Feeling aligned

I am feeling really good, inspired and energised lately, so the following question came to my mind:

Is this what it feels like to feel aligned?

So, I observed my thoughts and feelings more intensively over the last weeks. Sitting here right now writing this, I realise ‘Yes, that’s it, this is what feeling aligned means to me.’ These last two words, however, are critical, as you will experience a feeling of alignment differently than me. Nevertheless, I want to share my perspective on this feeling, as I’ve been able to experience it in such a positive and life-changing way.

I noticed that thoughts are simply the children of my emotions, meaning I’m in a positive mood and emotion, so my thoughts tend to be more positive. However, it also works the other way round, being in a negative mood means I’ve been thinking more negative thoughts. Now here’s the problem of this vicious circle. Let’s turn it around. If I have negative thoughts, a negative emotion is very likely to follow, and again it also works for my positive thoughts inducing positive emotions. So, here’s what I’m saying:

Be aware of your thoughts. They are the children of your emotions.

I happily noticed that I hold the power to shift this happening, that I can decide to think positively, that I can do mind and body work to allow this shift to happen. And I made it happen and I still do every day. Over the last years, I observed my thoughts, I observed my feelings, I questioned them, I tracked them back, I simply allowed myself to truly feel myself without avoiding, without fearing, without ignoring.

You hold the power to make this shift happen.

I understand more and more, how important it is to give things time. Because time is a good revealer of what’s really true.

Time is a good revealer of what’s really true.

What I mean is, if something bugs me, if someone makes a comment that triggers me, if I feel angry, sad or confused, I don’t instantly react anymore (there are exceptions of course, I’m just a human being). I give my best to let this feeling run through me and to give it time to rest. When this feeling really settles somewhere within me, I can still react, but if it doesn’t settle, then why react, right? Because my reaction would have required my energy and the more I think about it, the more stupid it is to instantly react to things.

Be aware of your energy.

Another thought that sticks around with me is that I truly believe that things happen for a reason. So, if something unpleasant happens in my life, I really try my best these days to remind myself that there must be a good reason for this, that this is a sign of the universe that something even better is just waiting for me around the corner. So, I decided to stop feeding these fires, that drain me, that I cannot change anyways, and to rather focus on the things that I can change and that I can feed with love instead.

Stop feeding the fire. Feed love instead.

And yes, probably the most important topic for most of us, myself included, is letting go. I  let go of being right; rather I remind myself that my reality is not the same as someone else’s, so the term ‘being right’ doesn’t appear reasonable anymore. It is always a matter of perspective. That’s it. Don’t hold on to thoughts, emotions, things, people, opinions; they change, they evolve, they flow, they develop, but they never stand still, so I decided to let go of being right and instead to bring my attention to what comes afterwards. Also, and I know it’s ironic, but most of the time when I cannot let go, it is definitely time to let go. Maybe you can resonate.

Let go of being right.

The topic of letting go brings me to my beloved topic ‘Alignment’. Because I perceived that if it’s aligned with me, whatever it is, a job, money, a partner, a guy, a friend, it will stay. It will f***-ing stay. It’s all about trust. When I trust life, when I trust the universe, when I understand that I am a connected human being and not on my own in this beautiful world that I live in, then the universe conspires to bring me joy, lightness, happiness and alignment. In a feeling of trust, I don’t have to grip to people or things, I don’t have to control anything, I can simply let go and trust that with letting go, my life will start shifting to the better.

If it’s aligned, it’ll stay.

When I’m feeling aligned, I talk about a feeling of greatness & inspiration. I feel strong and energised. In a state of alignment I trust that everything will come to me when the time is right and when I’m ready to receive it. When feeling aligned, I feel the power within me that I am the creator of my dreams and my dream life.

You are the creator of your dream life.

I feel so blessed that as a result of my alignment and faith, I published my first eBook ‘Feel Understand Heal #1 – Reveal your true self.’ In this eBook I help you start your inner journey to reveal your true self. I want the expression ‘Be Yourself’ to be the guideline for your life, because you can only be truly happy, when you know who you really are.

Living a life in full alignment and happiness is the commitment we, I, you should give ourselves, don’t you think so?

