The energy shift from the dead of winter into the 'quickening' promise of spring is happening - and it's one of my favorite times.

Not because it's particularly beautiful outside, because it's not; it's grey - a lot this winter.

But with the thaw and the bird song, even the smell reminds us that energy is moving upward from the deep winter stillness into the subtle greening ~ HOPE is palatable.

This dormant energy is awakening in us, too. Winter is the time of transformation. It's time to observe what wants to grow.

I was taking a hike with a friend last week and reflected on what kind of listener she is.

Although my friend is a kind, gentle soul who cares deeply, she often interrupts me to share her experiences.

I know she’s unaware of it, and unknowingly, I probably do it too. Considering what it means to be a good listener, I'm reminded that the ears are the sense doors to the kidneys, which are energetically running strong in the winter.

This makes it the easiest time of year to strengthen our listening and attention.

A practice I’m working on is checking in with myself on anything I feel critical about - do I do that? Even if it’s not as extreme, I’m probably guilty of it, too, or it wouldn’t trigger me so much.

When we criticize others, it's time to look in the mirror!

As we are coming to the end of the winter water element, I was struck by how essential water is to make life habitable in a very personal way.

We just arrived in Costa Rica a few days before our yoga retreat starts, and our Airbnb didn’t have water! Not a drop.

No bathing, no cooking, completely relying on drinking water from what we brought. Ayiiiii! Needless to say, we had to quickly re-locate.

Have you ever tried visualizing your FUTURE SELF as the best version of your potential?

This is a classic Taoist meditation that’s very effective at the end of winter, moving into spring.

This meditation is timely because of the seasonal energy.

Currently, we are shifting from the stillness of winter, which cultivates a strong intuition, into new spring growth.

One of the primary aspects of the Meridian Flow practice is guiding our energy with our attention and breath. And where our mind goes, our energy flows.

In this meditation of projecting our future SELF, we set our minds to guide our energy to the trajectory of who we want to become. And it’s so effective!

How do you cope with the change of seasons? For some, it’s exciting, and for some, it’s challenging.

Most of us are relieved that winter is over and are excited about spring; I know I am, but it’s important to understand the energies we all experience each season and observe whether we are in or out of balance.

Balanced energy = health and well-being

Imbalanced energy = dis-ease

According to traditional Chinese medicine, the five elemental paradigms we use in the Meridian Flow practices relate to the sun's position relative to the Earth.

This isn’t as far out as it sounds.

After years of teaching and more years of practicing, I found that I was getting into the ruts of doing the same practice without a rhythm or structure to follow.

This created boredom and was random in my practice and teaching.

I have realized that I like rhythms and systems to follow. I lived out west for years without seasons, thinking that I would love to live in the eternal spring/summer weather, but I found that I felt lost in the monotony of nice weather and couldn't remember what season it was, which was disconcerting.

When I found the seasonal rhythm of the meridians (energy pathways) to activate and have specific meditations and breathwork that corresponded to the energy and emotions of the season, it gave my practice and teaching an intelligent format to follow that made intrinsic sense.

Otherwise, I was shooting in the dark with what meditation, pranayama technique, or poses I wanted to teach.

I struggle with chronic pain, which is why I get on my mat every day.

Through my many years of chronic low back pain, I knew it was a deeper issue than just physical. It was an energetic deficiency, and I needed to take the healing into my own hands.

Low back and knee pain are often related to weak kidney qi (energy).

According to ancient Eastern wisdom, as we age, the best thing we can do is fortify our kidney Qi. The kidneys are our bio-batteries, and their energy depletes as we age.

When kidney qi is weak, it shows up as:

• Fearful and insecure

• Poor memory, decline of cognitive abilities (the brain is directly related to kidney qi)

• Lower backache

• Knee trounles

• Loss of hearing, tinnitus, and vertigo (the ears are the sense doors to the kidneys)

• Loss of head hair

• osteoporosis/ osteopenia (the bones are the bodily tissue energetically associated with the kidneys and water element)

The winter is the season that the kidneys are energetically running the strongest and the best time to strengthen kidney Qi.

