Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:11] Hello, and welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. My name is Lauren Leduc and I'm the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. This episode, we will be talking about spring cleaning for the energetic body. So we'll talk about how we can clean or reset our energetic body in a way that is philosophically grounded, I.e. nervous system informed, that's practical and accessible, and that doesn't bypass or include magical thinking. So we can think of spring as this season of renewal, clarity, circulation and momentum, and our energetic body, our patterns of attention, our emotion, tension, habit, belief. So we'll look at how we can refresh, feel spaciousness, and allow for a sense of growth in this season. So welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I love spring. I was born in the spring. It always feels like the actual new year to me. It's this time of reset. It is a natural transition where we have more light, more outward movement, more activation. In Ayurveda, this is a kapha season, so it is characterized by. By kapha, which has heaviness and dampness, stagnation. It is a combination of the earth and water elements. And then in yoga philosophy, this is a time for renewed prana flow. So this episode isn't about cleansing your aura with sage and calling it a day. It's about clearing what is stuck emotionally, physically, mentally, so energy can move. So what do I mean exactly by the energetic body? The yogic subtle body consists of prana, which is this life force, energy that flows through us. We access it through the breath, as well as nadis, which are energy channels. There are these highways that run through the energy body and then chakras, which are where these nadis intersect, these psychoenergetic centers. I have lots of episodes on those, if you're interested.
[00:02:22] And it also consists of the koshas, which are these different layers of being, almost like a Russian nesting doll. So our physical layer is the outermost. And then it gets more and more subtle as it works its way inward. So those are different ways the energetic or subtle body show up in the texts and in through yogic practices. Our modern interpretation can include those, but also our nervous system tone, any emotional residue, any maybe chronic muscular tension, repetitive thought loops. Maybe it includes information from digital overstimulation.
[00:02:59] Maybe it's where unprocessed grief or stress might live. So the energetic body is a field, and it contains these patterns that our systems live within. So what are some signs? Your energy body might need some cleaning. Physically might. Maybe you're Feeling heaviness, brain fog, digestive sluggishness, or even chronic tightness. Maybe emotionally you feel irritability, low grade resentment, anxiety without clear cause. Maybe a sense of feeling stuck or stagnant. Perhaps mentally you're feeling rumination, maybe you're doom scrolling, which helps feed that. Maybe you have a difficulty focusing, maybe you feel a sense of creative stagnation.
[00:03:45] And spiritually, perhaps you feel a sense of disconnection, of cynicism and maybe a loss of ritual or meaning or connection. So if you're feeling any of these things that they're living within your energy body, within your field, how do we cleanse this?
[00:04:02] So I'm going to share five ways to spring clean your energetic body. So the first way is to clear physical stagnation. So this is dealing with physical body first so our energy can move when our tissues move. So if we are practicing yoga, maybe we're doing this through twists. We're kind of energetically wringing out stagnation through those. I love practicing twists or teaching twists, especially in the spring. Maybe it's through back bends or front body opening. In the winter we tend to kind of curl into ourselves and create spinal flexion and our chest becomes concave.
[00:04:42] So spring gives us this opportunity to kind of blossom back open like a flower opening toward the sun. Perhaps we are practicing myofascial release to help hydrate our tissues to release stagnation or adhesions. Maybe we find lots of breath led movement. So we are moving at the pace of the breath in a dynamic way that clears stagnation.
[00:05:06] And maybe we're doing things like taking walks outside in the sunlight and really taking in that vitamin D and that medicine that the sun gives us. Like I said in Ayurveda, this season is characterized by this heaviness and water and earth and stagnation, all these things we call kapha and the remedy to that. Because in Ayurveda we're always seeking balance. We are finding things that feel a little bit more fiery, that create space. So all of these different practices I spoke to the twists, the back bending, myofascial release, dynamic movement, walking outside will help create that movement in space. This season calls for in order to find more balance, the second way to clear your energy body or to spring clean it is through breath work for energetic reset. So pranayama or extension or control of life force energy is such a beautiful tool because there are so many different types of practices that remedy different things. So, so in the spring we're looking for things that are Maybe a little bit more fiery, more igniting that are going to get our energy moving. So we might find this through Kapalabhati Pranayama, which is breath of fire. It's a quick exhale out of the nose and the inhale comes naturally. Just FYI, if you are pregnant or have high blood pressure, I would probably avoid this technique and the next one that I'm going to talk about. But if you try it out and it feels good to you, then absolutely go for it.
[00:06:39] The next is Bhastrika, which is very similar.
[00:06:41] It's an igniting breath, It's a force exhale out of the nose, just like Kapalabhati. But the inhale is forced as well. So it's this rhythmic inhale and exhale that again is very fiery that helps move energy. That might help clear your sinuses as well. We also can use Ujjayi breath was, which is a bit more accessible to all. This is a warming and studying breath. If you practice Vinyasa yoga, I'm sure you have heard it in class, if not practiced it yourself. It's an inhale through the nose and a soft whisper in the back of the throat as you exhale and it creates heat and focus. And you might also use long exhale breathing for nervous system calibration. So if things get too heated or maybe the mind is really spacey or more in a vata space, you can lengthen your exhales so that they are longer than your inhales, which helps stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system, actually slows the rate of your heart and calms your system. So we can use breath strategically to shift our vagal tone, to create space and movement and to calm ourselves as well. The third way you can spring clean your energetic body is through what we'll call emotional composting, AKA shadow work. So spring cleaning isn't just about bringing positivity in.
