Tree Hugging in Winter for Clearing Out Heavy Energy

Barefoot on a 50 degree day in December 2020.

Barefoot on the Earth is such a great way to release heavy energy and recalibrate oneself. But what is one to do in the Winter when barefoot activity is just not the completely sane choice to make? Well, at least not any lengthy barefooting outside.

Here are three ideas to allow yourself to let go of, release, and/or wash away the heavy energy that we carry. Heavy can weigh us down energetically. Releasing this has healing impacts on the physical body, relaxes the nervous system and boosts the immune system (yes, this is proven phenomena from years of research in Yoga, Forest Bathing, and Energy Medicine work), as well as the mind and spirit.

1) Energy Bathing

Wherever you are, whenever you need to release heavy energy (think sad, angry, depressed… all often thought of as negative or dark energy):

• Close your eyes

• Think of yourself standing barefoot on the Earth, in your favorite outdoor space of course

• Visualize water or colorful healing light raining down on you, any color that makes sense to you

• As the color of choice comes over you, washing away heavy energy, visualize the energy you are letting go of, flowing into the Earth

• Stand and visualize this as long as you need to to feel lighter in Body-Mind-Spirit

2) Tree Hugging is a fine way to release some heavy energy into the Earth. Remember to do this respectfully of the Trees. Approach the Trees like you would people: until you have established a hugging relationship with them, ask politely before you dive in for the big hug. Would you hug strangers you meet on the street? Ok, if you are like me, maybe you would. But my kids tell me this is weird so use your best judgement.

• Take a walk in the Woods, listening to the woods. Yup, this means you will need to See, Hear, Smell, Taste, and Feel FULLY: a full on sensual experience. Think of Spring Rain and how you can smell the Earthy, wet floor in the Woods, taste the freshness of the Rain, feel the Rain misting on your face, hear the plop-plop-plop of rain on a rock, and see the beauty of the Rain’s mist and showers in front of your face. Immerse in this mindset with whatever is happening in the Woods today.

• Turn off podcasts/ music / and the urge to catch up on phone conversations. In fact, shut your phone ringer off.

• Approach a Tree of choice and ask if you can hug it. Wait for the Yes.

• Wrap your arms around the Tree and place your forehead up against the bark.

• Breathe in the Smell. Feel the barks texture on your forehead’s skin. Weave your heavy energy together with the Tree’s energy and wash it down the Tree’s inner trunk, through the roots, and into the Earth.

• Thank the Tree for transporting this energy into the Earth.

3. Or, try this Chakra clearing ritual.

Whatever you chose to do, to release what you no longer need, make it your experience.

Change up my suggestions to fit your needs.

Release, let go, and allow Mother Earth to recycle your heavy energy into healing energy.

Interested in learning more skills to change your Lifestyle Medicine to Self Heal in Body-Mind-Spirit?

Join me for the next Session of Sacred Circle Wise Women Mentorship.

Important Vagus Nerve Nonsense Compliments of Western Medicine

Image from this article: https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/i-now-suspect-the-vagus-nerve-is-the-key-to-well-being.html

I have been teaching about the vagus nerve for years, sharing this post and the post I wrote on how I discovered this vagus nerve healing fun, before vagus nerve - yoga science research was becoming more mainstream. 

Recently, I learned some interesting information in regards to the vagus nerve and western medicine.  Someone I love had a spell that medical people refer to as a vagal response. Have you ever heard the term "vagaled out."
When the spell was first happening, I checked for the obvious
-stroke check first and when I was clear that was not the issue... I quickly checked heart rate and heart beat strength.  Heart rate was way down & thready feeling, person feels like they are going to faint, and loss of color in the face. So I knew we were most likely dealing with a vagus response. 

