How To Set Yourself Up For The Spring Season…
Spring is around the corner and we all want to move with that springy grace and ease. The problem is too many of us are prohibited from our chronic pain, which then leads to anxiety.
Living with constant aches and limited movement shrinks our enthusiasm for enjoying the warmer weather and leads to a downward spiral of less movement and more anxiety.
I know this all too well as I have dealt with chronic pain for over 25 years, and have finally found a way to keep it manageable so I can enjoy hiking, swimming, biking, and feeling free to move with ease in my body. Yoga was always my answer, but for too many years I was doing the wrong kind of yoga for my chronic pain.
The intensity of power vinyasa yoga and Ashtanga were only making my pain worse. I was living on Advil and felt ashamed of being in so much pain with all of the yoga I was doing. The fast pace of these practices was making my breath too short, which led to anxious thinking of ‘keeping up’ and sloppy alignment, which added insult to injury and increased my pain.
When I learned how to fully breathe, it calmed my anxious mind and brought my practice back into alignment. Thanks to Max Strom's book, A Life Worth Breathing, changed my practice and the way I taught others exponentially. Suddenly my lungs opened up and my practice became a meditation in movement.
I regained that blissful feeling I first experienced in yoga back in the early days of my Iyengar practice, where alignment was primary. Combining precise alignment with a slow long complete breath was a game changer and is at the root of how I teach and practice.
Adding the joint freeing series from the Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy training strengthened the muscles around my aching joints so I was no longer in pain and could move again with ease and confidence.
The true icing on the cake is the meridian breathing, focusing the breath up and down the meridian channels while in yoga poses. Why hasn’t traditional yoga taught this??? Yoga calls these energy pathways Nadis, and Chinese medicine refers to them as meridians. Same same. This gives us a focus for the mind to move our energy in the proper direction with laser attention and a long slow breath.
No longer are we struggling to hold poses and are dying to get out of them. Now we have a simple pathway to lead our Qi (energy) while strengthening the muscle of focused concentration which provides a calm centered mind. Ahhhhh the RELIEF!
Meridian breathing is an ancient Qigong technique known as Yi Qi Li, guiding energy with consciousness. It brings us into a meditative state while building strength and flexibility and releasing the issues in our tissues. Win Win WIN!
So to get ready for spring, we’re going to do this together! To get our bodies in shape, so we can move easily, and our minds ready for inspiring growth, we will start with a 3-day yoga mini-immersion. These will be short virtual practices spread out over 3 days that I’ll be leading on The Empowered Yogi: Meridian Flow Yoga for Anxiety and AutoImmune disorders private FaceBook group.
These short practices will introduce you to meridian breathing, Meridian Flow practices, and meditations. I’ve shared these 15+ minute practices with others and received a consistent response of “Wow! I feel so good and calm after just 15 minutes!” This is how we want to set ourselves up for spring.
You can get on the wait list here to stay updated on this mini-immersion, as we’re about 1 week away to turn your frown upside down and enjoy spring to it’s fullest!
See you there!
We are ultimately responsible for our own healing.
The Meridian Flow practice transcends chronic pain, anxiety, and autoimmune issues naturally.
From my heart to yours
Namaste,
Maggie