A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with a good friend who had just gotten over COVID-19 and was suffering from significant loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

We talked about him working from home and not being around other people much, other than his Zoom meetings.

One of the major longevity factors for people living well into old age is not only eating well and exercising but connecting with people and feeling a sense of community.

He uses his local cafe for that, but he admitted it's not fulfilling.

I suggested going back to his local yoga studio, committing to 3 classes per week, and becoming a regular so he could build new relationships with others who are like-minded and on the same path of wellness.

For many of us, the winter is when our chronic joint pain increases.

Lower back pain is a common ailment many of us suffer from. With all of our sitting, our low back muscles of the quadratus lumborum, psoas and glutes become very weak.

I was debilitated by severe lower back pain for over ten years, and not until I strengthened these muscles in my lower back did I find relief.

I thought I just needed to stretch those muscles, but more often than not, these muscles need to be strengthened to support the weight of the joints.

One of the best poses to strengthen the lower back and open the heart while stimulating the fire element (of the heart and small intestine meridians) and the water element (of the kidney and bladder meridians) is dhanurasana, bow pose.

This pose is also one of the safest back bends for our lower back. While strengthening the lower back, we can breathe through the meridians to focus the mind and relieve anxiety!

During these dark, cold days, energetically, we are in this womb-like time, like a cocoon, dark, quiet, gentle, and becoming.

It’s not a time to push or rush but to be quiet and still.

Cultivating a meditation time to be quiet and still can help us stay in tune with the natural world, as the animals are hibernating and the trees and plants are still and dormant. 

This is the time to conserve our energy, which meditation supports.

According to Chinese medicine, the winter correlates to the water element, which is all about packing and conserving our chi or energy.

Each element’s energy corresponds to the energy held in a pair of organs. The kidneys, the yin organ of the water element, store our chi. The lungs receive the energy, and the kidneys store it as energy reserves to get us through the winter. 

Meditating strengthens our intuition as we activate the 3rd eye, the energy center in the mid-brain behind the eyes, also known as the Ajna 6th chakra. 

Breathwork, or pranayama, for the water element, opens the third eye, which cultivates intuition.

When I was on my quest to heal my chronic pain, I'll never forget my qigong teacher telling me:

"We are ultimately responsible for our own healing."

That stopped me in my tracks.

Wait, you mean I have to heal myself???

That's when I stopped my endless search for a healer who could relieve my pain, and I took it on myself.

I started to meditate on healing and took on the practices of energy work through the physical practices of yoga and qigong.

Combining yoga and qigong provides a seasonal format to work with the energetic layers of our being.

Each season, the energy from the sun (our energetic Wifi signal) has a slightly different frequency, depending on how the sun is positioned to the Earth.

The energy of the winter water element is ‘consuming and packing’.

We observe this in the natural world, as the animals hibernate in the winter and slow down, needing to conserve. They ‘pack’ the energy for the cold dark days, and we humans energetically mirror this behavior. It’s easier to sit and be still in the winter, as we can meditate and gain clarity.

As we are coming to the end of the year, the energy of the winter water element is all about conserving, packing and storing our energy, or qi.

Think of animals going into hibernation, they are conserving and storing energy to get them through the long, cold dark days.

The Meridian Flow practice aligns with the seasonal energy, according to Chinese medicine. The Chinese character for winter is the image of a sun locked up and stored in an upside-down bottle, to signify the closing and storage of energy.

I’ve been inspired by the term ‘Wintering’ this year from the book Wintering - The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.

To shift into non-striving.

To let time be slow.

To allow.

To dwell in non-doing.

And to sit in that stillness.

