10 Ways to "Remember to Remember"

My Vedic Thai Yoga teacher, Mukti Buck, says this all the time, "Remember to Remember". Remember to remember your why? Why do I practice, why do I love, why do I tend to my body and my life? Remember your relationship to Source, your Love, your Family, the Land! I love this phrase because it embodies the practice of Yoga. When we come to the mat, to our cushions, to our breath, and to Nature, we remember again and again to be with our body. We get to witness the Source that flows through us and we get to see ourselves as the same and as separate all at the same time. The One Source flows into the many and the many back to the One Source. When the mind tries to bring too much into one place, it gets all tangled and entrenched. But the breath cuts through the mess and brings clarity. So, come to Practice! Practice meeting the body, threading it with breath, follow it like a river of love. Trusting this flow brings me peace.

Breathing becomes like sweeping the floors.

All the pieces get swept in one direction and space is created.

When the mind tries to do this and fit the many into one neat place it struggles.

The heart can do what the mind can't.

"Remember to Remember the Heart!"

We come to remember on our mat with our bodies.

A little more clarity is revealed, a little more ease, a little more connected-ness and peace is revealed.

A little more struggle is lost, a little more resistance softens, fighting is dropped. .

We find a moment...of Yoga

Here are 10 Practices to help us Remember to Remember.

1. Join our BHFS: Heart Chakra Workshop Class this Firday 5:15-6:15pm!

2. Book a Vedic Thai Yoga Session.

3. Stand in Mountain Pose, close the eyes and breath from the feet to the head. Just follow the feeling of the breath up and down the body.

4. Move the body in coordination with the breath. Take a movement that opens the heart or extends the body; Exhale take a movement the closes the heart, contracts the body, allows the body fold or twist. Pick one options and Repeat 5-10 times until your breath, body, and mind come together.

   Follow Along with Sun Salutations Demo and Options

5. Alternate nostril breathing. Find a comfortable place to sit with knees lower than your hips, spine long and tall. Place your index and middle fingers to the heel of the hand. Rest the thumb and ring/pinky on the cheeks under the eyes. Breath in through both nostrils from the tip of the nose to the center of the mind, behind the eyes and then back out to the base of the nose. Repeat this cleansing breath 3 times. Then next time you breath out use your right thumb to close the right nostril and breath out of the left nostril only, slow and steady with ease out. Inhale through the left nostril to the feeling behind the eyes; close the left nostril with the ring & pinky finger of the same hand and exhale out the right. Breath in again throughtthe right side only to the center, close the right nostril with the thumb and breath smoothly out the left to the base of the nose. That's one round, repeaat for 3, 7, 12, 27 rounds.

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6. 3 Part Breath. Put a block behind the heart and breathe in 1 -fill 1/3 of lungs-2 -fill 2/3-3 -fill the lungs completely, then exhale to the bottom, relax. Repeat.

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   7.Chant Om, over and over. Ahhhh-Ohhhh-Mmmmm! Put a timer on and chant until the timer goes off or with a song. Here's one of my favs.

8. Tratak Meditation (stare at a candle flame, the moon, top of a tree with soft gaze until eyes water, then close eyes and focus the image behind the eyebrows.

9. Go Upside Down, get a new perspective!

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

10. Set Up An Alter with things you love and have meaning to you. On my alter, I have candles to light the way, pictures of nature to remind me of rhythms, the stars to remind me of my smallness, a picture of a messy bed that reminds me life is messy and still comfy, crystals to remind to keep open to many perspectives, my parents and my children to remember to love the ones I love, gods and archetypes that remind me of the character I am trying to embody. And a crown to remind me that I am the leading lady in my life!

Pick a practice, try it out! Hope you are having a lovely summer!

Remember to Remember.... ;-)