Letting Things Fall Apart
2016!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for teaching me to be ᖇEᗩᒪ, to guide me through all the rough challenges I have met during this year, with so much ᒪOᐯE and TᖇᑌᔕT.
This year has taught me again that life never unfolds from what we plan ahead. It happens and shapes in this ᐯEᖇY ᑭᖇEᔕEᑎT ᗰOᗰEᑎT. In reality. That it’s all about the process with the small and big puzzel pieces that need to find their way home in their own pace. .
It has shown me to ᗰOᐯE ᔕᒪOᗯEᖇ and to ᑭᗩᑌᔕ more often rather than to push and run faster.
It has taught me to say ᔕTOᑭ and ᑎO to things that doesn’t call for me anymore. Even if they did before. .
It has taught me how to stay ᑕOᑎᑎEᑕTEᗪ to my inner core, beyond layers of expectations. To move from the ᖴEEᒪIᑎGᔕ Oᖴ TᕼE ᕼEᗩᖇT. With patience, step by step, keep walking on the path that is calling for Me. .
But most of all 2016 has taught me to ᒪETTIᑎG TᕼIᑎGᔕ ᖴᗩᒪᒪ ᗩᑭᗩᖇT, so other things can come together. That everything happens for a reason, in struggle as light, even if we can’t see them right here and now. To trust that the broken pieces will create their new shape, so much stronger and firm.
I am so so SO grateful for this year! For all the meetings with You, for diving deeper into ᗰE. And to be filled with so much ᒪOᐯE, inside out!
Can’t wait to meet YOᑌ, 2017! And to hold something so precious in my arms, beyond words that is now growing inside of me
Let a new chapter be open and continue to TᖇᑌᔕT the process of Life.
Connection in shades
This is nourishment for all parts of our being.
To be filled with each shade of life all the way deep down to the cellular breathing, finding clarity and deep listening.
To be witness through our senses the connection we carry without any filter.
The shifts, the colors creating a picture so natural in this ever-flowing process of what we call life. To be alive! #wearenature
Welcome Autumn in your grace, I’m in love with you and your wisdom!
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.” #alanwatts
Only Love,
/ C
Nadi Shodana Pranayma
ᑎᗩᗪI ᔕᕼOᗪᗩᑎᗩ ᑭᖇᗩᑎᗩYᗩᗰᗩ: Nadi= channel// Shodana= purifying/cleansing
Alternate nostril breathing is a beautiful breathing technique that helps keep the mind calm, happy and peaceful by just practicing it for a few minutes.
Sit comfortably with your spine proud and shoulders relaxed. Keep the mouth soft
Place your left hand on the left knee, palms open to the sky or in Chin mudra (thumb and index finger gently touching at the tips)
Place the tip of the index finger and middle finger of the right hand in between the eyebrows, the ring finger on the left nostril, and the thumb on the right nostril
The ring finger and little finger will be used to open or close the left nostril and thumb for the right nostril
Press lightly your thumb down on the right nostril and breathe out gently through the left nostril
Now breathe in from the left nostril and then press the left nostril gently with the ring finger. Removing the right thumb from the right nostril, breathe out from the right. Breathe in from the right nostril and exhale from the left. This is one completed round.
Continue inhaling and exhaling from alternate nostrils
Complete 9 such rounds by alternately breathing through both the nostrils
After every exhalation, remember to breathe in from the same nostril from which you exhaled
Keep your eyes closed throughout and continue taking long, deep, smooth breaths without any force or effort
Finish to just sit with a natural breath, feel and observe the effects
Some of the lovely benefits:
Lowers heart rate, reduces stress, anxiety and it helps release accumulated tension and fatigue
Calms the mind and bring it back to the present moment
Works therapeutically for most circulatory and respiratorn problems
Helps harmonize the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which correlate to the logical and emotional sides of our personalityHelps purify and balance the nadis, the subtle energy channels, thereby ensuring smooth flow of prana (life force) through the body
Give it a try and let me know what effects this beautiful breathing exercise has on YOU!!
