Day 40: November 23

A yogi leaves the place a little bit better than when they arrived…

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Thank you so much for spending the last 40 days with us!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: What you do matters.

Seeing this community grow continues to show us why we do what we do.
We know that this practice is transformational, and our mission is to make yoga accessible to as many people as we can.

This community wouldn’t be what it is without each of you. We appreciate the time you spend with us on the mat, and we would like to ask you to take a few minutes to share your experience with us.

Hit reply and let us know if you have any kind words, feedback or suggestions

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THE PRACTICE CONTINUES…

COMMIT TO YOUR PRACTICE

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‘The Practice Continues’ pass is available to everyone.

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A special thank you to Halfmoon for always supporting our community

We will be selecting prize winners from all students who participated in the 40 days, and who shared our daily tracker on instagram.

We’ll be in touch either by email or by instagram in the coming days to congratulate you and so we can get your prize to you!

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Day 39: November 22

The Warrior
~ by Hafiz

The warriors tame
The beast in their past
So that the night's hoofs
Can no longer break the jeweled vision
In the heart.

The intelligent and the brave
Open every closet in the future and evict 
All the mind's ghosts who have the bad habit
Of barfing everywhere.

For a long time the Universe
Has been germinating in your spine

But only a Saint has the talent,
The courage to slay
The past-giant, the future-anxieties.

The warrior
Wisely sits in a circle
With other men

Gathering the strength to unmask
Himself,

Then
Sits, giving,
like a great illumined planet on
The 
Earth.

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Day 34: November 17

“Your Life is a Living Ceremony

Lean into what brings you limitless joy.
Be in the company of people and places that inspire you.
Forgive often.
Pray daily.
Bask in nature’s finest details.
Listen to the birds sing.
Sun-bathe, ocean dip, forest walk.
Begin again.
Fall freely, dance wildly.
Grace will catch you.
Honour your desires.
Make art over war.
Drink in the quiet moments.
Return to your holy body
as a vessel of compassion. ”

— Mara Branscombe

Each cycle in life is part of your journey. Allow it to be intentional and ceremonial. Fall freely, dance wildly, practice vulnerability, grace will catch you. Discover simple moments in your day to practice shifting your state of body and mind through being intentional and compassionate. Share this source frequency of love with all that cross your path. Let it be expressed fully and witness the shifts.

- Mara

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Day 33: November 16

“It takes discipline to be a free spirit.”

— Gabrielle Roth (creator of the 5 Rhythms movement practice and long-time teacher of spiritual practices)

Personally, this quote speaks mountains of truth for me, and as a yogi, dancer, author, mother, and teacher – if I do not tend to what feeds my spirit, I feel like my world becomes more complex and less joyous than it needs to be.

Once we can find a practice that nourishes us deeply, we mend our fragmented parts, return to wholeness and rekindle what is most important to us.  Our mind-body practices – be it meditation, yoga, movement, hiking or art, become the mediums in which we can discover our essential nature while building inner resilience.  If we bypass or disengage from the practices that inspire us, we can experience mental fog, confusion around our belief systems, and be overcome by the weight of the world’s complexities. In the words of B.K.S Iyengar “My body is my temple, and asanas are my prayers.” May we continue to stay attuned to our bodies and cast our prayers far and wide. The world is ready to receive your full expression.

- Mara

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Day 32: November 15

Build altars.

Light candles.

Create time for the quietude

of your mind to get spacious.

Welcome in the unknown.

Dive into the mystery of life’ grandest questions.

Touch the earth.

Kiss the sky.

Be a channel for spirit to move

Through your sacred body.

Trust.

Every single day.

-Mara Branscombe

Ritual is anything done with intention.  Every time we step onto our yoga mats, we have an opportunity to generate a sacred healing space within. When we wake each morning, may we count our blessings of gratitude for the earth and our ability to live another day. We can light a candle in honour of a new day coming. We can greet ourselves and our loved ones with deep compassion and radical acceptance.  As the sun goes down, may we let go a little deeper, so we may fall into the dreamtime - spacious and open.  

