even when those more negative terms associated with this center are present,
What we can do is remember that at the core of our roots,
At our core beings always,
No matter what we are feeling,
Is a sense of safety,
A sense of security and groundedness.
Connection to the earth.
And just trusting in that truth,
Even when we don't feel like it.
And that is the practice,
Showing up even when you don't feel like it.
And trusting in the practice.
So allowing or watching that energy from your root to start to make its way up into our next chakra,
The sacral.
And this is located in the lower belly in the area of the sacrum,
About two inches beneath the navel.
And as you tune in here,
First just notice what you feel.
Notice if maybe you can notice a slight pulsing sensation here.
Maybe feeling or starting to see whatever this chakra looks like in your body.
Maybe it looks like a wheel.
Maybe it looks like a disc.
Maybe it looks like something entirely different.
But when you are inquiring,
Let it be a true inquire.
Let it approach this from curiosity.
And really tuning into your sacral space.
And what is it that you see?
Become curious about what actually exists in your sacral space.
What feelings start to arise,
If any.
What things do you start to see in your mind's eye,
Even with the eyes closed.
What does this physically feel like?
The color often associated here is orange.
And this is our goddess energy.
This is our home of creativity,
Of pleasure,
Of joy.
This is a place where we are innately creative.
Innately feel worthy of the pleasure that we receive.
Feeling worthy of receiving great things in life.
And when this is out of balance,
We can feel things like,
Oh I'm not creative,
Or I don't have time to have fun.
Certain things like that,
Or not keeping up with the things that make you happy,
Your hobbies.
These are all very simple things to start to add back into our life.
And just noticing that the things that we want in our life is that first step.
Sometimes we can just be moving through life without much thought.
And then all of a sudden realize that we're not happy where we are.
Just by adding those little sparks of joy,
Those little creative moments throughout your day,
Where you remember that you are a clever person,
That you are fun.
And maybe having to think all the way back to childhood to invoke those feelings and memory,
And that's okay.
Starting wherever you need to.
Meeting yourself wherever you are at.
So allowing the energy from the sacral space to rotate with those innate feelings that are the base of your sacral space,
To be in charge right now.
Your creativity to be awakened,
Your pleasure and joy to come back in front.
And then letting that travel up into the solar plexus,
Just above the navel,
In the stomach center,
The gut brain center.
Noticing what you see here as we begin to tune in.
Noticing what you feel here,
Noticing the thoughts that come up,
If any.
And not forgetting about our root and sacral,
Even as we focus here.
Feeling this true connection of all the energy centers and that true purpose of how opening one energy center allows that energy to travel to the next one.
And therefore let that one open.
So that's what we're doing.
Going up the body almost like a river with different checkpoints.
And the stomach or the solar plexus is associated with yellow.
This is our home of confidence,
Of self-worth,
Of trust in ourselves.
Those gut feelings and how often we listen to them or ignore them and continue to push them down.
This really is our trust in ourselves and how much we like ourselves and how critical we are about ourselves.
Though me personally,
I've struggled a lot with the solar plexus in the past.
And continue to do so in my own ways.
Being very honest,
Again meeting yourself where you're at with your starting point today.
Knowing that each day,
Each moment is a new starting point.
Meeting yourself where you're at today.
And confidence is one of those things where one day we feel it and don't really know why and it just feels great.
And the next day we don't feel it and don't really know why and it doesn't feel great.
And just kind of letting it come and go.
But in order to keep that sense with us as much as we can,
As much as we're meant to,
We have to nurture that love for ourselves.
If you have a relationship with any other person,
Any other soul,
Any other animal,
You don't expect to just have all of that love from the beginning.
It really requires attention,
Nurture and care.
So why would that be any different when it comes to ourselves?
It's not.
So,
Speaking these messages of love into us.
Reminding ourselves that we are worthy of great things.
Even in those days and those moments where we really don't feel like it.
And that feels like a complete lie to say.
And one thing that's helpful instead of continually saying like,
I am worthy,
I am worthy even when you don't feel worthy.
And just kind of feeling like you're a fraud or lying to yourself.
A better technique that a friend told me is to say instead,
Well what would I feel like or what do I feel like when I feel worthy?
Or what do I feel like when I feel confident,
When I feel happy?
And just remembering those feelings that already exist there.
Because it's so easy to think that the way we're feeling right now is how we have always felt and how we will always feel.
But it's never true.
The only constant is change.
So as long as we can remember moments of confidence,
Moments of worthiness,
And just doing that practice of self-love and reminding yourself of that truth.
And just letting all of that settle into your stomach,
Letting your stomach open and accept.
And watch all of that energy from your bottom three chakras.
Continue to float up as we come into our heart space,
Our transition chakra.
Where our physical meets the spiritual world.
Our bottom three are the worldly sensations and feelings.
And as we come into the heart,
We are where our physical body meets the heavens and the spirit world.
And just allowing those feelings,
Those core feelings of safety,
Those core feelings of creativity and pleasure and of confidence and self-love to float up,
Letting all of those feelings spread naturally through the chakras and into your heart center now.