I, of course, looked up information to share with the one weaving this spell, so their body's response would be better understood.
In looking up vagus response information, I tapped into all this research on how the medical field now knows that a toned vagus nerve supports weight loss. 
A paragraph from one study:
    A number of studies have demonstrated that pulsed electrical stimulations on vagus nerve could induce multiple physiologic functions related to food intake, energy metabolism, and glycemic control, which can result in appreciable weight loss20–22. An implantable vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) device for weight control was recently approved by Food and Drug Administration and commercialized20,23. Major concerns of current electrical stimulation are potential compensation mechanisms that blunt physiological responses14 and vicinity tissue damage that induces adverse effects17,24,25. In addition, the electrical system is bulky and complicated in operation. All the electrical stimulations need to be programed externally and the device needs to be charged periodically13,26. How to achieve real-time-responsive and self-sustainable stimulation remains a major challenge for this promising weight control strategy.                                         National Library of Medicine

I underlined the last sentence because, instead of recommending a inner conscience connection lifestyle habit, AKA Yoga, the medical field came up with an electrical implant to intermittently stimulate the vagus nerve to possibly tone it.
AND, the medical field seems clueless about Yoga and its ability to tone the vagus nerve.
Hmmm, maybe this is Yoga's beautiful method of supporting weight loss and healthy lifestyle choices: vagus nerve toning!

Instead of recommending Yoga for the vagus nerve's toning and health, let's do the typical western medicine quick fix BullShit (another word for nonsense) and implant people with electrical stimulation devices.
Toning the vagus nerve with Yoga prevents you from missing all the benefits of doing the actual work , a truly toned vagus nerve with the side benefits of weight loss: 
-Calmer disposition 
-Deeper breathing habits & lung capacity 
-Stopping the negative self talk 
-Ability to choose healthier habits without struggle or feeling bad
-And so much more. Read my many posts on Yoga's benefits, several of them being about weight loss benefits... the Sages of India knew what they were up to!

The field of western medicine have suppressed what the sages of natural medicine have known for hundreds and hundreds of years:
-Take this lab created pill instead of an herb, Nature's healing food.
-Have this surgery instead of changing your eating and lifestyle habits.
-Let’s implant this vagus nerve electrical stimulation device instead of teaching you time honored, Yoga inner conscious connection habits. 

Trust me, I am grateful for western medicine. In emergency situations, trauma, and acute issues; western medicine shines.
For the healing of chronic lifestyle diseases, western medicine leaves a lot to be desired.

If you believe in the ability of your body, mind, & spirit to heal itself... western medicine loses its pull to have you right where they want you: buying their medically recommended drugs, surgery, etc. 

Change Doesn’t Just “Happen”...Be The Change You Want To See In Yourself. 

https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/sacred-circle-mentorship

Sacred Circle Wise Women Mentorship™ was created to support students and clients with the tools to make lifestyle changes, to be able to self heal, and to Create Constant Calm with the tools of Yoga. When I first started teaching Sacred Circle, in person classes, we did Yoga together weekly. I taught the various tools of Yoga (it is not just poses) as a means of calming and toning the parasympathetic nervous system (vagus nerve). Just like doing daily push-ups creates whole body physical strength… having a daily Yoga practice creates whole body-mind-spirit strength! You are fortifying yourself to face the challenges of life with a skip in your step.

Sacred Circle Mentorship is now an online teaching & learning experience with the HIGHLY recommended option of joining the Yoga piece. Classes start Monday, September 14th, 2020. This is the 2020 5 week session teachings of the Earth Element. Earth Element focuses on physical health; a great place to start the years mentorship work.

Read here for more info on the self healing mentorship: https://www.paulayoumellrn.com/sacred-circle-mentorship

• A functional medicine health coaching experience to teach you the lifestyle medicine habits to put into place in your self healing life. 

• Sacred Circle is the perfect weaving together of the lifestyle medicine teachings (in the mentorship) and the vagus nerve toning through gentle, very beginner's yoga (in the yoga research group) so you can be the change you want to see in yourself! 

Read Here for more info on the Yoga education piece.

• This September is a special Yoga Education Research 12 week session. I am grateful for everyone who joins to contribute to the science of Yoga, Vagus Nerve info, and betterment of health & healing modalities for everyone interested in slow health education & slow healing. Thank You.

