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Meet Your Subtle Body: Discover Cyndi Dale’s 12-Chakra System

By Patrick Hinchcliff — 6 years ago

Meet Your Subtle Body Header Image

“I think [the 12-chakra system] is a good compilation to get us going so that we can be the entirety of the human that we are—the human divine being that we are.”

—Cyndi Dale

As seekers, instead of following set rules, we may set out to discover routes that feel uniquely true and right for us.

Cyndi Dale, a luminary writer on the subtle body and its connection to the physical world, works with a unique 12-chakra system in her healing practice.

Cyndi’s 12-chakra vision helps her pinpoint feelings and where wounds are emanating from the invisible, spiritual self.

Chakras Infographic

from Enlightened Energetics

WHAT IS THE SUBTLE BODY?

Each of us have both a physical body and a subtle body. The physical is what we think of normally: our shape, our volume, and that which we can touch. The subtle body arises from a different place: the intuition.

The subtle body seems to be some sort of underground pathway for our physical one. It is invisible not because it doesn’t exist, but because it’s sub-observable to the five senses we normally use. I might even argue that she sees the intuition as the 6th sense, and that the creative nature of our spirits gives us the ability to wield this power for healing.

Just like quantum physicists are starting to say, our world (or, at least, some dimension of our world) is not physical at all, but actually consists of “immaterial energy waves.” These waves somehow come together and entangle to create the material world.

As I listened to Cyndi’s interview with Tami, I was struck by the idea that healers like her use the subtle body every day. In the interview, she really helps you comprehend how that’s possible by guiding you through an exercise that’s less about understanding and way more about feeling. (It made me whisper, “whoa!” out loud.)

Here’s an exercise from that part of the interview if you want to try it:

Rub your hands together until you create some friction, and then put your hands palms facing each other about three or four inches apart. You’ll feel that there’s still an energy in between those hands—because there’s chakras in the hands and because there’s fields of energy emanating from the hands.

If you start patting your hands, not touching them, but kind of patting that energy ball. Again, you can bring your consciousness into your hands and pour more energy into that ball that’s being created. All of a sudden, you’re going to feel like your hands are moving farther away from each other. If you turn the spigot down, your hands—in order to feel that friction or the energy between them—are going to move closer together. Then a really fun thing to do is imagine or turn that energy red—it’s not clear anymore; it’s red—and get a sense of how that red energy field can have a certain reaction to red, especially in comparison to blue . . . as we’re now going to turn that energy blue. It’s really different, isn’t it?

About energy workers and healers she says: “They’re consciously kind of deciding what type of energy might be useful, what might be helpful for them, for somebody else, and they’re sending that.”

THE 12-CHAKRA SYSTEM

According to Cyndi, the western tradition of the 7-chakra system is based on a book by Sir Arthur Avalon.

Chakras are eddies of light and sound. They interact, dance, rotate and orbit us like our very own planets.

from MindBodyGreen

THE 12 CHAKRAS

1. Root

The root chakra is about spirituality, purpose and connection, as well as our relationship to Mother Nature and the Earth. It is associated with the underlying structures (both intuitive and ordered) of our minds. It is associated with pheremones and our sense of smell

2. Sacral

This is a chakra of motion and flow, representing the water element in the body. It bears a relationship to reproduction and fertility, joy and desire, and the kind of rest that encourages immune system recovery. It is associated with our sense of taste.

3. Solar Plexus

The solar plexus is a fiery center for our unique powers and gifts. When it’s in balance, we can feel like our lives are autonomous and in harmony with our value system. It helps define the energy that guides our motivations, disposition and mood, and it expands our idea of what’s possible when we are inspired by it.

4. Heart

The heart chakra is related to our personal and romantic relationships. When it is in balance, we might be immersed in feelings of joy and real freedom. It is strengthened through trust, non-manipulative communication, and authentic respect for ourselves and others. It is also strengthened by the exploration and implementation of personal boundaries. With the heart, we send and receive our gifts.

5. Throat

Here is our center for speaking and listening. The throat enables expression and facilitates spiritual dawnings of both rational and emotional understanding. Balancing the throat chakra can help prevent burnout. If you have writer’s block, it can be helpful to check with this chakra.