Yours, Nina

 

 

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The good practice

Inspired by the yoga retreat with Elena Brower and Ally Bogard in Italy, I have realised even more so, how important the good practice is. You might wonder what I mean and this is exactly what this blog post is about.

What does good practice mean?

First of all, it means that you develop an inclination to do the things that are good for you. The good practice also means that you develop infinity for the good things in your life. Also, it means raising the luminosity towards yourself and others, even the people you don’t like (to phrase it cautiously).

The good practice entails developing self-knowledge as the key ingredient. If you don’t know who you really are, if you don’t know what is good for you, if you don’t know the core values you are living by, if you don’t know what’s draining you, then you’ll most likely struggle with your energy management, which in return means you are not in good practice.

However, if you do know who you are, if you know what is good for you, if you know your core values and if you already got rid of the things that are draining you, then that’s great, because that means that you are on a good way to the good practice.

The practice doesn’t stop here though, because let’s be honest. You will only truly know, if you are in good practice, in balance and in your higher self, when something comes up that does not feel good to you.

This is the crux.

When life happens without any problems, then probably all of us are in good practice. However, what really matters is how we react and act, when there are problems in our lives. And of course we all face problems, challenges, difficult situations, fights etc. in our lives.

So, the most critical question you need to ask yourself is: How does that make me feel? Where do I feel this in my body? How do I react, when this problem arises? How do I act? Am I impulsive or considerate? Dramatic or realistic? Do I want to be a smart ass? Do I feel neutral about the problem or negative-aggressive?

I have noticed over the last months that if I am in good practice, I am more conscious about my own behavioural patterns and beliefs, I get to know myself more, meaning I developed a better and quicker intuition for what is good for me and what isn’t. This in return means I am more aligned with me and my true self, I feel more balanced and the time I spend in my higher self has massively increased.

My good practice consists of yoga, personal development, mindset work and using essential oils on a daily basis. Consistency is key here! My good practice enables me to tremendously shorten the time that a problem annoys me. I get over it way quicker. I also noticed how I can distance myself from draining situations better and faster. Either I literally walk out of a situation, if I don’t feel this is worth discussing or fighting or I visualise the distance to the problem situation whilst I am actually in it. This helps me to react and act with the right amount of energy and clarity. I love that.

Also I let things ‘simply’ run through me without giving it my energy. It is my energy and hence I decide who and what to give this to. My energy is very valuable to me, so I won’t waste it on situations anymore that are not worth it. I decide if and how to react and if and how to act. It is my choice!

Your energy is valuable. Decide where you use it.

Be aware of the ingredients to your being, meaning look at what you are practicing in your life.

To conclude: When something that doesn’t feel good to you, seizes to feel good, then you are in good practice.

Yours, Nina

 

 

Yoga Teacher Training-Episode 4

Wow, episode 4 already, which means I’m half way through the yoga teacher training. I have chosen the featured image of this blog post, as this was a very grounding training, with yoga practice, yoga philosophy and yoga anatomy. Yoga brings me closer to my real self each and every day, on and off the mat. And this picture shows me during a yoga retreat in Tulum, Mexico, where I felt grounded, too. Inspired, like I do now. And especially this pic was taken, when I finally permitted myself to come back to the real me.

Have you read my article yoga love yet? If you haven’t, I’d recommend to do it now, so you really understand why I feel so connected to the yoga practice.

Day 1: Started at 4pm as every Friday. I must admit after 2 weekends in a row and the 3rd weekend to come I felt a bit tired and wouldn’t have minded to just stay on the sofa with a tea and a book, but as I said above, I know why I’m doing this. So I swung my body into my yoga clothes, onto my bike and off to the yoga studio. The day started with correcting our homework, the yoga sequence we had to prepare and also we revised the most important points about standing poses. I was happy to see that my sequence was very good, even if not perfect, and that I knew actually everything on the standing poses, yay. As our teacher Nella always says, everything you need to know and you are ready to know, will sink in… the rest will come.

