21 Days of Turning Inward: Day Four
Welcome to day four of our winter solstice journey!
Pour yourself a mug of tea, light a candle, settle into a cushion, and let's get started...
Begin to pay attention to your breath. Imagine that every exhale is hollowing you out completely, starting at the base of the spine.
Hollow out your belly, your chest, your lungs. When all of the air is completely squeezed out, let the inhale come naturally and fill you back up again.
Allow yourself to fall into this rhythm, concentrating on the emptying-out of the body on the exhale, the filling-up on the inhale. Notice the moments of stillness in between the exhale and the inhale, when there is no air, just stillness.
When you feel ready, gently open your eyes. Notice any subtle shifts that have taken place in the quality of your attention or the sensations in your body.
Have you given any thought to yesterday's question?
This one gets me every time.
For example, I've been saying this year that I really want to be more present with my family and friends. But I tell myself I can't because I'm way too busy.
Which sounds more compelling?:
I cannot be present with my friends and family because I am so busy.
Because I am so busy, it is imperative that I be present with my family and friends.
Ouch, right?
But they aren't all that simple. What about this one:
I can't take myself on a vacation because I don't have enough money.
Because I don't have enough money, it is absolutely imperative that I take myself on vacation.
Well, yes, financial stress is incredibly exhausting, but how are you supposed to take yourself on vacation if you don't have any money?
What if you put your intelligence and creativity in service to your desires instead of in service to explaining why you can't have them?
Remember Mary Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, and how she made a honeymoon out of travel posters and singing neighbors?
Do you have a friend going out of town who needs a housesitter? A family member who can stay with your family while you take a one night camping trip in the mountains?
One of the best vacations I ever had consisted of a friend's borrowed bathtub, a mug of cocoa, and three hours of guaranteed solitude. I still tear up when I think about how necessary and perfect that vacation was.
I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this.
Get out your journal and look at the five words you wrote, describing how you want to feel this winter.
Choose one of these words, and write. Write every possible way you can think of to experience more of this in your life. Write every single idea that comes up, no matter how silly or trivial. Write stream-of-consciousness for one full page, and then stop.
If all of your reasons-why-not crowd into your consciousness, choose to think of them as reasons-why instead!
That's all for today. Just let your word, and all the ways you might be able to experience it, percolate through your head. As other ideas sift into your consciousness, jot them down. You don't have to act on anything yet. Just let yourself dream.
I'll see you tomorrow!
21 Days of Turning Inward: Day Three
Welcome to day three!
Light your candle, pour your tea, get out your journal, and let's start with a brief meditation.
Close your eyes, and imagine that as you inhale, your breath travels from the soles of your feet up the bones of your legs, upward through each vertebra of the spine, up the base of the neck, around the back of the skull, and up through the crown of your head. Each exhale pours the breath down the front of the face, past the throat, down the center of the ribcage, through the navel, then separates and flows down the fronts of both legs, pooling into the ground below the feet.
Breathe several times in this orbit, pulling the breath up the back of the body and exhaling it down the front of the body. Let yourself feel the circulation of the air. Notice any places in the body where the breath hitches or catches, and see if you can smooth out the breath on the next cycle.
When you feel present and connected, open your journal and look at the writing you did yesterday.
For every feeling, taste, scent, and desire that you wrote about wanting to experience this winter, make a list on the next page of reasons why you cannot have it.
For example, if I wrote yesterday that I want to feel warm and well-rested, my list might look something like this:
I want to feel warm and well-rested.
I can't be warm and well rested because I live in the mountains and it's cold and heating the house costs money.
I can't be warm and well-rested because I work too much and there's never enough time to sleep.
I can't be warm and well rested because everyone wants a piece of me and I can never relax.
I can't be warm and well rested because I have insomnia.
I can't be warm and well-rested because I gave all my best blankets to my son for his blanket fort.
You get the idea...really go to town here and get everything that stands in your way down on paper.
When you have all of your lists completed, review them and circle the three reasons that pop up most often.
They might be lack of time, lack of money, relationships, losses, important roles and obligations, lack of motivation, or even a physical or mental condition. Whatever they are for you, circle the top three.
Now look at these three things and ask yourself this question:
Are these three reasons convincing proof that you can't have the feelings you want this winter?
Or are they more convincing as proof that you SHOULD create the feelings you want this winter?
Sit with that for the next 24 hours and I'll see you tomorrow!
Please feel free to share any questions or comments below!
21 Days of Turning Inward: Day Two
Welcome to Day Two of our 21-day journey inward toward Winter Solstice!
Set aside five minutes for yourself. Light a candle, wrap up in a fuzzy blanket, pour yourself a cup of tea: give yourself some small gift that acknowledges the space you are creating.
Now settle into a few minutes of a four-part breath. Inhale to a count of four, hold the breath in for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, hold the breath out for a count of four. Let yourself breathe at a pace that is comfortable for you. If your attention drifts, simply come back to the breath.
Take a moment and scan your body. Notice any sensations of heaviness, gripping, clenching, tension, or pain, and direct your breath toward these areas with the intention of softening them.