6. Third Eye

The third eye is associated with the pineal gland and rules telepathic ability. A vortex of sublimation, it is empowered by critical thinking, especially when we seek to release fear and guilt. Through the third eye, we can become more lucid, deepening our understanding that duality is an illusion. Opening it helps us to understand symbols and receive messages in both dreams and waking life.

7. Crown

The crown chakra is related to your nervous system and brain. Tap into its power by becoming present in the body through meditation, visualization and relaxation. It can look like a circle of light around your head, and is an expansion into space where you connect with the rest of the universe. It is related to transcendence & wisdom.

8. Soul/Shaman

Located a few inches above the head, this chakra encompasses past lives and your memories of other dimensions. From Cyndi’s description, it is a beautiful, mysterious chakra that connects our physical body to our soul’s experience in its totality. It empowers our ability to transcend spacetime and engage with “the sphere of potentialities in the making.” When it’s in harmony, it becomes easier to communicate with beings in other realms, like your spirit guides.

9. Luminary

This chakra is about an arm’s length above the top of your head. Lift your hand all the way up to connect with where it is. Cyndi sees this chakra as gold, related to our connection to the divine. It is the space of the greater spirit, the “seat of the soul,” which can act as a doorway into your divine self and your archetypal patternings.

10. Earth

This chakra blooms from beneath your feet. It is how your body connects to the earth, a cord that goes through the legs and feet into the ground. It is associated with nature and the cosmos in their simple essence, and the memories that arise from it can be related to ancestral lessons and inherited traumas. Substantial healing can arise from relationship with this chakra.

11. Supernatural

This chakra is “actually around the body. It’s like this lovely rose film, like way out in our energy field, but it’s collected around the hands and the feet.” Through this chakra, you can discover your inherent connection with both natural and supernatural forces. In this part of the interview, Cyndi mentions that chakras are located in multiple dimensions, existing in different places at the same time. She observes this chakra, which is responsible for our ability to move energy, as energy balls around the hands and feet.

12. Auric

This chakra surrounds the auric field of the body like a halo. Cyndi says, “I think of [it] as the outer bounds of our own unique essence or our own spirit.” She emphasizes the uniqueness of this chakra—its defining characteristic is you, and your individual purpose as a spiritual being. There is a connection between this chakra and the ability to envision, create and become, alongside the truth of universal unity.

Listen to Tami’s full interview with Cyndi Dale here on Insights at the Edge.

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ABOUT CYNDI

Cyndi Dale is an internationally renowned author, speaker, intuitive healer, and visionary who has taught thousands of students to access their spiritual gifts through her books and workshops. She has authored several groundbreaking books and audio programs on energy healing and the chakras, including The Subtle Body, The Subtle Body Practice Manual, Advanced Chakra Healing, Energy Clearing, Attracting Prosperity Through the Chakras, and New Chakra Healing. Her work has been translated into nine languages.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When she isn’t writing poetry or music, Dani Ferrara blogs for Sounds True and seeks to learn more about healing alchemy. Learn more about her art at daniferrarapoet.com.

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Bigger Isn’t Always Better (and Other Cultural Myths)

By Patrick Hinchcliff — 6 years ago

Bigger Isn't Always Better Some of our beliefs aren’t even ours. Like old wives’ tales passed down through generations or reflected back to us through society, we inherited certain cultural and familial narratives, adopted them, and left them unquestioned as “Truth.” Sometimes these inherited narratives and beliefs manifest as unquestioned traditions. For example, when making the Thanksgiving turkey, my friend’s mother always cut the breast of the bird off and roasted it separately. This process was embedded in my friend’s view of “how to cook a turkey.” When she moved to New York and began hosting her own Thanksgivings, she also sliced the top off the turkey and cooked it separately. Naturally.