• Our purpose & your perfect opportunity: to tone your vagus nerve to keep you in rest and digest mode, calm you down so you can be in a comfortable personal space to make, and keep making, the lifestyle choices that will self heal your body, mind, and spirit and support weight loss and self healing.

• All classes are being taught virtually on Zoom (link to be sent to students soon).

• All classes will be recorded and sent to everyone so you can view again OR if you need to watch the recording because the live time doesn't work for you. Many students do this, join the class and watch the videos later (on their own time) to learn, grown, transform, & self heal. Modern technology has its advantages. 

  
  If you are looking for change, want to self heal, and want to tone that vagus nerve for a lifetime of advantages...

• Join me on September 14th for the Earth Element Session of Sacred Circle.

• You will be glad you did. I will be glad you did. We will be glad people ready to learn, grow, transform, & self heal.

The Wind/Air Session of Sacred Circle will begin in later October after a 2 week break post Earth Element learning. Two weeks gives time for assimilation and integration of the health education information before we learn new information.

Slow Health Education, Slow Healing

In 1986, the Slow Food Movement began in Italy. This was a movement to reclaim cultural food, the art and healing benefits of in-home cooking, and the sustainable farming of whole, real food grown locally.  This was a grassroots effort, that is now globally strong, to reclaim food from the corporate strangle hold. 

It is time to put this same grassroots action into our health care system.
Health care in this country, right now, is really just about disease management: how can the medical system suppress your ill health symptoms just enough to keep you functioning and somewhat happy.
Our current health care is not about actually restoring true vibrant health OR about true prevention of illness.
True prevention would teach you proper healthy care of the body, the real way to nourish the body with food, and actually prevent you from succumbing to degenerative lifestyle diseases.

Slow Health, Slow Healing is what I am about.
Slow Health, Slow Healing is what Sacred Circle Wise Women Mentorship™ is about. 

People have become accustomed to instant gratification with their health.
For example, if one goes to their primary care with high blood pressure issues, they are given a prescription medication and within a few days their blood pressure reading is "normal" again. (I use this example because it is an easy one to think about, a very common problem in our culture, easy to visualize the blood pressure cuff and reading procedure, and thoughtfully consider the situation and apply its concept to other health issues.)
No effort outside of filling the prescription and popping the pill daily. 
The question is: has any healing change been made, in the person's lifestyle choices, to change what actually created the downward spiral of personal health leading to the high blood pressure?
Everything seems fine, the numbers reading on the sphygmomanometer are within normal range again.
Here is where the problem lies: if zero lifestyle changes have been made, the lifestyle habits that created the high blood pressure (body damage symptoms), then the damage to the body is still happening.
The pretty number on the sphygmomanometer just hides the fact that nothing has really changed. A band-aid has been slapped on the problem. The problem will eventually lead to more problems unless change is made.
This story line can be used with any ill health symptoms and our "health care system's" business of just managing symptoms / controlling symptoms with artificial means. 

I support people's health around many, many of these lifestyle related health issues: (yes, working in cooperation with one's primary care practitioner IS ideal)

• high blood pressure and cholesterol issues

• cardio-vascular disease

• overweight and underweight

• thyroid health

• auto-immunity

• gut health

• anxiety, depression, and mood issues

• on & on

In the first couple of weeks of making lifestyle changes, a person's ill health symptoms can transform quickly. 
A good habit, I tell my clients, is to write down exactly how you were feeling (in body, mind, & spirit) before you start making changes. 
Then you can go back and put yourself back into this ill health feeling in 2 weeks, 2 months, 6 months, a year later.
Never stop reminding yourself how far you have come, how much positive change you have made, and the impact it has had on how you function, feel, and interact with yourself and others. 

After lifestyle transformation, if we could step back into ourselves to exactly one year ago and have this HUGE "Ah Ha Moment", we would 

• bow in gratitude to the work we have done with & for ourselves

• say a deep prayer to all of the powers that have held us together to accomplish what we have accomplished

• vow to only continue stepping forwards in the Slow Health & Healing process

I suggest you do this self evaluation, look back on my progress, journal keeping. Not daily, don’t stress yourself, but just often enough that you see the milestones of recovery AND can look back on how bad things once were. That is such a beautiful reminder to keep moving forward!

