Daily meditations, mindfulness interviews, and other ways to make your life better.
Narcissism comes up a lot in my healing work. My client asked me to put together a lecture of strategies for healing from narcissism. Here is the live event from Insight Timer:
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Here’s how to get in touch with my guest Amy Jahn:Mutual AwakeningHere’s how to get in touch with me, your host: Morgan Balavage:Splendid YogaFacebookInstagramManage Your Money Yogically
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Here’s how to get in touch with my guest: Melissa Corter:Melissa CorterInstagramHere’s how to get in touch with me, your host: Morgan Balavage: Splendid YogaFacebookInstagramManage Your Money Yogically
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Join us here: www.facebook.com/groups/splendidyogaand here: www.facebook.com/morganbalavageyogaand here: www.instagram.com/splendid.yogaand here: www.splendid.yoga
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This one is to focus your eyes. Nice if you’re studying a bunch (hi, students!). Relaxing if your eyes are tired. This is a grounding, breathing exercise because you need to calm tf down. Try this one before your day begins.
Lay on your back, with your legs up the wall, if that’s comfortable for you. This is a grounding, breathing exercise because you need to calm tf down. Try this one before your day begins.
Ever take a trip into the future? Ever lose a night’s sleep wondering what’s going to happen? Ever flip out over all the terrifying, terrible things that might happen? Ever get so excited about something that’s going to happen that the reality of it is a letdown? I’ve got some news for you, friend: The future is none of your business. The infinitude of the present moment is your business. Here’s how to manage future-tripping thoughts: It used to be that, to practice yoga, you needed to be celibate. That means no sexual experiences of any kind, including self-pleasure. The idea is, sexuality is purely a form of humanity. To transcend sexuality, and therefore your humanity, is to attain enlightenment. That’s not always relevant in this day and age. Not all of us can be celibate; humanity would cease to exist. Nowadays, it’s interpreted a bit more loosely. So what does it mean to practice sexual purity? Take a listen:
The Yoga Sutras insist upon sexual purity, but its meaning has changed over the millennia. It used to be that, to practice yoga, you needed to be celibate. That means no sexual experiences of any kind, including self-pleasure. The idea is, sexuality is purely a form of humanity. To transcend sexuality, and therefore your humanity, is to attain enlightenment. That’s not always relevant in this day and age. Not all of us can be celibate; humanity would cease to exist. Nowadays, it’s interpreted a bit more loosely. So what does it mean to practice sexual purity? Take a listen:
This is a simple breathing meditation. Breathe in for 5. Hold for 6. Exhale for 7. Focus. These are long seconds. Nothing fancy. You’ve just gotta sit there and breathe. Let’s do it.
This is a simple breathing meditation. Just a few minutes to bring some sweet energy into your day. Nothing fancy. You’ve just gotta sit there and breathe. Let’s do it.
You'll want to be laying down for this one. Are you having a difficult time letting go of something, or someone, from your past? This will help. This is an energetic cord cutting for releasing your attachment to something that isn't serving you. It's nice to do all year round, but it's significant to do on new years of all cultures and full moons.
Y’all, Taylor Lancaster is one of my best friends and Buddhist and vegan mentors. Find him on insta @tenderliving He was awarded the congressional Medal of Honor for his protest against GMOs, traveled on his bike for 2 years, and just finished the PCT. He was also molested as a kid, raped, and beaten up for his queerness. He lives life on his own terms, which is why he inspires me. We chat in Maui about his sobriety, how that affects his queerness and his internalized homophobia, and whether any of this is real.
You can listen to this one doing whatever. We’re going to talk about the sutras.Here’s the translation I like: https://amzn.to/2M2PozfThe Yoga Sutras are instructions on how to become whole.Here’s what’s holding you back:IgnoranceSelfnessGraspingHere’s what to do about it:Live ethically (we’ll talk about how to do that soon)Practice meditationSeek wisdomLet’s do it.
Rumi was asked: What is poison? Anything beyond what we need is poison.It can be power, laziness, food, ego, ambition, vanity, fear, anger, or whatever. What is fear? Non-acceptance of uncertainty.If we accept uncertainty, it becomes adventure. What is envy? Non-acceptance of good in the other.If we accept good, it becomes inspiration. What is anger? Non-acceptance of what is beyond our control.If we accept, it becomes tolerance. What is hate? Non-acceptance of people as they are.If we accept unconditionally, it becomes love. So how do you love unconditionally, tolerate what is beyond your control, seek inspiration and adventure, and know what it is exactly what you need?
