PRACTICES FOR INNER PEACE
www.InnerConnectionsYoga.com
Intention: I commit to practices that bring me inner peace.
Researchers describe inner peace as a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with low-arousal positive emotions, such as feelings of calmness, serenity, tranquility, balance, equanimity, even-mindedness, harmony, stability, and contentment. Inner peace involves feeling a deep calm and being able to keep ourselves steady and grounded in the face of anxiety, discord, or stress.
Psychological and emotional negativity as well as trauma create a dampening field on our subtle body and leave a psychic residue in the energy body that constricts the heart and diminishes our ability to experience the love, joy, and beauty that surrounds us every moment.
Excessive negative emotions can make us feel heavy, dark, and gloomy, emotionally reactive and defensive, and view the world through a lens of fear, anger, and paranoia. Since mind and body deeply intertwine, mental and emotional negativity may show up for us physically: tense muscles, shallow breathing, increased blood pressure, elevated levels of adrenalin and cortisol—all signs of anxiety and stress.
Try the following practices to connect your inner peace and harmony.
1. Move Your Body: Whether practicing yoga, going for a brisk walk or run, dancing, or engaging in another form of active movement, moving your body helps purge negative emotions from your system on several levels. Focused movement activates your subtle energetic system where negative impressions, stress, and anxiety often get stuck. When energy is flowing without interference, the negativity begins to dissipate. With an increase in respiration and circulation, toxins (such as residual stress hormones) flush out of the body through deeper breathing and sweat. And during energetic physical activity, your body’s need for increased oxygen overrides any negative subtext that might try to drag you down; in other words, it is hard to stay focused on the anxiety, stress, or negativity when you are bringing more vitality and energy into the body.
2. Learn to Meditate: Spending time in the stillness of meditation has a profound healing effect on the mind and helps to restore your entire system to balance and low-arousal positive emotions. Excessive stuck energy activates the stress response and meditation is the antidote. Meditation relaxes tense muscles, supports deep breathing, decreases blood pressure and respiration, and lowers levels of adrenalin and cortisol in the body. Meditation helps you observe your thoughts rather than analyze, criticize, or judge them. By witnessing your thoughts as they come and go, you interrupt their stream before a negative seed takes root in your mental garden. When you meditate and repeatedly enter the field of pure consciousness, the negative evaluations in your awareness wash away, releasing their hold on you.
3. Practice Pranayama Exercises: Yogic breathing exercises are a powerful way to cleanse the mind and body of negative energy, anxiety, and stress. Two breathing techniques that move energy and make more space for good are Bhastrika (Bellows Breath) and Kapalabhati (Skull Shining Breath). Both move and flush stuck energy out of your system. Bhastrika Breathing is an invigorating breath that energizes the body and generates an internal heat that incinerates the negativity stuck in your body. Kapalabhati Breathing is a technique to expel the ashes of the burnt-up negative charge from your system. We will practice these in our workshop, The Power of the Practice I on June 10th at MIND BODY SOUL (see details at https://www.innerconnectionsyoga.com/new-page-2 )
4. Embrace Nature as Therapy: Outside in nature is one of my favorite places to BE. Nature is a powerful tool to release negative energy from your mind and body. The purity of nature invites you to release anxiety and stress and embrace the healing qualities of nature. Spending time in a quiet outdoor space can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and anger; strengthen the immune system; improve cardiovascular and metabolic health; and boost overall well-being. When embracing the beauty and majesty of a mountain range, hiking an old-growth forest, basking in the warmth of the sun and the rhythmic sounds of the ocean, or floating a river, it becomes difficult for negative energy to maintain its hold on your awareness.
Try these practices to support shedding the physical, emotional, and mental weight that can unnecessarily burden us. With this week’s intention, I COMMIT MYSELF TO PRACTICES THAT BRING ME INNER PEACE, we can cultivate a lifelong practice of awareness of the habits and thought patterns that no longer serve us, and make a conscious choice to release them, opening the door to new ways of living that bring greater peace to the mind and joy to the heart. We can experience extraordinary moments of wonder by being fully present in the miracles of this life, and deep gratitude for the blessings we normally take for granted. Profound acceptance, forgiveness, love, and compassion for oneself and others, and being in touch with our deepest inner being brings us inner peace.
Love and light,
Jeanne and John