My journey into the world of podcasting continues with episode 88of Steve Silverman’s “World Gone Good” podcast. I had a wonderful time chatting with Steve about healing, writing, reiki, yoga, and following your joy. Some of the highlights include our Jodie Foster stories, how we healed our stomach aliments through mindfulness, and how we channel our inner truth through writing.
It was a genuine honor and pleasure being on “World Gone Good.” If you have thirty minutes to listen to episode 88, you can find it here. Better yet, start following Steve’s awesome podcast!
For many of us, traveling evokes feelings that range from excitement to dread. Some of us don’t like to fly. Others have trouble adjusting to new time zones and dietary delights. When we travel, we often do a good job of checking off our lists of “what to bring,” and “what to do,” but we’re not always great at ensuring we keep our energy as balanced and healthy as possible.
Since everything is, in essence, energy, including our bodies, it behooves us to do what we can to keep it flowing on the right pathways and in as much harmony as possible. As an energy healer and EMYoga teacher, I incorporate many of these simple tricks and tips into my classes and teachings. They can be great tools to take along with your travels:
Spoon Your Feet: I learned this one in my EMYoga training. It’s simple and effective, and it works wonders. Take a stainless steel spoon and rub the rounded part of it in circular motions, or figure eights, on the bottoms of our bare feet. The magnetic property of the spoon will help balance your body’s polarity, as well as calm your nervous system. It’s a great way to both start and end your busy travel days and can help you sleep better.
Energy Shields: Our bodies are complex networks of energy systems, one of which is our auric field. This energy field can extend about six feet out from our physical bodies. It is in constant communication with the energy around us. Therefore, it only makes sense to keep it protected. A simple visualization of an energy bubble around your body can help keep your aura vibrant. I like to use either gold, white, blue or a mixture of all the colors in the rainbow to wrap around my body.
Weave Your Eights: This ties into the first two techniques I’ve mentioned. Donna Eden, the creator of Eden Energy Medicine, often talks about how our energy bodies use the repetitive pattern of the double helix (down to the level of our DNA and as large as our auric field). We use this weaving of figure eights a lot in EMYoga, which is based on Donna’s teachings. One way to incorporate the pattern into your energy body is to use the spoon technique on the feet mentioned above, but you can also use your arms to weave figure eights around your body, or simply visualize your energy body weaving together in this pattern.
Hook Up Your Energy: Another favorite of Donna Eden’s, hooking up your central and governing meridians will give your energy a nice boost when you are feeling depleted. Simply put the middle finger of one hand in your belly button and the middle finger of the other hand in the space between your eye brows. Gently press them in and pull up for three cycles of breath (ideally in the nose and out the mouth). Here’s a fun video of Donna demonstrating this technique during a workshop.
Calm the Nerves: There are so many great techniques to calm your nervous system. My favorites were learned during my EMYoga training through Lauren Walker, who trained under Donna Eden. All of them involved calming your Triple Warmer energy system, which is associated with your fight-flight-freeze response (among many other things). When we are nervous, we can calm Triple Warmer by wrapping one hand around the opposite elbow, and the other hand in a self-hug around our opposite low ribs. It’s an easy technique to use on a plane, train, etc. without drawing unwanted attention to your self.
If you are interested in learning about EMYoga, as well as simple techniques you can incorporate into your daily life to strengthen, balance, and cleanse your energy body, I will be teaching a Spring Equinox EMYoga workshop at Sharing Yoga in Concord, NH on March 20 from 1-2:30pm EST. The workshop is also being offered via Zoom. To learn more about the workshop, and my weekly Zoom EMYoga classes, please visit my website.
There is a pattern developing in my yoga classes and it centers in the place of the lungs and heart. In the practice of EMYoga (energy medicine yoga), which was created by Lauren Walker based upon the work of Donna Eden, the body is viewed through the lens of the five elements of ancient Chinese medicine. The elements, which correspond with the seasons, can be viewed as a circle, but also a star. I like the symbolism of both. The star within the wheel.
