For many of us, the winter is when our chronic joint pain increases.

Lower back pain is a common ailment many of us suffer from. With all of our sitting, our low back muscles of the quadratus lumborum, psoas and glutes become very weak.

I was debilitated by severe lower back pain for over ten years, and not until I strengthened these muscles in my lower back did I find relief.

I thought I just needed to stretch those muscles, but more often than not, these muscles need to be strengthened to support the weight of the joints.

One of the best poses to strengthen the lower back and open the heart while stimulating the fire element (of the heart and small intestine meridians) and the water element (of the kidney and bladder meridians) is dhanurasana, bow pose.

This pose is also one of the safest back bends for our lower back. While strengthening the lower back, we can breathe through the meridians to focus the mind and relieve anxiety!

During these dark, cold days, energetically, we are in this womb-like time, like a cocoon, dark, quiet, gentle, and becoming.

It’s not a time to push or rush but to be quiet and still.

Cultivating a meditation time to be quiet and still can help us stay in tune with the natural world, as the animals are hibernating and the trees and plants are still and dormant. 

This is the time to conserve our energy, which meditation supports.

According to Chinese medicine, the winter correlates to the water element, which is all about packing and conserving our chi or energy.

Each element’s energy corresponds to the energy held in a pair of organs. The kidneys, the yin organ of the water element, store our chi. The lungs receive the energy, and the kidneys store it as energy reserves to get us through the winter. 

Meditating strengthens our intuition as we activate the 3rd eye, the energy center in the mid-brain behind the eyes, also known as the Ajna 6th chakra. 

Breathwork, or pranayama, for the water element, opens the third eye, which cultivates intuition.

When I was on my quest to heal my chronic pain, I'll never forget my qigong teacher telling me:

"We are ultimately responsible for our own healing."

That stopped me in my tracks.

Wait, you mean I have to heal myself???

That's when I stopped my endless search for a healer who could relieve my pain, and I took it on myself.

I started to meditate on healing and took on the practices of energy work through the physical practices of yoga and qigong.

Combining yoga and qigong provides a seasonal format to work with the energetic layers of our being.

Each season, the energy from the sun (our energetic Wifi signal) has a slightly different frequency, depending on how the sun is positioned to the Earth.

The energy of the winter water element is ‘consuming and packing’.

We observe this in the natural world, as the animals hibernate in the winter and slow down, needing to conserve. They ‘pack’ the energy for the cold dark days, and we humans energetically mirror this behavior. It’s easier to sit and be still in the winter, as we can meditate and gain clarity.

As we are coming to the end of the year, the energy of the winter water element is all about conserving, packing and storing our energy, or qi.

Think of animals going into hibernation, they are conserving and storing energy to get them through the long, cold dark days.

The Meridian Flow practice aligns with the seasonal energy, according to Chinese medicine. The Chinese character for winter is the image of a sun locked up and stored in an upside-down bottle, to signify the closing and storage of energy.

I’ve been inspired by the term ‘Wintering’ this year from the book Wintering - The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.

To shift into non-striving.

To let time be slow.

To allow.

To dwell in non-doing.

And to sit in that stillness.

It’s not easy for me to not DO. I was raised in a very DOING family. Our culture thrives on DOING. Therefore it feels like a new type of DOING - just to BE.

As the holidays approach, there are a lot of complicated feelings that come up.

The holidays are tricky for many of us.

Ram Das puts it: "Once you feel enlightened, go spend a week with your family."

The holidays can be a loving celebration, but also a time to confront relational conflicts and challenges.

Tara Brach gave a wonderful talk on this that I thought I'd share to remember that we're not alone with these challenges.

How do we prepare our hearts with caring and compassion? If we look back from year to year, the same pattern keeps playing out in relationships.

The wounding gets triggered around family. And during these dark cold days when we’re all inside together and amped up with pressures of consuming and shoulds, our nervous system is more vulnerable to getting hijacked.

As the season shifts from autumn to winter, my lower back starts to ache a bit more.

I've had chronic lower back pain for years and years; it's why I have to do yoga every day.

My chronic pain is the mud that nourishes the lotus of my daily practice. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't practice as much. This is how I've come to appreciate the benefits of my pain.

Once I'm on my mat, my breath deepens, my mind clears, and the movement starts to synch with the breath. Then the magic starts to happen.

During the beginning of this holiday season, we can prepare our hearts with our intentions.

Our intention creates the energy that will guide our attention and actions.

What is your intention?

If you are having difficulty coming up with one, kindness is always a good default, both internally and externally.

We all go into reactive places - we can get needy, overwhelmed, and angry, and guilt can rear its ugly head. 

What it would look like if, in those tough spots, you had a kind witnessing energy towards yourself and with anyone you might be with. 

As colder, darker days and Thanksgiving approaches, with the holidays soon to follow, it helps to cultivate a state of gratitude to keep our energy uplifted.

