Good vibes: discovering the healing power of sound

There are many ways to expand self-care, one of our favourite practices among the mix is sound healing.

What is sound healing

Sound healing has been used for centuries to elevate physical and emotional wellbeing, by using positive vibrations to help the body return to a stable state - called homeostasis.

The practice is based on the idea that our minds and bodies operate at certain vibrations. And when these vibrations are not in harmony, we can experience an array of physical, emotional and mental symptoms. Sound healing has the ability to manipulate these vibrations.

In essence, sound healing can re-tune your body and mind –restoring balance and grounding you. Seriya likens this to a sonic sound bath where waves of energy and vibrations allow a deeper state of mindfulness and self-awareness. Ultimately training our being to reflect our core nature.

The power of sound

Sound healing can bring a multitude of benefits, including physical, mental and emotional. From reducing stress and anxiety, and regulating blood pressure, to helping overcome physical pain and depression, building confidence and allowing spiritual healing.

Tuning into your vibrations

Depending on what is happening in your life, your body can be acting at a higher or lower frequency. Seriya says the key is to be aware of what’s happening before going down the spiral of the ‘lower vibrational patterns.’

You know that feeling when you walk into a room and it just doesn’t feel like a positive space? You’re picking up on other people’s vibes, or the vibrational frequency of what the other people are putting out there.

Reaping the benefits of sound

Some people can feel the benefits of sound healing practice instantly, while for others it may take a little longer. But the more regularly you experience sound the more balanced your body, mind and spirit will become.

The length and frequency of sessions depend on what you’d like to achieve through sound healing –whether your intentions are emotional, physical or mental. It’s best to consult a sound healing therapist for recommendations.

There are a few simple ways to get started with the practice.

1. Attend one of our sound Healing sessions.

2. Incorporate chanting into your meditation.

3. Listen to Sound Healing Australia’s videos to balance your body, mind and heart.

Why juicing is the perfect summer cleanse

Summer is a time for fun, spending time with friends and family and enjoying the sunshine. There is something truly magical about this time of year that makes us want to lighten up (literally and metaphorically) and embrace the organic supermarket fruit and vegetables section. Our appetites wane slightly, we have the urge to exercise more, and our bodies intuitively want to shake off excess weight. In a nutshell, it's the ideal time to embrace nutrient-packed juices or, better still, consult with a trusted medical professional about embarking on a juice cleanse regimen.

It's widely known that many of us need to up our game when it comes to fruit and vegetable intake. Even if you are eating the recommended servings of fruit and vegetables how many of those are raw, meaning you’re getting the most nutrient-rich bang for your buck?

Freshly made cold pressed juices are the simplest solution. Even if you already follow a plant-based diet, you’ll quickly feel the benefits of supercharging your consumption of enzymes, phytonutrients and living water into your body this way. Recent studies have found that a three-day organic juice cleanse improved the healthy balance of gastrointestinal microflora. That leads to boosted immunity, improved digestion, and reduction of harmful free radicals in the body. Study participants also reported feeling significant boost in energy up to two weeks later and an average weight loss of two kilograms. In short, juicing supercharges your body and helps set you on a healthy path for the warmer months.

So, what should we be juicing?

Summer is the perfect season to cleanse, the fruit and vegetables that traditionally appear in summer are perfect for juicing. Plant-based foods that are at their peak in the summer provide us the best vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, living waters, sun light, and energy we need for our health coming out of winter, says Gary Dowse, aka The Juice Chef. 

Summer is the season of new growth, he says, when we start to see green again on trees and in our gardens after the barren chill of winter. And in that vein, it’s also the ideal time to embrace green juices, which contain ingredients seasonal to summer and packing the energy punch we all need this time of year. “Think sprouts, leafy greens, and herbs (like parsley and basil) as well as any green vegetables that grow above the ground, like celery, cucumber and zucchini,” Gary says. “All these green foods provide us with minerals like sodium and potassium to help us move our bodies more, and an important green nutrient known as chlorophyll helps us get our blood pumping.”

The magic of chorophyll

Chlorophyll is a powerful plant-based nutrient, often referred to as a plant’s blood, that helps them absorb energy from sunlight and is what gives them their green colour. When consumed, it is a powerful anti-inflammatory, helps the body detoxify, fights oxidative stress, protects the liver, boosts the immune system, boosts energy levels, and may even have anti-ageing properties.

Eating and juicing green herbs and vegetables is one of the best ways to get more chlorophyll into your diet. A cold press juicer is the best machine to extract the maximum amount of green juice and allows you to store the juice in the fridge for up to three days without loss of nutrients.