One year a guest asked her why she didn’t cook the turkey whole, which got her to thinking. She didn’t actually know why. It’s just the way it had always been done. So she called her mother to ask about the tradition: Why do we cut the tops off our turkeys? Her mother replied that she had always taken the top off because her mother had always taken the top off; it’s just the way she had learned how to cook a turkey. Naturally curious as to where this learned behavior all began, her mother called her mother, my acquaintance’s grandmother, and asked: Why do we cut the tops off our turkeys?

The grandmother, stumped, thought for a long, hard minute. “Oh,” she remembered, “the oven in my very first apartment was too small to fit an entire turkey, so I had to cook it with the top cut off.” Sixty years later, in a city across the country, my acquaintance was still cooking turkeys as a result of an oven that was too small. This is how inherited narrative works.

Here are some of the narratives that I inherited over the years, in order from most helpful to least: You can be anything that you want to be. Money isn’t very important. It is what it is, and it can’t be changed. Men prefer pretty over smart. Asking for help means you’re weak and needy. These are the ones that I’ve managed to tease out; I’m sure there are plenty more operating in the background that I can’t see.

Part of developing a wholesome or Beneficial View is identifying the stories that we live by, where they came from, and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not they are helpful on the path of waking up to our worthiness. Shariputra, one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, described Beneficial View as the practice of identifying which of our views spring from beneficial beliefs and which spring from harmful beliefs, and then choosing which to nourish and cultivate. Sometimes this also means looking at the views of the culture that we live in.

A few times every year, I host group coaching programs for a rather large online training institute with a global reach, drawing students from a dozen countries, primarily women of varying ages. These groups offer an encouraging environment in which we can speak openly about our fears and hesitations. Over the past decade, working as a coach has revealed to me just how many of us feel a chronic sense of falling behind and a nagging suspicion that we’re not quite _________ enough. You can fill in the blank here with your own particular flavor of not-enough-ness. Not educated enough, smart enough, good-looking enough, likable enough, thin enough . . . You get the picture. A consistent element of these groups has been a gobsmacking number of women sharing that they view their capabilities as insufficient or lacking. Sometimes this feeling extends to the way that they view themselves as people. It’s said that if one fish washes up on the shore, the scientist will call it what it is: a dead fish. Nothing of note, really. However, if hundreds of fish wash up on the shore, the biologist won’t look to the fish for answers. They’ll test the water that the fish are swimming in. So what’s up with the water that we all seem to be swimming in?

In the Western hemisphere, there is a deeply embedded narrative of scarcity that is nearly invisible. I don’t know about you, but I clearly remember playing the childhood game of musical chairs. It begins as a cheerful romp around the circle, with kids squealing and running to nab a chair once the music stops. As the game progresses, however, the stakes get higher. The chairs begin to disappear. The slowest, smallest, and most accommodating kids get disqualified. And the fastest, most aggressive kids advance amidst the dwindling resource of chairs. Good, clean childhood fun. Also, a wonderful way to implicitly teach kids this prevailing myth of scarcity: There is simply not enough to go around. And you better get yours before someone else takes it.

Author, activist, and fund-raiser Lynne Twist illustrates this phenomenon exquisitely in her book The Soul of Money. She likens the scarcity narrative to a “helmet” of insufficiency that we wear throughout our day that flavors every interaction we have. For example, our first thought when getting up in the morning tends to be I didn’t get enough sleep. As we get ready for the day, we think, I don’t have enough to wear, I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough room on the subway, I don’t have enough help to get this job done well, There aren’t enough good men or women on Tinder, I don’t have enough energy to meet up with my friends, and then our final thought before falling asleep is I didn’t get enough done. This view of not having enough is truly pervasive. It’s no wonder that the women I’ve worked with consistently communicate that they don’t feel like they can live up to their own, or society’s, expectations.

Even if we try to address the messages we might tell ourselves about what we have and don’t have, we can’t avoid them altogether. I was riding the subway to Brooklyn one day when a father and his daughter, who was all of five or six years old, entered the train and stood toward the center of the car. She was chatting to her dad about her day at school until one of the many subway ads caught her eye. In it, there were two juxtaposed photos of a blonde woman. In one photo, the woman was frowning while holding a lemon in each hand, which were hovering at chest height. In the other, she was holding two grapefruits, also at chest height, but she was grinning. “Dad, why is she happy in that one and sad in that one?” the girl asked, pointing to the ad for breast augmentation. I swear the entire subway car went silent in anticipation of how her father would respond. He awkwardly and skillfully lobbed the question back to his daughter. “Well . . . what do you think?” The girl waited a beat and then answered, “She’s happy there because she has big ones and sad there because she has small ones.”