And this is our home of love.
This is our home of compassion,
Of gratitude,
Of light,
Our soul.
And the colors here,
I've heard emerald green,
I've heard some people even say pink.
So it's whatever your inner vision is taking on.
Or if one of those sounds really good and you want to imagine an emerald green light in your heart,
You can do that.
Just allowing for whatever your body wants to do,
Whatever your body is already doing to just happen.
And just starting to tune into that unique rhythm of your own heartbeat.
Really hearing the sound of your heart chakra,
Feeling the rhythm of your heart.
And just remembering that underneath all heartbreak,
Underneath all pain,
Underneath all suffering,
Rejection,
Isolation,
Underneath all the pains of life that can really take a toll on our hearts.
And just remembering that that infinite source,
The infinite well of love is there.
It's inside of you.
It's in your heart.
And no amount of pain and suffering can take that away.
In fact,
The more pain and suffering,
The more we are reminded that we have this power,
That we have this infinite source of love.
Remembering that there's no need or use for you to go out into the world and try to find love.
There's no use in you trying to create more love or earn love from anyone,
Even from yourself.
Because all of the love is already there.
So when we do go out into the world and try to seek love or earn love,
What that communicates to spirit,
To the heavens,
To the world around us is that we don't have enough.
It means that we approach life from a lack standpoint.
We don't have enough love.
Or we don't think we do.
And that is just a mistake.
That's all that is.
It's just forgetting.
So the good news is you can remember whenever you want that you already have all of that inside of you.
And framing it instead as going out and doing things from the love that you already have.
There's no need for you to get more.
Using that love,
Using that pure energy inside of you to do the things in your life,
To get yourself up out of bed starting there,
To cook your food,
To communicate with yourself,
To communicate with others,
To care for plants,
To care for animals.
Whatever it is that you do in your daily life,
Letting that come from this source that is in your heart.
And trusting that that source is there even when you don't feel it.
And just allowing all of these feelings from the bottom four chakras,
The core feelings of love,
Support,
Safety,
Creativity,
Worthiness,
Confidence,
To just keep spreading up the body and come into your throat center.
Our fifth chakra located right at the center of your throat and this is our home of communication.
So speaking as well as listening.
Knowing that listening is the most important part of communicating.
And that starts with listening inward,
Listening to ourselves.
And even listening to those wildly out there thoughts and those maybe sometimes darker thoughts just so that we can keep inventory of what is present inside of us.
Sometimes if we have a scary thought that comes up or something about us that we don't really like,
We can,
It can pop up for a second when it's triggered by some interaction.
And then as soon as it comes up,
We push it back down like no,
No,
No.
Don't want to look at that.
And what that can do is just allow that thought to echo even louder inside of us and just quietly play in the background of everything.
Until we acknowledge it and acknowledging does not have to mean accepting.
You don't have to,
I guess accepting does not have to mean that you are okay with it or that you're going to allow that to guide any of your actions at all.
You are not your thoughts.
Your thoughts are something separate from you.
Your actions is who you are.
The words that you speak into the world is who you are,
Not the thoughts that are echoing in your mind.
So just by acknowledging the thoughts that are echoing in our mind,
We can become selective and choose which thoughts we would like to control our actions.
It's just like cleaning out your photo album on your phone or cleaning out your desktop on your computer.
Taking inventory of what is present so that you can choose what you want to focus on.
So knowing that at the core of your throat,
At the core of this chakra is honesty,
Is truthfulness.
And the color associated here is a blue,
But of course just leaving room for what you see and noticing what you feel.
Noticing maybe if you're a little bit closed here and maybe not speaking your truth.
When this is out of balance,
We can feel shut down.
Like what we have to say doesn't matter.
Nobody cares what our opinions are,
What our view is.
And we just kind of rest inside of ourselves.
We just know that when you feel an urge to speak,
When you have ideas and thoughts that come to your mind that you believe at first at least needs to be said or explored further or shared.
Just learning to trust those instincts because your thoughts aren't always meant for you.
And sometimes what you have to say is exactly what someone else needs to hear in order to get out of whatever space they're in.
So I think when we feel that sense of being inside ourselves,
At least for myself,
I think it can come from almost being too self-absorbed and thinking about myself too much.
Where I forget that it's not about me and that my words,
My thoughts aren't meant for me at all times.
Often they are,
But often they're not only meant for me.
And that's the same for you.
That's the same for everyone.
Just letting yourself be open to that idea that your words have power and that they have the power to heal and to send love and important meaningful life messages to other people.
No matter what form that takes,
Even if it's just in jokes or song.
So letting all of this,
These positive core feelings from the bottom five chakras to continue to come now into the third eye center,
The space between the eyebrows,
At the forehead.
And this is our intuition hub.
Color associated here is often indigo,
Dark,
A dark deep blue purple color,
But leave room for what you see.
And feel again that energy radiating starting from your root chakra and coming up through the sacral,
Through the solar,
Through the heart,
Through the throat,
And therefore into the third eye.