The ritual of life is deeply satisfying, choose one action daily that holds the frequency of love and with intention, give it your full presence. 

- Mara

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Day 30: November 13

RECEIVE REST

Hi friends,

Thank you for joining this week of mindfully celebrating our resilience AND cultivating even more! The audio meditation available for you each day is designed to help you better understand yourself and the way you show up in this world. The practices build upon one another in a gentle, thoughtful way - yet there is no one 'right' way to practice. You can choose to listen to the same meditation every day this week if your intuition knows it would be most helpful, transformative or caring for the challenges you are facing.

Listen, breathe, enjoy the meditations in an environment where you can truly listen within: out in nature, lying down at home, driving to the grocery store!

I can't wait to connect on Sunday Nov 14th at 8am, where we bring it all together for a group practice, lecture and sharing.

Sending love and kindness,

Carolyn

Today's Practice - You are allowed to gift yourself this time for simple relaxation. We rest so that we may recalibrate all the ways the world wears us down, physically and mentally. Never doubt how healing and productive it can be to pause in this easeful way. You are allowed to receive the rest that awaits you.

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Day 29: November 12

NOTICE THE WAVES & BE THE OCEAN

Hi friends,

Thank you for joining this week of mindfully celebrating our resilience AND cultivating even more! The audio meditation available for you each day is designed to help you better understand yourself and the way you show up in this world. The practices build upon one another in a gentle, thoughtful way - yet there is no one 'right' way to practice. You can choose to listen to the same meditation every day this week if your intuition knows it would be most helpful, transformative or caring for the challenges you are facing.

Listen, breathe, enjoy the meditations in an environment where you can truly listen within: out in nature, lying down at home, driving to the grocery store!

I can't wait to connect on Sunday Nov 14th at 8am, where we bring it all together for a group practice, lecture and sharing.

Sending love and kindness,

Carolyn

Today's Practice - What if we curiously observed the waves we experience, without drowning in them? Regardless of life’s inevitable ups and downs, might we become the ocean? Might we remember that our thoughts and emotions do not define us? The ocean's vastness mimics the equanimity that is available to us in every moment, no matter what is before us, as each wave passes. Let's pause, get honest, and continue the practice together...

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Day 28: November 11

TO OPEN: MAKING SPACE TO BE & BECOME

Hi friends,

Thank you for joining this week of mindfully celebrating our resilience AND cultivating even more! The audio meditation available for you each day is designed to help you better understand yourself and the way you show up in this world. The practices build upon one another in a gentle, thoughtful way - yet there is no one 'right' way to practice. You can choose to listen to the same meditation every day this week if your intuition knows it would be most helpful, transformative or caring for the challenges you are facing.

Listen, breathe, enjoy the meditations in an environment where you can truly listen within: out in nature, lying down at home, driving to the grocery store!

I can't wait to connect on Sunday Nov 14th at 8am, where we bring it all together for a group practice, lecture and sharing.

Sending love and kindness,

Carolyn

Today's Practice - Opening up is a radical act in this world that has taught us to protect and shut down. It's time to access the inner wisdom urging us to: be in the moment, lean into the unknowns, consider all that's possible and find our own freedom. The body and mind may try to control and navigate, but choosing to open releases our patterns. What are you ready to make space for?

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Day 27: November 10

TRANSFORM ANXIETY: HEAL WITH BREATH

Hi friends,

Thank you for joining this week of mindfully celebrating our resilience AND cultivating even more! The audio meditation available for you each day is designed to help you better understand yourself and the way you show up in this world. The practices build upon one another in a gentle, thoughtful way - yet there is no one 'right' way to practice. You can choose to listen to the same meditation every day this week if your intuition knows it would be most helpful, transformative or caring for the challenges you are facing.

Listen, breathe, enjoy the meditations in an environment where you can truly listen within: out in nature, lying down at home, driving to the grocery store!

I can't wait to connect on Sunday, Nov 14th at 8am, where we bring it all together for a group practice, lecture and sharing.