[00:08:07] It is kind of taking an assessment of what is already there. So it's kind of like we can't open a closet that we have just stuffed a bunch of crap into and expect it to clean itself. We have to actually go through all of the things that we have put inside and decide what we are keeping and what we are tossing or giving away. And shadow work is a lot like that.
[00:08:33] So maybe we are inviting questions like what grief did we carry through the winter? What anger is within me that needs to be expressed? Maybe what expectations am I releasing? So it's really taking this emotional inventory and then figuring out what to do with it. So some of these emotions might need to be expressed. Some of them might need to move through your physicality. Maybe some need to be released and you can figure out different ways to do that. Sometimes it needs to be within the care of a specialist, like a therapist. Sometimes you might work them out on your mat or maybe out in nature or writing letters and burning them. So it's a good time to take that inventory and then sort of sort through these emotions so you can notice maybe what's been suppressed, what can be expressed, and what needs to be integrated into your being. So, so you might ask yourself or take a moment to journal on what am I still holding that has already expired. So next, number four is spring cleaning through attention hygiene. So this is a digital and cognitive detox. Our energetic body is shaped by our attention. So maybe we're feeling algorithm overload or we are feeding into and receiving these constant outrage cycles. Maybe we have this chronic drip of cortisol going on and these large dumps of dopamine and we're feeling really depleted and overwhelmed at the same time.
[00:10:09] So some practical tools we might use for this one are using news windows. So maybe that's a period of time in the day that you are taking in the news from trusted sources.
[00:10:21] That might be through some kind of email that you receive every day, or you're visiting websites, or you get the newspaper. You might implement no phone morning. So instead of waking up and getting on your phone immediately, you create some kind of morning routine to replace that. Maybe it's Sabbath hours. So these moments of rest and spaciousness that you honor every single day, it also might mean curating your feed intentionally. So it doesn't mean that you have to completely withdra from social media or through your favorite websites or your digital communication. But it might be asking you to be more mindful and to curate it like you would curate your home or your collection of art or your yoga practices. How can you make this as intentional as possible so that when you visit your digital spaces, it's actually something that's fun and exciting and engaging, rather than something that depletes. You know that attention is prana. And where your attention goes, your energy will follow. The fifth way to spring clean your energetic body is through a ritual and intention reset. So your energy needs direction to flow. It might need more of a sense of spaciousness. So here are some things you might do. You might clear a physical space. Maybe you're taking a moment to light a candle and consider an intention or a sankalpa for this spring season, maybe you're taking a moment to clean your altar, if you have one in your home or your practice corner, if you like to practice yoga at home. And maybe you're donating something that represents an old identity, so you're looking through your personal belongings, figuring out what does not serve or suit your energy anymore and giving it away.
[00:12:15] So we can practice non grasping as an energetic decluttering. That's physical decluttering, that is creating spaciousness through the mind and becoming intentional. And that is practicing saucha, which is an important niyama, and yoga, which is purity or cleanliness. And that gives us the space that we need to be more connected and intentional. I have a little section now for the chakra nerds in the house, including me. If you've been following my chakra series, this will hopefully land for you. But these are different ways to spring clean your energy according to the chakras. So if we're looking at the root chakra, this is clean a physical space, stabilize your finances, and regulate your sleep. We are cleaning the sacral chakra, we're finding more emotional honesty, and we are engaging in creative play. If we're cleaning through the solar plexus chakra, we we're doing a boundary reset, so we're figuring out where we do not want to place our energy anymore and making it more intentional and directive. If we're moving to the heart chakra, maybe we are cultivating some forgiveness practices. If we're moving on to the throat, maybe we're speaking to what we have avoided or buried and letting it come up, whether it's to a voice recording or to a trusted friend or to a therapist. If we're talking about cleansing through the third eye, maybe we're simplifying mental clutter. Maybe that's through something like a digital detox. Maybe it's through recommitting to a meditation practice. Maybe it's something as simple as writing down your to do list and scheduling it into your calendar so it's not stuck in your head.
[00:14:03] And then if we're talking about the crown chakra, we are reconnecting to ritual, so we are reconnecting to the sacred space within.
[00:14:12] That might be through visiting your favorite yoga teachers and spaces and classes. That might mean a morning meditation or journaling ritual. That might mean reconnecting to the moon cycles, whatever feels most potent and connective to you personally. Let's close with a reflection practice. So I'll invite you to take a moment if it's safe to close or soften your gaze to take a slow inhale to exhale fully and ask yourself quietly what is ready to fall away, what is ready to grow and what is mine to tend this season and I invite you to take one small action within the next 48 hours that will help cleanse your energy body and create a sense of spaciousness for spring to emerge. Know that Spring cleaning for the energetic body isn't about becoming a new person, it's just about removing what's blocking the one you already are are and you are so beautiful and lovely. I'll also add that upcoming at True Love Yoga we have a Blossom in Breath Spring Equinox Yoga Mala with Carly coming up on March 21 and on Sunday, April 12, I'll be leading Viragia Let Go and Bloom which is a Yin Yoga myofascial release and Yoga Nidra workshop focusing on the spring season. So I hope you can join for those.
[00:15:40] Thank you so much for listening. Happy Spring Cleaning. I hope this season brings you energy and effervescence and peace. Om Shanti Om Peace.
