When you find yourself praying for compassion, this ritual can be especially helpful in finding balance and inner wisdom.
It is time to get out of your own head and your own way. Now, move into the space of connection to your Source, your Spark, your Essence. Oh, wait… is that difficult? Does being still challenge you? Does your monkey mind chatter on and on? Are you stealing your own peace, even when you want so badly to relax and surrender to feeling good? We understand.
There is a point in the journey of self-care and spiritual growth when we know on a deep level how to solve the “problems” using the knowledge of our lived experiences and gathered information from our teachers along the way. When we meet the crossroads of “I know what to do” and “It's not what I want to do and this feels awful”, we can stop and learn to release our expectations and look at our lives with love and compassion. Most of us haven't learned how to do this for ourselves. We have a hard time letting go of anger and it comes into a critical part of the mind that shouts at us, triggers our fears, and holds us back from being in the joyful Divine Experience this life is meant to be.
This week, I played the part of Divine Experimenter in my own spiritual practice. I'd been on the way to the yoga mat and judging myself harshly for the way my walk pained me. I've been doing yoga for a while and until recently, I thought I did great. But this week in my journey was just chock full of stress and inner churning, so I knew it was time to make a transformation. I chose to incorporate a practice from my path as a Pagan Minister with my path as a Yoga practitioner.
For those of you who don't know, yoga is a beautiful path that began in India more than 5000 years ago and is now beloved by millions around the world. I love the practice of mindful meditation, movement medicine, and the feeling of connectedness that I gain when I practice being connected to my Inner Being and my Higher Power through practicing this ancient and powerful practice. It aligns beautifully with my practices of candle magick, crystal healing, sound healing, and Reiki healing.
My special blend of awesome this week was a candle spell that aligned with the Yama of Ahimsa. A Yama is a spiritual teaching. Ahimsa is the path of non-harming. What this means when applied to my journey at this junction is that negative self talk is my most ingrained form of self harm. It's the one that's hardest to beat because it's so pervasive most days. It's hyper critical perspective does keep me humble, but it also makes me feel bad about having a bad moment and not saying the perfect thing when my kids throw a tantrum. There is no balance in a headspace that plays a loop on that spiral.
I decided to grab a pink candle from the box, and I carved the word “Ahimsa” into one side. I applied words like “joy”, “self-love”, and “compassion”. I stationed it in the middle of my altar and lit the wick.
With the spell begun, I crossed into the space where I do yoga and sat in meditation. I imagined the candle being lit in my Heart Chakra and repeated the mantra “so hum”- “I am that” as I allowed the light of the inner candle flame to burn brightly within. The light traveled to my limbs and through my energy body, filling me with the curious feeling of a hug that comes without a body. It was comforting and strange, but it feels good to get a hug when you need one, so I leaned into the experience further. This feeling stayed with me as the pranayama (breath work) did the unlocking of worry and anger and guilt from my hips, my neck, my knees, and my calves. I stayed with the breath, modified when it became overwhelming to stick with my mudra, working in time the breath to the flicker of the flame of my altar candle. I let the candle burn down and carried the breath rhythms while flowing tasks around the house- making dinner, washing laundry, cleaning up the day, making the space as comforting as I could. By the time the candle burned out, I was able to see how much of my funk had just been those old emotional patterns wanting to be rid of my new and improved cheery disposition. I felt that at least the day wasn't a complete wash, even if I had spent half of it in a lesson of compassion I somehow didn't see coming. That just made it more real for me that what you do on the spiritual plane of your life has meaning. I look forward to the path forward and I hope you will find this idea helpful.
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