Mindfulness, Nervous System regulation, and woo woo
Practices
Breathwork
“As a fire blazes brightly when the covering of ash over it is scattered by the wind, the divine fire within the body shines in all its majesty when the ashes of desire are scattered by the practice of pranayama”
– B.K.S. Iyengar
I have found these three modalities to be the most helpful for me, but there are so many more.
Box Breathing
A calming pranayama.
Visualise a box in your mind or in the environment in front of you. As you breathe in follow the left side of the box up for 4 counts, hold and cross the top of the box for 4 counts, breathe out down the right side for 4 counts and hold as you go along the bottom of the box for 4 counts. Repeat.
Alternate Nostril
A balancing pranayama.
Breathe in through your left nostril, breathe out through your right nostril, breathe in through your left, breathe out through the right. Repeat.
Known as Nadi Shodhana in Yoga, this pranayama uses fingers to block each nostril as required.
Fully Body Breath
A calming or activating pranayama.
As you take a deep breath fill your belly completely, then fill your ribs, then fill up your collarbones. Hold your breath at the top. Breathe out let it all go. Repeat.
Take as deep and long breaths as you can without feeling discomfort or stress.
“The space between thinking and doing is called wisdom” – Jim Hunt
Meditation
It is often used to reduce stress, improve concentration, and promote emotional well-being. Over time, meditation can lead to greater self-awareness, inner peace, and a sense of connection with the present moment.
Meditation is so much more than trying to find stillness, intense concentration, or emptying the mind. It is a beautiful, although sometimes triggering, journey of self discovery and tuning into you.
Personally, my favourite meditations involve deep visualisations, connecting to my inner voice or observing self, physical sensations/energetics, listening to mantras/chants, and Yoga Nidra or NSDR. You will come to find your own magical practice.
Meditation can be found in a myriad of wonderful ways and ultimately leads to how you live your life.
Manifestation
“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the energy you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics” – Albert Einstein
Neuroscience tells us that our thoughts which are based on our beliefs and internal working model, direct how we see the world through our lens: what we believe about ourselves and how we are in the world. This in turn dictates our behaviours and actions. The magic lies in radical self responsibility. Only you have the power to change your thoughts and beliefs. By exploiting our understanding of brain systems like the RAS and task positive networks you can change our whole outlook on life and yourself. And once you believe in yourself you will start taking inspired action towards your inevitable success.
Affirmations & Gratitude
Powerful morning practices, I personally consider them my morning prayers. Each morning, writing 3-5 affirmations and as many things as possible to be grateful for (at least three).
Gratitude brings you into a positive emotional state, the highest vibrational frequency, which attracts all of that frequency to you, inviting in abundance, joy, love, prosperity, and other wonderful things.
Affirmations ultimately help change your internal narrative, how you think about yourself and the world around you. And once you change your thinking, you change your world. So affirmations are incredible for intentional manifestation. They can also inspire and centre you when you are feeling uncertain, insecure, out of control, or lost.
Combining these powerful tools together enable you to invoke positive emotions into your affirmations, supercharging them.
Music and Frequencies
Music and frequencies are what I like to call powerful activators. They help you activate a certain mode, mood or function. I personally use different types of frequencies and music for when I want to be productive, when I want to ground myself, calm down, mediate or journal, and when I want to hype myself up, when I want to manifest, when I’m in the gym, doing cardio, and especially for walking. For me it’s like a magic switch,
Music and frequencies have been shown to help promote relaxation and reduce stress hormones like cortisol. Studies have also shown certain frequencies can influence brain activity and neuroplasticity, which can lead to increased mental clarity, focus and concentration, enhancing your productivity. Music is known to boost mood by increasing the production and release of dopamine and serotonin.
Yoga
At its core, yoga is a magical voyage of self exploration: “Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self”.
Balance your nervous system and strengthen your nervous system switching ability. 18 minutes of yoga practice shuts down cortisol production in the brain.
>Physically through balance, proprioception, and other somatic movements, as well as through changing your respiratory rate.
>Mentally through slowing the mind, releasing stuck thoughts, and establishing concentration outside the mind.
>Emotionally allowing stuck energy to move through and out of the body.
Yoga is also a cleansing detoxing practice. The clearing out is necessary for the life force or prana to rise for meditation to peak.
Somatic and Embodied Movement
Before we could think we could experience, we could feel, our evolution dictates it as such. Our nervous systems were developed before our thinking decision making mind, thus they are rooted in experience, in movement and sensation.
Somatics and embodied movement releases energy from stored emotions and trauma, allowing them to leave your body without needing to intellectualise them. These practices also allow the shifting and rewiring of our nervous system patterns, because they work with the language of the body, bypassing the middle man of our often unhelpful overthinking mind.
Somatic work can involve proprioceptive movement to engage specific areas of the brain; shaking, stopping, vibrating to discharge energy; and rolling, flowing movements to feel deeply into the body – which is especially vital for women who have been repressed in this way for so long.
I personally love to balance deep shadow somatic work (and all other shadow work) with fun light embodied movement such as dancing to your favourite upbeat songs.
Self discovery, reflection and transformation through the lunar cycles
“Every day it’s a new version of itself. Sometime weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light.
The moon understands, what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections” – Tahereh Mai
The lunar cycles are a natural structure to invite personal reflection and awareness into your life. From a place of awareness and clarity, you can begin to make positive changes to live a more intentional, aligned, fulfilled and happy life.
New Moon
New moons act as a blank slate for deep internal introspection. They are a time of new beginnings, a chance to mentally and emotional reset, and set some intentions to manifest for the month ahead, co-creating with the phases of the moon
Full Moon
Full moons are intense times of illumination, inviting reflection on what comes up and the opportunity to celebrate your achievements and release what no longer serves you. It’s a time to gain clarity and to release negativity, to make space for transformation.
A few of my other Favourite Practices
More beautiful practices to help you regulate your nervous system, connect to yourself, nourish and heal your body, mind and spirit.
01
Cacao Ceremonies and Women’s Circles
The first women’s circle I was apart of was held up the wonderful Roslyn Gray in Perth, Australia. It involved guided meditation and journalling, oracle card pull, and the opportunity to share. It was incredibly powerful to first invest the time for introspection, but mostly to have space held for me by other women.
The founder of the Maia community, Gabrielle Monstranado introduced by to the magical world of cacao, through a cacao ceremony in Ubud and it was WILD. My experience with cacao was one of heart opening joy and connection, and extreme creativity. Everyone is different but I found it a powerful light-bringing tool to add to your healing toolbox.
02
Sound Healing
Sound healing or sound baths are a truly wonderful way to calm, nourish, and help heal the nervous system and the body as a whole, using a combinations of drums, gongs, Tibetan and crystal singing bowls, tuning forks, as well as vocal tones and sounds.
Sound healing gentle awakens our subtle energy body, and so allows for trapped energy, trapped emotions and trauma to move out of the body, leaving you with heightened feeling of well being. It literally changes the structure of the cells in your body, which in turn changes the function of your organs and every system.
If you ever in Ubud, Bali, Pyramids of Chi is a must do.
03
Reiki
Reiki is a passive and gentle energy healing modality of Japanese lineage. The practitioner channels the Reiki or life force energy to flow through the participants body, in order to release any blockages and enable healing. When your energy flows freely you feel calm, creative, healthy, resilient and content.
After awakening, opening and healing my own energy body during my yoga teacher training I felt drawn to Reiki and undertook level 1 and 2 Reiki training in Ubud at the Little School of Reiki. I have found it to a wonderful addition to my self practice and to help others.