Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

I AM This Light

A common phrase I often hear in yoga is 'We are all one.'

Truth be told, I have struggled with this understanding.

How is this possible? We all seem so vastly different!

It wasn't until my teacher described the spark of light in our hearts that comes in with us when we enter this life and leaves with us when we leave this life that I understood.

This is the light that connects us all.

This light is a particle from the great, ever-pervading universal light that consciousness comes from and returns to.

This is the divine light that permeates all living beings.

That rang true.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

How Do You Show Love?

After listening to Ester Perrel's talk on 'Love is a practice' and sharing it in my Sacred Sunday class, I'm witnessing where it's showing up in my current life.

According to Chinese medicine, we're in the fire season, which corresponds to the heart, which makes it the easiest time of year to focus on the primary emotions felt in the heart, with love being at the top of the list.

Perrel states that love is a verb. It's not a permanent state of enthusiasm; it's an actual practice, and this practice needs to be repeated constantly.

It requires discipline, concentration, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism.

It isn't just a feeling; it's a practice.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Weekend of Joy and Peace

What are you doing this weekend?

If you'd like to join a like-minded community of folks of all different ages and genders, come join us for the practices that will guide your heart into a peaceful state.

This is the easiest time of year to cultivate a joyful attitude and a peaceful heart, as it's fire season when the heart's energy is front and center!

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Reflecting on the Nature of Joy

I received a phone call yesterday from my daughter, who was feeling anxious and manic. I thought, ah yes, right on time with the fire season.

As this fire season rolls in, I start to notice the emotions and patterns of behavior that relate to the energy frequency of this season.

Joy happens to be top on the list.

As well as anxiety and manic thinking.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Shift From Anxiety to Peace

Recently, I was asked how I stay inspired while teaching and practicing yoga for over 30 years. I responded, "I teach by the seasons."

They asked me to explain.

When I healed my chronic pain through meditation, Chinese medicine, and Qigong and wove it all into my yoga practice, it intuitively made sense. Understanding that we are energetic beings housed in the physical body, and our energetic flow dictates how we feel emotionally and physically.

According to Chinese medicine, we are subject to seasonal energy depending on the sun's relationship to the earth. The sun is like our Wi-Fi signal, and our organs are like computers, each with its own specific function.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

From Stuck to Inspired

It's the time of year for heightened inspiration. Nature's energy is rising, sprouting, and blossoming, and that same energy runs through us, too.

I love to feel inspired; one could say I'm an inspirational junkie. But the problem yesterday, as I sat down to write, was that I wasn't feeling it. I tried and deleted it. I poked around for some inspirational help - but couldn't find it. I sat and wrote... and deleted it.

Inspiration can't be forced. So I took to the trees.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

My Personal Story on Dealing with Difficult Emotions

I want to share a personal experience I had this morning, in which I had to rely on the practices I teach in the upcoming Emotional Endurance Program and put them into action.

I woke up early to hear my husband getting up and making coffee.

Mornings are one of our favorite times to sit and sip my tea with him, listen to the news, and chat about what inspires us.

But this morning, he had different plans. He wanted to write, and I was disappointed. I wanted to connect, but he wanted to follow his inspiration and get some work done. This has been happening for a few days, and I feel like our special time is being usurped.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Not Identifying with Emotions?

The other day, while sitting with a new student, I was struck by how she identified with her emotional state—because we all do this.

We speak as if we are our emotions!

She told me, "I am an anxious person".

When we identify with our emotions, how we speak about ourselves limits us. In English, we use the "I am" in front of the emotion.

We believe that's who we are and peg ourselves into a corner as 'this is who I am' instead of framing it as experiencing an emotion.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

It’s All About How We Frame It

Recently, I struggled with an issue, and my mentor said, "Remember the Buddha's teaching; it's only a problem if you make it one."

Wow, right, it's all about how I frame it.

This made me think of how I speak. to myself about things I have to do that I resist.

Mel Robbins, a motivational coach, inspired me to change "I have to" to "I get to!" What an energetic shift!

I can view challenges as problems -that make them worse, or I can view them as something I get to work through

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Forgiveness is For Us, Not Them

As I was driving to visit someone with whom I had some issues over twenty years ago, I realized that I still haven't completely forgiven them.

When after they apologized and I understood why they said the hurtful things they did, I still harbored resentment toward them.

I've been reflecting on the act of forgiveness, as it's part of the spring's wood element's attributes.

What makes forgiveness easier for me is realizing that it is more about my own well-being than about releasing the other person from the offense.

It took me years to understand forgiveness. I thought it was about letting them off the hook. But with big issues, that's not always possible.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

The Ocean is Wide, The Sky is Empty

The other day, I was working with a student obsessing about an issue she was dealing with.

Her breath was short and erratic.

She was caught in the obsessive thinking mind, analysis to paralysis.

I asked her to try a mind exercise for a moment (and you can, too):

Think of whatever feels challenging at the moment.

See the issue in your mind that keeps re-running.

Now, expand the frame around it.

