Chill Out

Currently Craving: Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is what i've been listening to for the past month. trying to be pretty good about listening at least several times a week. It is a CD of three guided relaxations by my teacher, Todd Norian. They are each about 20 minutes long which is just enough time to either put me to sleep if it's the middle of the night, calm my nerves if i've gotten myself all anxious about something, or clear my mind and actually wake me up if i'm all fuzzy brained from not getting enough real stimulation (facebook doesn't count). the guided relaxations each have a short introduction and then they guide the listener to be on the floor on her back and just listen to the instructions.
the first savasana (resting relaxation) is pretty standard. todd goes through each of the major muscle groups and tells you to relax them. good if i'm all tensed up and can't sleep or something. this is the one i've used when it's 4 in the morning and i'm not sleeping and then after listening i find myself so comfortable that i sleep for three more hours on the floor on my yoga mat (with pillows too). the second one is the one i've used the most. it is called the 'channel clearing breath' and uses breath to help awaken the body. in this savasana todd instructs you (or in this case, me) to breath in and out through different parts of the body and imagine golden light moving through those parts. so he'd say 'breath in through the bottom of your feet, breathe out through your heart center. breath in through your heart center, and out through the bottoms of your feet' all the while imagining with every breath that golden light flows through the body entering and leaving through those places. if i'm really invested in the savasana and not letting my mind wander i can really feel the energy moving there. when i write it down i realize it can sound pretty out there or cheesy to people, but if you try it with instruction you'll see how powerful it can be. i always leave this savasana with more energy than when i started it and i tend to have a clear mind. the final savasana draws the most from the yoga philosophy. this one is based on the theories of the three bodies and five sheaths (koshas) of the body. essentially he instructs the listener to go deeper and deeper inside relaxing into the very depths of awareness. this includes relaxing the physical body, the breath, the mind, the emotions and finally drifting off into a deep spiritual realm. if you were into calling that place God, you could easily use this savasana to move towards a place of spiritual peace and abiding with God. he doesn't choose to use that name, but it's all the same thing from a yoga point of view.
anyways, as i said. i've found these three all VERY VERY helpful through this pregnancy... either to calm down, reconnect to my spiritual side, or to wake up and re-energize. i'm thinking of getting the CD for like everyone in my life who is stressed (pretty much everybody) for the holidays. the funny thing about it is that i have truly been using it often ever since my trip to ohio in june -- the last time i worked with todd. and in reality max and i have not been practicing our relaxation techniques from baby class -- probably because we're rarely in the same town for any length of time. so i can forsee torturing max, katie, and nancy by making them listen to todd guide these relaxations over and over and over again for hours on end as the only way that i'm able to reach some sort of relaxed state during labor. funny. (to me, probably not to them). hopefully max and i will get around to practicing together one of these days, but just in case, todd is my back up.