At 29 Gifts, I've been busy working with Angel Stork to develop a special series of Meditation Teleclasses for 29 Gifts members. The visualization-based techniques that Angel teaches are truly some of the most powerful tools I have in my own wellness & creativity toolbox and I'm thrilled to share her teachings with others. Recently she shared this post with the 29 Gifts Community, and I'd like to take this opportunity to share it with you as well.
"The new house offered no sanctuary. It had a view of the bay, a huge driveway, a lovely back yard, two bedrooms and an office, a second full bathroom, and lots of light. I loved that house but it would never become a home.
I was in a relationship without intimacy or trust. We had sex once in a while, were polite with each other, but the thrill had gone. Moving to a new and better house did nothing to reduce my nagging anxiety or fatigue. As the saying goes, we “pulled a geographical” by changing location, but moved our unfinished business and denial in with the food and furniture.
I had been craving sweets and was imagining some rabid yeast swarming my system gorging itself on bad carbs. Talking with a friend, sadness creeping into my voice, I felt a deep hole open within. I danced around the non-relating, then confessed my sugar-jones, my craving for muffins, cookies and, goddess forbid, donuts. She looked into my eyes and said, “Maybe you need a little sweetness in your life.”
The soul often reveals its requirements through sign and symbol. Craving sugar for lack of ‘sweetness’ is not getting it wrong, rather getting it sideways or as metaphor. Understanding my fatigue required time to be with my self, willingness to grieve the loss of tenderness and love. Because my attention was on being fatigued I could not hear that my soul had tired of the old pattern, I had lost energy “beating a dead horse.”
Disconnected from my gut knowing—that ‘felt-sense’ voice that speaks not just for fear and dread, but also for honor--I had abandoned an important value for my life, and was losing vitality in a dead relationship. Anxiety came not from the gut feeling, but from my fear of acknowledging what I knew to be true. If I acknowledged the truth I would have to take responsibility for my own happiness.
Welcome to the second chakra, the energy center of the lower abdomen associated with creativity, sexuality and sensuality and the one-to-one relationship. From the time we are born, and perhaps before, we unconsciously touch the world and seek reflection through this center. We develop a sense of power and potential through the discoveries, interpretations and conclusions we make through our gut feelings center.
Ignored gut feelings redress their grievances in pain, irritation, angst and fear. If we continue to avoid or do not listen deeply enough, our feelings concretize into blocks of rigid thinking, denial, addictions and illness. When we do follow a gut feeling—give to that person, research that business, leave now, speak up, write a book, phone home—we are instantly rewarded in relief from anxiety and enthusiasm for our choice.
To Practice: 10-15 minutes once or twice per day—Breathe slowly and deeply for 3-5 minutes. Get Grounded (see Aug 16) and acknowledge your self and Earth, present time. Welcome vital life force energy (abundance) into your body with each breath. Fill your first chakra and allow some energy to flow down your grounding cord back to Earth. Breathe energy into your second chakra, just below your navel, in your lower abdomen. Fill your belly bowl with life force energy. Breathe and affirm: Breathing in: “I call my vitality back from wherever and whenever I left it.” Breathing out: “I release what is no longer life giving.”
To Notice: Energy follows attention. Where has your energy gone? Use this simple exercise to retrieve bits of your self from people, places, things and time.
What’s happening: “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” If the second chakra energy is blocked or drained, chronically spilling over, or worse, numbed—we lose a nutrient vital to every aspect of life: passion.
What else? Holding grudges, harboring resentments and making self-deprecating comparisons to what others appear to have robs us of vitality and dams the creative flow.
Get your energy back!
If you suffer chronic fatigue or pain, lay on the Earth with knees bent so feet are resting on the earth. Allow Earth to absorb what you release and assist the return of your energy and vitality.
The second chakra expresses the water element. As you circulate life force energy through this center, be mindful of your creative energy dams--suppressed or subjugated creative urges. Allow blocks to dissolve and thaw to get this vital energy moving in all areas of your life. Fill your second chakra to overflowing around memories of creative abortions--literal or symbolic--to fill in voids and bring the past to completion."
