“May peace and peace and peace be everywhere. May we be at peace with ourselves, may we be at peace with one another, may we be at peace in our surroundings.”
By now, we all know that the word OM has no real translation in the English dictionary because it represents the entire universe. The Sanskrit word for peace is Shanti. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti is an invitation for more peace in our universe. It is also a calling for inner peace.
According to the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, when you chant Shanti three times it invites peace in body, speech, and mind.
Let’s keep our vibes positive and peaceful by sending out this lovely mantra out to the universe.
It is said that if you listen closely you can hear your breath whispering SO on the inhale and HUM on the exhale.
SO means “I am” and HUM means “that”. It translates to the philosophical meaning of “I am that”. The “that” refers to the universe. You can use the mantra in meditation if you like that is, by contemplating the fact that we are all connected to creation, to nature and that we are all one with the divine.
It is my favorite mantra. Sing it out loud and let it play in the back of your head all day, every day. Just let it sink in. Remind yourself of this daily. You are divine love. You are divine love. You are divine love.
Sat Nam is a commonly used mantra in the kundalini practice and it is a nice mantra to use when you need to get deep into your own self-identity.
The word “Sat” means truth and “Nam” means name. When they are put together they translate into “I am truth” or “Truth is my essence.”
You can use it in your meditation practice by saying the word Sat as you inhale and Nam as you exhale. It is a nice way to get into the truth of yourself and reconnect to your essence.
AUM or OM is said to be the first sound of the universe, the sound of creation.
Just like last year, I have decided to make the most of this month by nurturing my mind, body, and soul before the new year arrives. Each day for three weeks, up to December 21, I will focus on one MANTRA either by chanting, meditating or just reflecting on the meaning of it.
The Sanskrit translation of the word mantra is broken down into two words; ”man” which means mind and ”tra” which means vehicle or instrument. So a mantra is basically an instrument for the mind or a vehicle to transport your mind into stillness.
For the first week of the month, I have chosen some of my favorite Sanskrit mantras that make me feel calm.
Chant it out loud or silently to yourself and feel into the transformational power of the mantra.
I am currently reading a great book that I highly recommend if you are into spirituality. It is called Rise Sister Rise by Rebecca Campbell. It has reminded me about all the sisters I have out there in the world who have inspired me to be who I am today. I love all the women in my life who support and lift each other up because they know that together we are stronger.
I have had many female role models through the years and have always been surrounded by girls older than me. Girls who were vegetarians, artists, world travels, dancers, entrepreneurs, teachers, engineers. They all had this confident and an inner light that made me believe in them. I’d like to think that they formed me into the person I am today. I am not exactly like them but I have a little bit of their light in me and maybe they have a little of mine shining through their hearts as well.
One person who has had a great impact on me is, of course, my big sister. Growing up she was always the one who taught me everything. My mom kind of outsourced her job to my sister and she had to be the leader I guess. She told me what to wear or what not to wear, what music I should listen to or what music she loved to listen to. I was always right behind here looking at what she did but not always following in her footsteps.
Rise Sister Rise – The magic of sisterhood
We were really close and used to talk about everything. She would come into my room and we would chat for hours. Sometimes we used to dress in separate rooms and come out wearing the same color palette. We were in sync while listening to our favorite boyband ´Nsync. She moved away to study at college and we lost that instant connection. I stayed in our hometown where I still live and sometimes I can’t help but wonder who I would have been without her.
My sister was always so much stronger than me. She had a way of just moving on with her life. Even though I don’t want to be compared to her because people always do, I find myself feeling less than her sometimes. But I know that we are not the same person, we don’t even look alike. She has light skin and I have dark skin. She is blond and I am a brunette. She does weightlifting while I practice yoga. We are not the same person but still we have a deep bond.
Having her to guide me in my life has been a gift. It has taught me to be myself even though I have always heard her voice in the back of my head wispering her guidance to me. When she left for college I found a new older girlfriend who inspired me to be confident and free. During that time my relationship with my sister was a little bit shaky. We weren’t always connected but we didn’t grow apart, we just changed a little bit. That is the thing about life, it is always changing and when we hold on to the past we get stuck in old ways.
