Generating Easy, Radiant Abundance

For several weeks now, I have been enjoying chanting to Lakshmi, the Indian goddess of beauty and abundance, generosity, fullness and light.  I've also been chanting to Red Tara, the Tibetan goddess of love, compassion and generosity, imagining myself as these goddesses, feeling full, generous and abundant, feminine bounty, luscious hips and breasts, offerings of love.  I've enjoyed creating my own movements to go w. the chants, taking on the shapes they depict, as well as my own.  And I'm also using a commitment I created in my practice:  I commit to opening to easy, radiant abundance in my body, home and work.
Abundance Manifests!!
1 - Within the last 10 days, I've had 8 calls from new clients wanting to do Somatics or Yoga Therapy with me.  wow!  I don't think I've ever had such a huge influx of new clients!
2 - Last Wednesday was our 9-year wedding anniversary and I posted it w. a sweet picture.  I was blown away to see over 160 likes and over 40 comments.  This may be the most activity I've had from any post.   I feel abundant w. love, appreciation and blessings from my community.
3 - Today, as I sat, in meditation, I remembered the ways I am already like Lakshmi and Red Tara:  generous, beautiful, abundant, loving and compassionate. I thought of examples.  I thought:  I don't have to try to be like them, I already am like them and just need to remember this!  I thought about generosity and made this commitment:  Today, I would like to give back.  I would like to make a donation to some organization or person who is in need.  After sitting, I went down to the kitchen, turned on the local radio station, and they were doing a pledge drive.  I could hardly believe it!  This is who I'm supposed to donate to!  They've been hurting, losing funding and need more support.  I called in right away and made a donation.  KABOOM!
4 - I had a new student sign up for my Teacher Training at the last minute, somebody I really like and was hoping would join us.  Plus I just had a great weekend of teaching them and the whole time, it felt like play.  It was easy and fun and I had a great time.  For me, this is the feeling of easy, radiant abundance.
These all happened without me really trying, just having intention and putting my energy in that direction. 

I'm glowing, feeling radiant and full. 
Check out the Red Tara teachings that Lama Choyang will be leading this coming Sunday, October 6!

Shiva's Cycle of Creation and Fear Melters

I've been exploring t the Dance of Shiva, also known as the Cycle of Creation, since my last Hendricks meeting.  While I don't want to go into all of the symbolism of this great iconic figure now, I do want to share the main three aspects of the cycle that I'm interested in right now:  creation, maintenance, and dissolution, sometimes interpreted as manifestation, preservation and destruction, or in the Tantric view:  emission, sustenance, and reabsorption.  In our lives, these can refer to how we create, maintain and release or end a cycle.  We see these cycles in nature with birth, living and death, with our breathing (inhale, pause, exhale), and really with anything that has a beginning, middle and end.  

What I'm noticing for myself, is that I tend to create a lot of projects, meals, garden beauty, relationships, newsletters, blog writing, etc., so that comes pretty easily for me.  I'm also pretty experienced and easeful with maintaining these things:  I'm in a healthy long-term relationship, I maintain close relationships with my family and friends, I've been teaching yoga for over 18 years and running the same business almost for that time, I keep up the garden and the house, live in the same community for over 18 years, etc.  So I think I'm pretty good with sustaining things in my life.  But it's the destroying or dissolving that I'm looking at.  I tend to hold onto things (our garage is evidence)!  I tend to ruminate about past events or conversations,  and keep a few unhealthy habit patterns going.  It's funny because I actually love getting rid of stuff I no longer need when I actually do it, but I often put off getting rid of things because I'm scared I may need them again and then regret not having them.  With patterns, I may tell myself I want to stop, but then I don't.  I keep it going usually out of fear of change.  So fear seems to be a big player in making a change; fear of the unknown, fear of making the "wrong" decision and being unhappy.  Or sometimes, I'm just downright unconscious that I'm in the habit until afterwards. 

My Hendricks training has taught me some great ways to understand and respond to fear and how to shift out of unhealthy patterns.  There's 4 types of fear:  Freeze, Flee, Fight or Faint, and they each have a bodily sensation, usually some kind of tension, zing or fluttering in the belly area.  Freeze feels stuck, stiff or frozen;  think eyes wide open, jaw agape.  Flee is that desire to run and escape from a situation, so there may be a zing of andrenaline in the chest.  Fight is a feeling of anger where we feel hot and want to argue or hurt someone or something.  And Faint is when we go foggy or stupid and can't think straight, sort of like the beginning stages of actually fainting. 

For each of these types of fear, there's an antidote, or as we say in Hendricks, a "fear melter."  They are physical movements that we can do to shift out of fear and get the stuck energy moving again.  The fear melter for Freeze is Wiggle.  So if I'm scared to make a change from a pattern, and I feel frozen inside, I can wiggle my body- either just my fingers and toes or my whole body, in order to shift that frozen energy.  Once I shift it, I can think more creatively, breathe more easily and I then reconsider what I actually want.  From there, I choose an action step to attain it. 

Here's an example:  if I notice I'm freezing from the fear of finding somebody to help in my business, I can start to wiggle and breathe, shaking my shoulders, my neck and arms, hips and legs.   I keep going until I feel a sense of ease and flow.  (I just took a break and did that and immediately I felt more breath).  It gets me out of the stuck state of thinking I can't do it or something bad will happen.  Then I can ask the question:  what do I really want?- until an answer arises.  "I want a new helper!  I want somebody who can do great marketing and beautiful graphics."  Then I consider:  what is an easy action step I can take to move in this direction and by when will I do it?   I put a message out on Facebook last week to see if I could find a referral and 3 came back.  Boom!  From dissolving an old habit of stuckness,  back to manifestation of something new.  I've shifted the pattern of avoiding dissolving something and taken action to create what I want.  So the cycle just continues.

 I'll share about the other Fear Melters another time.  Let me know how it goes!