Your body is wise.

It speaks to you: constantly, diligently, tirelessly. It relays how you're doing in each situation, in every moment of your life.

Its language is sensation and energy. 

Sometimes our body messages are subtle and easily missed or intentionally ignored, like when you have an eye-contact exchange with a stranger and the in-the-moment sensation and energy is uncomfortable and makes you feel uneasy. You quickly dart your eyes away, looking for anything else to fix your gaze upon.

Sometimes the body messages are strong and continue to build: like when it's down to the wire on a weekday morning and you're trying to get your kid and yourself out the door, but you woke up late, your kid is goofing off and you're completely overwhelmed thinking about the unwanted conversation you need to have at the office in-between meetings.   Gut clenched, you buckle down and stifle the rising energy to prevent freaking out in an angry tirade.

We can easily—often do—ignore the symphony of body signals when you're hyper-focused on getting out the door, tending to your children or work, or simply distracted by so many things. Anything. EVERYTHING.

We miss the signals. We ignore the signals. We suppress the signals. For so many reasons.

When we do this, we're missing out.

There is some real benefit to actually feel what we feel when we feel it. These little signals of feeling are messengers. They convey information about how we're doing, moment to moment.  They convey the energy experience of our actual lives.

We can change our usual habit of not feeling intense, uncomfortable and unwanted emotions.  The steps are to notice them, allow them, and learn how to rest with them.

It's simple, but not necessarily easy. It take practice and repetition.

In 1993, some months after my brother suddenly passed away, I was in the throws of grief, trying to find relief from deep wellings of despair, night terrors, anxiety and insomnia. For some reason unbeknownst to me, not knowing a thing about yoga, I had the idea that going to a yoga class might help. I stumbled into my first yoga class without any expectations and a little fearful. I really don't know why I was led to that class, but it changed my life. I experienced an immediate soothing to my nervous system simply by moving by body and breathing, noticing each instance of movement of breath. Simple, and profound.That experience started me on a path of reinventing the relationship I had with my body, emotions and mind.

I immersed myself into the study of yoga, and began studying and practicing, Early on in my exploration, I learned about the energy body, one of the five Koshas or layers of our being. You can read more about all of the koshas here.

The energy body is the totality of our life force energy. Throughout the course of living, we fall into  habits that diminish the energy available to us. For example, we might develop poor physical or postural habits that inhibit our capacity to breathe deeply. Or, unhealthy lifestyle habits (such as with eating and sleeping) that leave us feeling depleted. We also develop habits of constricting our life force energy by ignoring or suppressing our emotions.

Emotions are energy. A simple definition of emotions is "energy in motion". The energy of our emotions moves freely at its own pace when left to its own devices.

Through practice, we can learn to tolerate, and in time, embrace, the weather of our energy body. We develop the capacity to allow the most extreme, stormy conditions. We begin to discover that each inner storm we weather naturally informs our direction and movement in the outer world. Our weather shapes who we are from the inside. 

Please join me for a guided practice and exploration of the energy body.

On February 25, 2018 at 8pm (EST). We will meet via conference line from wherever you are to practice merging our consciousness and energy and becoming familiar with our energy body.  Begin to reclaim your life force. Attending to your energy body is an essential first step in this direction.

Register here.

Please feel free to share with anyone who may benefit.