Feeling the forehead expanding,
Feeling the face and the shoulder softening.
We hear a lot of talk about opening our third eye.
These days,
But there's no real use in opening the third eye until we can turn that third eye inward.
There's no use in seeing the world around us clearly if we don't first see ourselves clearly.
So,
Maybe even visualizing an eye right there at the space between the eyebrows and letting that I roll back and look into your mind look into your body into your soul.
See what is here.
See this trail of open energy that you've created already from the roots to the third eye.
See that you can trust yourself on a deep and cellular level you can trust yourself.
You do trust yourself.
It's just a matter of remembering that you trust yourself.
Seeing all of your core feelings,
The core of who you are clearly,
Openly,
With compassion,
With gratitude.
Becoming curious about what forces it that even allows you to feel these things,
That allows you to see yourself,
That allows you to speak and to be honest,
To know what honesty is.
To feel love,
To feel compassion,
To feel gratitude,
To feel confidence.
What force allows you to feel creativity?
What force allows you to feel safety?
Just seeing clearly and remembering that that is not any of your doing.
That these are all pure gifts of life.
There is nothing in particular that we did to deserve any of this.
It is just a pure gift.
Remembering the miracle of that,
The miracle it is that your ears work and that you can hear these words I'm saying.
Remembering the miracle it is that your eyes take in whatever amount of light they take in.
That your nose can smell,
Hopefully,
If that was not affected.
That you can taste,
Hopefully.
And even if you can't,
Remembering that those times when you can and that you have experienced that.
That your skin can feel.
And just seeing the true self of who you are.
This magical mixture of organs and tissues and blood and energy and bones.
Just reminding yourself how crazy it is that you are here.
And looking at yourself with that awe and curiosity and inspiration.
And then therefore,
Feeling that third eye start to roll forward and seeing the world around you in that same light.
How crazy is it that there are trees growing from the earth,
Reaching up to the heavens the same way that our body does.
We are connected down to the earth as well as reaching,
Constantly striving and lifting toward the sky,
Toward the heavens.
Just like the trees,
Just like the flowers.
Remembering how magical the air is.
The particles in the air,
The sounds that you hear,
The roof that's over your head.
And just seeing everything around you in this new light of gratitude,
Of awe and inspiration.
Finally letting all of these core energies come up to our final chakra,
Our crown at the very tip of your head,
Highest point in the body,
The tips of the branches,
Reaching up toward the light.
And finally feeling a pulsing sensation of the highest point in your body.
Feeling that connection to the rest of your chakras,
The root,
The sacral,
The solar plexus,
The heart,
The throat,
The third eye and the crown.
Here is our connection to source,
Our connection to spirit,
Our connection to everyone we have ever loved and everyone who has ever loved us.
Our connection to our ancestors,
To our spirit guides and angels,
Whatever word you may have for that.
And with the rest of your energy centers open and feeding into each other,
Feeling yourself fully aligned on all realms of existence.
Feeling yourself able to see the love that's around you clearly.
Letting yourself feel almost like this hug from the air around you,
From the light that's around you.
Knowing that all of the love that we've ever felt,
All the people we've ever loved,
All that energy is stored within the light that's around us.
Nobody ever truly leaves us if we've truly loved them.
That love is always there.
That is the only thing that is real.
That is the only thing that really exists is that sense of love.
Just letting all of this love be funneled into the crown.
Letting your body accept all of these messages and feel them resonate on a deep cellular level.
Your cells vibrating with this resonance,
This truth of love in these messages.
And feel and maybe see even all of your energy centers lit up and aligned with light,
With compassion,
With gratitude.
Aligned with love.
And just remind yourself of this practice.
Remind yourself you have the power to come into this place whenever you choose to.
All of these reminders are already known to you and if they resonate that is why.
It's because you've already had the thought,
You've already had these feelings,
You already know this truth.
So then when you hear someone else say a truth you already know,
That is that resonance.
So letting yourself accept these truths,
Or accept the truths that resonate with you and maybe ponder what might not resonate right now.
Start to take a conscious deep breath in.
Start to call more air into your body and feel that air enter seamlessly and expand yourself a little bit more.
Let go of anything you don't need,
Maybe with a big sigh.
If it feels natural for you to do so you can bring your hands to a prayer position at heart center or if it feels like something you want to try.
And breathe into the hands,
Breathe into the palms of the hands,
Breathe into your heart center.
Just feel all of that power here.
Feel that pulsing of your heart,
Feel the pulsing of the palms.
And at any point you can just gently bow your head to your beating heart,
To your pulsing palms,
To your highest self for being here,
For being present.
To the source that created you,
The source that gives you love,
To your ancestors,
To your spirits,
To all that surround,
Guide and support you.
Bowing to everyone else in this space for showing up.
And finally once again deeply bowing to yourself for showing up,
Taking the time and being here,
Being open.
May this practice continue to heal you through the rest of your days and nights.
And may you bring this love into everything that you do and to everyone that you see.
Namaste.
