 When someone tells you you're a failure, how does it make you feel? What is your response? Do you yell back at them? Tell them to stop? Drop them as a friend immediately? Most of us have an internal dialogue that yells at us- just like a nasty person. Yet we keep letting this person into our lives- over and over again- without ever trying to change the relationship. Do you catch yourself saying hurtful messages to yourself? The kind that directly connect to limiting beliefs and self sabotage tactics? "What will they think of me?" "Who am I to do that!?" "What if they notice!" "Why try. It won't turn out anyway." These are the messages of your critic. Do you know its messages? The onslaught of harsh and hurtful inner voices that are on constant repeat? What kind of relationship do you have with your critic?! Do you avoid it? Stuff it into a dark corner? Pretend it's not there? Maybe you turn it off with substances or screens, cheap thrills or pretending. It happens. We are all doing it. But if we really want to change our lives- from the inside to outside- avoidance and resistance won't do the trick. Building a good relationship with your critic is crucial. Join me for my 10 Day Embodiment + Creativity Self Care Challenge! Receive daily inspiration for increasing your creativity, joy, embodiment and a sense of thriving. Get on the list. The critic will stop you in your tracks. It will keep you from any iota of creative activation. It will contract you, keep you playing small and feeling insignificant. The critic is the biggest hindrance to our creativity, our life force energy, and it will keep us from living the life of our dreams, feeling nourished and taking action steps. The critic will keep us away from just about anything we truly desire and long for. My solution for working with the critic is not to negate it or try to turn it off. Strangely, the critic, while being our worst enemy, is also the artists best friend. How is that possible? In many regards, the critic is our resistance, our old patterns- usually based in the mental body or the imaginal realm of our being. Often we've inherited these patterns from our lineage and/or we acquire them through life experiences. The critic essentially is all the parts of our being that tells us to stop, say no, resist, refuse. Actually this is a very important protection mechanism. In many ways, the critic has our best interest in mind. Literally! In fact, the critic is connected to the part of the brain that can keep us safe and out of harms way. We need it- just not all of the time. How can we turn off the critic? Rather than turn it off or silence it, I prefer to invite it in to our lives intentionally. Hey, it's already here, and more resistance is likely not going to be useful- or a good use of our energy. I take a Gandhi approach to the critic- befriend the enemy. See what it has to teach you, what its message really has to share with you and why it shows up when it does. I often tell my clients to invite the critic over for a cup of tea! Five Steps for Befriending the Critic: Step #1: Before we can attend to the critic and its messages, we first need to identify it. Most people walk through life completely unaware of their inner thought processes. The mind is on auto-pilot and it never stops! I encourage you to get into a rigorous habit of using the four levels of awareness as a means of navigating your inner terrain. Doing consistent self tracking with a four level check-in is vital. What is a four level check-in? Can you identify the critic and its messages? What level of awareness does it usually come from? Step #2 In your sacred creative space, leave a chair open for your critic to "sit in". Or perhaps place a special reminder in your art space that symbolizes your critic. This is an open invitation to your critic. It is also your reminder that it may arrive, but you don't need to engage with its behaviors. Step #3 Get curious and ask it to share more with you. Create an image of your critic. Let it out of the closet, let it be seen and acknowledge its presence. What colors, shapes, textures and images arrive on the page? Use whatever art medium inspires you- craypas, markers, pens, scraps of paper etc. Give yourself 20+ minutes for this process. Step #4 Title your image. Give your critic a name. Clearly identify this part of your being. Who is it? Get curious. Then ask your image to share with you. If your image could speak, what would it say to you? Step #5: Ask your image to answer these questions: I am___ I want___ I need___ Now that you've harvested some vital information from your critic, it's time to look at your findings. What does your critic want and need? How does your critic help you? How does it harm you? Most importantly, does it have a gift to share with you? Notice the ways in which your critic serves you and acknowledge its messages. Honor this part of your being for trying to help you in some capacity. Now when it arrives, track it. Notice its arrival. Thank it and acknowledge it. You can choose to use the critic to support your creative process or destroy it. What choice do you make? How can you continue to befriend this part of yourself? "Art is primarily about the development of consciousness, not the development of an object." ~Hudson Join me for my 10 Day Embodiment + Creativity Self Care Challenge! Receive daily inspiration for increasing your creativity, joy, embodiment and a sense of thriving. Get on the list. Need some extra guidance and clarity? I have a few August sessions still available. Schedule a session with me. Plan your week in tune with nature. Never miss a planetary update. Sign up for my weekly newsletter. Was this post helpful? Please share it with a friend! Thank you.