Sending love and kindness,

Carolyn

Today's Practice - Let's tap into even more breath and the deeper awareness that we all crave... This is a sweet and straightforward practice to invite in the breath that we all require for balance and for healing. Give your system a pause from ongoing anxiety and overwhelm. Anxiety affects us all, yet simple practices can transform decades of conditioned responses - even one deep breath helps.

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Day 25: November 8

INTENTION

Hi friends,

I am so looking forward to a week of mindfully celebrating our resilience AND cultivating even more! The audio meditation available for you each day is designed to help you better understand yourself and the way you show up in this world. The practices build upon one another in a gentle, thoughtful way - yet there is no one 'right' way to practice. You can choose to listen to the same meditation every day this week if your intuition knows it would be most helpful, transformative or caring for the challenges you are facing.

Listen, breathe, enjoy the meditations in an environment where you can truly listen within: out in nature, lying down at home, driving to the grocery store!

I can't wait to connect on Sunday, Nov 14th at 8 am, where we bring it all together for a group practice, lecture and sharing.

Sending love and kindness,

Carolyn

Today's Practice - Intentions tend to keep us committed to our process and to each moment; these differ from goals which often have a future focus and a failure or success outcome. Let's begin by arriving into the moment and into your reason for being here. Take stock of how you're doing and of what truly matters to you now. Take the pressure off, set aside unrealistic expectations. Change is possible. It can begin with an intention. See what happens when you work with an intention in this series and in all moments of life.

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Day 24: November 7

“It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those, men get lost.”

CATCHING A VISION OF PEACE

Vision is paramount to our survival on earth. My mushum (grandfather) used to say “you have to know where you’ve come from to know where you are going”. The past informs the present which informs the future. We must learn from our poor choices of the past and choose a higher vision for future generations. This is where yoga comes in. 

Through breathwork, our inner vision lights up and comes from our sacred centre - our heart. We learn to see through the eyes of the heart from our breath which we now know is Spirit breathing life into us. Seeing through the eyes of the heart is walking in beauty. And when we see beauty inside, we see it everywhere. 

Without vision, we have no direction and we get lost in the shadows of the mind. When we practice pranayama, we clear the mind of illusion and distraction, so we can catch a beautiful vision that supports the liberation of all beings in Creation. We must learn to think about more than ourselves and seat ourselves in service. When we have a vision, we can serve others. 

So let us sit down daily, breathe with intention, use the yogic technology and watch the heart-mind open up. 

“What happens when your soul begins to awaken 

Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body 

To the great Journey of Love? 

First there is wonderful laughter 

And probably precious tears 

And a hundred sweet promises 

And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep. 

But still God is delighted and amused 

You once tried to be a saint. 

What happens when your soul 

Begins to awake in this world 

To our deep need to love 

And serve the Friend? 

O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions 

Like Hafiz.” 

May we catch the beautiful vision together 

And follow the light of Yoga into a new day 

All my love, Yogis. 

See you on the mat soon. 

Warmly, 

Malina 

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Day 23: November 6

“I am grateful to know how exquisitely I have been made to feel and heal. Thank you for showing me that grief will not kill me, that my sorrows are not toxic - that only an obstinate will to hoard them secretly presents a problem. Teach me to grieve my losses in the moment, until I am complete. It is okay if it takes a lifetime to sense that my house is in order. Help me to have the courage to claim a different shape for my life than history foretold.

Refresh my spirit with the waters of nature. Give me language to communicate my experience with others who are on a path of mending.”

— Pixie Lighthouse, Chactaw, Creek and Chickasaw Elder - From her book “Prayers of Honouring Grief”

HONOURING GRIEF & HELAING

Walking with grief is an experience that every human has at some point in their life. Grief is a natural part of the human experience. When we have teachings around grief, we have an 

easier time moving through it. Breath has been a teaching in every culture for grief. When we have a moment of traumatic impact in our lives we often say ‘I can’t breathe’ or ‘it felt like all the air left my body’. When life shifts so intensely, it takes our breath away. And so, the answer then, is to begin breathing again. To walk through grief, we must take it one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time. 

It is a sacred time when we are moving through grief and trauma. When we have practices and teachings around us that help us to honour the process, move the dense energy and glean the lessons, we make it through to the other side. 

