The Grateful Flow

What do we do with so called “negative” emotions that rise up in us at any moment in our day, or even at night? Can we step back, take a deep breath, pause and soften to small “things”, moments and/or people we can be grateful for?

It has been proven that by writing down 5 things that you are grateful for can boost your happiness up to 25%, in any given moment. It’s impossible to be in a state of gratitude and in a state of misery at the same time - that is a motivating thought. This is definitely worth applying if it can be so simple to take small steps to help ourselves.

This also demands of us a choice - a choice to choose something different to staying connected to this state of overwhelm, depression, sadness, fear, anger….whatever challenging emotion is arising in the moment.

Where does gratitude reside in the body? For me, the heart space. For you? I notice that by breathing into the heart space with gratitude, it intensifies this feeling. Breathe in gratitude for myself or whatever I am pausing into, and breathe out gratitude for all beings.

Can we translate this Grateful flow into our yoga practice? In the next two months I invite you into a heart-centred practice, where we not only focus on the heart centre, but also on the Hara, so as to drop down from the head into the connection between the heart and then deeper to the root.

In our practice, we will use a focused breath practice to soften and pause, so as to increase the coalescence of energy or prana in specific sites in the body. As we do this, we will use the placement of our hands to increase our awareness of these areas. Whenever you rest your hands on your abdomen and heart centre, it is an opportunity to bring your attention down and in. Shifting from a more head-centred preoccupation to a more intuitive-centered relaxation.