Atma was a teenager when she traveled to India with her friend to attend a unique yoga and meditation ashram for 6 months. Atma made this choice because she wanted to learn how to live more from her heart. She needed way more courage to navigate her life because she experienced the polarities with so much intensity these days. Her peers had opinions about everything, and became attached to these opinions to the point that they drew lines in the sand and actually kicked her out of a friend group when she didn’t want to join in with certain activities which made her feel uncomfortable. It was like she had to choose to think like them so she could be with them and this made Atma feel very sad.
Eventually she realized that she could use the energy of this sadness to move her to experience something different in her life. She had been reading and studying the life of Milarepa, a Tibetan yogi, who is remembered for his remarkable determination and personal growth. Milarepa’s life story showed her how you can progress from being caught in the human cycle of confusion and move to clarity through the practices of yoga and meditation.
She was reading her positive affirmations, and journaled about all her fears and sadness. These practices helped her to feel better for a while but then as soon as someone or something would hurt her feelings, she found herself spiraling down into her familiar sadness. She needed something for this fight, she needed to call on her courage to be victorious over her responses to her feelings. She had also read that victory over the mind would bring her victory over the entire world. A mighty endeavor! Yet her mind felt as tricky as the hall of mirrors at the fair where she and her family had just visited. Each time she would look in the mirrors from a different angle she just saw more of the same. Everywhere she looked she saw more and more reflections. Perhaps the mind could not heal the mind, it could only see more of itself, she realized that she had to find another way to find peace.
With the support of her parents she prepared to take this 6 month trip so that she could learn how to live as a yogi, to be fully in this world but not of it. They planned this to be a journey into the heart, her 4th Body, so she could experience the joy of a lifestyle calibrated to express her purest potential, her true Self.
In India they would rise before the sun and practice yoga, meditation and lots of breath work because pranayama is what calms the heart. She had learned at home when she tended her mother’s vegetable garden, that you had to prepare the soil before you could plant the seed so it could grow. Her seed was the clear intention for her practice, preparing the soil was the yoga and the meditation allowed that seed to grow. Just like her garden at home, she saw that what she watered would grow, if she gave her prana to the weeds they would grow, and when she focused her prana on the beautiful flowers they would grow.
She and her friend helped each other to keep up with all the yogic lifestyle practices for the whole 6 months. Each time she would feel the sadness or the confusion she would hold the emotion and do a yogic practice until she felt calm and at peace again.
During the day she practiced martial arts which helped her to channel the Mars energy of the 4th Body, and learned that it’s all just energy and she could regulate her responses to her feelings with specific practices. She had so many options now to self regulate!
At night they would go to the temple to practice puja (worship) with much devotional chanting, and dancing. She learned that this was a special type of yoga called Bhakti yoga and she felt it open her heart, this portal which gave access to all the other bodies.
When she returned after her 6 month immersion program she was able to communicate what needed to be communicated to her friends. Before she had gotten into so much pain when she tried to communicate what she wanted instead of what was needed and she would feel all confused. Now with her heart engaged she had a clear sense of what was right for her. She was able to really listen to her friends with empathy and stay compassionate while she held true to her heart. She was able to forgive the feelings of betrayal and experience her joy again now that she had learned to release her dependency on others and instead was able to embrace her most authentic self.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
