Tag: pranayam

Pregnancy and Yoga

The yogis see pregnancy as the gift of giving life. Yogi Bhajan said that marriage is the highest yoga and children are your karmic teachers. The relationship with your partner is your highest spiritual practice and your baby will become the teacher from whom you will learn the lessons you need to move forward on your spiritual path.

“The purest thing in the world is the heart of the mother… It can move the universe. It can cause an effect beyond limitation.” –Yogi Bhajan

Adi Shakti is the woman’s primal energy force. The deep desire to give birth and love is biological and spiritual. Some women do not desire have children and that is fine too. Everyone should have its own opinions, and preferences. I always believe that if you want to be respected, listened, and understood, you have to respect, listen, and understand first. Understand doesn’t mean agree with others opinions, but to see the point in their ideas and thoughts.

For some woman the whole pregnancy is a reminder of their past unresolved traumas, and there are many women who pass through this.

It is not necessary that you should be married, you should be pregnant, or should be this or that. The most important part of a woman is that she should have enough spirit, enough flow of spirit, enough dialogue we call it, that she can maintain her grace and her respect.

– Yogi Bhajan

If you are planning to have a baby to meditate on it. It is good to visualize yourself with the pregnant belly. This will make you more receptive. You can attract it and manifest it.

Meditation is the direct relationship between you (the finite) and the infinite. There are specific yogic exercises, chants, and meditations to stimulate the navel (abdominal area).

There are some women who struggle with the pain of infertility, or difficulty to become pregnant or maintain pregnancy. This can be very painful and traumatic. Definitely you should be in contact with a doctor to discuss all the different alternatives.

Meditation will always keep you more emotionally stable when facing challenging moments.

According to the philosophy of Yoga, the soul of the child enters the body of the fetus at 120 days. It is highly recommended that the mother practice meditation and take excellent care from the 120 days since conception.

Everything inside and outside of the mother will affect the baby. The state of mind that she is in, her thoughts, the situations, the spoken words, the foods she eats, everything!

Once the baby is born the mom will become the first role model of the child.

“A mother freely teaches values and virtues to every child for their prosperity, peace of mind, and consciousness. Let us honor our mother for our own integrity and happiness. May we learn to serve and protect our Mother Earth with an open heart.”—Yogi Bhajan

Yoga and meditation can help to prevent conditions related to stressful situations. The practice of Yoga decreases the body’s oxygen needs and slows down breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure for those moms suffering from high blood pressure.

The repetition of mantras can get rid of negative mental states and uplift you. The different yogic breathing techniques can help you in labor. They can also balance your hormones in a time when you need it the most.

Always, always, always!! Before you engage in any exercise program, consult your doctor.

If you have always been very athletic, you should plan to lower the intensity and with time as your body grows plan to modify your exercises for the pregnancy ones.

Walking is one of the most recommended exercises for pregnant women. It massages the internal organs. Ideally it is recommended that you walk 2 to 5 miles every day.

You can also add the mantra SA TA NA MA. Chant a word per step. Chanting mantras is like touching divine universal cords. You bring the benefits of that mantra while balancing the glandular system. It also takes care of erase those negative thoughts.

You can also join a pregnancy Yoga class where you know the exercises will be exactly what you need for your pregnancy. There is a saying that says that no one will understand you better during your pregnancy than another pregnant woman. They also hold women workshops, pregnancy teacher trainings, and other wonderful and interesting things.

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Water is another element essential for you during this special time. Make sure you drink lots.

Other good exercises during pregnancy are inside the pool or the ocean:

  • Walk backward and forward inside of a pool or the ocean.
  • Slow bicycling is also very helpful. Try this by placing your back against the wall of the pool, place the arms at each side outside of the pool, and relax the head on the side of the pool. Then start bicycling slowly.

These water exercises feel great because they relieve the weight of gravity off the joints.

As the time passes, the baby grows and the body starts changing. Good posture is key to relieving future pains. The perfect posture is to open the legs at hip distance so that the belly is centered and the weight is shared. Lower the tale bone, lengthen the spine, open the chest, and relax the shoulders down.

It is very important to stay relaxed while pregnant.

love, k<3

a guide to your Pregnancy

Yogi’s Heart Opener

The art of mindfulness and loving kindness is the foundations for living with an open heart. Ustrasana is a classic heart chakra pose for opening and connecting.

The best heart chakra yoga poses are those that open the chest area as well as poses that draw energy into the heart. Situated in the Anahata, the 4th chakra is your point of balance. Balance, between the body and mind, balance between Heaven and Earth.

Ustrasana is also known as Camel pose, a strong asana that opens up your chest area, exposing you, making you vulnerable and more open to giving and receiving love.

One of the most challenging things in life is to be vulnerable. As we grow older we become more closed and constricted. We have been hurt many times and we feel the need to protect ourselves. Physically, we rotate our shoulders forward, we push out our chin and round our upper body to protect the heart. This constricts the flow of prana to the heart and creates an imbalance in the heart chakra. This yoga asana stretches the entire front of the body, abdomen, chest, and throat, as well as deep hip flexors. It strengthens your back muscles and stimulates organs in the abdomen and physically open your heart of course! Expanding and opening your chest to allow your heart to open. Bliss is in your heart, it just needs to be opened. For it is only when you approach life from a place of openness can you embody connectedness with all things.

