yoga – Page 2 – Swellness Vibes

Form & Flow: Week 2

I did Wheel! I did Wheel! Okay, I did a forearm wheel, but I don’t think I’ve remotely done any pose like this since I was a child. It wasn’t easy to do, and I wasn’t able to comfortably push myself up to the heavens, but I still was strong enough to even try it. And terribly nervous about coming out of it, of course, but hey, nervous, that’s me.

This week’s training by Communiversity has been fun to feel in my body. I don’t know how else to explain it. We did a ton of stretching and isolating various muscles and bony movement. As a licensed massage therapist, I couldn’t help but relate this physiology to my bodywork practice. Every stretch, every wrapping of a yoga belt, I thought how I needed to share these stretches and methods with my clients.

Simple pec stretch against the wall? Sure.

How about the amazing hip opening class of where I felt so at ease with my opened center, I could literally feel a creative energy flow through me? (Nothing specific, as it were. Just a general feeling of comfort in that area that I’m not used to feeling.)

Or how about the simple suggestion of first moving with the left side of your body when practicing? I think that suggestion is brilliant and I will definitely incorporate it.

Most people are right-handed, right, and therefore right-sided strong. The right side of the body speaks to masculinity, and as we build up our right sides of our body by over and misuse, the left sides of our bodies tend to go unnoticed. (Especially me–I am so right-side dominant, it’s ridiculous.)

You can do many things to strengthen the divine feminine within yourself, and one of these ways is through focusing on your left-side body. The side your start on in class is typically the side that you spend the most time focusing on as you feel into your body. This is set up so that by the time you get to your second side, you don’t need as much instruction. Ergo, the first side you use gets more love!

What a great trick to honor that part of your body and therefore mind.

I also learned that this is the first course Commune has offered like this, so I think it’s pretty cool that I’ve gotten into this from the ground up! There are many people who have joined the training with me, and the community of where we all interact with one another is also enlightening and supportive.

Week 3 includes pranayama, so I’m excited to see where it breathes some life into me. Heh heh, see what I did there?

Form & Flow

Maybe it’s the endorphins from having an actual decent run; maybe it’s the fact that my husband is thinking my changed breathing while running is a positive thing (and I’m likening it to all of my pranayama practice — maybe I’m less hyperventilate-y now); or maybe I just love Schuyler Grant’s wisdom.

I had planned to create posts about my personal experiences exploring chakras, but because I’ve become immersed in Schuyler Grant’s Form & Flow yoga training, I’m going to be spending time exploring the training instead.

I’ve just completed week one and it was ahhh-mazing. I love her style. With the focusing on alignment, it’s creating strength within–and get this–optimism, for once–in each pose. We did Sun Salutation A & B this week, as well as the Moon Salutation. For good measure, the end of the week ended up breathing to a certain tempo within music as we flowed in asanas…

The training is five weeks long, and the beauty of it is that when it’s over, you still have access to go back and revisit the training, which I have no doubt that I will do.

Color Therapy 101: Violet

We have arrived at our last color for this series, and also the final, main chakra: the crown. It’s also the color my son has designated as my favorite color, which I find extremely interesting. My mainstays as a kid were blues and blacks. (I went through that normal dark, hormonal phase as a kid, right?) But as I got older, I still loved black (absorption of all!) and blue (it matches my eyes, after all). And then as I started to be more comfortable around other colors, I just decided that the whole damn rainbow was my favorite color!

When I was 20 years old, I sojourned to Salem, Massachusetts in October with my mother. It was a fun, festive trip, and I got my aura photographed through kirlian technology. The read-out suggested that the colors surrounding me proved I was a creative hot head; a tightly orange and red circle formed around my head. It also said the creativity color could eventually change to nice, calming green. So when I got my aura photographed about 10 years later, it wasn’t surprising to find out that it was still orange and red. However, my son sees me, at least partially, as violet, so perhaps the calming green is still achievable!

I digress.

Violet is a soothing color. (It’s also the name of the lead character in my upcoming novel, The Light Thrower: When Violet Got Bored! I’m not biased at all.) It has the highest frequency and the lowest wavelength on the visible spectrum. On Kheops International’s chakra handout, it states that if your crown chakra is overactive, you may find that you have a lack of empathy, light sensitivity, rigidity or general distrust of others. If it’s underactive, you may find that you have a lack of purpose, or even coordination problems. When it is balanced, you feel serene and connected to the Universe.

According to Whole Living Wellness Center based out of California, violet light therapy is good for affecting the immune system and therefore comforts those with autoimmune dis-eases. It detoxifies and improves sleep.

Of course you can adorn your body in purple clothes, your house in purple cloth, or surround yourself with the ever-populous amethyst crystal. David Hamilton says that amethyst itself is said to help tap into intuition and authenticity.

My favorite yoga pose to help wake up the crown chakra is rabbit stand. It’s generally safe to do as long as you are careful with your neck, and as it puts pressure on the top of your head, its physical nature directly stimulates the chakra. It’s also a good stretch!