If these meditations feel good and right in your body, you may want to consider Maeve's incredible guided meditation experience--she will go far deeper than I can here, and she is a wonderfully talented guide into deepening your inward sense of connection. You can register here.
When you feel present and ready, let the breath go and get out your journal or a paper and pen.
Think about what you love to feel, what you love to taste, what you love to smell, how you love to connect, what feels delicious to you, what you find deeply beautiful, and what you are longing for.
Let your attention dwell fully on these questions and write down everything that comes to you.
Yesterday we wrote 5-word portraits of our current relationship with winter. ( If you haven't done that yet, find the activity here. )
Now, you are going to distill your writing into a 5-word portrait of how you want to feel.
(This may feel like ruthless editing, but really try and get it down to five words that carry the spirit of what you long to experience.)
Copy out your five words and put them somewhere where you will see them many times a day--perhaps a sticky note on your laptop, or a small list taped to the center of your steering wheel.
That's all for now...just let your five words infuse your consciousness for the next 24 hours, and I'll see you here tomorrow!
Feel free to comment below with any questions, or to share your 5-word portrait!
And if your five words are anything like mine, consider giving yourself the gift of locking in the early-bird rate on our winter retreat here.
21 Days of Turning Inward: Day One
Welcome to the inward-turning journey toward winter solstice!
Most days, I'll record these experiences (just press play below) so you can sink into the breathwork uninterrupted, but there is also a transcription for those of you who prefer the written word.
Before we jump into today's exercise, find a space that is just yours, where you can feel safe moving and writing and lighting a candle if you want to. If that's not possible right now, set aside a time later in the day that can be yours alone. I'll only take 5 minutes of your time, but it's important that those 5 minutes have your full, spacious, embodied attention.
You deserve five minutes of your own day, don't you?
Now, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, stand up. Shake out your arms and legs. Roll your shoulders up, back, and down a few times, until your body feels loose and awake.
When your body feels tingling and alive, take a deep, three-part breath: sip in air to fill your belly. Sip in air to fill your chest. Sip in air to fill the tops of your lungs. When you are full to bursting with this 3-part inhale, exhale it all out in a long sigh.
Do this 5 more times, at your own pace.
Notice any subtle shifts in your attention, in the way your body feels, from this very brief focus on the body and breath.
Take a few moments to set a sacred space for yourself. Light a candle, burn some sweetgrass or palo santo, or settle into a fuzzy blanket. Get your journal or a paper and pen.
(Many of the exercises will build on each other, so you might want to devote a new journal or composition book to this 21-day adventure!)
Once you've settled in, close your eyes for a moment. Think about this time last year. Think about how you spent the winter, and how these cold days make you feel. Notice any images, emotions, or sensations, positive or negative, that flow through you as you think about winters past.
When you've taken some time to drift through several memories of winter, write a five-word portrait that describes your current relationship with the dark days of winter. You might want to choose one word that sums up each memory that emerged, or one word for each of your five senses. Here are some examples:
dark. heavy. dry. peppermint. woodsmoke.
quiet. full. nostalgic. isolated. drowsy.
tired. bleak. immobile. stuck. contemplative.
cluttered. sad. disjointed. cold. impatient
sparkling, warm, curious, fragrant, grieving
Sit for a moment and look at your five words. Continue to breathe deeply, and simply notice what you feel when you look at them.
Ask yourself: are there words in this portrait that I want to keep?
Are there words in this portrait that I want to change?
That's it for today---just keep those five words in your journal and let yourself percolate on your current relationship with winter.
As Rilke said, sometimes loving the questions themselves is more important than finding the answers!
We'll build on this tomorrow...until then, I'm wishing you a warm mug of fragrant tea and a perfect winter playlist.
Feel free to share any questions or comments below, and if you're feeling brave, share your five-word portrait!
21 days of turning inward
Posted by Lissa Carter, LPCA
These next 21 days will be a time of dwindling light, as the days get ever shorter and colder and the nights grow ever-longer.
Then, on December 21st--the winter solstice--the light begins to return.
Winter Solstice is, admittedly, my favorite holiday of the year. I love the invitation to go inward, to spend time in quiet contemplation, to sip tea and light candles and celebrate the extraordinary cycle of light to dark and back again.
(To my friends in the southern hemisphere...just add six months to this post!!)
I want to celebrate the winter solstice this year with a gift to you: 21 days of turning inward.
Starting tomorrow, and every day of December until the Solstice, I will be posting a short exercise, writing prompt, or ritual here to stimulate your own self-reflection in this beautiful time of inward-turning.
If this idea touches you in some way, I suggest you commit to yourself! Dedicate a fresh new journal to this experiment. Bookmark this page and set an alert in your calendar to come here at the same time every day for the next 21 days.
The way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives. I hope that this 21-day experience can become a ritual for you, a daily time of inward contemplation and connection.
If there is something you love about the solstice, or a particular subject you'd like help in contemplating over these 21 days, comment below or email me at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.