Do you sleep through the night? Me neither. When you wake up in the middle of the night, is it because you’re so excited about what’s going to happen the next day, like a kid before she goes to Disneyland for the first time? Sometimes, that’s the case for me, usually right before I travel. Usually, I’m thinking about all the stuff that’s stressing me out. (Sometimes that’s travel, too.) Recursive thoughts, or the 3am thoughts, as I like to call them, are those pesky memories and worries that sneak into your subconscious and just won’t let go. They wake you up in the middle of the night because your body, in its 2 hour sleep cycle, hit a spot where some of that stress was stored. Your body feels that stress, and your brain, to protect itself, starts thinking all these thoughts to explain why you woke up. In the vulnerable darkness of sleep, it’s easy for those recursive thoughts to sneak in and set up camp. This is a simple breathing and observational meditation to help you when those thoughts settle in. Let them be. Then let them go.
“Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear!” That’s a quote from Empire Records, a movie that came out over 2 decades ago (omg). It stuck with me as a teenager, when my boarding school friends and I would watch it over and over again. We still quote the line to each other in our various Facebook activities. It’s come up a lot in my meditation studies because the practice of meditation is basically side-eyeing your thoughts into oblivion. In this seated meditation, you’ll learn how to label your thoughts. Thoughts are either the past memories emotions regrets moments you’d like to experience again attempts to understand the meaning behind things that happened or the future goals to-dos fears moments you wish you could experience now attempts to find to security in a plan of what’s going to happen Label your thoughts. Let them float on. Until there are no more thoughts that come from the outside: the past, the future. Then you can find peace in sitting still with only your intuition for company.
This is a meditation to help you gain clarity. Perhaps you’ve not been feeling well but aren’t sure why. Look, go see a doctor, different kinds of doctors. But the body knows what it needs to heal. Let’s ask it. We’ll do this one lying down, as close to the ground as you can get.
May you be filled with joy. May you be at peace. May you move with kindness. This is a loving kindness meditation. You offer joy, peace, and kindness to the people in your life you love in order to make it easier to offer the same joy, peace, and kindness to the people in your life with whom you have some conflict. It’s a tool for inner peace and forgiveness. Here’s how it works physiologically: Your memory is only as good as the last time you remembered something. Whaaat? Okay, so you know when you save a document, it saves the most recent version with the edits? It’s kind of the same thing with your memories. When you think of someone, your neurons are tugging at the last time you remembered it, like your computer pulls up the last time you saved a document. So what your body experiences is what you felt the last time you were thinking of that person. You can train your brain to think peaceful, loving, kind thoughts about even the cruelest people. It will soften them. But more importantly, it will soften you.
Perhaps you have some travel in your future. Here’s a simple visualization to protect you in times of stress. Like…..going to the airport. Like…….being around family and alcohol. Like…………….life in general. We’ll spend a few minutes grounding, and then you’ll glow, like the sun. Like the sun, you have an infinite resource of energy at your disposal. Like you, the sun exists in and of itself, not for anyone else. That it so happens to provide energy for all life on earth is a coincidence / miracle. That you so happen to provide sweet, protective, light-filled energy for those around you - that’s a choice.
There is no peace in the future. There is peace in the present moment. There is peace in the now. But we love to think about the future. I do, at least, especially in the middle of a big project. I’m in a masters program to study acupuncture and herbs, and man, it’s fun to think about what it’s going to feel like when I’m done. I’m years away from being done. I don’t want to live the next years of my life waiting for something to be over, missing the sweetness of the present. So I practice in the morning, breathing, being present, confident in the knowledge that I am right where I need to be, and feeling deeply grateful for it.
Here’s the thing with peace: it only exists in the present moment. Here’s the thing with our minds: they love to live in the past and the future. w. t. f. How is peace even possible, if our egos are trained to ponder the past for lessons and protect ourselves from the future? Let’s sit with it.
You can listen to this one sitting, standing, laying, or moving around about your day.We’re gonna focus on your face.What’s it like to have no facial expression?What does it feel like for all the muscles in your skull to completely relax?It’s a poker face, but more than that, it’s a moment of peace.It’s a moment of not judging the world.That’s what facial expressions are: our judgments of the world.It’s not a negative or a positive thing. It’s just a reality of having a human body. But it’s tough for the facial muscles, moving around all the time, smiling at this, scowling at that.Let’s give ‘em a break.
How would your life be different if you started today what you wish you'd started 10 years ago?How would your body feel if you’d gone to that fitness class you’d always wanted to try?How would your career be different if you learned a new skill?How would you relationships be different if you’d been kinder 10 years ago?Let’s find out together.
A simple breathing exercise and some affirmations to make this a great day.
Fulfillment is knowing that, in this moment you have everything that you need.
Are you a highly sensitive empath? Do crowds drain you? Can you feel all the energy in a room? Are you exhausted feeling everything all the time? Here, this will help.
A tonglen meditation for anxiety: breathe in the anxiety. Breathe out your peace.
May everything you experience today glow brighter because your sweet love touched it.
What are you going through? What are you growing through?
Stuck on a problem? The answers comes quickly. Here’s how to be ready for it.
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