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New Moon Wisdom + Creative Ritual for the Waxing Moon Cycle {November 22nd to December 6th}11/21/2014 Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. ~Brené Brown The New Moon is at 06:32 am CST in Scorpio and Anuradha nakshatra. Saturn, Venus and Sun are in Scorpio as well, which puts four planets in this sign at this time. All four planets receive drishti from Ketu and Jupiter. Three of these planets are in Anuradha nakshatra, while Saturn is still in Vishaka. This combination of energy exemplifies change, transformation and working with our darkness, in very tangible ways. While also enlivening a certain theme of gaining insights from releasing and letting go. This new Moon invites in a certain mystical element, one that invites us to go into our depths and harvest our inner riches. But don't be surprised if you discover shadows instead of light, as this is the gift of Scorpio, the 8th house, and its ability to transform our beings. But from the depths of our darkness, we can truly access our vulnerability. It's here in this fragility, where our deepest and most profound ability to transform and change exists. Vulnerability truly is our power, our strength. It is in our willingness to work with our shadows, our own darkness, that we can transform ourselves. Scorpio is directly connected to the eighth house and all eighth house matters of the zodiac. The body parts connected to the eighth house and Scorpio are the genitals and the excretory organs. These parts of our human body, our physical cosmic form, exemplify our vulnerability, as well as our ability to release and transform. These parts of the body are also part of our second chakra, which correlates to our sensing and feeling capabilities, our animal instincts and our human animal needs. This is also why the Moon (the sensing and feeling, emotional body of our being) is debilitated in Scorpio. We must not negate these aspects of our being. Our sensing and feelings, our vulnerabilities and our ability to release and let go are vital for our health, well being, our sense of vitality and wholeness. These themes are alive in this coming waxing cycle so pay close attention. This cycle in many ways is the final extraction process of our past many months of dancing with all that has transpired in and through Libra. We are finally able to release what needs to be released, while keeping parts and pieces that we want. The next step will be to use what we've harvested and let the manure become the necessary nutrients for our garden of life. With multiple layers of Mitra influencing this new Moon, fine detail becomes another part of our theme in the coming cycle. Mitra is a deity that rules precision, exactness, focus and detail, while also being considered the "friendly star". This soft, mild and gentle star, allows us to probe into the details of our being, contemplate, honor and acquire the details we need to tend to our heart, and our emotional body wisdom. Use this time to dig into your depths, your shadow parts, and seek wisdom for honoring these aspects of yourself. Look for the gifts within your darkness. Put pieces together, in order to help make sense of the nonsensical, to attend and tend to your brokenness- the illusion of the shadow. Make your emotional body and physical embodiment practice your priority at this time and harvest from the wisdom of your own knowing. Creative Ritual for the Waxing Moon Cycle The emotional body and physical body become potent messengers for us at this time. These body's can be entry points for our deep harvesting process. The cosmic and creative intelligence coursing through us can be accessed as we cultivate a relationship with our senses, feelings and sensations. This is the beauty and strength of the body- which gives us access to our deepest needs, desires and wants. This creative Ritual is designed to get you gently attuned to what these messages may be. I also recommend using the 3 level check in to help you make vital distinctions between the messages of each body: the physical, mental and emotional bodies. For more information about getting embodied, read this. 1) Sitting, standing or laying down, begin to notice your breathing. Notice the quality of your breathing. Get intimate with the sensation of how the breath feels moving within your body. Feel the breath as you inhale and the chest expands. Feel the breath as you exhale and feel the chest collapse. 