Arrogantly be here!
Gifts of the Muladhara Chakra
Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, ” Eat, Pray, Love” up-leveled my life! From that book, I had the courage to travel throughout India five times over the past five years. During my first trip in India, I came back with the idea, the seed planted in me to host yoga retreats internationally and domestically. Since that time, I’ve hosted and co-hosted over six yoga retreats to some amazing places; India, Thailand, Bali, Peru, Cape May and the Poconos. And, in just ten days, Blissful Yoga is headed to Sedona with twenty retreat participants!
————-
Now, I’m listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s audio book “Big Magic” and again I feel a strong bond with her. Maybe it’s because she lived in NJ, and we both have the Jersey girl thing going on. Whenever I see that Elizabeth Gilbert did something amazing, I feel like I can also do something wildly creative for my own empowerment and for my own pleasure too!
Plus I love Magic and she wrote a book on Big Magic! While listening to this book sometimes, I feel absolutely nothing from her words, or it kinds of sounds like, “blah, blah, blah”, yet I have to still keep listening to her voice. Then she can say one sentence and in this case the sentence was, “Live as if you arrogantly belong here!”, and I’m in tears.
This brings me to our root chakra; the Muladhara Chakra!
Live as if you arrogantly belong here! It is in this chakra where our affirmation is, ” I have the right to be here or I have the right to exist or I have the right to have”
Recently, while walking in my neighborhood I did so with my new attitude of I arrogantly belong here! It’s been one year since I’ve lived in this house but I’ve sort of felt like an outsider here. I began to feel like this is my neighborhood and I do belong here.
————-
Then I looked back over times in my life when I didn’t feel I belonged or that I had a right to be somewhere. One place that came vividly into my mind, was my dancing school. From the ages of 3 to 11, I went to weekly and/or twice weekly dance classes at Miss Irene Parker’s Dance Studio. Even though I was there often throughout my childhood, I never really felt like I belonged there and before each class I was sick to my stomach with nerves.
————-
Miss Irene Parker, was not known for being friendly and she was usually correcting me. Therefore, I tried to hide in the back ground so that I wouldn’t be called out. Twice a year we had recitals. Oh my gosh… I would get dressed in my dance costume and my mom would do my hair and make-up all the while I would be sick to my stomach hardly able to walk, let alone get out on the stage and dance.
————-
I’m an Empath which means I am very sensitive to other people’s energy. The dictionary defines an empath as a person with paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.
—
As a child, I didn’t know, there was a name for what I was, but I knew that I experienced “things” differently. I also learned how to quickly relate to other people, so that I didn’t stand out or I learned how to “hide” my true self in order for me to feel emotionally safe.
—
Just this year my mother shared a story with me about Miss Irene Parker’s Dance Studio that I never knew! My mother is one of ten children who moved here when she was eight years old from Puerto Rico. One of my mother’s best friends went to Miss Irene Parker’s Dance Studio each week and at that time, my mother would go and sit and watch her friend dance! Although, my mother wished that she could attend dance school, her parents could not afford it. My mom sent me to Miss Irene Parker’s Dance Studios because she wanted me to have what she never got to experience. As a young empath, I was picking up on my mother’s energy of not feeling like she belonged along with my dance teacher’s energy of unfriendliness, no wonder I was sick.
—
Once she explained her story to me, I felt a shift in my history! I felt it went from a history of victimhood in dance school, to one of empowerment.
—
Every once in a while when I’m in Blissful Yoga doing my yoga practice or teaching, usually when I’m in Janu Sirsanana (a one leg seated forward fold), I remember what is was like to be a kid in that dance class and it actually feels good. Even though I didn’t feel like I belonged, I get a glimpse of what the dance warm up or cooling postures felt like in my body. I think to myself, Wow, I’m kind of coming full circle here offering classes at a studio that connect people with the body. It always feels like a Déjà Vu moment.
—
Now, I can see why does the sentence,” Live here arrogantly!” in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, “Big Magic” brought me to tears. Because it brought me to a moment of healing old wounds and transcending them into the truth of my being which is that I did belong in Miss Irene Parker’s Dance Studio!
—
So, be here arrogantly!
—
Because then we will have the willpower, the endurance the fortitude to move outside of our comfort areas and into where the Creative Force of the Universe is directing us!
—
In Tantric Yoga, the Creative Force of the Universe is considered to be the Divine Feminine Energy or the Shakti or the Goddess Energy. It is also said that if we take one step towards this Divine Feminine Energy, she will take 1000 steps back to us.
—
As we move forward on our journey deeper into Sacred Empowerment, remember to ask the Shakti for guidance. Also remember that when the Divine Feminine comes, it usually does not come in a package with a pretty bow wrapped around it. In fact, it can arrive looking like a tangled mess, but creativity is a birthing process and birth is MESSY!
—
Although, the outcomes of our dreams may look like our dream or probably something bigger then we even imagined, like my yoga retreats, the steps along the way can be messy and quite intimating. But the bigger steps in life are the ones that lead us deeper into ourselves into our true essence and align us with the deepest version of who we are. And sometimes, steps don’t work and we have to take giant leaps of faith.
—
How do we align with our true essence, or core self, the self that resides in us that wants to express? We begin by admitting and honoring our desires, the big, the small, the tall, the pretty and the ugly. We are in the business of creation! Letting go of what is not in alignment with us, letting go of a false sense of who we are, like not belonging here, not feeling worthy or not feeling enough is part of this creative process.
—
So, when the creative force of the universe comes to you, my wish for you is that you take the steps, be they small or big or leaps of faith into that direction. If you need help…ASK, ASK, ASK remember the one step you take to her she will take 1000 to you.
————-
Walk arrogantly like you belong here!
Bountiful Blessings!
Parvati Victoria Goodwin
