This blog post was originally posted on 4/29/2019 on the blog under our previous brand, Grand Rapids Healing Yoga. We hope you continue to find the insights offered here to be both fruitful and restorative.
Written by Raechel Morrow
You are driven to fully LIVE your life and bring about real change in your world. BUT you are also growing a thriving business, working full-time, raising human beings, going to school, running a not-for-profit, educating others, taking care of grandkids, serving on a board and much more! All so important to survival and living as a generative and responsible adult. Who has time for sacred? AND what is “the sacred” really anyways?
I have entirely been in your shoes. I mean I literally walked in them. What I am about to tell you, you may not believe. I know I did not for a long time. BUT deep down inside you have an inner knowing, and you know this to be true.
Play, Pleasure, Connection to the Divine, Eroticism (yes this too!), Mystery, Untamed Energy, Nature, all this is the sacred and you need it in abundance every day. A friend of mine Jessica Roodvoets told me that pleasure was my birthright. It blew my mind. I thought “well, of course, it is,” not just for me but everyone. It was a real game changer.
The world gives us what we need. However, within ourselves, there is a temptation to grasp and hold on the only survival. We look around and see poverty, the marginalized, and the underprivileged. We can all relate to trauma, scarcity, and alienation. What begins to shift this heaviness is when the human experience integrates the importance of the sacred. The sacred moves our energy out of scarcity. Leaving scarcity brings our energy to a higher vibration. A higher vibration will allow for more connection that is free of attachment. Then we can genuinely hold those spaces for others.
We can take time for sacred body regimes. Adorn in pleasures. Pray deeply. Connect to your own inner mystic or connect to the mystery in your life.
Once we are in our own sacred sovereignty, we can then focus on moving from the “Me” to the “We.” Boy did I do that backward! Your value is now not later. Not when you “become something” Now is the power!!!!!!! Now is the time for you to experience the sacred. Not “once you are healed,” not once you know the Self, not once you reach the goal, not when you have the vacation, not when you buy that next big house or cottage. Not tomorrow because it is the weekend. NOW IS THE POWER!
Now let’s get to the magic. These are some ideas to get you started with bringing more sacred into your everyday survival. The doing-we-do needs to come from being. If the doing doesn’t emerge from a state of rest and connectedness, it will ultimately undo us. When we are connected to ourselves, and in a state of wholeness, all the doing-we-do will be open and meaningful.
BEING IS AS IMPORTANT AS DOING:
I have come to feel that my body and mind cannot function on non-stop doing, doing, doing. I have tried it does not work. There needs to be stillness every day, or there is no space for sacred. It does not matter how busy. When my twins were babies, my silence was in the shower. I have come to accept that every Virgo such as myself, that works too hard and every parent out there, needs to create intentional stillness. As hard as it is for me to build new patterns, I have delight living in the moment. Every day I work hard and engage fully in the things that are sacred to me. Not just some days every day. Self-care GLORIOUS SELF-CARE – is what I am talking about. This is our mandate as women, mothers, parents, humans.
OFFERING:
***Mantra: “I have all I need” or “I have enough time.”
***Create a self-care ritual for yourself in the evenings. Perhaps nourishing your skin and body. It must have the quality of indulgence and self-soothing.
***NOW IS THE POWER
CREATE A MORNING RITUAL
For me, every morning includes a sacred text or reading, candles, prayers, gratitude, breathwork, and mantra. To start a sacred morning ritual, reflect on what practices sets the tone for your day and allows you to move forward with conscious intention? What is special for you? What is spiritual to you?
OFFERING:
***Either journaling, commune with nature, meditate, watch the sun come up, listen to the frog and birds speak.
MAKE YOUR WORK YOUR LIFE AND YOUR LIFE YOUR WORK:
As much as possible, and I know it cannot be accurate for everyone, shift from believing that your work and life are two separate entities. If you don’t, work will feel like “work.” When there is a seamlessness between your work and your life.You remain the same person. So, if you are in “life” you are the same – and when you are in “work” you are the same person. There is no division. When you are one with this reality, you no longer dread one over the other, and therefore your Universe becomes sacred.
OFFERING:
***Ask yourself:
“Is my whole self showing up at work?”
“Am I really offering what I am meant to in the world?”
What can you do to make the shift to begin “loving” your work more?
If your life doesn’t create love and joy, ask yourself, “what is missing for me?
Whose path are you on right now?
GO PLAY EVERYDAY
How will you be like a child and use your imagination every day? How will you laugh today? How can you find meaning in everyday things? Connect to the mystery that is your life.
OFFERING:
***Go play with your children and start to be more like them.
***Pay attention to your dreams
***Paint or write your own story*** Make a sacred place
GET TO KNOW YOUR EGO:
Ego is our survival. It is necessary but powerful when directed by the sacred. Otherwise, it makes us grasp, dependant, and reactive. It is only when we are intimate with the workings of our ego that we will be able to catch ourselves from closing down or reacting unfavorably. Only when we can pinpoint, “ah that is my ego talking,” will we be able to transcend it. The ego mostly shows up in the insecure ways of our “inner child.” When we are in touch with our inner child, we can stop reacting to her/him in unconscious ways. When we are not compassionate with our inner child, we act out in all sorts of ways, thinking we are oh-so-grown-up, but actually, we are just behaving like a child.
It is only now, after many, many years of working on myself that I can instantly spot the ego and because of this, I am quicker to reign it in. I am not always 100% efficient in doing this because, boy, the ego is sneaky and manipulative – it has developed all sorts of underhanded ways to get my needs met. Recognizing ourselves when we enter ego is the key to living an authentic life.
OFFERING:
***Do not do this alone. Find a sister circle or seek a guide.
***Your ego takes you into your head, confuses. Are you in your intuition or head most of the time? ***Living in the present moment – is a practice that we need to cultivate daily. Doing so is imperative. When we do, we bear its fruits – fruits of joy, purpose and meaning away from the ego. Are you living this moment with your fullest presence and awareness?