Then we went into our yoga practice focusing on the low cobra (Bhujangasana) and (Ardha) Chaturanga Dandasana. Whilst I knew the poses in theory, it turned out that even though I thought I had a really strong core, I kept sinking in to compensate what my arms couldn’t deliver. We went into groups of 2 to practice these poses and also to give each other feedback. We also learned assists and how to correct the major weaknesses in these poses, like putting too much pressure in the lower back, or not placing the hands properly underneath the shoulders to achieve a vertical angle to the mat. Afterwards, we incorporated the learnings into the following yoga practice and Jesus, my arms were ‘hurting’. It felt like they’d be falling off any second. But the practice was so good and challenging. And I like a challenge 😉

The second part of the day continued with yoga philosophy. We majorly discussed Ishvarah and the devotion to the Creator as well as the famous sound OM. We went into groups of 5 and prepared a chart about what OM means to us knowing by then that OM is the sound of Ishvarah. We then had to present the chart and in our group Robert and myself took over. The following OM to close the yoga practice was the most beautiful OM I’ve ever sung. It really came from the bottom of my heart and I indeed felt connected to something superior than me. I’ve had this feeling before, but this time was different.

OM, the sound of Ishvarah.

I headed home at 9pm, had a shower, something to eat, read a bit and fell into a good relaxed sleep.

Day 2: Makes me smile. We knew that we would be working with Richard Hackenberg the entire Saturday and Sunday. We were told it is about yoga anatomy. And I guess it was, but it was live anatomy if you know what I mean, so 9am Saturday morning and we went straight into a yoga practice. It was ‘only’ a 50 min practice, but literally after 10 minutes I turned around to the last row and breathed heavily, as it was just tough. The sequence appeared easy, and we didn’t do more than 10 different asanas. But, and that’s the clue, we moved quite slowly and with such an intensity, that we were all pretty exhausted after 10 minutes, haha. What a great practice though. Richard taught us very accurately how the body works whilst practicing yoga, live anatomy! After this practice, I experienced my best Savasana ever. Honestly. My whole body let go into my mat. Absolutely fabulous.

In the afternoon we spoke specifically about certain body parts, such as hamstrings, hip flexors and our spine. Knowing now that our spine is the way to transport energy, it makes it even clearer to me that we need to take good care not only of our spine, but our entire body. And I take good care of my body, once I re-educate it by practicing yoga consciously, with great alignment, with mindfulness, with love to the movement and the knowledge that my body wants to compensate weaker and less flexible body parts. I love my body and I’m so grateful for it, although I do have my physical challenges too, such as a severe tightness in my hip flexors and groins. I do admit that I find it annoying at times, but then I always come back to self-love and acceptance, thinking it will go once my time is right.

Thank your body.

Day 3: Makes me smile again, however this time I knew better. I knew we would be starting with a yoga practice, slow and challenging, so this time I was mentally prepared. And yet again, the practice was sweaty, I felt all muscles, everything, but I simply enjoyed the physical challenge and I could feel my energy rising. The following Savasana after a 60 minute practice was wonderful and I liked the fact that Richard didn’t say anything during Savasana and there wasn’t any music playing. I didn’t miss it, as I felt so peaceful lying on my yoga mat. We finished the practice with singing 3 x 3 OMs. 3 loud OMs for the entire world, 3 OMs a bit quieter for our group and last but not least I sang 3 OMs just for myself. Beautiful, no more words needed.

The second part continued with yoga anatomy again. This time we focused on the different nervous systems and which role they play in our everyday life. Especially the autonomic nervous system took my interest, as this is the system that works without my consciousness. This means that practicing yoga is even more important in order to gain consciousness over our body and mind, as we can only change the things that we move from the unconscious to the conscious.

What I also found fascinating is how our breathing influences our nervous system and whilst all yogis probably know that breathing is good, it is even better to know which role oxygen and CO2 play in the breathing. Meaning the higher the CO2 level in our body, the more relaxed we feel, for example when practicing Kumbhaka, the art of not breathing. Or Kapalabhati, when breathing quickly, which makes us feel more nervous and energetic as the CO2 level in our body decreases.

Last but not least we looked at Richard’s anatomy app over a projector. This was great, as he showed us all the joints, tendons and muscles we discussed over the last couple of days.

I must say I’m completely impressed with my body, with yoga, with the philosophy, what it gives me and it just makes me so happy.

I just love what I’m doing right now and that’s all that counts.

Do what you love and enjoy the way.

Yours, Nina