While there are plenty of ‘liquid chlorophyll’ supplements available in health food stores, and even supermarkets, they don’t actually contain chlorophyll. Rather, they feature a compound called chlorophyllin, a semi-synthetic mixture of sodium copper salts isolated from chlorophyll. The bottom line: always opt for fresh over supplements. “You’ll soon see how it outperforms the man-made versions,” agrees Gary. Foods with the highest chlorophyll content ideal for juicing in summer include broccoli, brussel sprouts, celery, coriander, parsley, spinach, silver beet, and the hero of the chlorophyll world thanks to its high concentration, wheatgrass.

What about the other colours in the rainbow?

Gentle warming foods like fennel and cabbage are also good for summer as they help you make the transition from the colder months into the warmer season, says Gary. Both are high in folate, potassium, and vitamin C, which are great for heart health and our immune systems.

We have more warmth in the air in summer, we should start to introduce the orange and deep red colour foods like rockmelon, carrot, beetroot, and cherries to our juices, says Gary, as they will take your energy up another notch. Red and orange vegetables are high in antioxidants, including vitamins A and C, great for anti-inflammation and anti-ageing.

Sound great? We agree. See you in the supermarket organics section!

Morning Rituals for a happy heart and soul

How we start our day reflects the energy that we will be inviting in for the whole rest of our day ahead. Perhaps you can remember a time when you have woken up, checked your phone or emails straight away and became instantly stressed or agitated which then carried through for the whole rest of the day with many things going wrong. Whereas I’m sure you can remember a time where you woke up and had a beautiful and nourishing morning which then went on to lead you to having a beautiful and fulfilling day ahead. So as you can imagine, it is so important to begin our day with morning rituals which invite in the energy of calm, gratitude and flow in order to live each day in alignment with the expression of our Highest Self.

Things to avoid in your morning routine:

• Checking your phone/social media/emails

• Drinking stimulating substances (coffee/energy drinks)

• Eating sugary and processed foods

• Watching/consuming the news or other forms of media

• Leaving your bed unmade & leaving mess to deal with later

Morning Ritual Ideas:

Here are some morning ritual ideas which will help to nourish your heart and soul and allow your day to start off from a place of softness and alignment, which can be energetically carried through the rest of your day. You may not have time or even want to do everything on this list, but we can suggest choosing the ones that resonate with you best and then incorporating the into your daily morning routine.

1. Tongue Scraping

Tongue scraping is an ancient ayurvedic technique that has been used for thousands of years as a way to remove any toxins that have accumulated on the surface of your tongue. Overnight as you sleep, the body is working hard to remove these toxins which are then collected as a white coating over your tongue. In ayurveda they believe that it is very important to scrape away this toxic layer before you consume any liquids, so that you are not allowing the toxins to reenter into your system. You can do this through a method called ‘tongue scraping’, which is using a metal tongue scraper (or a teaspoon works just as well), to remove this coating. You can scrape your tongue and then wash away the white residue, and continue this process around 5-10 times until this layer has removed. 

There are a number of scientifically proven benefits associated with this practice, such as:

• Improves sense of taste

• Enhances oral hygiene

• Removes bacteria

• Reduces bad breath

• Improves overall health

• Prevents cavities

2. Warm Lemon Water

After you have removed any toxins from the mouth through the tongue scraping, now is the time to cleanse your digestive system for the day ahead with a warm and nourishing glass of lemon water. Drinking warm lemon water every morning helps the body to maintain its natural pH balance and helps to boost the immune system through its rich source of vitamin C. Other beautiful benefits include:

• Helps to fight infections with its powerful antibacterial properties

• Maintains digestive health

• Flushes toxins out of the liver

• Reduces joint and muscle pain

• Increases the metabolic rate

3. Gratitude Journaling

A bit of a fun way that you can incorporate gratitude into your daily life is to have a gratitude jar or box. You can find an empty jar or box and decorate it as you desire so that it looks pleasing to you. Once you have your gratitude container, the idea of this is to write down a gratitude statement on a piece of paper and add a new statement into the jar or box everyday. Then by the end of the week or the end of the month you can take out all of the statements and read out everything that you have been grateful for over that period. 

There has been an incredible amount of research on the healing benefits of regular gratitude practice. This can often take place in the form of gratitude journaling, where you can start your day with writing down three things you’re grateful for and why. When you allow yourself to tune into the resonance of gratitude, you will recognise more things that you are grateful for throughout your day. This attitude of gratitude shifts you away from a mentality of lack and fear, and into the vibration of love and appreciation.