Let your consciousness shift to the back of your mind, the observer.

Expand the frame a bit more.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

The Vulnerable Sprout

When we have new inspirations we want to pursue, the shaky nerves of growth must be recognized and tended to.

A sprout is delicate and vulnerable. It can easily be trampled and squashed.

This relates to the new ideas we want to pursue.

When I had the idea to write my book, The Empowered Yogi, I kept it private, sharing it with my closest people. I only allowed my editor to read it when I started writing it because it felt so vulnerable.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

The Obstacle is Part of the Path

When I first started on my yoga path, my lower back pain became worse and worse.

I started yoga to heal my aching back, and it did, and then it got worse. 

I kept re-injuring it through the vigorous Ashtanga practice, and I was so annoyed by it! I was hobbling out of my second teacher training, living on Advil.

How could this be? 

I was embarrassed by my back pain, which made my spine look disfigured. I was ashamed of it. 

I was so angry at it. It seriously got in the way. 

I wrote about this in my book, The Empowered Yogi, and how one of the last healers I went to wrote on my chart, “She needs to heal herself”. He told me I needed to heal my first and second chakra issues

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Observing Beliefs

I was recently tasked to learn something new and out of my comfort zone. I thought, oh, I can't do this; this is out of my wheelhouse.

I had to examine what was stopping me from taking on this challenge. An old belief from my childhood told me, "You're not smart enough."

Because I learned differently from the highly academic town of Princeton, where I grew up, I was plagued with the belief that I didn't measure up.

A statement I've been contemplating a lot lately is:

The things we repeatedly think about become our beliefs.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

What You Focus On Grows…

The energy shift from the dead of winter into the 'quickening' promise of spring is happening - and it's one of my favorite times.

Not because it's particularly beautiful outside, because it's not; it's grey - a lot this winter.

But with the thaw and the bird song, even the smell reminds us that energy is moving upward from the deep winter stillness into the subtle greening ~ HOPE is palatable.

This dormant energy is awakening in us, too. Winter is the time of transformation. It's time to observe what wants to grow.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

How Good of a Listener Are You?

I was taking a hike with a friend last week and reflected on what kind of listener she is.

Although my friend is a kind, gentle soul who cares deeply, she often interrupts me to share her experiences.

I know she’s unaware of it, and unknowingly, I probably do it too. Considering what it means to be a good listener, I'm reminded that the ears are the sense doors to the kidneys, which are energetically running strong in the winter.

This makes it the easiest time of year to strengthen our listening and attention.

A practice I’m working on is checking in with myself on anything I feel critical about - do I do that? Even if it’s not as extreme, I’m probably guilty of it, too, or it wouldn’t trigger me so much.

When we criticize others, it's time to look in the mirror!

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Meditating On Your Future Self

Have you ever tried visualizing your FUTURE SELF as the best version of your potential?

This is a classic Taoist meditation that’s very effective at the end of winter, moving into spring.

This meditation is timely because of the seasonal energy.

Currently, we are shifting from the stillness of winter, which cultivates a strong intuition, into new spring growth.

One of the primary aspects of the Meridian Flow practice is guiding our energy with our attention and breath. And where our mind goes, our energy flows.

In this meditation of projecting our future SELF, we set our minds to guide our energy to the trajectory of who we want to become. And it’s so effective!

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

I Was Feeling Insecure When…

As we are coming to the end of the winter water element, I was struck by how essential water is to make life habitable in a very personal way.

We just arrived in Costa Rica a few days before our yoga retreat starts, and our Airbnb didn’t have water! Not a drop.

No bathing, no cooking, completely relying on drinking water from what we brought. Ayiiiii! Needless to say, we had to quickly re-locate.

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Who Are You Becoming?

Have you ever tried visualizing your FUTURE SELF as the best version of your potential?

This is a classic Taoist meditation that’s very effective at the end of winter, moving into spring.

This meditation is timely because of the seasonal energy.

Currently, we are shifting from the stillness of winter, which cultivates a strong intuition, into new spring growth.

One of the primary aspects of the Meridian Flow practice is guiding our energy with our attention and breath. And where our mind goes, our energy flows.

In this meditation of projecting our future SELF, we set our minds to guide our energy to the trajectory of who we want to become. And it’s so effective!

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Maggie Heinzel-Neel Maggie Heinzel-Neel

Water in Costa Rica

As we are coming to the end of the winter water element, I was struck by how essential water is to make life habitable in a very personal way.

We just arrived in Costa Rica a few days before our yoga retreat starts, and our Airbnb didn’t have water! Not a drop.

No bathing, no cooking, completely relying on drinking water from what we brought. Ayiiiii! Needless to say, we had to quickly re-locate.

Now, I’ve done a lot of camping and stayed in cabins where I’ve hauled my own water, and that was fine as long as I had a source of water to get to. But there wasn’t a source here to draw water from, and it suddenly felt uninhabitable.

No matter how nice the surroundings and the aesthetics were, it doesn’t work without water.

Water is life.

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