Only Love,
// C
Shifting flavors
“Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it”
When I sit down in meditation I can really feel what part of me that are carrying the heaviest weight. I ask to come closer to were I feel the most and to dive deeper into that feeling, whatever arises. The areas that wants to talk to me is usually shifting from time to time but the last few weeks it has been an area between my heart and throat, almost in the same line as my collarbones. I try to move through it with breathing and awareness but it is still stuck and almost feels like thick clay. Tomorrow I will do a surgery to remove my thyroid since I have hyperthyroidism. It is almost like my body is longing for this area to break free, to shift in its own glory, to remove away obstacles that has kept me stuck in one spot. I have been waiting for this surgery for a while and even though a part of me is scared, I can´t wait to have it done so I can shift to a freer Me.
So in a time when you feel stuck, how do you taste it?
Can you feel yourself?
Allow yourself to sit down, embrace it and listen. Ask to move through the feelings of thickness and resistance. It maybe not go away but be with it. Sit with it. Meet it and listen what it has to say. Just by doing it something can shift.
All flavors life is giving us, all the moments of shifting, big as small is bringing us closer to the Self. It might just be the moments to give yourself that support to pause. To feel. To move deeper to an understanding or to taste the flavour of that feeling as it is. In Ayurveda ( ayus= life, veda= knownledge ) they are talking about six flavours: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent and pungent. To fuel yourself with food that will keep you in balance and harmony, your need to have them all.
Isn´t it the same with life?
If we only tasted the salty and sweet, how would we feel?
Don´t we want to experience life in it´s richness to feel alive? And include it ALL?
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” ( -Joseph Campbell)
So sit with yourself. It is so easy to run away from the flavours we don´t want to taste. Navigate the whole spectrum of your being. Allow the moments of feelings to be nourish with what it is. This is yoga for me and that is what I try to mediate on and outside the mat. To live in the moments, in the flavours and taste them all. Because every moment is special and detailed and all moments together make a life. So every one of them counts. Move through them with purness and honesty Live them.
“Yoga is about study, connection, integration, understanding. It’s about prayer, love, compassion, and landing in our lives. It’s about listening to our hearts and hearing our own body cry for help. It’s about trusting our own intuition, then learning to believe in someone” ( -Elena Brower)
And to taste all the flavours in life from the depth of trust in yourself.
Only Love,
-C
Let yourself be moved
ᒪET YOᑌᖇᔕEᒪᖴ ᗷE ᗰOᐯEᗪ
“If your heart wants to fall in love every single day; give it the freedom to run free and seduce the world. Get juicy, get wild, get wanton and lusty. Get turned on by life. Really turned on.
Feel everything. Deeply.
Let yourself be moved.
Let yourself be moved until you are opened wide. Wider. Even wider than you ever thought possible. So wide that you’re swimming in brilliance. So wide it does not feel safe. Because safety was never the goal (we were just tricked into believing that it was). Let yourself be moved until you are ready to love more, feel deeper, change things. Let yourself be moved until you radiate your own guru-fab energy. Let yourself be moved until every day begins with a tingle of anticipation that starts in your baby toe and rolls through your body and out into the universe. Let yourself be moved until you are ready to move mountains with the brilliance of your soul”- Jeanette Leblanc
Happy Navaratri!
Invoking goddess Shakti isn’t only a girl thing—it’s a way for everyone to tap into the deepest source of empowerment, creativity, and happiness”
It’s time to celebrate Shakti, the divine feminine power that is in all of us and everywhere around us. According to the Hindu traditions, Shakti is the formless source of everything, she is the power, movable, creative aspect of the Archetypical being. She is in the consciousness as well in the Supreme Divine. Shakti is understood to take forms—as goddesses, personifications of the different energies that make up the world and our own consciousness.
What is so beautiful during this time of year is that in India a big celebration called Navaratri is occuring. In 2013 it will start on Saturday, the 5th of October and will continue for 9 days until Sunday, the 13th of October. For nine nights and ten days (Nava= nine/ ratri= night) participants celebrate Shakti in all her Goddess forms. We celebrate Navaratri during this fertile transition to fall as the feminine aspect of the Universe is the one that gives birth and sustains us in our material and spiritual endeavors. We honor the power within the creativity, beauty and love in us. Shakti arises in many forms, and the Big Three Indian figures to tap into goddess energies are Durga/ Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati.
