Lauren Pyjar

Yoga & Fearlessness

Blog

  • How to meditate on the chakras

    “To reflect on which chakras are out of balance, meditate on the energy within your body.” What the heck does that even mean?

    It’s not as hard as you might think. Here’s a step-by-step guide self-guided meditation to check on the health of your chakras.

    1. Take a seat or lay down. When you’re comfortable, start your meditation by giving your full attention to your breath. Focus on the sound and the feeling of your breath in your body.
    2. When your mind has stilled and you’re fully experiencing the breath, turn your attention to the area of the body of whichever chakra you want to focus on. (Click here to access my short guide to the chakras!)
    3. Focus on the feelings you experience in this section of the body. Maybe it feels like you have butterflies in this area, or it feels really heavy, or it doesn’t feel like much of anything. Take a mental note of whatever experience you’re having.
    4. Either move onto another chakra and repeat step 3, or conclude your meditation.*

    *I find it can be helpful to assess multiple chakras in one sitting, because that way I can compare the feelings I receive from each one.

    Once you’re finished, you’ll have an idea about the state of each of your chakras, and you’ll be able to figure out what you need to do in order to bring that chakra into balance. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at the practices in my free guide to the chakras!

  • The benefits of practicing non attachment.

    While staying at an ashram in India, all of my group discussions with the Swami (these discussions are called satsang) revolved around the idea of non-attachment, or Aparigraha.

    Non-attachment is the act of disconnecting from your emotions, experiences, and material objects. Basically, you can do this by letting go of your expectations. (More on this in a later post!)

    Aparigraha is one of Patanjali’s four yamas. The word “detachment” has negative connotations of passivity, indifference, and emotional withdrawal. However, non-attachment doesn’t require you to close off your heart – rather, it requires your heart to be completely open.

    Here are some benefits of practicing non-attachment:

    1. Reduce anxiety. By managing your expectations of how things should be, you’ll find that anxiety no longer has as strong of a grip on you.
    2. Find more joy in your personal relationships. Releasing expectations of how your friends and loved ones should behave opens space in your heart to experience love and compassion. Of course, this does not mean you must tolerate being treated poorly – as with everything, there is a balance.
    3. Gain the ability to manifest anything you want in life. Anxiously grasping at anything – people, things, ideas – only pushes them away. Energetically unclenching will allow you to gracefully attract the things you desire.
    4. Experience deep contentment. Unconditional trust in the universe and in yourself opens your heart and creates an experience of ultimate contentment.

    I’ll dive deeper into how to practice non-attachment in a later post – if you want to get started now, I’ll leave you with one main tip: non-attachment begins in the heart. To learn more about your Heart Chakra, take a look at my Introductory Guide to the Seven Chakras.

    4 benefits of practicing non-attachment in your daily life