What are you grateful for?

Just pause momentarily, close your eyes, bring your hands to your heart, and consider what you appreciate.

We spend so much time focusing on what’s wrong, rather than what’s right in our abundant lives. Author John Kabat-Zinn reminds us, “There is so much more right in our lives than wrong."

Focusing on what we appreciate lifts our spirits and brightens the mind. Especially the things that we take for granted - like our health, our warm, safe homes, and the feeling of security and peace in our lives.

Fall is the season of reflection. It's also the time to build emotional resiliency.

During these times of global turmoil and grief, we can get paralyzed by the weight of it all.

After a few minutes of the news, our nervous system is taxed as the images and stories replay in our minds repeatedly.

Movement and breath are the quickest ways to go from upset to reset. Memory isn't only stored in our brain but throughout our entire body. This is why yoga and qigong effectively create a calm inner disposition. They release the 'issues in our tissues'.

When we can find our center and connect to stillness, we can show up for others who need our support.

Serving others is one of the best remedies for grief. The autumn is the time of year that grief arises, as it's stored in our lungs. The lungs are energetically running the strongest in the autumn.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, the lungs are part of the metal element. When we serve others and become benevolent, we are shining our metal into gold, rather than letting it rust from grief and sadness.

I was feeling low energy and some sadness yesterday. I remembered that sadness is the emotion that the lungs energetically hold. Then I noticed that I was barely breathing.

So, I allowed the weight of my sadness and started to breathe deeper into what was there. I put one hand on my heart, one hand on my belly, and breathed with my sadness.

I then became the field of awareness that was holding the sadness - rather than identifying with the sadness. It then slowly shifted to a soft gentle energy, that could allow whatever was arising to be included.

What a relief.

Did you know that we can change our thinking by changing our breathing?

With the world in such turmoil, it's hard to know what to do and how to process it all. Grief and sadness weigh heavily, and we can become paralyzed by it.

My meditations this week have been focused on a prayer-like breathing technique referred to as Tonglen. Tonglen is a breathing practice to relieve grief and suffering for ourselves and others.

Tonglen is a Buddhist practice of taking and sending energy. It reverses our logical thinking in an effort to avoid suffering.

How do you feel in the autumn? I've noticed several friends have a hard time emotionally this time of year.

We see the leaves falling and plants returning to the earth as the natural world lets go of what once was.

This time of year can bring nostalgia as it's hard to let go of the past.

In autumn, when the energy starts to travel inwards, there is compression in the atmosphere that can be physically felt.

The autumn relates to the metal element. Metal has significant weight and can be sharp and cutting. These are the energetic qualities that we feel in the autumn. The cutting away and letting go.

This is the time of year when the lungs and large intestine energy (Qi) is running the strongest - and the easiest time to work with their energy and bring it into balance.

The term samskara is a Sanskrit term referring to all our experiences and memories stored in our being.

Our memory is stored not only in our head but throughout our entire body.

This is why we can find ourselves in tears while in a yoga pose – not because we’re necessarily in pain but because we are releasing the stored, stuck energy that may be the result of trauma.

The seasonal shift is in the air. School starting has an imprint on our psyche.

Late summer shifting into fall has an energetic affect that stimulates our intellect. We are inspired to learn and/or create a disciplined routine.

According to Chinese medicine's wisdom, each season's energetic vibration (based on how the earth is positioned to the sun) relates to a specific consciousness or spirit.

During the late summer, the consciousness is referred to as Yi, which means acquiring knowledge. This refers to our intellect.

Therefore, this time of year is the easiest to learn new things.

I recently watched an interview with Venus Williams, the famous tennis star.

She said, “I honestly believe discipline is freedom. When you have discipline, you get what you want.

When you do not have discipline, you do not get any of what you want.

When you’re disciplined, you start to live your dream, to do the things you love, and then you start to LOVE THE DISCIPLINE.

Have you noticed repeated patterns or triggers in your relationships?

They usually show up with the people that we’re closest to.

They can often last a lifetime if we’re unaware of them - and do a lot of unnecessary damage.

When I’m being judgemental of my husband and other family members, it creates a ripple effect that doesn’t serve our relationships.

They become defensive, and an argument is sure to follow.

They feel nervous around me, which creates an energetic barrier that creates distance.

And I wondered why I felt lonely in a lot of my relationships!

So many of us get stuck in our ruts of work that aren't fulfilling and take up so much of our time and energy. Then add responsibilities on top of it, and it feels overwhelming.

The term samskara is a Sanskrit term referring to all our experiences and memories stored in our being.

Our memory is stored not only in our head but throughout our entire body.

This is why we can find ourselves in tears while in a yoga pose – not because we’re necessarily in pain but because we are releasing the stored, stuck energy that may be the result of trauma.

The heart's energy is at high tide in this early summer fire season. This energy (Qi) affects us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The heart's energetic pair is the small intestine.