One of those practices is breathwork. By using the breath we create a cocoon for ourselves to move through our suffering and find healing, much like the traditional Inipi or sweat lodge ceremony. The grandfather stones create a purifying heat within the lodge, just as our breath does for the suffering of the mind and body to burn up in. Breathwork can become a ceremony so that when we are grieving, we can seat ourselves in the fire and water of our breath and let the medicine run through us. 

When we walk through grief, we must let our tears run like rivers until we are done. Breathwork helps us to access our emotional truth and centres us in the heart of our experience. Sitting down to breathe with the intention to feel can help us heal. It is one pathway that helps us somatically process our grief so that it does not stay stuck in our body and our mind is not frozen in time. Once our emotions are integrated, the mind calms and we land in acceptance of the change that has taken place in our life. Our breathwork reminds us of this pertinent spiritual truth about life, that everything is impermanent and we must eventually let go. 

If you need to be wrapped up in warmth while you walk through grief, put on this playlist and just breathe. 

Walking beside you Yogis, 

Malina 

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Day 21: November 4

Connection to Creation

“When you are in the woods, you cannot ever be lost. You are surrounded by friends and surrounded by God.”

- Elder Joe Coyhis, Stockbridge-Munsee 

The breath connects us to ourselves, to each other, to all of Creation. It opens up the unseen world, the spirit world or the astral world in our perception. When you breathe with the intention to connect, talk to your ancestors and remember your place in the sacred hoop of life, you remember your interconnection to all our relations. When you remember your interconnectedness to life, you will make different choices because Creation and all your relatives will be on your mind and in your heart. You will remember that your actions can lift up Creation a little or bring it down a little. It is a great responsibility, this sacred life. The breath helps us remember how to take care of our personal life force and by extension, all of life. 

You cannot be lost in the woods of your mind or the concrete jungle when you practice with correct intention to remember that your life matters and you have purpose, gifts and an impact on the world around you. 

Saying we are interrelated and connected is different from experiencing it. Sit down with a 6-second breath in and out for 5 minutes at least. and then try this meditation to feel your connection to Creation. 

With love friends,

Malina

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Day 20: November 3

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

ANXIETY & DEPRESSION

Emotions are constant companions in this human experience.
When the nervous system and brain are left to their own devices and they run the show, it is completely natural to experience anxiety and depression as symptoms of deeper discords and imbalances.

It is part of the human experience to have a rich emotional landscape. But this does not mean we need to be slave to our mind and emotions. We must remember to bring together our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual selves as the medicine wheel teaches. Enter breath work.

Breath work is a method that allows us to hold ourselves as we are. If we wake up and we are anxious, slow, smooth and long breaths ground the body. slow the mind down and can even show us the root of our anxiety if we are witnessing the mind as we breathe.

If we wake up and we are depressed, we can lay down and breathe if it’s too much effort to sit up or practice a breath with more fire to stimulate ourselves with energy. As the breath nourishes the body, it takes tamas (lethargy, dullness and lack of inspiration) out of both the mind and body.



But it is really not as simple as that. We are unique creatures and breath work is akin to administering subtle medicine to the body/mind system. As we get to know ourselves, we know the type of breath work that will help us best. Hence, why practice is so essential.

Our Breath is our Spirit in a gross form, yet still more subtle than the body. It is one of the key elements we need to nourish ourselves with each and every day just like we need clean water and pure food, we need quality breath. When we work with it, it medicates us and brings vitality, rest and balance to our system. Spending time with our breath moves our emotions to the surface so we can sit with that which needs to be felt and integrated. My elders say that when we cry, it is sacred water that heals the heart, so when heaviness comes to visit, you must turn on the taps.

We remember who we are through the breath and we learn how to become friends with our emotional companions. We learn to give them just enough attention to suss out the root of the message and then refocus our attention on the medicine of the practice to bring lightness of being and clarity back to the body/mind. When we take time to balance and integrate our emotions, the rest of our medicine wheel becomes balanced as well. With practice we develop witnessing capacity and emotional intelligence. Over time they become sacred messengers that have purpose in our lives.

