Next week, the focus for our practice will be on healing and balancing the heart chakra – Anahata, meaning unhurt, unstruck, and unbeaten – which rests in the centre of the chest. This chakra is considered to be the centre of the chakra system and the gateway between the three lower physical chakras and the three higher spiritual chakras. It is the seat of emotional consciousness and it relates to the element of air which is all around us, and in us within our breath.

The… air element of Anahata feeds the flames of the manipura fire chakra, giving us the power to love unconditionally and care for everything on our planet. Its physical location is the heart, upper chest and upper back. The heart chakra directly affects the heart, lungs, chest, arms, and hands, and physical symptoms of a lack of heart chakra energy can include shallow breathing, asthma, and other lung diseases, poor circulation, low blood pressure and some heart conditions, whilst too much energy can manifest as high blood pressure or heart disease.

Healthy heart chakra energy allows us to open up to, and connect with, harmony and peace. The quality and power of love in our life is directly reflected in the health of our heart centre. When our heart chakra energy is healthy, we feel surrounded by love, compassion, and joy and we are connected to the world around us. A deficiency of energy in the heart chakra may manifest emotionally as feelings of shyness and loneliness and we may struggle with forgiveness and empathy.

Mentally, an imbalanced heart chakra can result in feelings of unworthiness or an inability to trust ourselves or others. An over-powerful heart chakra can manifest as co-dependence, manipulative behaviours, possessiveness and jealousy.

Pranayama (breath-energy) practices, help to balance this chakra. Working with the breath increases our capacity for prana and air, along with our vitality and enthusiasm. If we hold our Selves with our head forward, shoulders rounded and chest collapsed, our head is leading our heart which can lead us to become overly focused on thought, and less in touch with our emotions and our body. Anahata chakra redresses this balance. So draw the shoulders back, expand across the chest, lengthen the neck and lift the head to feel more “heart-centred” and invite in all the beautiful qualities of Anahata, whose natural, feminine quality is to release and let go. The most powerful way to open, energise and balance the heart chakra is to love ourselves and others. Let love heal.

Intentions for Anahata practice might be: To offer and receive love with ease; cultivating compassion, allowing happiness in; releasing the fear of getting hurt; letting go of old heartache; cultivating humility; becoming less possessive; to to surrender and let go.

I look forward to exploring this beautiful chakra together, throughout our practice next week.

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti (peace, peace, peace).

Our shared intention for last week was to cleanse, energise and heal our Manipura (solar plexus) chakra. One of our practices was a pranayama called Kapalabhati, which is usually translated as Shining Skull Breath.

Yesterday, I finished reading a book called “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor, and it completely bowled me over. Jill (a neuroanatomist who suffered a severe stroke) talks about the differences between the left and right hemispheres of our brains, and what really astounded me was how she described “living in” the right side of her brain after her stroke. Words like “utopia” and “nirvana”, and expressions like being “at one with the universe” and “being i…n the present moment” … does that sound familiar! Her book has inspired me to research into, and find out more about, our incredible right hemispheres and, to spend more time in them … heaven/paradise/nirvana/ utopia on earth!

This term, our practice appears to be evolving around the part of our human experience that we label as our emotions.  Week one saw us looking at opening and creating space through a gentle yin practice.  Week two has seen us more actively pursuing the intention of releasing and letting go through a stronger yang practice.  As we open and release, we create space for new things to come in.  Our yoga practice always encourages us to let go of the stuff that no longer serves us in order to create space for that which we need right now, for our continued development.

Our emotions stem from our energetic self.  They begin with a feeling, which is then given an emotional label by the mind.  Yoga teaches us not to become that emotion.  We talk about becoming angry, upset or excited for example, and yet we are not really that emotion, we are simply experiencing it and from that experience there may be one of several outcomes:  we may experience change, or no change, we may avoid the emotion or push it away, or we may simply experience it and then let it go.

Yoga teaches us that we are not our emotions. That they are a means with which and by which we relate to others.  They come from the mental level of being (manomaya kosha) and, as such, they are within the control of our mind.  Our mind, however operates largely on a sub-conscious level, which means that we are not always fully aware of how it is dealing with our emotions.  We may try to think our way through/around/past emotions.  We may try to subjugate them by burying them and promising ourselves that when we have more time we will re-visit them and deal with them, or we may allow them to rein out of control and become completely caught up in them.

Yoga teaches us to simply witness our emotions.  When we can witness an emotion, we can be fully present in that emotion, without the mind taking over and making up stories around that emotion.  When we witness, we are observing through our being, rather than through our mind. Through witnessing or observing we can see it for what it is: an experience, that is separate from our Self and not a part of our Self.  We can be aware of the emotion without judging it or labelling it ‘good’ or ‘bad’, which allows us to experience it without the filter of our past experiences, thoughts and beliefs. If we are able to remain non-attached in this way, we have a mechanism to feel without being controlled by that feeling, to experience without the feeling becoming the whole experience.

This article was inspired by an article from yogi Matthew Sweeney.  To read the article go to: https://www.yogatemple.com/subtle-body

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti (Peace, Peace, Peace)

This message is for all of my students who are currently practising with me:

On Sunday I injured my foot and cannot put weight on it, or drive, so unfortunately all classes this week are cancelled. I am really hopeful that I should be back to teaching by next week, and will update everybody nearer the time via facebook, my website and email.

I am sorry that you have to miss your class(es).

The good news about damaging a foot is that it is still possible to practice most seated and lying postures, meditation, relaxation and restorative postures!

Yoga is often described as both an art and a science and I would agree. The link below goes some way to explaining what is meant by that statement.  If you are a yogi, or thinking about becoming one then you this will be of interest to you.

Yoga is a transformative practice and this film will tell you how and why that is: http://upliftconnect.com/watch-science-behind-yoga/

Enjoy!