Slow Health Education & Slow Healing is what we do in Sacred Circle to Transform your health.

Fall and the Earth Element (The Physical Body's Health) is the perfect place to start on this Sacred Circle Year Health Coaching Experience. Fall, and back to school, has always signaled a new start, transformation for me.

Each Slow Health Education Session is 5 simple weeks long. Join one, to see how you like it, maybe you will be in love with learning how to slow heal yourself and then you will keep coming back for each 5 week session and another Element of Learning.

Mentorship is open to anyone & everyone who wants to learn to slow self heal their health back to vibrancy.

Clearing the Energy Body

The Energy Body is part of all Energy Medicine healing traditions. Our Life Force or Chi (Life Force has many names in different cultures and traditions) flows through the Energy Body on channels called meridians or nadis. Again, each tradition has their own name for these energy carrying channels of your body and for the Energy Body itself.

Energy needs to flow freely through these channels. If your energy is blocked from free flow, stagnation occurs. This is much like the flow of water, if water flow is blocked, stagnation occurs. *Stagnant energy contributes to ill health.

These channels of energy have energy centers, chakras, on them. Your life force energy circles around on these channels and is then redistributed. Think of this like your breaker box in your home. The electrical wires in your home, like your meridians, carry energy. The breaker box has center points, chakras, that distribute the energy into these home wires.

*If energy, the electricity, in your home was stagnant there would be problems using electrical outlets and appliances in the rooms whose electrical supplies were not coming through. This is what happens to your body; when the energy is stagnant and not flowing freely, the organs supplied with energy on that meridian will receive low levels of life force energy.

Another visual to explain this flow are traffic circles. Think of the flow of cars (energy) moving into the traffic circles and the car (energy) is then distributed elsewhere as it exits the traffic circle.

Your body has several main Chakras and many more smaller ones throughout your energy field. Depending on the Yoga, Shamanic, or Energy Medicine system you were trained in there could be 3 to 8 or more main Chakras recognized and 122 or more smaller ones throughout your energy field. These are all whirling “traffic circles” of energy that distribute your life force energy about your body, organs, tissues, and cells.

Through breath work and visually meditating on the flow of energy, you can redirect energy in your body. You can use the below Chakra Clearing technique to clear energy blockages and shift your stagnant energy.

i created this meditation years ago. I have since, in my shamanic training, learned other similar chakra clearing techniques. Use this as a guide. Create what works for you and makes sense to you.

The above image shows 7 Chakras. Starting at the bottom, in red, is the root Chakra, orange is sacral, yellow is solar plexus, green is heart, blue is throat, purple is 3rd eye, and the top chakra is often shown as crystal / white and is the crown Chakra.

The 8th Chakra is in the mid brain and is the pineal Chakra. It is found by drawing a straight line back from the Third Eye and down from the Crown Chakras. Where this line intersects is the 8th Chakra. This chakra would be considered #7 and the Crown Chakra would be #8 in an eight chakra system.

There is also a series of chakras above the head that are recognized as part of the Chakra system.

We will focus on the 7/8 Chakras within the length of the physical body.

Lifestyle Medicine habits help to keep your Life Force Energy flowing freely: Yoga, Acupuncture, Massage, Acupressure, Reflexology, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Reiki, and many more are all forms of Energy Medicine.

After a series of Yoga poses and breath work, I like to do a seated meditation where I actively work my Chakras to move energy and clear blockages. I do this visualization before I do Shamanic work and sometimes when I am lying in bed to relax for sleep.

Chakra Clearing Visualization How To

• To increase your energy level, start at your root chakra and work up to the crown chakra.

• To calm energy (anxiety or sleep needs) start at the crown chakra and work down to the root chakra.

