PURE Welllness Coaching & Yoga

Topic: Life Changing Yogic Cleanse

Spring with all it’s new life, blooming flowers, and sweet aromas, often motivates us to clean and purify our homes and surrounding environments. Some of us even get inspired to clean up our lives! Going through old piles of mail, tackling the “junk” draw, minimizing our facebook friends list, making good on a few overdue promises, relinquishing our cabinets of old junk food and replacing it with healthy conscious choices to revamp our diets, maybe even doing a spring detox. But is that really as close as we can get to purity? Extra closet space and a squeaky clean colon? Let’s go deeper. Let us remind ourselves of how we experience the world around us. Everything we love, the vibrant rising sun in the early morning hours, the smell of rain and fresh strawberries, the sound of the birds chirping as they awake to do their deeds, the feeling of the hairs standing up on your arms as the cool morning air dances across your skin. Without our senses we have no union with this life-no union of mind and body. We all have committed to doing something beneficial for almost every part of our physical body but how often, if ever, have we sought to nourish, restore, cleanse, and purify our senses, our connection to life? When I pondered upon this question I realized what an immense offense it was to not purposefully cleanse my sensory centers. Why have I neglected such invaluable pieces of my being for so long when surely I would exchange almost any portion of my self for the continued possession of my vital senses? Deeper contemplation brought me to see that my gratitude can be shown to my creator for these blessings upon me by taking care of these gifts; my eyes bringing me sight, my ears listening for harmony, my nose to smell the ripeness of the fruit my mouth will soon taste, and my skin for the tender sensation of touch. Caring for them like beautiful borrowed treasures.

Kriya (purification) yoga teachings reveal unique ways to care for sensory organs, and if practiced regularly can truly help increase, clarify, and heighten your sensory experience. Physical purification practices can be a means to prepare your body for mental and spiritual purification -weather you are planning to sit in prayer through the night, go on a spiritual journey, or simply explore your mental boundaries in a few minutes of meditation. Therefore, perform these practices with care and mindfulness to achieve the intended delightful benefits.

{Eyes}

Yogic Gaze-This is a simple practice that strengthens the retina of the eye and helps develop focus, heal some eye disorders and cleanses the eye ball with your own natural tears. Sit in a comfortable position and place a small object, an arms distance in front of you at eye level. Sit up tall with a lengthened spine and find your stillness. Then fix your gaze upon the object without blinking for as long as you can until your eyes start to water. Once your tears begin to flow, close your eyes and stare at the imprinted image that appears behind your closed eyelids until it fades. Now you can open your eyes and repeat from the beginning 1-2 more times.

{Ears, Nose, Throat}

Jala Neti– I’d forgotten how much I love my Neti pot! If you never try anything I recommend please try this irreplaceable purification technique. This uses a small genie-in-a-bottle looking pot to irrigate the nasal cavity where the inner ear, nose, and throat connect. I haven’t utilized Jala Neti since the beginning of my yoga teacher training but I remember it bringing freshness to my smell, a sharpness to my hearing and an openness in my throat and mind. Sinusitis gone. Allergies relieved. And the aroma of honeydew and my burning sandalwood incense, oh so sweet. Nevertheless, using the pot can prove to be tricky the first time or two so read these directions before embarking on this delicate portion of your sensory purification. My most important advice would be to avoid using salt with iodine added when you mix your saline solution (iodine and other added ingredients can cause burning , this should be a painless practice) and remember to breathe through your mouth while pouring.

{Tongue}

Tongue Scraping– Contrary to the way this sounds, this is a gentle removal of plaque, excess bacteria and organic matter that builds up on the tongue and in between the taste buds.  With a 100% copper tongue cleanser, carefully glide the curved end across the tongue several times from back to front. This practice can replace the use of mouthwash for a more natural way of purifying the mouth. The importance of choosing a cooper cleanser comes from ancient wisdom realized in the oriental culture thousands of years ago finding antimicrobial properties in the cooper element. This is a practice that has many hygienic and sensory benefits so explore how it may affect you.

{Skin}

This is the sweetest of them all. Our skin is the largest organ of our bodies and how kind was our creator to make the sensation of touch so complete and immersing. The Native American’s had sweat lodges, the Roman’s had bath houses and people of the Western world use saunas to generate sweat to secrete toxins and purify their skin. We however, as yoga practitioners, invoke the power of warming Asanas(poses) to build a fire from within and  release a cleansing sweat. When we challenge ourselves with a heat building practice we increase circulation to parts of our bodies that are often neglected and cold, bringing keen sensory reception to those areas and an overall feeling of positive awareness to our entire bodies.

Let this be a humble reminder to care for your body; for it is a borrowed vessel for you to spread good works and serve. Let it return to the earth as pure and clean as it came into this world.

Practice.Unite.Revive.Enlighten

~Namaste, Peace, Ma Salaam, Until Next Time~