I've been mulling over the idea of starting this blog series. Hesitant to share my experiences because I wasn't sure of inner work and healing that was going to occur during the next 8 months of my being. Toure, my yoga mentor and teacher, kept it real with us - the next eight months were going to be a whirlwind and places and spaces within were going to unravel and be exposed. This had to happen in order to step into the true power of my healing abilities. If I really wanted to serve the Divine and community, I needed to be clean. Unburdened from past pains and traumas. On the other side of healing.
It's been quite a few weeks now since I first started my 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training (YTT). Twelve weeks and two days to be exact. Throughout these weeks, we've dived into each chakra, learning the imbalances and balances, metaphysical tools and such of each chakra to help us to tap in to Self.
A blessed ceremony accompanies each chakra lesson. The Root was explored, tapped into and healed. Then the Sacral. Then the Solar Plexus. We've climbed the Sushumna, learning and tackling each chakra but leaving the Heart for last.
This past weekend was a very special one and the push I needed to finally start this series. Over the weekend, we meet in sacred space, curled up on our yoga mats, with our manuals and sequence books. This weekend was our Inner Voice consults and our Third Eye & Crown Chakra attunements and I'm up first to dive in and meet my inner Self. After quite a bit of deep breathwork and meditation, I sat in my sacred inner space and connected with my Self. She was there. She was nurturing, firm, protective. She wanted to love up on me. But painbody after painbody kept appearing. A painbody is an old emotional pain living inside of you, accumulated from past traumatic experiences. They stick around because those painful experiences were never fully faced and accepted the moment they arose. My throat and my legs decided to expose some painbodies for me that day.
Painbodies are not to be ignored. At first, I thought my inner voice session was a dud due to my struggle to quiet the mind and let Self speak, but what it did was highlight the necessary work and healing that needed to be done on my part. I was made aware. Self-awareness was the gift from my inner voice that night. That painbody was a manifestation of continually putting others before myself, to the point where I was hindering my own emotional wellbeing and comfort. I knew what I needed to work on next.
Awake and energetically buzzed, I debrief with Nicole and make my way back to the mat. My head is spinning but that's only because I'm wide open. I've just done major work connecting to the Divine Self within me so naturally my third eye and crown chakra would be lit.
I jump into the conversation on back bends, twists and shoulders and for the next 75 minutes, myself and two other peers participate in a Christian-based Chair Yoga class, focusing all of our attention on opening the shoulders and heart center. The entire yoga session is silent, either spent in prayer, meditating over verses or in poses stretching. There's been a lot of emphasis on Christianity and Jesus lately so I'm not shocked Christian yoga was next on the menu. From listening to worship music for the first time in over four years to reading The Bhagavad Gita to watching the documentaries on Gaia like The Hidden Story Of Jesus and Jesus & Buddha: Practicing Across Religions, this particular Ascended Master wanted his presence to be know. Thankfully, He and I were already well acquainted.
One of my favorite YTT takeaways thus far has been The Bhagavad Gita. This special book of Indian Spirituality is revered by many, like MLK Jr., Thoreau, Raplh Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalists (no wonder why my nerdy ass LOVED books like Civil Disobedience in high school).
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
As I'm reading the introduction to the Gita, I stumble upon so many gems - correlations between the teachings in The Gita and The Bible. For instance, as Christians we're taught that the promise of Eternal Life is ours if we accept God into our life. In Indian Spirituality, we're taught that if we are still holding onto any material desires or wants, if we have not "transcended" and reached full enlightenment, that all those desires and wants will, at the time of our heavenly transition, become our karma in the next lifetime. We continue the cycle of birth and death (reincarnation) until we reach full enlightenment, which at that time, we are gifted with eternal life and no longer have to live down here on Ratchet Planet Earth. We get to stay up in the cosmos with our Great Creator.