Once you have decided if you want to increase or decrease your energy level, use this technique to clear energy blockages.

I am going to describe the technique from the Root Chakra up, like I would do after an AM Yoga pose and breath work session.

To decrease energy for sleep, do the same way but start at the Crown and work your way down to the Root Chakra.

Over the years, I have used various visuals to open my chakras. Play with ideas and find what works for you.

Prep work for opening the chakras, I visualize opening them in one of three ways:

• like a sliding barn door

• like a double barn door and both doors open outward and lie flat against the barn walls

• swirling the chakra counter clockwise (energy in the chakras naturally flows clockwise)

Some people sense the Root Chakra’s door as being located at the lowest point on the pubic bone. Some people sense the Root Chakra door as being located on the peri-anal floor (pelvic floor). Go with what feels correct for you and your body / energy body.

1. Take at least 5 slow, deep belly breaths. Feel your diaphragm drop down. Feel your chest expand so that all of your ribs from collar bone down to your waist open, allowing the lungs to fill deeply. Feel the ribs settle back to allow the breath to leave the body.

2. On your last exhale, visualize the Root Chakra opening. On the next inhale, pull healing **white light energy into the chakra and swirl it clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

3. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale deeply and exhale visualizing the Sacral Chakra opening on the exhale. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Sacral Chakra and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

4. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale deeply and exhale visualizing the Solar Plexus Chakra opening on the exhale. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Solar Plexus Chakra and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

5. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale deeply and exhale visualizing the Heart Chakra opening on the exhale. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Heart Chakra and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

6. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale deeply and exhale visualizing the Throat Chakra opening on the exhale. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Throat Chakra and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

7. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale deeply and exhale visualizing the Third Eye Chakra opening on the exhale. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Third Eye Chakra and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale but keep the chakra open. We use the Third Eye Chakra to get back to the Pineal Gland Chakra.

8. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Third Eye Chakra pulling the energy back into the brain to the Pineal Gland (mid brain area) and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

9. Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Inhale deeply and exhale visualizing the Crown Chakra opening on the exhale. Inhale drawing white light energy into the Crown Chakra and swirling the energy clockwise. Exhale and close the chakra.

10. Take 5 slow, deep cleansing breaths expanding the chest fully and dropping the diaphragm. As you do these breaths, visualize white light swirling like a spiral up your center chakra channel and back down. Up with inhale, down with exhale.

11. Relax and just feel your body’s energy flow before moving on with your day.

**White light is a healing light energy. You can also pick a color of your choice for specific work on your energy.

• Pink energy for unconditional love

• Purple energy for healing

• Green energy for abundance

• Blue energy for calming

• Yellow, orange. or red energy to light your fire

• Etc. The color you use can be specific to you and have your own personal meaning.

Post Note: If you are freaking out because I sometimes spell chakra with a capital C and sometimes not, breathe. I will explain.

If I speak of the Root Chakra, I see this as a proper name and capitalize. I vacillate back and forth on just the word chakra being a proper name / noun.

This is akin to me capitalizing Dandelion or Stinging Nettle… it is their name. This goes back to my work in Plant Spirit Medicine and honoring plants as sacred.

My Yoga Mat IS My Magic Carpet

OR... Why I Love Yoga, Take 3!

5 years ago I wrote an article titled Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing that has been published on several Yoga, Mindfulness, Health, & Healing websites (In a professional holistic Nursing journal as well). This writing was/is my attempt to lure you into a personal practice that will transform the manner in which you exist in this world and support you making the best health and healing choices with each and every choice you need to make.

Did I lure you? Are you immersing into yoga to change your inner landscape so your outer world blossoms?

Yoga plants seeds. Seeds that are possibilities for life long change. 

Yoga lifts you up (body, mind, and spirit) so you can soar and sway with the breezes of life, being calmly flexible.  Yoga also roots you down and grounds you into your life so you can be stable and steady no matter what comes your way.

Yoga has taught me, reminded me, that my human body is a sacred vessel for spirit. My body is the home of the divine essence that is me.

