PERSONAL GROWTH

A 40 DAY CHALLENGE

DAY ONE

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

Intention

Today I begin a 40-day challenge to create harmony and balance in my life. To find and embody balance for my mind, soul, emotions, and physical body. To re-embrace the joy and creativity of life. To find pleasure in living.

I guess this is where I tell you I have done a couple of rounds of 40-day challenges before. This practice gives me structure and consistency and it is something that calls to me and offers me the chance to create change with the added bonus of self-knowledge. Each round I do is a chance to revisit, renew and redefine new goals for myself under professional guidance all helping me to progress who I am in this life.

How am I doing this? I am working with a beautiful mentor that combines Human Design and Kundalini chants followed with self-reflection (free writing) a card draw and weekly check in sessions. Today is day one.

Today is the unveiling and my mentor gave me the overview based on my Human design (for those that are curious we are working on my 5/1 line and my sun gate 50 for those that is foreign language you can safely disregard this sentence). The gist of this is I am looking at my value and belief systems and how I embody them in life.

After a beginning session of intention and parameter setting, I received my chant. A 30-minute chant this time round.

Oracle cards have been drawn and the cards Mentor, Security and Connection are the themes that will guide me in my quest. All of which I see the relevance in my life. I am given my chant shown the hand motions, how to sit (easy pose!! What is easy about sitting cross legged as you get older, I do not know) a focus for the eyes and mind and then she hits me with a 30-minute chant that will be sung at 3 levels from normal to lover whisper to within my mind! I quake a bit thinking 30 minutes how I will ever control myself and keep me focus. I gently remind myself that I am learning where control is needed and when surrender is called for. This is a moment of surrender, and I trust my mentor.

Beginning

Ending our session on the promise I will begin the chant. I reacquaint myself with the ritual opening and ending. Once ready I begin.

From the start my voice burns my throat and I feel the tension held here. After a few rounds, my body begs me to lose one of the pillows and I argue with myself that the second word sounds more like “ka” not “ta”, so I open my eyes to check. I cross and uncross my legs. As we move into the second round there is relief in my voice and throat as the cadence changes. Then we move to the silent third round and suddenly, I panic that I will not be able to keep the tempo and timing correct. I surrender my control and notice the heartbeat of the music that helps me. The time in silence stretches and then I notice a natural ascendence where I feel that the quiet is getting louder and I am arising from the dark depths of myself. I ponder on why I did not feel the descent and realize that for a very, very long time I have been living down there. As I ascend, I feel parts of me dissipate and that the lightness of the ascent is making me feel lighter allowing the cloud of me to disperse. The music ascends to lover’s whisper and then at a normal tone. I am surprised the 30minutes have gone quickly.

Reflection

As I complete the practice, I realize I have left off an element of the beginning salutation and fight my mind as it tries to undo all that has come before. It would be easy to tell myself that leaving out elements means all that has come before is negated and means nothing! I remind myself done is better than perfect and accept this.

At the end I am always frightened I will forget what glimpses I find about myself in the practice, and I feel the rush to write. I remind myself that it is okay, and I will resee the glimpses and often when they have become more formed ideas and notions. It will be okay, and my panic recedes.

I am pleasantly surprised how quickly time goes and I am thankful for this because I know from previous experiences that each day will be different. Today I am grateful for the peace and acceptance of time. Another time the 30 minutes will feel like an hour and not 10 minutes.

I promise myself that other elements of the chant that did not go as well as I would want will improve with practice. I am not perfect and that is okay. Perfect seems to haunt me today.

Final Piece

For me, the last thing I do for this practice is to draw a card (and I tell myself keep it simple and to one card). My question is what should my values be based on? What is my core value that will hold me in life creating security and connection.

I drew with such hope and received the crocodile card. This leaves me thinking what the actual?? How is this a value and I realize that I am being reminded it is the start of the 40 days — the very first day and I do not need to race and condense my answers all into the first day. Crocodile also reminds me that waiting is not sit back and do nothing it is a gentle reminder that my participation in my life is still needed. Continue how I have begun and show up for myself.

I realize that crocodile is reminding me that life is not a race or a rush. I have time. It is a reminder that quiet time is important too and that has me thinking and contemplating other parts of my life which allows me to see that stillness and silence is important.

Silence is truly golden, and boredom is the friend of the creative. It is in a time of boredom and stillness that offers the mind a slowness and emptiness that allows thoughts to run free and dream of possibilities. I can see that my rushing mind and my need to fix and fill time (surfing on the net, playing games etc.) stops this. I acknowledge that recently these behaviors have been becoming uncontrollable. How can I know my core values when I have this insatiable need to fill the silence. I am becoming aware that I do not have to fill up my time or always be full. I need no excuses to be still as stillness has its own purpose. I do not need to justify everything (to myself or others). I am reminded that sometimes the things we do are just “because” and that is ok not everything needs a reason. I realize this will be my focus to become ok with empty moments and silence. I will need to watch my need to reach for games to fill the void.

This is the end of day one I will be here tomorrow for day 2.