2) Notice any sensations in the body that are arriving for you. Is there a certain body part that feels tight? Cold? Energized? Painful? Throbbing? Seek out any sensations that are present for you and let your attention go to this part of the body. 3) Use this sensation for greater inquiry. Does this sensation have a color? Maybe it has a shape or brings with it an image? Perhaps it has a sound? Be curious and ask the sensation to give you some deeper information. 4) Harvest this information. As you gather these pieces of information from your body ask the sensation to answer these three questions: I am, I want and I need. Based on the answers you receive, you may wish to begin moving with the sensation and let it inform your physical body movement exploration. You may also wish to do a drawing in order to harvest your findings more intimately. I suggest exploring both of these processes in order to awaken your dialogue and start deepening your relationship with your physical body. I am passionate about embodiment! This is why I offer my clients a very unique synergy of modalities to help them get embodied. Using jyotish insights from your own karmic life map, I am able to prescribe individualized and specialized body part work, in order to maximize healing and transformation. My embodiment prescriptions are ideal for overcoming obstacles and blockages that may be hindering health and wholeness. The body is our biggest resource for awakening, and I'm here to help you awaken through the messages of your body wisdom! Want to learn more about transforming your life through jyotish and embodiment work? Schedule a session with me. Plan your week in tune with nature. Never miss a planetary update. Sign up for my weekly newsletter. Was this post helpful? Please share it with a friend! Thank you  I used to be the yogi who hit the mat every day. Yoga was my life. I understood the purpose of yoga and used the brilliance of proper sequencing in my practice. I incorporated pranayama, asanas and sivasana as an ideal three part system of wholeness, or yoga, and as preparation for my meditation practice. Yoga wasn't the only part of my movement story though. Dance has been a staple of my life since I started ballet at the age of four. Later I moved on to modern dance, various styles of African dance and Afro Brazilian dance as well. My love of dance, moving the body, and my passion for understanding the arts as a necessary language of culture, led me to an undergrad in Ethnodanceology. Since I come from a yogic family, creating a life for myself that embraces daily and regular practices of awakening, have seemed normal, healthy and even necessary for me and my evolution. My upbringing also helped me understand that the body is a vital resource for one's awakening, evolution and ultimately enlightenment. These values hold true for me still. But five years ago, I stumbled upon Body-centered Expressive Art Therapy, and my spiritual views, my body practices, and my movement exploration began to radically shift. My practice of awakening is still centered around my body and my practice is still daily. But the rest of my process is entirely different. In the Body-centered approach to art therapy that I work with, we understand that we have more than one body. We have the physical body yes, and we of course have the mental body, but we also have an emotional body. These three bodies are upheld by the spiritual body. (This corroborates with the Vedic understanding as well). Each body in fact has the ability to communicate with us and has a language all its own. In order to be fully embodied, we must learn how to speak with each of these bodies and to harvest their unique wisdom and messages. The fact is that most of us are working entirely with the mental body- day in and day out. And this is where we get stuck. We let the mental body tell us what to do. What it needs. What it wants. We let it tell us how to behave, what is acceptable, what isn't. We let it tell us all kinds of stories, and we listen to it! We even let the mental body tell us how to move our body. This is vital to understand. When we do yoga asanas, dance techniques, and other mechanical movement practices, we are letting the mental body tell our physical body what to do. This can strengthen the mind/body connection, but it doesn't guarantee nor imply embodiment. What is embodiment and why does it matter? Embodiment implies that we are working with the wisdom and knowledge of the physical body, not separate from it, outside of it or against it. That we are in direct dialogue with the language of the body and therefor harvesting from its immense wisdom. It's about resourcing from the messages of the body and letting your body speak to you very intimately. Most importantly, it implies the capacity to deeply listen to its messages. This is why I love somatic and body-centered approaches to movement and therapy. Through a body-centered approach to movement, we are creating a special dialogue with our body and its messages. We have an opportunity