Being Kind to the Self

This is my lived experience of my human design crossed with a Kundalini chant and the following is my embodied results.

Day Four

Day four and the practice is all about meeting myself where I am.

Today I actually did a warmup. A few yoga and qigong moves I remember to wake up my body in the hope I might prevent some of the numbness and pain that comes from sitting cross legged on the floor (well on meditation cushions on the floor).

I start well. My voice is not so strained today, there is an ease at the beginning. The quieter the chant gets the more unsettled I become, my body aches and calls to me. It feels like my body has slumped, I engage my lower core muscles, tuck my tail bone, straightening through my spine, reaching my neck I tuck my chin creating a straight conduit. It isn’t long before I feel the nerve endings in my leg going numb. I fidget and move. There comes a point of acceptance and compassion for myself where I realize my legs won’t be crossed and I will need to move and sit in a different position for a short time. I make peace with this.

I have learned there are many moving parts in Kundalini, and I haven’t mentioned that while chanting I also need to feel myself calling down the light from above my crown and focusing this light channeling it down and out through the third eye with each word and mudra. I worry about my inability to form mental images, and it creates tension as I am having a hard time with this. I have always felt uncomfortable with meditations that work on my ability to envision (I do not see the sandy beach or my favorite place). My youngest son has heard me lament about this before and has assured me it is okay and that it has a name, Aphantasia. Words and sound have always been important for me as they are the way I see the unseeable.

There is a part of me that wants perfect practice because a part of me believes I am not good enough and close enough will not do. It must be done right. Low levels of anxiety come in when I think the practice won’t work for me. My Husband will tell you I come from a long line of scaredy mice; the truth is I come from a long line of worriers. I worry my posture is incorrect, I worry that I am doing this all wrong.

I worry until I realize I need to meet myself with compassion and acceptance for where I am. I guess I am not perfect and only human after all.

Card Draw

My practice today has me thinking about the difference between acceptance and ability to re-evaluate. Part of me thinks acceptance is giving up. If I accept what is, how do I create change? Today’s card will be helping me to know when I need to accept what is and when I need to shake things up and how to tell the difference.

Today’s card is the Cosmic Egg.

According to the instructional booklet the Cosmic Egg is all about completion, harmony; the infinite with the finite (which I find intriguing because part of my mudra concerns Jupiter (Infinite/Expansion) and Saturn (finite/limited) and this card creates an overlap).

The card goes onto mention self-realization, lifting veils of self-limiting beliefs; along with the feelings of never getting there or feeling like you are travelling alone disconnected from life. The Cosmic Egg signifies it is the remedy to being fragmented, a reminder that as we hold onto life; life also holds us.

Once again confusion reigns supreme. I walk away for the day and ponder the card. I come back and can see that this card is all about acceptance and completion and knowing that you have the knowledge within you to self-determine what you desire. It is a reminder that I hold all I need within to make these decisions. I decide what is the right practice. Obviously, if you are working in guidelines and tried and true practices you want to stay close as possible, but I have self-agency in deciding what this will mean to me.

This card has triggered much in me today and has become a catalyst that it is meant to be. I have been telling myself for years that my health is a major core value. My actions tell me otherwise. Health is not part of my core values, or I would make healthy choices. This then made me think do we have shadow belief and value system? If so, are the shadows polar opposite to the ones we live in the light or are they their own thing altogether?

I am stuck, I am back to my belief and value system. Now I have a spotlight shining on which values and beliefs I might be living and which ones I tell you I am. Currently there is a discrepancy.

Conclusion

I am going to work on worrying less and making peace with my current limitations.

I am going to work on what I give power too. For example, I say I work on good health and want to get my business off the ground but what actions do I take that support this. Then make a list of what I can do to turn things around becoming less fragmented and more cohesive. Maybe not cohesive but creating a more wholistic me.

At the moment to create the change I desire from these 40 days I am accepting this version of myself; I am taking off the rose-colored glasses and truly seeing myself from the objective to accept. I am accepting that I dither about when I want to create. I accept that I eat a lot of foods that do not serve me. Now is the time and chance to change this. With acceptance I am using it as a lever to create change. This is not what I thought acceptance was at the beginning of the day. At the beginning I thought acceptance was closing off a chapter without the chance to influence the future. I thought acceptance was lying down and giving up. This evening, I am seeing acceptance in a whole new light.

End of day 4 and the actions I need to take are accumulating. I have this.

See you tomorrow for day 5.

PS

My mentor said yes, she would keep me honest and to the 40 days :)