Om Sva Bhaksha is Sanskrit for ‘I am nourished by my true self.’
I just finished day seven of a twenty-one-day meditation challenge from Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey. Shedding the weight in your mind, body and spirit is the theme of this current daily session by the enlightened pair that you can access on the internet for free.
Oprah gives us this among other insights before the silent meditation music begins, “Our bodies are a reflection and a metaphor for our state of mind, when we alter our mindsets we begin to shift and lift the heaviness and weight from our bodies and our lives. Every day we energetically metabolize our experiences. Experience actually serves as fuel for every circuit in our bodies. Often, we overload our systems with negative inputs, short circuiting ourselves. We allow difficult or stressful experiences to build up and ultimately that negative energy drains you. It dims your light it takes you out of balance… that is when your body feels the pressure, the weight.”
The weight of energy is real. Most of us would like to shed a few pounds, especially now that we are coming into Spring and Summer. The atmosphere is beginning to feel lighter, the earth is awakening to a new season and is helping us automatically feel lighter. How interesting to think of energy as heavy, the energy we carry around with every step. It makes sense. Most of us are conscious enough to realize that the energy we bring to any situation is palpable to whoever we are in a room with. It is our responsibility to be aware that our energy is not a detriment to others. We do not always follow that by the same token we should not be detrimental to ourselves. We are the guardians of our own bodies, our own minds and our own spirits. To practice putting positive energy toward that which is the only thing we are truly keepers of, could only enhance our lives. As an exercise, try to be aware of how many negative comments we make. As an exercise, be aware if someone is coming at us with negativity and instead of internalizing and swallowing it, keep it at bay. Shielding our precious selves from as much negative input as we possibly can will make us lighter and most probably curb our appetites for exterior things that numb ourselves. The fact is we can fill ourselves up with spirit, with what is our birthright.
“Experiences fall into only two categories, positive input or negative input. One input is nourishing and healing the other is toxic.” Deepak Chopra.
At some level everyone must be aware of this. Sometimes, it feels easier to plug along and power forward with our lives, dodging the negative as if we are in some sort of battle with the elements, whether they be human or inanimate, natural or synthetic. The truth is we can sit in silence, we can breathe and let any kind of negative energy bomb heading toward us flow right past, flow right through. We don’t have to hold on to it. We don’t have to internalize it. We have the power to release it. Practice releasing anything that does not serve you. Practice letting in anything that does serve our internal beings.
Adding positive experiences could be anything from taking thirty seconds to notice a particularly beautiful branch on a tree and how it blows in the wind, to planning a beach vacation with someone you love. Adding positive input can be hugging a dog or finally doing that thing you have always dreamed, playing the piano, learning a new language or visiting a country you have always wanted to see.
“Positive input nourishes me at every level.” That is the centering thought for the day and Deepak repeats it several times. I will be repeating it every day for the rest of my life. There will be days I forget, maybe years, but I hope I will always have the insight to be aware that throughout every life, until the end, there will always be room for more positive input. I wish for you to always be aware of that as well.