4. Dream Journaling

Writing down your dreams when you wake up, is a beautiful way to boost your levels of creativity, and connect more to the messages of your unconscious mind. Writing down your dreams can also be a very therapeutic process, which can help you to process the experiences and emotions which you’ve had in your waking life which is often played out in the dream space. Research has also indicated that dream journaling helps to improve memory recall and strengthen the immune system.

5. Digital Detox

A digital detox is a complete break from technology and all media outlets. This includes checking your phone, social media, watching the news etc. Typically a digital detox may be for a prolonged period of time. However we understand that with the world that we live in, this usually isn’t possible. However it is definitely possible and attainable to have a digital detox every morning. This means waking up and not checking your phone or emails straight away. It would look something like waking up, practising a few of your nourishing morning rituals, having breakfast, having your shower and getting ready for your day. Only when you are ready and you have done everything you needed to and have established the right energy for the day, then you can consciously check your phone or emails when needs be. We would also very much recommend taking a digital detox before bedtime too so you can ease yourself into sleep without your stress response being triggered by the notifications and the blue light. 

If you want to find out more about starting a digital detox, check out our previous blog post: https://www.heartandsoulretreats.com.au/blog/digital-detox

6. Pranayama

Connecting to the power of your breath is a beautiful way to start the day, as it helps to connect you to your prana (your lifeforce energy), which can leave you feeling grounded throughout the rest of your day. Pranayama in sanskrit means to control your life force energy, which can be done through a variety of different breathing techniques which the ancient yogis have practised for thousands of years. There a number of amazing benefits associated with practising pranayama, such as:

• Decreased levels of stress

• Improved quality of sleep

• Increased levels of mindfulness

• Reduced high blood pressure

• Enhanced cognitive performance

• Improved lung capacity

• Regulates subtle energy in the body

• Helps to clear away stagnant energy and blockages

7. Yoga

A regular morning practice of yoga can help you to start your day with a positive flow of momentum. A yoga practice can help you to feel centered, calm and grounded so that you can move throughout your day within a more balanced state of mind. You are also allowing an increased level of prana (lifeforce energy) to flow within your energy field, which will help you to feel more connected to the wisdom of your Higher Self. Which will help you to respond instead of reacting to stressful situations that you may face throughout your day. Other wonderful benefits of a regular morning yoga practice includes:

• Helps to regulate your sleep rhythm and balance your hormones

• A great caffeine alternative to provide energy throughout the day

• Prevents injury and an achy body throughout the day

• A more dynamic practice will help to boost your metabolic rate

• Helps to build a healthy and consistent routine

We hope you have enjoyed these morning ritual ideas for a happy heart and soul. Let us know in the comments which rituals resonate with you best.

Staying in balance: The power of mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of cultivating more awareness and being conscious of the here and now. There are many benefits to developing your own mindfulness practice, including improved physical health, reduced stress levels, better sleep and overall greater wellbeing. Meditation can be a helpful tool to develop a more mindful lifestyle. But what do you do with the other 90% percent of your day? If your only mindfulness practice consists of 20 minutes on a meditation cushion, but stops the moment you get up, you will not notice much of a difference in your general sense of wellbeing. Luckily, there are many ways in which you can incorporate mindfulness in your daily life, and we have gathered 5 easy practices here for you.

1. Mindful Morning Routine

Starting your day off right can make a huge difference in the way you feel throughout the day. Begin your morning with some quality you time to set yourself up for an amazing day. Make your space sacred, burn some incense, light a candle, and make yourself a cup of tea. Get into a comfortable seated position and take 10 deep belly breaths. Scan your body up and down, feeling into every body part. How is your body feeling today? Can you notice any stiffness or stuck energy? Breathe into it and acknowledge how you feel. Once you have a good idea of how you are today and you feel grounded, it is time to set your intentions for the day. What do you want to achieve or cultivate today? It can be as simple as being present and calm throughout your day.

2. Mindful Eating

A big part of our daily routine is preparing and eating food. If we can cultivate more mindfulness into our relationship with food, we can create greater awareness of our eating habits and enjoy the process of preparing and eating food much more. One of the ways through which we can start a mindful eating practice is by taking more time for the whole process and including all the senses: seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing and tasting. Additionally, expressing gratitude for our meals and all the ingredients can inspire greater awareness. Do you want to know how to do this exactly? Read about mindful eating practices, tips and follow a guided mindful eating practice, all in our article on ‘Mindful Eating’.

