Recent studies are pointing more and more to the power of a repetitive routine in creating a rhythm and felt sense of safety in our body and security in our lives. This can be the simple ritual of igniting a candle at sunset each day to reflect and remember a loved one who has passed.
A ritual is a sacred structured rhythmic pattern, not too dissimilar from the pattern of daily morning coffee or a consistent Saturday morning jog.
Some of our rituals or daily/weekly/monthly habits are conscious and others are formed unconsciously perhaps from past conditioning.
Consistent repetition and rhythm are two of the building block pathways of learning and integrating a new habit or pattern in our life. Ancient wisdom from many cultures share the power and potential of aligning with the wheel of seasonal celebrations and celestial rhythms by participating in rituals.
These repetitive rhythmic patterns become superhighways of conditioning connecting us to truly knowing ourselves intimately and trusting in the cycles and phases of life.
Which patterns and what rituals are you choosing to integrate into your life?
Enjoy this short and simple morning breathing ritual to powerfully connect with yourself intimately before you begin each day.
Perhaps commit to this practice consistently and consciously for 7 – 11 consecutive mornings. Take note of how you feel and how your day flows after taking this time to set the tone of your Body Current®.
1) As you begin to awaken, before you open your eyes for the first time, begin your morning ritual by becoming aware of your breath. What’s it’s texture? Is the current of your breath slow, shallow, fast, smooth? Is your breath fluid, grounding, erratic, fiery? Notice the currents of sensation arising in your body and thoughts flowing through your brain as simple streams of consciousness rather than judging or resisting what is arising.
Take 1-3 minutes to allow for this experience to unfurl as you follow and attune to your breath and set the currents in your body and brain. What do you notice streaming through you and around you?
2) Begin to gently engage with your breath for several breath cycles creating slow, smooth currents rising and falling through your whole body. Become deeply aware of the sensations and emotions arising as you slowly come out of your dreamworld and engage with your breath.
Exhaling through rounded lips, release your dreamworld as if blowing it our into your outer environment. Inhaling through your nose, receive the dawning of your new day. What information is streaming through your body current intelligence? To which frequency are you choosing to attune your body and brain to begin your day? How is your heart responding to this frequency?
3) Take several rhythmic breathing cycles – perhaps a 4-8 count exhale out rounded lips followed by a gentle pause before inhaling 4-8 counts through the nose. Feel this current of cohesive conscious connection flowing through every cell of your body, in and through your heart and both hemispheres of your brain. Direct your balanced breath to any areas feeling constricted, stagnant or tense.
Notice how each breath cycle releases tension and grows expansion in your body.
4) Continue to release tension/constriction/contraction with each exhale out rounded lips. Expand your awareness with each inhale, feeling this current of connection grow as large as your room, as big as your house, your neighborhood, your state and expanding as large as the country you live in, the hemisphere and the planet we live on.
Feel yourself expand out of the “me” to the “we” consciousness as you grow as large as the Cosmos and beyond. How does it feel to be this expansive? What do you notice when you expand into feeling all of the universe is inside of you?
Notice how the frequency and currents of energy flowing in your body and the beacon of your heart respond to this expanded awareness. How might you remember and return to this expansive feeling throughout your day?
5) Allow a deep felt sense of gratitude to ripple through this expansive field or current of awareness.
What are you grateful for in this moment? How can you plant this simple seed of gratitude as an intention for your day?
Imagine, feel, see or sense in some way, a stream of color(s) or perhaps a vibration aligned with your felt-sense of gratitude and your intention merging with and streaming through your brain and body, riding on the current of your breath.
6) State your intention for your day in 1-3 simple and precise words, silently our out loud, seeing this intention already coming to life, imagining it in your mind and feeling it reverberate in the cells of your body, as you step into your day.
7) Over several consecutive days (perhaps beginning with 7) commit to this morning ritual before getting out of bed. Take note of how the pattern of this morning ritual feels in your body and how your brain responds to beginning your day in this way.
What are you noticing as your awareness deepens into the current of gratitude your body is feeling?
Enjoy and let me know how it goes! I would love to hear about your experience and how this practice resonates, or not, for you.
With Love,
Shanti
Shanti founded her Body Current® modality as a bridge between ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience. Much of Shanti’s inherent wisdom in regulating the nervous system was imprinted as a young child living through her own trauma.
She enjoys supporting women, elite athletes and everyday warriors to live a life of well-being, optimized performance and wild inspiration through simple practices of embodied self-realization. Shanti has enjoyed facilitating her Body Current protocols in a variety of 500HR Yoga Teacher Trainings and as faculty at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health as well as the Neurosculpting Institute in Denver, CO. To find out more about Shanti’s global events and private sessions in person at her home sanctuary in Boulder, CO or from your home or office via Zoom, visit www.EnergizeShanti.com
Share with a friend
