I’m sitting at the same restaurant that I have for the last 3 nights, eating the same dish. Not because I’m a boring, sad bastard but because the place is flippin awesome and their vegetable biryani dish is off the charts tasty and massive too! Although it’s probably the friendliness and kindness of the staff which keeps drawing me back. The setting is awesome too, it feels like I’m in a tree house and the chilled vibes, tunes and sitting on the floor definitely add to the ambience
It’s going to be strange going back to London and sitting at a table and chair. One of the many lessons I have learnt this trip is how to sit again…..how have we become so useless as humans that we forget to sit how we were designed too (on the floor, on our bums with legs folded!)…..or is it just me?! Haha
Talking about lessons, I have learnt how to breath properly again….sounds strange eh? Had a bit of a surprise when we were doing our Pranayama / breath training meditation that we should be breathing in from our stomachs first, haha. Somehow I have managed to program myself all these years to only breath from my chest, so effectively have been breathing very shallow. Give it a try, when you breath in take a look at your stomach, does it swell up like a balloon or stay the same or even suck in?
So today was exam day, we had to prepare a 2 hour meditation class but compress it into an hour and take our class mates through it. I really enjoyed it and it was well received too so that’s a nice little bonus. Tomorrow we have one more person giving a class, one more new technique to learn and then our closing ceremony and that’s it folks….done and dusted and pretty much my time here is over.
So a few of the new techniques briefly explained. Remembering that these are generally used in conjunction with other methods, especially when you are doing workshops of 2 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 7 days. Done in isolation the impact it has on you is not the same when used with other methods so don’t let the weirdness of some of them fool you
- Nadabramha – is an ancient Tibetan monk humming method. Basically hum for 30 mins, give energy/thoughts emotions away for 7.5min, take in and receiving positive energy and love from the universe for 7.5min and then sit in silence for 15min. The impact on this is quite profound, really peaceful and grounding
- Chakra Healing – there are three different chakra dances we have learnt which help clear any blockages in your body’s chakras. These are then followed with different sound and mantra techniques
- Heart Chakra – You sit in pairs and one person asks two questions to the other person which they need to answer. Anytime the other person is stuck the questions get repeated “What’s in your heart and what does it want” This brought out some serious emotions for me, crying…everything!! Whoooaaaa hahaha
- “Who are you” – once again sitting in pairs and one person continually asks the other person that question. You pretty much start talking about your life history but then it’s strange that you run out of things to say, especially when the other person asks you the question again and again and again. Once again, rather powerful and effective at pulling back your layers
- Name calling Meditation – you pretty much call out your own name in different tones, sounds, lengths, emotions etc for 30mins and then sit in silence for 30min. This one I found very powerful and takes you back to many childhood memories and helps to remove any feelings, emotions etc which may still be causing you any hinderance in life
- Lathian method – this is a timeless meditation and can be done for any length of time. We had a taster and did it for 30mins. Pretty much you just stand, while music is playing and you let your body take control by completely freeing your mind. It’s rather fascinating the effect it has on different people! My whole body flopped right over, so my upper body was just hanging over with my arms/hands touching the floor, one of the girls arms started lifting up into the sky, another girl fell to the floor
That’s probably enough for today I think. Thanks for reading this and hope you found it of some interest
Last day tomorrow of courses for a while, bring it on!!!!
Much love
Gareth / BB / Token / China