May we feel our feelings and heal our hearts. No one says it better than sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

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Day 19: November 2

START THE DAY FROM THE INSIDE OUT

In this modern world, so many of us begin our day from the outside in. We roll over, pick up our phones and let energy of the world into our mind. When we do this, it activates our rational mind, the thinking mind, the judging mind. Depending on what information we are taking in, our bias’, our fears, and collective trauma is imprinted onto our perception of life and our nervous system when it is the first thing we see. From here into the rest of our day, we move from our mind and the sympathetic nervous system which tells us we must survive the day, go through the motions because now we feel hopeless or numb, or get into action to survive the climate. We are now in survival mode. We can easily trigger overwhelming anxiety, fear, depression or complacency when we let the world into our being without creating a container to discern what we are seeing. It seeds distraction into our day. We wake up without clarity on what we are doing here and what our purpose is within the Cosmic Earth play.

Another way to begin the day would be to avoid the phone for 30 minutes. Try putting it on airplane mode overnight and keeping it in a separate room. Resolve to rise up, take movement if needed, then sit down and be with the sacred morning slowly.

When I wake in the mornings I sit immediately at my altar, light the candles, light the smudge and say good morning to all my relatives. I’ll put on music that inspires a devotional feeling and begin my breath work practice which leads me to prayer, gratitude and stillness of mind. Starting this way puts me in touch with the unseen world, with honesty in how I am really feeling that morning, with my heart and desires for the day and a vision for my life, I wake with with my inner voice and the voice of my spirit guides.

In this way, we can catch a vision for the day, clear residues from sleep or the past days and start with a fresh mind anchored in Spirit, in gratitude, in connection to Creation. This becomes an anchor that holds you through the days mystery. This is starting from the inside out. A place of healing power. A place of clarity. A place of owning the vibration you are creating in the world.

When we wake up in the morning and practice pranayama first, we are starting from the inside out rather than the outside in. And our anchor is in our bodies, if we are in our body, we are present, if we are present we can see what is in front of us and around us, and we are anchored to the spirit world so we see from the inside out and this makes our world more beautiful and our place in it powerful.

You get to choose. Will you start outside in or inside out? Will it be chaos or will it be clarity? Breath work in the morning makes all the difference.

Enjoy this Cherokee Morning song to start the day on a sweet note my friends.

Warmly,

Malina 

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Day 18: November 1

PRANAYAMA

“‘Prana’ means breath, respiration, life, vitality, energy or strength. ‘Ayama’ means stretch, extension, expansion, length, breadth, regulation, prolongation, restraint or control.‘Pranayama’ thus means the prolongation of breath and its restraint.”

— BKS - Iyengar

Pranayama is the 4th of the 8 Limbs of Yoga. As taught by Srivatsa Ramaswami, Prana means life force or vital energy. Yama means self-control, as well as intentional expansion and the ‘a’ in front of Yama, means complete control. Therefore pranayama is to completely bring the breath under control. Then If we understand that prana is our life force and vitality and we are extending and controlling our breath, we are extending and bringing our life force under control. We understand then that the quality of our breath has a direct effect on the quality of our life.

Yoga moves us from distraction to direction. To become a practitioner of this theory, one must learn to bring one’s breath under control and learn to focus one’s internal energy and mind. If you have ever desired to meditate and cannot, if you suffer from depression and anxiety on a regular basis, if you cannot catch a vision or inspiration for your life, a missing key could be pranayama, or as it’s referred to in modern times, breathwork.

In Hinduism, one place that Yoga stems from, breath and spirit are considered the same thing. So we are not only creating respiration for our lungs and bodies, we are RE SPIRITING our beings. As BKS Iyengar says, “It is as difficult to explain Prana as it is to explain God”. As with all yogic lineages, it is 10% philosophy and 90% practice. The proof is in the pudding, as we say. You must experience the spiritual science to know its truth.

In my culture, the Great Eagle represents connection to Great Spirit and Keen Sight and Vision. When we breathe Spirit into our being, we become like the great Eagle and begin to observe the landscape of this human experience from another vantage point.