My sister and I still have our bond and she will always be the person who has inspired me the most in life and the longest relationship I probably will have with anyone in life. I am grateful for her and all the strong women who have walked before me who have taught me about sisterhood. I look forward to the new women who are entering my life as I step into womanhood.
Who has made a great impact on your personality? Do you have a person in your life who has shaped you into the person that you are today and what do you want to say to that person?
I have been thinking about how we deal with pain lately and I just think it is interesting how we sometimes act as human beings. I really don’t believe in taking pills to make my body feel better because I don’t think meds are the solution to everything. I am not saying I am perfect. I know I have some addictions to deal with. But I try to break free from all the illness that is constantly trying to get me down and mindfully heal my mind, body, and spirit.
The reason why people drink, overeat and take drugs is often rooted in the fact that they are trying to escape from their feelings. They are running away from their emotions and trying to get to peace in the highs. Whether it is alcohol, sugar or drugs the high won’t last forever. Eventually, you will have to come down again and your emotions will lay there waiting for you to feel again.
Numbing the pain is so common and frankly, an easy way to not deal with any issues going on in the body or the mind. As a society, we always seem to struggle with letting pain be just pain. We always want to cover it up with quick fixes but all we really are doing is resisting to look at the truth. The pain won’t heal if we can’t feel.
Learning to sit with pain is so important. When all we want for it to be over it really is as easy as feeling it out. When we let the pain pass through us, it won’t fight back. I know it sounds contradictory to everything you’ve ever heard growing up. But try it out.
Sit with the pain, talk to the pain, ask it questions. Why are you here? What are you trying to teach me? What can you give me and what can I let out? What is it that you want me to know? What am I missing? What is the lesson?
Sometimes the pain lies only in our minds as hurtful memories from the past or negative stories we believe to be true about ourselves. Learn to observe your mind and let the thoughts pass you by without reacting to them.
When you experience pain next time, let it pass through you and see if it disappears. Learn to ride the storm out. Wait for it to pass. It can’t hurt more than it already does, right?
I would love to hear how you deal with pain and what you do to find relief in hard moments. Leave a comment below if you feel like sharing.
I’ve felt so misplaced all my life, like where I am is not where I am supposed to be. Have you ever had that feeling? Walking around with that feeling of being the odd one, the weird one who doesn’t fit in, it does something to the soul. It creates a feeling of separation, it forms a distance to other humans. It has made me more careful around people and made my mind suspicious to everybody who tries to come close. I have had my guard up for so long that my body has become like a shield that wont let anybody else in.
The truth is there is a distance in my own self that makes me operate the way I do. There is a separation in my body and my mind where I feel the two are disconnected and lonely. My mind hasn’t been able to connect to my body but in yoga, those two can meet and be soft to each other.
The word yoga means union and I never understood what was so wrong with me before but now I get that it was the connection in my own body that was lost.
My yoga practice makes me feel centered because my body and mind work together to find stillness. The war that goes on between the two can sometimes drive me crazy but in yoga the two meet and peace happens.
I need to practice weekly. I notice myself losing ground when I fall off my practice. Yoga brings balance to my body, mind, and soul which makes me feel more authentic when I step off my mat. Yoga heals the broken pieces inside me and the trauma that is stored in my bones can start to lighten. When I step on my mat, move my body, close my eyes and shut down my mind, that is when my soul comes to work. It brings me through my emotions in a beautiful way and all that is left for me to do is relax one breath at a time.
Do you practice yoga? If so, I would love to hear what makes you return to the practice and how you feel after a yoga class.
The word of last week was; respect. So, if you are craving some daily affirmations, follow along and choose respect.
Sometimes we lose the sense of who we are and where we are going in life. Sometimes we find new meaning in all the chaos. Sometimes there is no meaning. That’s just life. Somehow though, I still believe there is always a lesson to be learned from all the things we go through.
The lesson that I sit with today is to be more trusting. To have more patience. To respect life. Instead of trying to find the answers in my mind I should try to live with a little bit of curiosity to all the things I can’t seem to find the answers to.
We are not meant to know what the next step in life is for a reason. Life, God, the universe is always in control of everything. I wonder what would happen if I could start to respect the creative force and trust that it can give me what I want. Maybe I would see all the magic from another perspective.