Clearly she had understood the message this poster was communicating to us all: a message of scarcity, insufficiency, and how one might always be “better.” And in that instant I understood how conditioning works. Hello, demon of self-doubt. Just like the fish in the ocean, we’re bound to swallow the water that we swim in. When considering what it means to develop Beneficial View, and the view of our own worthiness, it can be helpful to identify why we might not feel worthy to begin with. If our cultural perspective is rooted in the myth of “not enough,” it would logically follow that we would inherit this not-so-beneficial view of ourselves. Through looking at our own mind in meditation practice, we begin to take stock of the stories and beliefs that are not serving us, unraveling this myth of “not enough,” and revealing the Beneficial View of our innate wholeness and worth.

This is an excerpt from Tea and Cake with Demons: A Buddhist Guide to Feeling Worthy by Adreanna Limbach.

Adreanna Limbach is a personal coach and a lead meditation instructor at MNDFL, NYC’s premier drop-in meditation studio. Her teachings have been featured in the New York Times, Women’s Health, and Refinery29. She lives in New York City. For more, visit adreannalimbach.com.

Buy your copy of Tea and Cake with Demons at your favorite bookseller!

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How to Bring Your Fear Out of Your Shadow

By Patrick Hinchcliff — 6 years ago

How To Bring Fear Out Of Your Shadow Header Image If you’re looking for genuine transformation, you need look no further than your fear. For in it there exists not only an abundance of trapped energy, but also the very testing and challenge that we need in order to live a deeper, more authentic life.

The dragon’s cave awaits. However shadowed it may be, you know where it is, and you can see it more clearly as you move toward it, step by conscious step, bringing the fearful you into your heart, with your adrenaline not so much fueling your fear as your courage and investigative excitement.

The following guide can help you confront the dragons of fear as you navigate through your own unique shadow.

Get to know your fear. Study it, approach it, become more curious about it, turn on the lights. Get to know it even better. Go for an inside look at it, paying close attention to all of its qualities, static and otherwise. The more familiar you are with your fear, the less the chances are of you letting it control you.

Get to know its roots. The expression of your fear might be outside your shadow, but its origins, its foundational roots, may be in your shadow. You may, for example, begin with an obvious case of worrying and then drop below that to an anxiety that has been with you since you were young. Underlying that may be a survival-based panic that’s anchored in an even earlier time. Spelunk your depths.

Stop shaming yourself for being afraid. Everyone has fear, whether they admit it or not. The Dalai Lama has said he sometimes feels anxious. The more we shame ourselves—and are shamed—for being afraid, the more our fear will be driven into our shadow. Fear is natural, but what we do with it may not be so natural, such as when we pathologize it.

Open your heart to the frightened child in you. Develop as much compassion as possible for the fearful you. (This compassion comes from the you who is not caught in fear.) Don’t tell that child not to be afraid or that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Instead, be caring and protective enough to hold such fearfulness the same way you would a trembling infant. Remember that as a child you needed not just love but also protection. Being a good parent to your inner child will decentralize your fear so that instead of it holding you, you are holding it.

Instead of giving your fear higher walls, give it bigger pastures. Doing so expands you. This makes more room for your fear to shed some of its constrictedness and transition into excitement, allowing you more access to contexts other than that of fearfulness. Fear contracts our breathing, squeezing and gripping us, as if we’re stuck in a too-small enclosure, unpleasantly walled in. Giving our fear more room, more space, doesn’t make it worse but rather spreads out its energies, diluting its intensity and reducing the pressure.