I am a soul in a human existence not a human walking around with a soul (Wayne Dyer, one of many, kindly reminded us of this).  Once we embrace our divine essence and purpose, in our human form, it becomes easier to make those healing lifestyle changes and stick to them.

Your lifestyle choices can and will build your soul a home that is a castle that can weather life with grace.  Your lifestyle choices can also cobble together a shack that feels unwell, daily, and falls apart easily.

When we come home to this, truly embody the fact that we are divine beings within a human body, it makes the task of choosing healthy lifestyle habits the path of least resistance. 

Our inner conversation goes from impulsively eating, without conscious thought, those two pieces of cake sitting there just because they ARE sitting there to being about making choices that are best for body-mind-spirit.

Building Castles not Shacks.

A regular Yoga practice creates new neural pathways of thinking in body, mind, heart, and spirit. These pathways create inner calm, peace, and presence in the hear & now. I have always called this Inner Conscious Connection. Mindfulness is the word we all here now.

Stepping off of my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet, navigating the world in a magical way, transforms the whole world into my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet. 

Sending Love from My Castle to Yours. Namaste. 

Join Shelby Connelly & I at Five Elements Living Retreat Center for a 3 hour Yoga - Acupuncture Mini-Retreat: April 8th (evening retreat) or April 11th (morning retreat), 2018

                                                       Beginner's Yoga : Letting Go Of Awkward                                                         Yoga-Acupuncture-Self Care Evening Or Morning Retreat

More articles to inspire you to jump on a Magic Carpet of your own:

• Why I love Yoga... Take 2

• More Yoga inspiring posts from Paula

Green is the Heart Chakra... Love Your Yoga!

Why I love Yoga... Take 2

When the weather drops below 45, I move to the porch: bright, cheery, & open window for fresh air. Below zero, bright sunny days, are still Yoga pleasant on the porch.

4+ years ago I wrote an article titled  Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing. I have shared, many times, the ways in which Yoga benefits healing body, mind, and spirit. Type "Yoga" into the search bar, over there to the right, and you will find Yoga posts on weight loss, healing, body benefits, stress... you name it. I recommend it. Yoga that is.

Yoga is a self healing retreat every time you step onto the mat and every time you step out into your world living life from a space of deep interconnectedness that Yoga spins and weaves for you; that you spin and weave for yourself.  

If 45 degrees F... yoga on the deck is my preferred place to practice. Yes, cats are a reoccurring theme in this mindfulness; sensing & appreciating the peaceful energy.

So often people tell me: "Oh, I do stretching exercises, I don't need yoga."  Most people equate yoga with doing poses. Yoga is not just about the poses on the mat. That is part of it. Yoga is a way to bring presence of mind to your daily awareness. The poses are a way to embody mindfulness. Poses help to move life force energy, embody breath with movement, and guide our actions into a conscious connection with our true self.

Poses support you synchronizing breath with body, mind, and spirit. Breath is spirit. Yoga poses teach you how to be strong, flexible, and balanced in body, mind, and spirit so you can step off the mat and be strong, balanced, and flexible in all areas of your life activities, in all of your interactions, in your essence of being in this world.

Yoga is a way of being in the world that supports our moving with the flow of the universe, making conscious decisions based upon thoughtful wisdom and mindfulness around choice and consequence, and walking through daily happenings with a presence of peace and contentment (even when life seems to hand us chaos).

Magic happens when a person practices Yoga. Yoga is a tool to connect self with life force energy: inner life force energy and the life force energy of the universe (which are one & the same).  The universe pulses on and with life force energy. Practicing yoga is a way of tapping into this universal energy, wisdom, consciousness. Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years. All indigenous cultures have healing systems for tapping into the infinite. 

Deepening Practice for you... Yes, this is your Self Healing homework.    ; )   

I will happily send you the word document or PDF files of these below Yoga pose practices. You can print and laminate them if you choose. Email me with your request.   pyoumell@gmail.com

Yoga Stick Figures by Charlotte Bradley of Yoga Flavored Life.