everything must be done with love.
Find a deep relaxation with this guided meditation. 😴
Settle in and allow the body to be supported. 🤗
Use this guided meditation to drift off to sleep or just as a deep relax and reset before carrying on with your day. 🔋
Thank you so much for practicing with me. 🙏
I make new meditations every week. 💁🏻♀️
You can find more from me at withloveesta.ca ✨
See you next Monday! 👋
With Love, Esta
🫶
Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.
And herein lies the opportunity to practice what I preach: Come back to the mat, with love.
Honestly, I could have lied and said I did my 40 day Kriya. I could have done it twice today and told myself that was good enough. Who would have known?
Me. I would have known. It would have sat funny in the belly.
A note scribbled down from my latest class came to mind instantly:
“What if spirituality is really just personal integrity?”
(Brett Larkin in Uplifted Yoga Teacher Training 300 hour – discussing the Lower 3 Chakras)
My opportunity here is two-fold. I both get to physically return to a practice that I missed one day of, and I get to love myself through it. There is no need to beat myself up about it, sure I am disappointed. Yes, I wish I hadn’t simply forgotten and went to bed yesterday evening. 🙄
But just as one of my favourite teachers often says – we are looking for the sthira and the sukha/ the sweetness and the strength. (Kristin Leal)
I have the discipline to simply return to my practice, not letting the one day throw me right off the practice and the softness to not let the Perfectionist in me get too feisty.
This example has me thinking on ways I can apply this method to the rest of my life.
How can I cultivate the self-discipline and the self-love all at once?
How can you?
Let me know in the comments if there was an off the mat chance for strength and sweetness in your life?
So today is day one of forty once again.
I might savour the beginning of this new attempt just a little longer on the mat this afternoon!
I will be putting out more mini-classes for purchase, in which we will physically explore the idea of softness and strength.
The idea behind these ten to fifteen minute long classes – is that you can pop them into your schedule with ease. No need to carve out an hour, or drive to a studio, you don’t have to leave the living room or change out of the “home sweatpants” look. 😉
You can pause and rewind if your cat walked past the screen, you can pause and do the same pose a few times if you’re liking that one specific stretch today, and you can take the class again and again.
Thank you for joining me on another reflection.
Wishing you a weekend of strength and sweetness.
With Love,
Esta
A quick guided meditation to set intention.
We ground into the body, find the breath and set an intention.
It’s a simple recipe to get you laser focused, aware of the body and breathing your deepest breath.
Thank you for practicing with me! I make new meditations every Monday.
Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.
As I may have mentioned, I am completing my 500 hour yoga teacher training. (I graduate in May 2024!🎓) Part of the studies includes completing the same practice (be it a meditation, a yoga asana/yoga flow, a chanting meditation etc.) every day for 40 days.
I completed this 40 day challenge once before, with a guided meditation. This was a beautiful exercise, and I learned so much just by showing up each day. The “challenge” is called a kriya.
Kriya [Sanskrit] kree-yah
action, deed, effort, completed action, practice.
Why 40 days? It is said that it takes 40 days to incorporate a new activity as a habit. – 3ho.org
I have chosen to complete my own yoga flow (The Beginner Yogi Class) every day for 40 days – promising to start over again if I miss a day. The magic is in the showing up each day, in whatever state I happen to be in. Anchoring myself with a ritual and time (even if it’s just the five-ten minutes) invested in myself.
My natural habitat is the planning zone. I love planning. My bullet journal collection is impressive. What I am keen on these days though – is moving past the planning. Jumping into the fire of action, even when I don’t feel ready. 🔥
Showing up to a physical practice, one that naturally generates a bit of heat, is not my preferred activity.
Which is exactly why I need to do it!!!
Nope, I would be most comfortable all curled up under a blanket, with a cup of tea, to meditate on my cushion for a nice 20 minutes. 🍵
But in order to expand, evolve and grow… I have to be willing to shape the entire sphere of myself. I have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, so my range of ability expands.
I feel like I’ve said this before, but have you heard this story?
When the knights of the round table set out in search of the holy grail, they were advised to set out into the forest – at the part that seemed darkest to them.