Durga (hard to know/ hard to conquer) is the fierce one, she is riding her lion and is the cosmic warrior. She is the strength one can draw on when facing challenging situations. When Durga is in her most authentic manifestation, she becomes Kali, the Black one. Kali is the energy that can take us beyond our concepts about our life and ourselves. She can remove every sort of veil. The first three days in the festival Navaratri is devoted to Durga, to destroy all our vices, impurities and defects. Then we have Laksmi (good fortune), the energy of everything that we hold desirable. She is the beauty, love, harmony, wealth and happiness. She is Goddess of abundance and generosity. The middle three nights are dedicated to Lakshmi because she is the giver of spiritual and material wealth. The last three nights are devoted to the third form of the Goddess, Saraswati (the flowing one), the Goddess of wisdom, knowledge and intelligence. She is the deity of language and speech as well as the power behind creative inspiration. Her great gift is the discernment that lets us find divinity in the world. Each of these Goddesses represents energies that are expressed in every arena of life: physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. Blessings from all three aspects of the divine mother is the only way to reach integral success in life.
What is so lovely is that this celebration reminds us that we are supported by the Goddess in all of her forms in life. To flow with her in the light and especially in this transition to fall where time is given to slow down, clean and reflect. To touch our deepest desires and fears and be with them. It can mean to let go of something that we have held on to so tight, because we may fear what might happen if it’s no longer exists in our lives. It can be to just stay in the experience and feel without any action, let her fill you with the strength, love and wisdom she has. That you have. It’s just a matter of tuning in to what we have to face in live. What you have to face in life. She encourages us to see aspects of us, reflected in all of her glorious forms.
To become more engaged from the core of our heart, we need to be reminded of the Goddess´s existence. Of Shakti’s pulsation and flow that is both inside and around us. She reminds me every day that she is with me, when I look at her from my right underarm, were she is painted as a tattoo (see photo above). She reminds me of the source of my power that is drawn from within, my strength to love, care and serve myself, my family and friends, my community, the Earth and all the living system. To be connected with the Divine in the bigger perspective, and in myself even in the darkest time of life. To be with my heart, the power over my thoughts and actions, Life! She makes me see the bigger perspective in life and to let go of all the expectations and how everything should be and instead flow in the process of Life. To trust in Life, to trust in Shakti and to live deeper. She flows in all of us, in all creatures in this world in the formless form of everything. So it’s time to invite her and let her be engage in your life, so you can live a fierce, powerful and lovely life from your potential, so you can take actions and serve yourself and mother Earth. Be in the present moment, with responsibility for the future. We are all sharing it.
When ever you make an decision, the whole Universe conspire on your behalf”– Ralph Waldo Emerson
So close your eyes and invite her, tap into the source of empowerment, creativity and happiness. She is a part of you, she is a part of us.
If not now, when? ”- Talmud
Shakti boom boom happy Navaratri!
Paleo's YUM.ME bread
I´m in love. In love with this amazing yummy bread baked with only nuts, olive oil and ecological eggs. I had the chance to try it for the very first time when I was in lovely Copenhagen this weekend, visiting my best friend. I couldn’t stop eating and felt the need to share the recipe. What is so beautiful with this bread is that it’s free from gluten, grain, yeast, strach and dairy. It has low calories and carbs and is high on fibers. And so easy to bake! Thank you Lousie P for sharing the recipe on your blog post.
Feel free to add other yummy ingredients like apricots, raisins or why not bananas?! I´d chose raisins this time because of its lovely sweetness.
Ingredients:
100g sunflower seeds
100g pumpkin seeds
100g sesame seeds
100g linseed
100g almonds
100g walnuts
5 eco eggs
½ cup cold pressed organic olive oil
2 tsp salt
The almonds are blended and walnuts roughly chopped, then mix all ingredients in a bowl, pour in bread form and bake in a preheated oven at 160 degrees for approx. one hour. Let it cool down a little bit before enjoying it. It´s oh so delicious!
Shakti yum.me love!