In the week to come, we will explore a few ways pranayama can support your life through anxiety and depression, morning practice, connection to creation, your sacred centre, catching a vision, and working with grief. And we will bring all these elements together in the Sunday practice.

Let us be like the Great Eagle friends. I look forward to steeping in the Sacred Breath and ReSpiriting with you.

Warmly,

Malina 

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Day 17: October 31

Breath always tells us the truth - flexibility and strength at play.

“Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just to stay human.”

— Michael Franti

Having a  beautiful balance of flexibility and strength takes practice. Tuning deep into our own sensations and releasing pressure to have to get somewhere is truly a gift and starting with where we truly are is fundamental. 

How this works on the mat: 

When you feel something to be hard or strenuous, this is the moment to insert the kindest interpretation of what you think about that pose. If you’re struggling in a lunge, where can you soften and be sweet to yourself? Oftentimes in 'Wheel Pose' or Urdhva Dhanurasana you’ll notice teachers talk about making a dedicating to someone you love, your one last upward bow to someone in need, this intention is the balance of sweetness (toward someone else as it can be easier to do it for others) mixed with strength and determination. 

The breath will always tell the truth. Deep flowy breaths will help us discover where we are withholding, where we can breathe deeper and where our fullest expression is exactly where we are, The balance of our postures is then guided by the breath. When we let our breath lead, we can release control of the end of the shape and experience what it’s like to be in it, to grow and to flow. 

Our practice can then evolve, today we may not be able to touch our toes and in a month with ongoing commitment and practice we can. We have the ability to evolve! If our minds are closed and we see no growth, we won’t practice daily and the chance for improvement is slim to none. 

As we close this week with flexibility and strength, here are some mantras to support our way forward: 

“I Am Free” 

“I am Present” 

“I am Committed”

Here’s an extra tip to motivate you to keep in your beautiful practice. Beautiful can be sweaty, challenging with a lot of fierce determination. Write a list of what motivates you to keep going, to show up and to be free on your mat and then off your mat into the world. You deserve to be your fully expressed incredible human being that you are. The practice of yoga is a reminder of that every day. Just show up and be you. 

“Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.”

— Michael Franti

Music can be our greatest teacher. When we let the music integrate with our breath, and we let ourselves flow freely to the lyrics and beat it can be a magical experience. Let’s let the music take our practice to the next level this week. 

Let’s move to this playlist and as you may hear on repeat, make it your own, do what you need now and start with full acceptance of where you’re at today. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2wgfs42ur3rx1gR7fIrXQ0?si=07fffd35d53a456b

With so much love, 

Cecily 

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Day 16: October 30

THE PROMISE

I promise to let you explore

To be where you are

To play with what is

To evolve 

To crash and pick yourself up again

To laugh at falling 

To love the deep moments

To introduce yourself over and over again

To explore your yoga practice every day  

To step on the mat today as if it was the first 

To sleep in without judgement 

To cry in savasana 

To move where your body is taking you

To be fully expressed in all your poses

To be YOU

(Now say this again as if you are saying this to yourself)

I promise to let myself explore

To be where I’m at

To play with what is

To evolve 

To crash and pick myself up again

To laugh at falling 

To love all the deep moments

To introduce myself over and over again

To explore my yoga practice every day  

To step on the mat today as if it was the first 

To sleep in without judgement 

To cry in savasana 

To move where my body is taking me

To be fully expressed in all my poses

To be ME

With love, 

Cecily

PS. Play this song.

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Day 15: October 29

MORNING ASANA

Let these lyrics inspire this balance of Sthira and Sukha. Embrace your practice with open arms. Embrace the days where it feels hard and the days where it feels like ease. If we are always thinking of our practice in terms of good or bad we can be swept away in the current of the ocean waves. Listen to Morning Asana by Londrell here. 