The moral here being: the answer to your problem, lies in the place you most don’t want to go. (I believe I heard it from a Jordan Peterson video on: Maps of Meaning)
This is “cultivating the opposite” is a very yogic idea and connects to the Sanskrit term we will end with today: “pratipaksha-bhavana: whenever adverse notions crowd our mind, Patanjali (author of THE book on yoga) tells us, we must endeavour to conjure up their opposites.” (Full article from Yoga International here.)
So I hope that whatever path you set forth onto, in the dark part of your own forest – may it bring you a lightness you didn’t know existed. May you enter that forest with so much love in your heart, for yourself and for the people who love and support you, that the path is lit up on it’s own. 💡
If you’re feeling called to cultivate the opposite in your life with yoga/ meditation… but you’re not sure where to start… please book a free consultation call with me. I would love to talk with you about how meditation and yoga can be tools in your toolbox! 🧰
Wishing you an amazing weekend.
With Love,
Esta
Yoga Nidra is often called Yogic Sleep.
The goal is to become deeply relaxed while remaining aware.
It’s said that 20 minutes of Yoga Nidra is equal to 4 hours of sleep! 😴
This restorative and relaxing practice can send you off to sleep or serve as a little yogic nap.
Either way thank you for tuning in. This meditation script was written by the amazing founder of Uplifted Yoga: Brett Larkin and her team – I am honoured to bring it to life for you here in the WLE Meditation library. 🙏
with love, Esta
Or listen on Spotify. 🎧
Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.
Have you seen this video below? It’s a beautiful representation of how time heals and we are constantly rebalancing:
@fallinginsand Time heals ⏳ Meditation time #meditation #sandart #fallinginsand #calm #relaxing
♬ Find Your Inner Self-Meditation – Red Blue Studio
This week my Beginner Yogi class launched 🚀 (check it, and my other mini-classes out here!) and this first ever class from me, clocks in at around ten minutes. ⏲️ What I would like to add in commentary to this class is this: repetition is key. 🗝️
Try the same pose a few times each!
Come back to the mat again and again. Try it in different moods, at different times of the day. Come with a sense of curiosity and know, you can edit the practice as you see fit! 📝
With something as simple as a seated twist, it’s amazing how much the body opens up and responds with repetition.
Test it out for yourself! ✨ Take a seat however is comfortable on the ground. Inhale and get nice and tall in the spine. Take the left hand to the right knee, and place the right hand behind you – exhaling to gently twist to the right. Come back to centre, try it on the other side. Inhale the spine tall, and exhale to gently twist to the left. (Not pulling with the arms at all, simply twisting in the trunk of the body.) Now herein lies the magic: repeat two more times! 🪄 By your third twist, are you able to find even more of a twist on each side? Can you twist just slightly more than your first round? Most likely – yes!
So how does this all tie in to my alternative title?
During a Yoga Nidra practice* this morning, I reflected on a moment in therapy a couple years back. In this appointment I tearfully and with great frustration, admitted that I was mad at myself for having to heal the same parts of myself again and again.
But just as the little video representation above demonstrates: healing again and again is both natural and required.
I have since enveloped that frustrated younger self with love, and we pause and heal here and there, when we need to… even if it’s a speedbump I’ve seen before.
When I recognize a pattern I am breaking, or a habit that has fallen by the wayside – replaced with a habit that nurtures me instead… there’s the sand falling into the dents that we all collect in this grand journey of life. ⏳
* Yoga Nidra is a beautiful form of meditation often called “Yogic Sleep”. I thoroughly enjoy following the guided yoga nidra videos by Ally Boothroyd. I too have a couple Yoga Nidra Guided Meditations available in my library. This longer meditation style is deeply relaxing! 😴
In conclusion, repetition is the magic. In yoga poses, in life, in healing and in befriending the self… keep coming back! 🫶
Thank you so much for being here for another blog post. Wishing you a lovely weekend.
With Love,
Esta
Listen on Spotify now – or on YouTube 👇
Sometimes you’re just not in the mood to meditate.
That’s what this short and sweet meditation is designed for.
We find stillness, locate the breath and count a gratitude before moving on with our day.
Thank you so much for practicing with me!
With Love,
Esta
with love , Esta