Improving my yoga...
I have been experimenting with applying meditation for chakra energy and self hypnosis into my Bikram yoga practice.
It has been very helpful in stabilizing my big toe which likes to lift off the ground and changes the whole dynamics of all poses.
As soon as we start class with the breathing exercise in Bikram Yoga I imagine a powerful red energy coming from the tip of my spine and is flowing down into my legs and feet through the soles of my feet into the ground. This red energy in my mind is turning into roots holding , surrounding, stabilizing my legs, my toes, my coccyx. Those roots are warm and elastic yet strong and firm. I visualize roots growing underneath the ground...roots strong and reaching out far and deep... they could be blood vessels in my mind...they branch out into smaller and finer vessels and getting smaller and multiplying...reaching out into everything...receiving energy and releasing energy...
I tell myself that with every word the teacher is saying I relax more and I will hear everything I need to hear and knowing that I can relax even more ...as I relax even deeper my body feels stronger...my breathing will carry me smoothly and effortlessly through every posture...
Next we will start with our arms above the head and do side bends and then back and fore ward bends. In my mind I connect with my hands up into the sky to the infinite energy and light that is always surrounding and filling us...I feel this energy flowing into the tips of my fingers and down through my body...as this light is filling me it is lifting me...feels so good being lifted and securely supported into the ground...In every posture I know this light is filling me with energy and connecting me to everyone else as well...I imagine my energy beaming and creating a field of energy around me that is positive and helpful for the ones around me. I think of it as love and light...
Some days this works amazingly and other days I struggle to even get the roots going...every day is different...yet... the more I focus on doing it the better my balance and breathing gets, the stronger I can hold and explore my depth in the pose...I remember one class was extremely hot ...I could feel the people around me getting irritable and breathing harder with the heat...I used the roots and visualized the heat in my body being released into the ground and from the ground receiving cooling energy. My breathing was acting as a pump releasing excess heat into the ground and bringing in cool energy with the inhale. I imagined the longer and deeper the breathing got the better and more efficiently it worked...
Do you have your own secret ways of helping yourself to be better at something, to cope, to perform, to remember or anything else for that matter? I would love to hear them! Namaste...
Love and Light. Gloria