From decision to action

I have been practicing hatha yoga, going onto my third week now. I am loving it, the healing within and without has catapulted. Two weeks ago we did a short meditation on our chakras, and while I already knew I had a block in my throat chakra, I didn't realize my abdominal chakra was also blocked. I have always had trouble accessing in between the vertebra in the small of my back, but during the mediation, I became aware that I couldn't breath into it, either. 

I use a chakra card deck to in a playful way learn about these energy centres, and I saw that the solar plexus (abdominal) is where we remain before making a decision. And while this isn't meant to be a negative place to remain for a time, I have trouble making decisions, and when I do, I back out and change my mind like clockwork. This has been something a spiritual adviser and myself have been working on the past year, plus I have joined a group where I am learning how to trust that "first impression" they call it. And it's helping.

So now that I have concluded what I want to improve on, one might wonder how I plan to remedy it. Well, I finally know that, though tempting to refute, I need not execute perfectly: I need only make a start. So now I am empowered, and don't need to sit in a place of indecision. I just continue my meditation every night before bed; I put my pillow along the wall so that I can lay as flat as possible, and prepare with some intentional breathing and holding of breath. Then I commence to focus in on troubled areas, sending my breath to those places, using muscle effort to keep the areas as straight as possible. 

As a practicing Christian, it was hard for me to return to yoga. I made attempts at practicing kundalini yoga on my own the past half year, because that is an easy discipline to do solo - all of the sets are outlined with precise instruction. I was also concerned about weakening my ballet muscles, because yoga sometimes uses the opposite muscles sets. But the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of hatha flow yoga have been too phenomenal to quit. I have a safe place to practice, and an amazing instructor. I'm very fortunate.

Making a decision to complete a task is one half, the second part is following through, and this is one area where I can do just that. I really love the yoga community. My eyes are still fixed on Jesus, and I have a public responsibility to shepherd, but the Christian community can be skilled at discrediting and trapping a person, or making someone feel less than, and even a traitor, so it was a really big leap for me to take this direction into the alternative healing arts. However now I feel not only a part of, I feel more confident in all areas of my life, and that includes my Christian life. 

Saint Paul wrote, "Test everything, keep what is good", and I take this teaching very seriously. It is less likely to fall victim to bullying when one can stand firm in his or her own truth. This is a new saying that I didn't understand at first, but it simply means to come from a place of honesty. If you want to believe the Bible is literal, go for it, if you want to practice Buddhist meditation, go for it, if you want to practice yoga and be humbled by your limitations (and be inspired to improve), go for it. 

Live and let live is my apropos now. Judgement of self and others is a spiritual sickness from within, and today, that malady no longer serves me. Today I work only on moving and flowing through the blocks that are keeping me disconnected from achieving what I really want in this short time on Earth, and in that is real joy, peace, and freedom.

- Japa Dyal Kaur