It’s not easy for me to not DO. I was raised in a very DOING family. Our culture thrives on DOING. Therefore it feels like a new type of DOING - just to BE.

As the holidays approach, there are a lot of complicated feelings that come up.

The holidays are tricky for many of us.

Ram Das puts it: "Once you feel enlightened, go spend a week with your family."

The holidays can be a loving celebration, but also a time to confront relational conflicts and challenges.

Tara Brach gave a wonderful talk on this that I thought I'd share to remember that we're not alone with these challenges.

How do we prepare our hearts with caring and compassion? If we look back from year to year, the same pattern keeps playing out in relationships.

The wounding gets triggered around family. And during these dark cold days when we’re all inside together and amped up with pressures of consuming and shoulds, our nervous system is more vulnerable to getting hijacked.

As the season shifts from autumn to winter, my lower back starts to ache a bit more.

I've had chronic lower back pain for years and years; it's why I have to do yoga every day.

My chronic pain is the mud that nourishes the lotus of my daily practice. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't practice as much. This is how I've come to appreciate the benefits of my pain.

Once I'm on my mat, my breath deepens, my mind clears, and the movement starts to synch with the breath. Then the magic starts to happen.

During the beginning of this holiday season, we can prepare our hearts with our intentions.

Our intention creates the energy that will guide our attention and actions.

What is your intention?

If you are having difficulty coming up with one, kindness is always a good default, both internally and externally.

We all go into reactive places - we can get needy, overwhelmed, and angry, and guilt can rear its ugly head. 

What it would look like if, in those tough spots, you had a kind witnessing energy towards yourself and with anyone you might be with. 

As colder, darker days and Thanksgiving approaches, with the holidays soon to follow, it helps to cultivate a state of gratitude to keep our energy uplifted.

What are you grateful for?

Just pause momentarily, close your eyes, bring your hands to your heart, and consider what you appreciate.

We spend so much time focusing on what’s wrong, rather than what’s right in our abundant lives. Author John Kabat-Zinn reminds us, “There is so much more right in our lives than wrong."

Focusing on what we appreciate lifts our spirits and brightens the mind. Especially the things that we take for granted - like our health, our warm, safe homes, and the feeling of security and peace in our lives.

Fall is the season of reflection. It's also the time to build emotional resiliency.

During these times of global turmoil and grief, we can get paralyzed by the weight of it all.

After a few minutes of the news, our nervous system is taxed as the images and stories replay in our minds repeatedly.

Movement and breath are the quickest ways to go from upset to reset. Memory isn't only stored in our brain but throughout our entire body. This is why yoga and qigong effectively create a calm inner disposition. They release the 'issues in our tissues'.

When we can find our center and connect to stillness, we can show up for others who need our support.

Serving others is one of the best remedies for grief. The autumn is the time of year that grief arises, as it's stored in our lungs. The lungs are energetically running the strongest in the autumn.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, the lungs are part of the metal element. When we serve others and become benevolent, we are shining our metal into gold, rather than letting it rust from grief and sadness.

I was feeling low energy and some sadness yesterday. I remembered that sadness is the emotion that the lungs energetically hold. Then I noticed that I was barely breathing.

So, I allowed the weight of my sadness and started to breathe deeper into what was there. I put one hand on my heart, one hand on my belly, and breathed with my sadness.

I then became the field of awareness that was holding the sadness - rather than identifying with the sadness. It then slowly shifted to a soft gentle energy, that could allow whatever was arising to be included.

What a relief.

Did you know that we can change our thinking by changing our breathing?

With the world in such turmoil, it's hard to know what to do and how to process it all. Grief and sadness weigh heavily, and we can become paralyzed by it.

My meditations this week have been focused on a prayer-like breathing technique referred to as Tonglen. Tonglen is a breathing practice to relieve grief and suffering for ourselves and others.

Tonglen is a Buddhist practice of taking and sending energy. It reverses our logical thinking in an effort to avoid suffering.