Think of your fear as excitement in disguise. Where there’s fear, there’s excitement close by. Make a hard fist, tightly balled up, and imagine this is your fear. Then relax your hand, letting your fingers spread wide; this is your excitement, open and available. It’s the same energy, the same adrenaline, but the context has shifted dramatically. You weren’t trying to get excited; simply relaxing your fist freed up your energy. The fear initially is tightly held in the shadows; making conscious contact with it allows it to begin uncurling, to let some light in.

Keep your anger on tap. Take advantage of the fact that fear and anger are very closely related, being basically the same biochemically. Where fear contracts us, anger expands us, for better or worse. In fear we either tend to flee or freeze; we often feel paralyzed. But in anger we thrust forward, leaning into what angers us; our energies mobilize for taking strong stands. Some anger is a mask for fear, but plenty of anger is fearless fire, flaming through relational deadwood and obstacles to well-being, providing a torch that can illuminate even the darkest corners of our shadow.

Separate the content of your fear from its energy. When fear gets into our mind, we spin out storylines that can keep us in dark places internally, thought-cages packed with fearful ideas and expectations. When this happens, don’t think about your fear. Instead, bring your awareness as fully as possible to your body. Sense where in your body the energy of fear is strongest, taking note of the sensations there and their detailing. Stay with this body awareness, sensing instead of thinking, until you feel more stability. Soften your belly and chest, feeling how your breathing moves your entire torso, keeping some awareness on the arrival and departure of each breath.

Practice courage. Courage doesn’t mean we’re fearless but that we’re going ahead regardless of whatever fear we’re feeling. Start with small acts of courage, doing things that are a bit scary, a bit daunting. This could mean having a cold shower when you’re feeling overly sluggish, or saying no to a lunch date with a friend who you know you’ll find draining to be around today. Honor your everyday courage; sometimes getting out of bed asks more from us than does parachuting from a plane.

As you practice courage, more and more of your fearfulness will shift into resolve and action. Some of it may remain, keeping you on your toes. And some of it may morph into the kind of anger that helps fuel needed stands. Remember that practicing courage helps immensely in facing and entering your shadow.

Excerpted from Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark: Breaking Free from the Hidden Forces That Drive You by Robert Augustus Masters.

Robert Augustus Masters, PhD, is an integral psychotherapist, relationship expert, and spiritual teacher whose work blends the psychological and physical with the spiritual, emphasizing embodiment, emotional literacy, and the development of relational maturity. He is the author of thirteen books, including Transformation through Intimacy and Spiritual Bypassing. For more information, visit robertmasters.com.

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What Causes Reactivity and How to Navigate it Skillfully and Mindfully

By Patrick Hinchcliff — 6 years ago

What Causes Reactivity Header Image

Our shadow-bound conditioning shows itself most often through reactivity. When we’re reactive, we’re automatically reverting to and acting out conditioned behavior, usually in ways that are emotionally disproportionate to what’s warranted in a given situation.

Reactivity is the knee-jerk dramatization of activated shadow material. Self-justifying and far from self-reflective, reactivity features a very predictable take on what’s going on, which we proceed with even if we know better.

The signs of reactivity include:

An exaggerated attachment to being right. If someone points out this attachment to us when we’re being reactive, it usually only amplifies our righteousness.

Emotional distortion and/or overload. More often than not, this behavior gets quite melodramatic. We may use emotional intensity to back up what we’re doing.

Using the same words and ideas from previous times we’ve been triggered. It’s as if we’re on stage saying our lines as dictated by the same old script. We’re acting and re-acting, even when we know we’re doing so.

A lack of—or an opposition to—self-reflection. The refusal to step back, even just a bit, from what’s happening fuels the continuation of our reactivity.

A loss of connection with whomever we’re upset with. Our heart closes.

A loss of connection with our core. We’re immersed instead in our reactivity.

Here’s an example of how to skillfully—and nonreactively—handle reactivity. Imagine you’re embroiled in a reactive argument with your partner or a close friend. You’re dangerously close to making a decision about your relationship to them that you vaguely sense you’ll later regret, but damned if you’re going to hold back now! After all, don’t you have a right to be heard?