3. Mindful Movement

One of the benefits of mindfulness is developing a better mind-body connection. Being in your body is grounding and makes you feel connected to yourself, to mother earth, and to other people. One way of incorporating this into your daily life is to ask yourself every couple of hours: ‘How is my body feeling?’, ‘What emotions am I experiencing?’. You can set a reminder on your phone to do a body check-in as often as is convenient for you. This way you will practice being in your body regularly. After a while, it will become natural for you to do this without any incentive to do so. Other ways of cultivating mindful movement is by:

•         Going on walking meditation,

•          Joining or doing your own ecstatic dances,

•          Practicing body-scan meditation.

4. Mindful Reflection

When you become more present in your daily life, you will notice more of your habits and thought patterns that you might find to be confronting. The challenge is to not judge yourself or get stuck in the loop of the ego, but rather observe without judgment and attachment. Before you can change anything, you must accept it to be true. You can never change anything you do not accept to be true. That is like trying to move an object that isn’t there. How will you pick it up and where will you put it if you don’t know where it is, to begin with? Therefore, a daily reflection practice can be a valuable addition to your daily mindfulness practice, so you can work through whatever you become aware of. One way of doing this is by journaling. If you feel resistant towards journaling, maybe you can let go of your expectations of what journaling is or should be. Here are just a couple examples of unconventional journaling:

•          Daily emotions: write down the 3 main emotions you felt during the day,

•          Drawing: draw yourself, anything from your day or anything that comes up,

•          Gratitude journaling: read our full article here for more information.

Article Source: https://www.heartandsoulretreats.com.au/blog/5-easy-mindfulness-practices-for-daily-life

Pranayama for the Root Chakra

Pranayama is a very powerful and focused breathing technique that directs your energy flow for self-realisation and healing. In her study of the human bio-field, Dr. Valerie Hunt found this out. She established that people who felt ungrounded and lacked vitality often missed a certain energy frequency that’s associated with that of the Root Chakra.

Ungrounded states, where you don’t necessarily feel within your body lack physical vivacity and represent an imbalance in your energy spectrum. If your Root Chakra power is low, it’s a signal that you may be drawing less of it from the Earth. This often results in forms of numbness and dissociation. 

Hypo states like hypoglycemia, hypotension, and hypothyroidism show that you’re likely to be having insufficient subtle energy in your body’s grounding realm. The same applies to depression, fatigue, weakness, and general body under-functioning. 

Pranayama is the Answer

While many think of Pranayama as breath work, it has to do a lot also with the breathing, attunement, and direction of energy. Your intention in practice is to draw in power to replace the missing frequency in your biofield. In the case of being unground, the colour red misses from the energy biofield’s spectrum. 

Steps:

• Find a disturbance-free spot

• Adopt a sitting or standing position. It’s preferable to get the soles of the feet on the floor

• Relax, turn inward to your inner stillness, and set your attention on your breath. You can utilise Ujjayi for a more in-depth focus and generation of heat

• Follow your breath for a few moments, inhaling through the nose and allowing the breath to expand the belly, lungs, and ribcage.

• Exhale through the nose

Continue with the breathing pattern above before using the following visualisation technique:

• Imagine that roots are spreading down from the soles of your feet to the Earth’s centre anchoring you to the ground.

• During the inhale, imagine you’re inhaling red life-sustaining energy from the Earth, up to the roots and through the soles of your feet.

• Continue breathing in this energy upward through the legs and into the pelvic floor and the Root Chakra’s revolving, rich red cortex. This is where you’ll feel the absorption and distribution of the power through your body.

• If you wish, hold the breath for a short natural pause at the end of your exhale

• From the Root Chakra, exhale down the legs, through the feet, and down your roots back to the Earth’s centre

• Repeat this exercise several times, focusing on how grounded your hips and legs feel with the flow of energy

As an optional exercise, you can breathe the red energy of the Earth further up your body and into the rest of the chakras. You can also do so into any of the areas that are associated with hypo-functioning to feel the energy’s stimulating effects upon it. Exhale down back to the Earth’s centre. Repeat this cycle of breaths a few times. 

Start Today

Pranayama is the best exercise when it comes to directing your flow of energy for healing and self-realisation. It helps you draw the power that’s necessary for the replacement of the missing frequency in anyone’s biofield. Try Pranayama today to get these benefits.