 

adventurous-soul

To The Adventurous Soul,

Kelly Krishna Dunn 🙂

Tattva Balance Beyond Stress and Duality

When the five elements (tattvas) are strong, are in balance, and are located in their proper areas of the body, then you can resist stress, trauma, and illness. You do not get confused in conflicts between the two hemispheres of the brain as they compete for the right to make direct decisions.

This meditation we would like to share with you uses the hand mudra to pressure the 10 radiance points in the fingers that correlate to the zones of the 2 hemispheres. The equal pressure causes a kind of communication and coordination between the 2 hemispheres of the brain. The deep inhale gives endurance and calmness. The exhale through the mouth strengthens the parasympathetic system from a control band of reflexes in the ring of the throat. This calms reactions to stress.

The strokes of the exhale stimulate the pituitary to optimize clarity, intuition, and decision-making capacities. It resolves many inner conflicts, especially when the conflicts, especially when the conflicts are from different levels of functioning: spiritual versus mental versus physical, or survival needs.

Tattva Balance Meditation  

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Sit in Easy Pose with a straight spine. Raise the arms with the elbows bent until the hands meet at the level of the heart in front of the chest. The forearms make a straight line parallel to the ground. Spread the fingers of both hands. Touch the fingertips and thumb tips of opposite hands together. Create enough pressure to join the first segments (counting from the tip) of each finger. The thumbs are stretched back and point towards the torso. The fingers are bent slightly due to the pressure. The palms are separated. Fix your eyes at the tip of the nose. 

Create this breath pattern: Inhale slowly and deeply through the nose. Exhale through rounded lips in eight equal, emphatic strokes. On each exhale, pull the navel point in sharply. Continue for 3 minutes. Then inhale deeply, hold for 10-30 seconds, and exhale. Inhale again, and shake the hands over the head. Relax... Total Time: Start with 3 minutes   and build a practice slowly to 11 minutes. 

Peace to all, Light to all, Love to all.. Sat Nam. Sat Nam means Truth is my Identity. 

Kelly Krishna Dunn 🙂 

 

 

 

Meditation for Creating Self-Love Healing through Ayurveda

 

Ayurveda Self-Care has changed me. Bringing a much greater awareness of how disordered eating has a negative impact on the quality of life. Much has already been said about anorexic ballet dancers, but that doesn’t mean the problem has gone away.  Young girls within today’s culture experience crushing pressure to be thin and attractive.  Eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder and EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) can all have life-threatening consequences.

 

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Dance is a highly competitive, high-pressure and physically demanding profession. I have been dancing since I was three years old, competed throughout childhood, selected for apprenticeships to Russian Ballet Companies and American Ballet Companies such as the New York City Ballet. NYCB presented a full-time contract when I turned 14 which is traditionally a difficult time when young dancers make the jump into a major company and go Pro.

 

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You can imagine what the mantra or programming that was signaled every day to  a professional ballerina. “Do Not Eat” This became engrained in my nervous system and learned to have a sense of control over my body and the competition which is thought powerful for ballerinas. The same discipline that a ballerina uses to master a skill after hours of practice is the same force of will she uses to deny herself food.

Eating disorders range from anorexia nervosa (deliberate self-starvation) and bulimia (recurring binge eating and purging) to disordered eating, and ritualistic compulsive eating problems. Within the demanding whirl of being a teenage professional dancer, developed an unhealthy relationship with food. I had lost any sense of a center for self-esteem and self-worth. I either was relying on my own perfectionist idea, or was basing it on the ballet world’s idea of success, which I wasn’t living up to because being skinny meant being worthy.

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Since I wasn’t allowed to eat the development of discovering  Ayurveda  and how to eat healthy and enjoy the process was later on in my life. Ayurveda has brought in a new perspective about my relationship to food. Ayurveda understands all eating disorders are defined by having an unwholesome relationship with food to the point of negatively affecting one’s health. Ayurveda (India’s traditional and ancient system of health) has a unique perspective about eating disorders and may offer some insight to the individuals out there affected by them. Establishing more awareness about my inherent body constitution, satiating the absence of the feeling of love for oneself with food, or reinforcing the feeling of lack of self-love with food, are the underlying emotional reasons why a person develops this specific disorder. Ayurveda suggests that lack of self-love is the root cause for all types of eating disorders. During the course of Ayurveda Self Care Class I realized to add an exercise called Reverse Adi Shakti Kriya also known as Meditation for Creating Self-Love. Here you are mentally and hypnoti­cally blessing yourself. This self-blessing is to affect and correct the magnetic field, you discover how strong you are,  when you discover how strong you are, you can find the strength to overcome your personal demons.

Meditation for Self-Love

 

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Sit in Lotus Pose with a straight spine. The right palm faces down, blessing you. This self-blessing corrects the aura. The left palm faces forward and blesses the planet.

The eyes are closed and focus at the lunar center (middle of the chin.)

Breathe long, slow, and deep with a feeling of self-affection. Try to bring the breath to one breath per minute: Inhale for 20 seconds, hold for 20 seconds, exhale for 20 seconds and repeat 3-11 minutes.

 

The Ayurveda system of medicine, nutrition and self-care creates a perfect alliance with holistic treatment, recovery, and healing from eating disorders and disordered eating. Ayurveda combines the Sanskrit words ‘avur’ which means life and ‘veda’ which means knowledge. As we recover from an eating disorder some of the most powerful results are the deep knowing of the self that allows for a more meaningful life.

 

 

Sat Nam -8/18/16-Kelly Krishna Dunn

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