“A woman (or man) in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.” Dr Maya Anjalou - replace man and he/him where necessary!

 

This week we continue our studies on the 2nd chakra, building on the foundation of the 1st.  The 1st chakra is the rooting and grounded chakra - it is the yang or masculine energy of a solid foundation.  The 2nd chakra is the yin energy which includes more of the feminine qualities associated with receptivity, emotions and nurturance.  It’s about letting go, leaning into pleasure and going with the flow.  Let’s focus this week on nurturing.

 

Building on last weeks discussion on pleasure and our relationship to it, how are we doing with the idea of nurturance?

 

Are you nurturing to yourself?  How do you feel about self care?  I have been thinking about this and something I say in the cleanse - self care is not a luxury, it is your responsibility and I believe this wholeheartedly.  I make sure to start my day in prayer and meditation, to move my body, to feed myself well, get massages and proper rest.  Looks good right?  All of this and more is why when my cancer diagnosis came along I was 100% flummoxed! Truly felt and still kind of feel like WTF? I do everything right, how could this happen? And holy crap, I am afraid because I was shown that life is really out of my control.  

As I continue to do the work to teach you all, more has been revealed to me.  This year has been excruciating in many ways and I have been told by numerous doctors and others to give myself a break.  My body went through a dramatic process and my emotions and spirit did as well.  I muscled my way through, kept showing up and now as I am supposed to be on the other side, I am not quite there.  The changes in my body and the medications are making me not feel myself in all ways - mentally, physically and spiritually - yet I continue to expect to be healed and basically done with the cancer chapter of my life.  While I don’t want to dwell in it, I am not nurturing myself if I am having this high level of expectation on myself to be back to who I was.  Now this presents another issue…..and this is the golden nugget of my yoga practice and teaching and the awareness it offers me……I have learned recently that I don’t want to be who I was pre cancer.  I didn’t even know this a few short weeks ago, more is being revealed while I do this spiritual work of the chakras.  Yes there is a lot of who I was that I will continue to nurture and grow, but a process of change is happening to me right now.  There is a softening inside about myself, my expectations on myself and my life.  Emotionally, I am exhausted and broken, but this week I found such hope in this place.  For the first time, I am seeing the lessons and the blessings of my illness.  Rumi’s famous quote, “the crack is were the light enters”, has more meaning to me right now than ever before.  I am cracking, thawing inside and a light is entering.  Again, I am forever grateful to each of you for being on the receiving end of my work, you help me so much.

 

SO do I nurture myself? I sure thought I did, but the reality is nope!  This chakra is about ease, and going with the flow of life - I have spent much of my life in 200% effort and not much ease.  I am grateful for this awareness and for the opportunity to move through acceptance of who I was, forgiveness for certain parts of me I would rather leave behind and the opportunity to live from the stability of the 1st chakra to the fluidness of expansion and hope of the 2nd chakra.  I do know this is a process and the beginning is this gentle awareness, but I am excited to move into more fluidity in my life and to let go.  This of course requires a tremendous amount of faith! I will save next weeks writing for a deeper dive into this.  

 

Please take a quiet moment to access yourself in relationship to nurturance.  Is this part of your chakra under balanced - for example are you hard on yourself? Are you neglecting to take care of yourself and your physical needs?  Is is over active - are you nurturing others to the extreme thereby forgetting about you and your needs or are you focusing too much on yourself and your needs?  Or is it in balance as you find that sweet space of flow, ease and acceptance of yourself and others and you express it fully in a nurturing way?  Neither of these states are good or bad, they just are where you are right now and your truth is the most powerful piece of information you can have!

 

Self care is a necessity, not a luxury and we all need to nurture our whole selves - mind, body and spirit so we can nurture our ideas, our ambitions, our children, our family and our friends.  That’s worth the work!