Things are getting very edgy. Then, rather than continuing your righteous, over-the-top dramatics, you admit to yourself that you’re being reactive. Period. You step back just a bit from all the sound, fury, and pressure to make a decision about your relationship with this person. You’re still churning inside, but the context has shifted. You’re starting to make some space for the reactive you instead of continuing to identify with it. There’s no dissociation here — just a dose of healthy separation, some degree of holding space for yourself, perhaps even some trace of emerging care for the other person.

On the outside, you’re slowing down and ceasing to attack the other, saying nothing more than what you’re feeling, without blaming the other for this. You’re starting to allow yourself to be vulnerable with the other. You’re interrupting your own reactivity.

Your intuition begins to shine through all the fuss. You start to realize that, while you were being reactive, your voice sounded much like it did when you were seven or eight years old. The same desperation, the same drivenness, the same cadence. You were hurting considerably then and trying to keep your hurt out of sight, because earlier times of expressing it had been met with parental rejection and shaming.

You’re still on shaky ground, though, and could still easily slip back into your reactive stance. Just one more shaming or otherwise unskillful comment from the other could do the trick. So you soften your jaw and belly, bend your knees slightly, and take five deep breaths, making sure that you count each breath on the exhale. You know from previous experience that these somatic adjustments will help settle you; they are your go-to calming responses for stressful moments.

As the out-front reality of your reactivity is now in clear sight, you feel shame. Some of this is a beneficial shame, activating your conscience, letting you know that you crossed a line with the other and that a genuine expression of remorse is fitting. You say you’re sorry, with obvious vulnerability. Sadness surfaces in you. You don’t make excuses for your reactivity. Instead, you make your connection with the other more important than being right.

And a very different kind of shame also arises, one that’s far from beneficial. This shame activates not your conscience but your inner critic (heartlessly negative self-appraisal). It’s aimed not at your behavior but at your very being, taking the form of self-flagellation for having slipped—a self-condemnation that, if allowed to run free, mires you in guilt and keeps you from reconnecting with the other. You acknowledge the presence of this toxic shame, saying to yourself that your inner critic is present. It’s not nearly as strong as it usually is, fading quickly as you name it. You choose to address it in depth later on, outside of the argument you were just having, as part of your ongoing shadow work. Reconnecting with the other is a priority now, and it’s happening, bringing relief and gratitude to you both.

Excerpted from Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark: Breaking Free from the Hidden Forces That Drive You by Robert Augustus Masters.

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Inspiration: 27 Vital Aspects of Breath

By Patrick Hinchcliff — 6 years ago

Pause, Breathe, Smile by Gary Gach

Have you ever paused to consider how amazing your breath is? Here’s a list of some inspirational aspects of breath. (The word inspiration itself means to breathe.) Some might already be familiar to you. You may feel drawn to appreciate some more than others. Devoting close attention to any one will lead to all the others. It’s all there – in a breath.

1 Present-ness

My mind wanders. My thoughts drift off. Sometimes, I could drown in regret, lost reviewing the past. Meanwhile, my breath is always precisely in the present moment.

2 Happiness

When we drop our worries and hurries, we can fully connect with our aliveness. Breathing with this joy on our lips, we learn a deeper, more enduring happiness. It’s our birthright. Conscious breathing can be a great relief, having nothing else to do but be – and a reminder there are enough simple reasons for happiness in this present moment.

3 Leadership

I’m a follower of my breath. Following my breath can tell me volumes about how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking; where I am and where I need to go in my life. When I notice my mind has wandered – I simply draw attention back to my breath.

4 Constant Companion

Since my birth, no one and no thing has been as close to me, without fail, rain or shine, as my breath. No sensation has been as familiar to me. When I follow my breath, I feel myself coming home, where I’ve always belonged.

5 Best Friendship

Ultimately, no one may love me as much as I do. To remain faithful to my part of the relationship, I pay utmost attention to my breath. Sometimes, I need to take time for us to get to know each other better.

6 Relational

I say, “my breath,” but I could b breathing in your out-breath. The simple implication of breath’s merging of within and around can dramatically shift my perspective.

7 Inspirational

We have many muses in our creative life. They may take the form of rituals, people, or substances. My primary inspiration is breath.