The Art Of Allowing: Why You Need To Stretch More

The benefits of stretching go beyond the physical side. Explore why allowing the body and mind to loosen and melt can also become an emotional and spiritual practice on its own.

We Are Our Bodies

Perhaps one of the most pervasive modern beliefs is that we merely inhabit our bodies, rather than being them, as though our physical forms were mere vehicles to carry our more important souls, minds or personalities. A consequence is that we treat our bodies like any other material object in the world—something to be manipulated, changed or handled in just the same way as a car or kitchen appliance.

And so we find ourselves with the “no pain no gain” mantra—or more generally, a relationship to our bodies that’s based on force. We assume that the body needs to be whipped into shape, controlled, or molded into the correct form through discipline and effort. We prize the mental toughness needed to foster strength and physical fitness, associating active vigor with goodness, and relaxation and release with being weak or lazy.

Nobody can deny the beauty of a strong, resilient physique. And physical prowess is an undeniably wonderful thing. But what about the other side of the coin? The silences are as important to music as the played notes; in the same way, the passive, still and yielding body is as important to our wellbeing as active effort—maybe even more so.

The Benefits Of Stretching

Rather than simply tacking on a random stretch before or after a workout, the patient and deliberate relaxing of the body can be art all on its own. To balance an overly active, forceful attitude to the body, we can make room for a completely different approach: one of complete allowing.

Instead of tightening, the body is loosened to let go of tension. Instead of focused, effortful action towards a goal, the body is allowed to melt, to simply be what it is. Sadly, many health-conscious people deplore the idea of softness in the body—we want to be toned and controlled. Even when we stretch we might be tempted to rush the process and yank and pull ourselves through it, competing with the person on the yoga mat beside us to see who’s winning the flexibility competition!

But the benefits of stretching are not limited to the physical. Rather, stretching encourages a fuller, more balanced relationship with the body based on awareness and receptivity. Stretching can be a gentle emotional and even spiritual practice, right in the here and now.

Why Stretching Is So Good For You

In the following, we will be delving into the diverse benefits of stretching for body, mind and soul.

1. Stretching encourages you to listen to your body

Unless you’re in pain or ill, how often do you pay your body careful, compassionate attention? Are you tuned into all the little flutters of your senses, your heartbeat and breath, your posture? In an abstract, mechanised world, it’s easy to dismiss the body, taking for granted that it will tick along regardless of the punishment we throw its way, or the demands we place on it despite its fatigue.

One of the benefits of stretching, however, is that you start a conversation with your body. No longer just commanding it, you consciously listen, respecting what your physical being is asking for. Stretching fosters more masterful bodily awareness and integrity, alerting you to small problems before they become big ones.

2. Stretching reminds you to take joy in your physical form

How much of the day is spent lugging the body to and fro, pushing it into one activity after the other, like it’s nothing more than a pack mule meant to serve? But the body is an exquisite gift—and you’re meant to enjoy being alive in it! It’s easy: when you stretch, you feel good.

Doesn’t it feel marvellous to release and let go? Isn’t it delicious to fully own your arms and legs, to savour a stretch right from the base of your spine to the tips of your fingers? We are not machines. Stretching reminds us to enjoy the sensation of life, relishing every living, breathing inch of our physical experience.

3. Stretching releases blocks and tensions

The next time you’re in a bad mood, notice whether you’re unconsciously holding your breath. Are you also clenching some other parts of your body?

Deliberately loosening and inviting yourself to open has the remarkable ability of letting a negative mood flow on. Many of us are chronically tight and anxious, clinging to resentments and worries just as we hold onto stiffness and rigidity in the shoulders, neck and back. You could talk about trauma, anxiety or sadness in therapy for years—but physically stretching out permits your body to process these emotions, too.

Stretching Is Always Available To You

Unfortunately, the body sometimes gets a raw deal, being demoted to the last place on life’s priority list. Even those who cherish their health and wellness may nevertheless take a harsh and punishing stance to their physical form, only engaging in order to contain, constrict or control the body.

Thankfully, stretching is an antidote. And it’s available to you right now and in every moment. To have a body is beautiful—be calm, accepting and maybe even celebratory of this fact! Practice the art of allowing. Gracefully let the body be. You are always invited to open up and let suppleness and ease take the focus for a while.

Daily stretching can be a profound spiritual practice that teaches us to let go, to loosen up (physically and figuratively!) and humbly soften to our experience, without force and without expectation.

Article Author: Isabelle Pikörn

Article Source: https://insighttimer.com/blog/benefits-of-stretching/