This post ends our color/light therapy series. We’ve spent half a year exploring various chakras and color frequencies. We’ve discussed what aversions to certain colors may mean, and different ways to incorporate each color more into your life. We’ve talked about color therapies available, and what each color may help us attain.

These colors and light therapies are tools to add to your self-healing belt!

Wherever you find yourself today, I hope it’s enriched by one of the many amazing colors on the visible spectrum. I hope they bring you joy, or soothing energy, or maybe even some healing energy to your soul or physical body. Above all, enjoy your journey exploring the richness these hues can offer you. ❤️

Month One, Year 2022–That’s a Wrap!

Edit: This post was supposed to go out over the weekend after a successful completion of YWA’s Move. Well, the Universe had other plans for me… Thursday night I came down with a flu of some sort. I didn’t do yoga for Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights! Sunday I did a previous night’s one to try and just..MOVE..a bit. It felt good. I did the final session last night–so I could control what poses to put my body into–and I plan on doing the rest of the sessions starting tonight. Point to take home: be kind to yourself, always. I didn’t beat myself up at all, and I feel like that’s major progress. That’s yoga, baby!
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About a week ago, I finished Schuyler Grant’s 10-Day Grounding into Grace program. I fell in love with this program so much, I’m looking into doing some actual online training with her through Commune. I loved how she used time to get into good form before focusing on the flowing. It was very challenging to do (I am not particularly skilled at achieving great form with asanas–I’m not inherently flexible and I have a tendency of freezing when someone is leading me into something I’m unfamiliar with) but I was able to follow along because of the repetition and really feeling the form in my body. Grant’s new program is called Form & Flow, and it focuses on Iyengar-type alignment; but also the flow within the form. This is my favorite space to be. I hope I can do it!

I would start my evenings with the harder program, and end it, happily so, with Adriene’s sessions. It seemed like the first half of her program this year was more aerobic-based; holding poses; building strength (specifically core); but the second part was much more focused on breath and relaxing. And after my Grant sessions, I welcomed these Adriene sessions.

I am happy to be near the end of this last January program–just because I’m tired of feeling like I “have” to do something. However, I am also proud of myself for sticking with it!

If I take Grant’s program, I’m sure I’ll blog about it. And no doubt I’ll be signing up for YWA’s 30-day program next year. I think you should, too. ❤

Mid-Month Update on Becoming Fabulous

And that’s a half-way wrap!

Kudos to me for sticking with not only YWA’s January Challenge, but also finishing Donna Eden’s 10-Day Joy Challenge and starting Commune’s 10-Day Grounding into Grace.

It hasn’t always been easy, but since I was dedicated in advance, and this isn’t my first time subjecting myself to these challenges, I’ve been able to keep up. (Note: I said subjecting myself!)

I’ll start with Donna Eden’s challenge, because last year I bombed it! 2021’s was actually a 28-day challenge, and, like everyone else, commitment is a daunting task to achieve. This year’s 10-day challenge made it seem much more attainable. I tended to do it before I started with my nightly yoga, or after my yoga. I even suckered my husband into doing it–which trust me, it’s a big deal, because not only has he started-stopped so many of his own challenges (planks, anyone?), he’s never even pretended to join in with me before for my challenges.

But this one was appealing to him–and maybe because it has been such a stressful time at work–but he jumped in a couple of times when I was doing it, he did it on his on at work, and he doubled up on the days he missed. I asked him if he felt like it kept with him throughout his day, and he said yes.

As I mostly did mine at night, I can’t say it kept me joyful during the day, but it certainly settled me down in the evening. I even did it on my own tonight, even though the challenge ended. My husband and I both really enjoyed the different perspectives from the different teachers. He asked if it was something I’d like to be certified in (the Eden Method, that is), and I just laughed–I’m done getting certified in new things! (Right? Right???)

Onward to Adriene’s annual yoga challenge, this year called MOVE. So far I’ve been able to depend on Adriene’s gentle, soothing voice to guide me into whatever yoga position she’s cueing, but this year it seems like she’s pushing our asanas (heh heh) harder! I wouldn’t necessarily say the moves are more aerobic, but it seems to be a little less traditional posing with a little more side-stretchy. I don’t typically ache after her sessions, but I’ve been sore since day one this go around. (This could also be because I got so out of routine in December. Maybe I’m just that out of shape again!) I’m enjoying this newer, other-side to Adriene approach. (Side note: I’m only comparing this to the other free yearly challenges I’ve done fo Adriene’s. The other one, my all-time favorite, Revolution, also seemed to kick my butt a bit more than the others.)

As soon as the Eden Challenge wrapped up, I jumped onto the Commune program. So far, this has been harder to commit to, just because of the duration of the yoga. (Adriene’s is also about 30 minutes). However, especially as a yoga instructor, it’s so entirely relevant to get different perspectives on how to share any aspect of yoga–pranayama, meditation, asanas. So far Schuyler Grant has really been whipping my mind into shape about how to approach asanas from the ground up. Yoga for my feet = yoga for my brain.

Comment on any of these you’re doing with me, or perhaps some other 2022 challenge that we here at Swellness Vibes haven’t heard about!

I’ll be sure to check in at the end of the month about my progress into the new year.