8 Nature
Through my breath, I observe my connection to Nature and her processes. The in-and-out of breath mirrors the natural cycles – the tides, the sun and moon, life and death.

9 Slowness

Nature reminds me to slow down, since my observation reveals how slowness tends to predominate our surroundings. Paying attention to breathing, it tends to deepen and slow, of its own, naturally. Living in a culture addicted to an ever-accelerating pace, slowness can feel like salvation.

10 Calm

Paying attention to breath allows it become as deep as it wishes to be. When I feel my belly soften and breath grow deep, my vestigial instincts of flight-fright-or-fight have gone away: less stress! I am aware of how calm I feel.

11 Solidity

Without calm, my strength can dissipate, disperse, and scatter. Without calm, I cannot engage in gentle inquiry into the nature of self and reality. My reserve of calm assures my presence has solidity, even in emergency. I can show up, and be present when I show up.

12 Silent

Paying attention, I notice breath is slower than thought. Nor does it obey the restrictive patterns of verbal language. I pay close attention to each quiet breath, from beginning, middle, and end – and with a blank space, in between. This silence is not blind.

13 Anonymity

My breath is totally unconcerned whether or not I am up with latest fashion, or what I look like. I don’t need to cultivate an identity. Breath accepts as I am. In that complete acceptance, I could be nobody – or anybody. This is anonymity is a passport to the undomesticated world of the wild.

14 Impermanence

Breath is a living example of the impermanence of all things – a reminder of the importance of flow. You can never breathe the same breath twice.

15 Focus of Awareness

Meditating, I could focus on sound, which is also ever-present, but I like breath best.

16 Emotional Self-Regulation

Being intimate with how a breath arises, manifests, then falls away is a transferable skill, applicable to emotions and thoughts. These too arise, take form, and pass. Besides my recognizing they’re impermanent, it’s great to also be able to catch negative thought forms and destructive feelings at their inception – before they’ve pulled us along by the nose – learning to step away from their pull on us, understand them, and heal and transform their energies.

17 Direct

Breath isn’t symbolic nor abstract. There’s no need to look behind breath, searching for hidden meaning. Beyond anyone else’s words or labels, connecting with breath is to see for one’s self, through direct experience.

18 Intentionality

Wanting to change my behavior – my thoughts, my words, and my deeds – conscious breathing is wonderful training. To be conscious of just one breath immediately sets intention into motion. Conscious breath provides a space where I can consider how to respond, rather than react.

19 Universal

Like the wind that encircles the planet, breath is everywhere. It knows no religious denominations, national boundaries, ethnic differences, or social classes. Languages vary but they all tend to point to the vital connection to life of breath.

20 Vital

Mindful of breath, I return my attention to the fountain of life. Dead people don’t breathe. Many languages equate our personal breath with a connection to something greater than ourselves.

21 Centering

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi once likened breath to a hinge between mind and body. In present-moment awareness of breath, my body and mind find each other. In the vital spaciousness of breath, body mind spirit can align as one.

22 Interconnection

Scientists tell me my breath nourishes the green world of vegetation, and vegetation nourishes my breath. I know, first-hand, such interdependent interconnection of all things through my breath. I can feel how body conditions mind … mind conditions body … breath conditions both.

23 Letting Go

Breathing out teaches me a central lesson: letting go. I can’t breathe in without breathing out.

24 Ineffable

Breath is invisible. It has no color, no shape. It’s invisible. Breath – like mind, like life – is ineffable.

25 Selflessness

Breathing out, I let my exhalation simply fall away from my body, as if as far as to the horizon. Then I wait. I am as still as a hunter waiting for a deer. I don’t summon it, nor try to will it into existence. My next breath comes, nevertheless. As if of itself. Without fixed identity, lacking any separateness, empty of ownership. In this, it is perfectly open to anything and everything, as limitless as a big clear sky. Selfless.

26 Prayer

Mindful breathing can be a form of prayer.

27 Engaged

Breath can’t be confined to a monastery. It’s actively engaged in the world.

