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Ajna, Alternative, Anuloma Pranayama, Bhastrika, chakra, doshas, health, heart, Manipura, meditation, Muladhara, over complication, Prana Dharana, pranayama, sanskrit, Vata
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I was recently led through a peaceful meditation by the chaplain at the eating disorder treatment hospital I’ve been at. She guided my breathing and invited me to spend time in the “space that I found opening within.” The space I usually visualize in most of my meditating is the Ajna Chakra.
After the meditation, I noted that I have always found it challenging to meditate at the navel, or the heart, or really, any of the Chakras associated with the body, below the neck.
For the last week or so, I’ve been practicing Prana Dharana as instructed (via audio instruction) by my 500 hour TT teacher, Tanya Boigenzahn-Sowards. We are using a variation on Anuloma Pranayama as a pre-curser to this practice. Both pranayama-meditations employ Bhastrika (bellows breath) and its variations, as well as focus and concentration on the navel center, the Manipura Chakra. The visualization portion is very challenging for me.
It occurred to me, after meditating with the chaplain, that the challenge I have with “body chakra” concentration could be directly related to eating disorder issues. I wonder if the proper meditation techniques could aid in identifying and even healing the disconnect between body, mind, and spirit that an eating disorder can both manifest from and cultivate?
The chaplain suggested I draw my focus to my base, my roots, what the yogi in me would call the Muladhara Chakra, using visualizations such as a deep earthy rust color, or a tree, growing roots into the earth and drawing the energy back up through the roots and up the spine or Chakra ladder.
As she offered her suggestions, my intellectual mind swirled into Chakra considerations and then into deliberations on the doshas, and how I could utilize or incorporate what I know of myself as dominantly and unbalanced Vata into this awareness. I shared my thoughts, but she stopped me shortly after I used the words “research” and “knowledge.”
“What would it be like to just be a tree?” she asked.
Yah.
I love me some Chakras, but maybe sometimes it is over complicating. Maybe all the “research” and the “knowledge” and tools and practices and Sanskrit and then“Chakras” serve less to clarify and more to convolute and confuse…
Sigh, I’m trying to return to my body by using my head. Everything has its place, and I’m feeling like maybe, right now, it would do me good to get back to my roots, and just be a tree.
What have you found yourself over-complicating? OR What is your favorite type of tree?
Stay deeply rooted while reaching for the sky
Be still long enough to
hear your own leaves rustling
This made me think about when those blackbirds migrate and there are hundreds in one tree. Can you imagine hangin out being a regular tree and then all of a sudden you are filled with birds!! Exhilarating!
Eva,
OMG I was thinking that too the other day! And also, I was remembering the big tree with the swing, how we would jump out of the crotch of the tree and swing all the way to the playhouse. Talk about exhilarating!
love you
What DON’T I complicate? Well, there are a few things, but I do tend to overthink certain issues and not think rationally enough about others (overthink food choices, but not give a second thought to engaging in certain behaviors, for example.) I also overthink what people think about me–whether it’s my writing or what I say–when in actuality, they’re usually thinking much more about themselves.
I have been much more mindful the past year though, which is much different than overthinking. Sometimes you just have to remember that things are simple. We complicate them.
Abby, I realized this morning how in tune this “simplicity” thing is with the book you sent me! I’ve been reading it every morning. Awesome.
I have a favorite tree, but it is not the tree I would want to be. I have to consider the (soft) maple. It is not as beautiful, as perfect or as strong as it’s cousin the (hard) maple.
Some might want to be an oak tree, but the fact is, if an oak tree’s roots are damaged, it will die.
The (soft) maple is vulnerable to the elements, but it is also resilient. Whether it suffers root damage, loss of limb from a storm or even gets cut down, it always comes back. It will send up small shoots from it’s base and grow into a new (renewed) tree.
I would want to be the tree that is able to (renew) itself.
Holy horticulture!
Thanks for commenting Sandy. I don’t know about birch trees, but I’ve always loved them. Weeping willows too.
Sounds like you are in good hands, Clare! (And this from an inveterate over-complicator!) It is so tempting to add another layer of “stuff” between me and God/me and mySelf, and as wonderfully useful and revitalizing as I have found chakra meditation, I do have to remind myself that it’s ultimately all about “leaning on the everlasting arms,” as the old gospel song goes. Glad you have good people around you to remind you, too!
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Thanks for this post. It is very enlightening and I may just be a tree later after the kids go to bed.