to build a relationship with it in very intimate ways. We can resource from the body and the innate and vast wisdom of the body. We are then able to let these impulses of the physical body inform our movements in order for deeper awareness. This is a very big distinction between most yoga and dance practices, and embodied movement practices. In an embodied practice, the body informs the movements, not the mental body, not the mind. It's true, a yoga asana practice and even some dance practices, might make you feel more in touch with your body and its messages as a result of moving it into certain shapes and forms. This is the gift of working with what is known as the "mind body", but I invite you to take this a step further. In this place of deep listening that may arrive during or after your yoga or dance practice, spend time with your body's wisdom. Hang out here and harvest. Listen. Inquire. Ask questions. Get really good at asking your physical body what it needs and wants. Use these tips for greater embodiment during your movement practices: - Start with a four level check-in. Embodiment begins when we can clearly identify what each level of awareness is offering and sharing with us in any given moment. Check in daily with what is arriving on your mental body level, physical body level and emotional body level and spiritual body level. This will get you started. - Instead of doing a set sequence of asanas, postures or movements, start your practice by listening to your physical body's messages. Is there tightness in a certain part of the body? Can you sense openness and space in another part of your body? Go into these sensations and inquire about them. What message do your tight shoulder or hamstrings have for you? Ask and ye shall receive! - Notice when you are pushing yourself to achieve an objective or outcome. Do you "push through" your practice even when you are tired or worn out? Do you force yourself into a posture just to arrive into a desired shape or form? Do you notice inner dialogue about what is "right" in your yoga practice and what is "wrong"? Notice where your practice includes "shoulds" and "have to's" as well as "supposed to's." What happens when you release these? - Build your movements based on deeply listening to your body's impulses. Let the impulses that are present in your body, be the catalyst for your movements. This is a profound step towards embodiment and it will allow you to deepen your relationship with the messages coming from your physical body. This is very different than imposing postures onto the physical body. Embodiment is intrinsically connected to the now. It doesn't actually require long, arduous physical body movement practices, but it does require willingness to let the physical body speak to you. Use these four steps to help you become more adept at listening to your physical body's messages: 1) Sitting, standing or laying down, begin to notice your breathing. Notice the quality of your breathing. Get intimate with the sensation of how the breath feels moving within your body. Feel the breath as you inhale and the chest expands. Feel the breath as you exhale and feel the chest collapse. 2) Notice any sensations in the body that are arriving for you. Is there a certain body part that feels tight? Cold? Energized? Painful? Throbbing? Seek out any sensations that are present for you and let your attention go to this part of the body. 3) Use this sensation for greater inquiry. Does this sensation have a color? Maybe it has a shape or brings with it an image? Perhaps it has a sound? Be curious and ask the sensation to give you some deeper information. 4) Harvest this information. As you gather these pieces of information from your body ask the sensation to answer these three questions: I am, I want and I need. Based on the answers you receive, you may wish to begin moving with the sensation and let it inform your physical body movement exploration. You may also wish to do a drawing in order to harvest your findings more intimately. I suggest exploring both of these processes in order to awaken your dialogue and start deepening your relationship with your physical body. I am passionate about embodiment! This is why I offer my clients a very unique synergy of modalities to help them get embodied. Using jyotish insights from your own karmic life map, I am able to prescribe individualized and specialized body part work, in order to maximize healing and transformation. My embodiment prescriptions are ideal for overcoming obstacles and blockages that may be hindering health and wholeness. The body is our biggest resource for awakening, and I'm here to help you awaken through the messages of your body wisdom! Want to learn more about transforming your life through jyotish and embodiment work? Schedule a session with me. Plan your week in tune with nature. Never miss a planetary update. Sign up for my weekly newsletter. Was this post helpful? Please share it with a friend! Thank you Don't Miss My *free* Embodied Chakra Class!
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