Health

Weekly Wellness Roundup:
March 4th-8th

By Paige Leigh Reist | Posted: March 07, 2019

Sometimes life can just seem overwhelming. There’s always another task that needs to be completed, always another lesson to run the kids to, always another social obligation to somehow squeeze into the calendar. Sometimes you might even feel a little trapped by the minutiae of life, your past, and trying to reach the future relatively unscathed.

This week’s Wellness Roundup is all about freeing yourself from that trap and living in the moment. It’s about finding joy and peace where there was once anxiety and guilt, sinking into the bliss of Savasana, and reconnecting with the root of your subtle energy body--through yoga, meditation, and purposeful thinking.

Faith and the 7 Chakras: How You Can Use the Root Chakra for Happier Feelings

Coral Brown for Art of Living

Do you live your life with an underlying current of fear? What if there was a way to harness that deep-seated, existential fear that many of us deal with and turn it into structure, stability, and faith? According to Coral Brown, the key lies in Muladhara, or the root chakra. The root chakra develops when we are very small children, and must rely on others to care for us. As Coral says, “How safe, loved, secure, nourished, and nurtured did we feel as a child? What strategies did we learn to get these needs met? Are we still using them today? Are there more appropriate and meaningful strategies that we could employ?”

Read on to learn more about Muladhara and how you can work with this chakra to feel safer, happier, and more peaceful.

Unburden Yourself from the Root of Your Anxiety

Imi Lo for Rebelle Society

What is the root of your anxiety? How did your development and socialization as a child affect the way that you process your experiences today?

Imi Lo, an award-winning mental health professional, explains in this motivating article that “To reclaim the love for ourselves, we must undo the childhood conditioning that has trained us to always be on high alert to emotional signals, to put others’ needs before our own, and to hyper-empathize to the point where we lose ourselves. Relieving ourselves of the impossible duty to rescue, help or emotionally caretake anyone is the biggest gift to our souls.” Click through for more advice on how to grow out of anxiety by addressing the child within.

Don’t Let it Beat You: How to Find Your Fighting Spirit When Life Gets Tough

Monica Castenetto for Tiny Buddha

There’s a tendency in wellness discourse to focus only on tranquility, gentleness, and acceptance. Although we need to harness these gifts for optimal health and happiness, there’s also another aspect of ourselves that we can draw upon to overcome challenges and live a more fulfilling life: our fighting spirit.

In this article, Monica Castenetto gives us six ways to find our fight and harness our resilience, including:

Positive reinforcement
Refusing to lose
Persistence
Learning from our mistakes

Read on for more inspirational tips!

A Perfect Way to Activate Your PNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System)

Lucia Rodriguez for Elephant Journal

If you’re anything like me, your very favorite yoga pose is Savasana. It’s also one of the most difficult! But the restorative physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits are worth every second of learning to let go. In this article, Lucia Rodriguez outlines why Savasana is so impactful for our parasympathetic nervous system, and why it helps to create a more whole picture of health for yoga practitioners.

This week, give yourself a little time and space to just be, and remember, as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other - activity in rest and rest in activity - is the ultimate freedom.”

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