Gary Gach hosts Zen Mindfulness Fellowship weekly in San Francisco, since 2009. He’s author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism and editor of What Book!? ~ Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop. His most recent book is PAUSE BREATHE SMILE ~ Awakening Mindfulness When Meditation Is Not Enough. This brings mindfulness full-circle, back to its roots as a spiritual as well as secular path for complete awakening. It’s available in both paperback and as an audio book. His work has also appeared in over 150 periodicals and a couple dozen anthologies, including The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Huffington Post, In These Times, Language for a New Century, The Nation, The New Yorker, Technicians of the Sacred, and Yoga Journal. More info : GaryGach.com.

Buy your copy of PAUSE, BREATHE, SMILE at your favorite bookseller!

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Bedtime Visualization: Rocketing to the Moon

By Patrick Hinchcliff — 6 years ago

Bedtime should be the calmest moment of the day with our kids, but often it is anything but. Whether we are dealing with last-minute pajama changes, tooth brushing negotiations, or we’re trying to corral our kids into their rooms, it can end up being an exasperating time for both kids and parents alike.

There are many reasons bedtime can be hard. The first is that we are tired, and of course they are too, so no one is exactly ‘at their best’ at the end of the day. Another challenge for children is that they are about to say ‘goodbye’ to us for the night and that can bring up anxiety about being on their own. Also, let’s face it, falling asleep can be difficult regardless of age. The shift from active to rest is not easy; especially when you add a mind full of racing thoughts—which is typical for children (and adults) when things get quiet at night.

What is needed is a way to help children settle mentally and physically at bedtime. When they feel safe and at ease, falling asleep gets a lot easier. Guided visualizations are tools to support children in using their own imaginations to let their bodies and minds relax at bedtime.

The visualizations in Sweet Dreams: Bedtime Visualizations for Kids ,by Mariam Gates and illustrated by Leigh Standley, engage children in mini journeys to underwater worlds, a horseback ride through a field, and even into space while helping them naturally shift into relaxation. The fun and gentle exercises move them into a calm state which is essential for a good night’s rest. Each visualization is also short enough that it can be easily added as a ‘final story.’

We invite you to try the “Rocketing to the Moon” visualization from Sweet Dreams and see if it helps make bedtime a little smoother for everyone.

Lie down on your back and bring your legs together, pressing your arms tight against your body. You are a rocket ship going to the moon.

Start bouncing your legs to ignite the engine.
10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . .

Now shake, shake, shake your whole body.
5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1. BLAST OFF!!!

As you launch into space, point your toes and make yourself as long as you can.

Take a DEEP BREATH IN and a LONG BREATH OUT. Relax your whole body as you sail through space. You are heading toward the moon.

All around you are bright stars and clusters of asteroids. It’s peaceful and quiet.

The moon is getting bigger and bigger the closer you get.

Thud. YOU HAVE ARRIVED.

Step out of your rocket. Bend and extend your legs to make big steps onto the moon like you are walking in slow motion.

You can see Earth in the distance. It is blue and green, like a jewel hanging in the dark sky. Take some deep breaths in and out and think about Earth and how beautiful it is. Think about how lucky you are to live on such a wonderful planet.

It’s time to climb back into your rocket ship.

Take another DEEP BREATH IN and a LONG BREATH OUT.

YOU ARE HEADING HOME.

Mariam Gates, Sounds True

MARIAM GATES has a master’s degree in education from Harvard University and two decades of experience working with children. She is the author of the bestselling Good Night Yoga series. Mariam likes to spend most days writing, where she can explore underwater depths, fly through the sky, and walk on the moon—all in the same afternoon! She lives with her highly imaginative family in Northern California. Learn more at mariamgates.com.

LEIGH STANDLEY is the artist, writer, and owner of Curly Girl Design, Inc. She creates art for greeting cards, calendars, journals, wall art, and more, and her art is sold throughout the U.S. and around the world. Leigh resides in Boston with her husband and twin little people. She can’t live without yoga, her family, Snickers, and Lucy the Wonder Dog. Leigh believes in magic and is quite certain that given a cape and a nice tiara she could save the world. Learn more at curlygirldesign.com.

Sweet Dreams, Sounds True