Water reveals winter’s deceptive stasis. Photo credit: Pixabay
Arising out of the element of water, where life is birthed into being, the energy body (for this post’s purpose, the term energy body includes the entire body: physical, emotional and spiritual) is encouraged to move out of the stagnation of fear into the courage of potential. In the watery world of potential, everything is possible as creation stirs into being.
The wood element takes over in spring, bursting potential into growth. Photo credit: Pixabay
Winter’s hidden growth emerges in the springtime, the element of wood, breaking ground in the cycle of rebirth. The energy body can become restless in the element of wood. Angry, even, when growth is not happening fast enough, or not in the way the mind wants it to. Here, the sometimes frenetic energy of springtime can be tempered, like all energy, through the compassion of the heart. Aggression then becomes assertive action as the energy body learns to harness the force of spring for positive action.
Too much fire can wither life. Photo credit: Pixabay
Spring weaves into the energy of summer, where the heat of the sun burns the fires of creation. Too much fire leads to anxiety, as the energy body seeks to dance and move itself in a thousand different ways. An excess of fire leads to burn-out, and so the flames seek also the tempering of the heart of reason and compassion, moving the creative force into the energy of inspiration.
The phase of balance (equinox) or excess (solstice). Photo credit: Pixabay
As summer wanes, the energy body begins to turn inward to the self, seeking reunion with the inner child who represents the true, joy-filled self. It is the time of transition, where the outer begins to move inward again. The element is Earth, residing in the in-between times of the equinox and solstices. Those with an abundance of Earth energy tend to neglect their inner child in favor of excessive giving to others (summer solstice), depleting the self of sunshine (winter solstice). The energy body seeks balance (equinoxes), urging the turning inward to reconnect with and tend to the inner flame. It’s not always easy to do for those who tend to reside within the element of Earth.
An autumn leaf on the verge of letting go opened to the heart. Photo credit: Pixabay
It takes trust, and letting go, and so we move into the final element on the wheel, and the last point on the five-pointed star, which resides in the “season” of autumn. In the northern hemisphere we are in the middle of fall, so it is fitting that my classes seem to keep finding their way to this seasonal elemental focus. Due to the pandemic, though, loss has become universally poignant. Grief feels like a cloud surrounding us, and for some of us it is deeply infused into our energy bodies.
A scattered deck of Tarot with the Wheel of Fortune in the center. Photo credit: Pixabay
So how do we let go into faith and trust? How do we allow the wheel to keep turning to move back into the season of winter and the phase of infinite potential to bring forth new life? It is perhaps the biggest act of faith we can partake in. Surrendering to the unknown, and trusting in an inherent, yet often elusive-feeling of universal love that supports and surrounds us all, is no easy feat for someone who is immersed in the energy of grief. We, as humans, learn to cling to the tangible as we become accustomed to life in the body. We look for safety and security from the touch of others and the comforts of physical objects. When we lose these things, we often linger on the empty feeling of lose and our sense of security becomes threatened. The ancient Chinese medicine element associated with the season of fall is metal. In Tarot, the element is air, but it is often depicted through the metal symbol of the sword as a representation of this very mentally focused season/element.
It takes mental fortitude and a mighty hand to form the sword, as well as to make the choice to use it of to lay it down in surrender. There are two forms of surrender. Defeat and trust. With trust, as we see in the Ace of Swords, the mental energy of the metal/air element gives way its hold to a higher power. Piercing the crown that sits atop the head, it breaks open the energy of the 7th chakra/ or crown chakra, to open to the wisdom of the divine. It is the ultimate surrender of faith. The mind relinquishes its hold on control and trusts that there is a universal plan that arises from the energy of love. A challenge when one suffers profound loss, yet this trust comes with a knowing that death is a natural part of the cycle of life and this season of loss will move, once again, into the infinite potential of creation.
The Light Behind the Story 