I start my mornings with

Breath and a yoga pose

Filling my spirit with peace

Until it overflows

I start my mornings with

Breath and a yoga pose

Filling my spirit with love

Until I overdose

Yeah

My eyes closed

I’m in child’s pose

I know life ain’t perfect

But I smile though

Count my breath, like 5,4

2,1 then rise slow

Another day, a new vinyasa

With every breath

Releasing all my problems

All my chakras, they so aligned

I’m so aligned. I’m so divine

Wake up in the morning then I celebrate

Say my prayers and then I meditate

Wake up in the morning then I levitate

Do Asana, pranayama, meditate

Wake up in the morning then I celebrate

Say my prayers and then I meditate

Wake up in the morning then I levitate

Do asana, pranayama, meditate

I start my mornings with

Breath and self-analysis

Giving thanks and gratitude

To life and all of its challenges

So many dualities, but I know

How to balance them

My heart is open. I’m in cobra pose

I lift my chest, inhale through my nose

Exhale out my mouth, and let it overflow

Practice asana, manifest your soul control

Another day, a new vinyasa

With every breath

Releasing all my problems

All my chakras, they so aligned

I’m so aligned. I’m so divine

Wake up in the morning then I celebrate

Say my prayers and then I meditate

Wake up in the morning then I levitate

Do asana, pranayama, meditate

Wake up in the morning then I celebrate

Say my prayers and then I meditate

Wake up in the morning then I levitate

Do asana, pranayama, meditate

Ground yourself in the now

Plant your soul in the present

Anchor your mind to the breath

Be with the body. Be with the breath

Release the tension. Release the pain

Release the stress. Watch the body

Free the mind. Become one with the breath

Wake up in the morning then I celebrate

Say my prayers and then I meditate

Wake up in the morning then I levitate

Do asana, pranayama, meditate

Wake up in the morning then I celebrate

Say my prayers and then I meditate

Wake up in the morning then I levitate

Do asana, pranayama, meditate

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Day 14: October 28

Flexibility + Strength in the World 

Let’s take the practice of Flexibility and Strength off the mat today. 

Reflect for a moment in your life situations from the lens of “bending over backwards”, being too flexible, or what people may call “controlling”, being firm. 

When you identify where these moments are, you discover what's working or not working when you bend over backwards or are too firm.  Some ways this can show up: you may find that you say yes more than you say no. You may wake up feeling balanced and by the end of the day feel drained, you may start to feel resentment or frustrated. These are the moments to understand that when you say YES to something you are also saying NO to something else. Notice where you say YES (being overly flexible) where you meant to say NO. Where does this show up for you? 

Saying this, there may be some places where you have collapsed being flexible for your identity. The mistaken belief could sound like “I am flexible and push my needs further away for the needs of others” - something like this? We all have beliefs in our lives that either serve or deplete us. The beliefs we tell ourselves are thoughts floating in our minds that create how we speak and act. To shift the balance of overbending or rigid we could begin to shift the beliefs in our minds:

“I am not worthy of my own balance” shifts to “I am here to serve others and myself”.

Let’s identify these moments to shift the balance of flexibility and strength. We may never have the “perfect” balance, however, we can begin to be aware of when we are over one way and over the other and insert forgiveness, patience, honesty, humour to shift quicker versus being in a place of doubt or frustration for 24-48 hours (or sometimes years!). Begin to find these moments to create balance in your life. To create strong boundaries that are of service to you, others and the community. The place to find these moments is if you wake up feeling nourished and balanced and then something in your day tips the balance to feeling challenged and frustrated. 

Let’s use the Yamas to guide us as we may shift moments in our lives. When we bend over backwards, we can ask ourselves: 

• Is this harming anyone? 

• Is it truthful?

• Am I stealing from anyone (including myself)? 

• Is this excess; am I conserving energy? 

• Am I attached? 

Svadhyaya - Self Study:  

1.  Not to judge where you are, simply to notice, 

2. Answer these questions: Where are you being too Flexible or Strong? Take inventory today, where may you be overbending? Where is here and how did we get here? Where are you being too flexible, that it’s throwing you off balance? 

3. What are the limiting beliefs you are creating and what is the most generous beliefs you can create? 

4. What would balance look like? 

Insert ease in your conversations, your work, your relationships and insert some groundedness, some boundaries, communication and strength. 

With peace, 

Cecily 

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