Your Inner Winter

Hello,

Yogi!

Welcome to my podcast.

I'm Aiko and on this show we explore ways to put spiritual theory into sustainable practice.

Hello,

Everyone!

As promised,

We are here to talk about our inner winter.

I introduce you to your unique power mechanism as a woman in our last podcast,

Your Menstrual Cycle.

So we talk about how important is to chart your menstrual cycle because this is really the first step to do.

While doing that,

You will absolutely realize and see the patterns that are coming every month.

I mentioned also your inner powers during the last episode and just for those who didn't listen to my previous episodes,

I would like again to very briefly introduce again what are our inner seasons and then after we will talk only about our inner winter.

So these phases are taught as separate groups,

Separate seasons within you that need to be exercised in order for you to have a more coherent,

Grounded and effortless relationship with your power.

Your menstrual cycle moves through an inner winter,

Spring,

Summer and fall and then back to winter again,

Just like season of the year because we are cyclical beings.

So each phase introduces a unique collection of tools and psychological challenges to help you develop and embody your powers.

To give you a sense of how these stages or seasons work in a traditional 28 day cycle,

Consider that the inner winter is approximately day 7 to day 5,

Inner spring is approximately day 6 to day 11,

Then we have the summer from day 12 to 19 and autumn from day 20 to 26.

However,

Don't get too worked up about certain dates,

That's why I told you to chart your menstrual cycle because you will slowly understand and figure it out when your seasons are starting and ending.

It's also very important to consider the transition between the seasons.

The main thing is to recognize and follow your own cycle experience as well as to discover for yourself when the seasons change.

As you bring awareness to and care for each season in turn,

You restore the cycle's order,

Your inner ecosystem and as a result you experience a greater sense of ease,

Joy,

Coherence and effectiveness in wielding your power.

Winter is a moment of inhalation of vital forces.

The energy of our body are absorbed to be nourished and regenerated.

Therefore,

We must be careful to not lose this energy.

Alteration of the air element prevents and counteracts the dispersion of this energy,

So we have to work on elements like earth,

Water and fire.

But let's.

.

.

Because maybe not all of you are so familiar with Ayurveda.

As already mentioned,

There is a free video available on my website,

Aikoyoga-reggi.

Com,

Where I explain a little bit more in detail these things.

And if you're listening to me on Insight Timer,

There is a podcast about it.

So the characteristic of winter,

We can look them together very quickly,

The element is kappa,

So the dosa of winter is kappa.

The moon phase is new moon.

The crystals that can help you during this phase are moonstone,

Jet,

Malakite,

Chrysochola,

Magnesite.

The essential oils lavender,

Nutmeg,

Clary sage,

Vanilla,

Cinnamon and clove.

So talking about this scientific aspect just to say everything,

Your uterus thicker leaning that is called endometrium which would normally support a pregnancy is no longer needed,

So it's sheared through your vaginal canal.

This phase begins when an egg from the previous cycle isn't fertilized,

Because no pregnancy has occurred,

So the estrogen and the progesterone levels decreases.

I would like to mention again all your inner power that you can have during your inner winter.

You have the power of detachment,

Detachment for everything that is unfavorable for you and let it go.

This is a very very important thing we have to learn in our life to detach from things that are not good for us.

Inner connection,

You can develop and get more in touch with yourself.

Please enjoy restoration,

So purification,

This is a really powerful moment of purification and we are so lucky we have this every month.

Men don't have that and we expel so many toxins during our inner winter,

So I said restoration is another superpower and you can recharge your batteries because we said it's a new beginning.

Then self-love and also learn how to receive love.

Envisioning,

Envisioning your future,

One specific plan or project or something.

Acceptance,

Forgiveness of oneself and others.

Stillness,

Peace,

Expansive awareness and not only more things but more layer of things like the meaning of something being there for example,

I hope this is clear.

Intimacy and union within yourself of course.

Inner guidance and instruction.

And these are your inner power and let's see how you can achieve them,

How you can enrich them,

How can you just see them inside of yourself.

There are two significant aspects of this inner winter and one is the invitation for a pause and the other one is natural bliss.

So if we follow this you have to think it as you're sleeping.

Like why do we sleep?

We sleep to rest in order to be more fresh,

More energized,

To be more bright in our mind the next day because sleeping is just sleeping,

You know?

Like we can just think oh today I will sleep one hour because I have so many things to do.

No,

You sleep the hours your body is asking for otherwise you start not functioning well and the body is very clear with that,

It's gonna definitely tell you hey stop,

Go to bed.

And in the same way it works with the season and with the master cycle,

During our inner winter so our restoration time we need to pause,

We need to restore,

We need to withdraw and you will see really how important is to do so and how life changes is if you take this pause.

You may think no I can't,

I have to work so much,

I can't take days off and this and that.

It's not about taking days off,

It's about how you approach that specific day.

Of course most of us are working 8 days per hour,

Maybe someone not,

Maybe someone are housewife with some kids and maybe you're thinking I can't just pause my kids,

My kids are there.

It's just how you handle that.

So maybe for that day you can just ask your husband to help out or just take it easy,

Sleep half an hour longer and just remember all human beings need downtime.

We lucky women get a monthly building reminder to claim it.

So what else to say about this inner pause because I know myself how hard it is actually to inner pause when you have thousand things to do but by charting your master cycle and really start slowly but start to take this pause during your inner winter you will absolutely,

I can promise you,

See the difference how bright you will be after because how you set up your inner winter it will affect all the rest of the year,

Sorry,

Of the season.

So all the cycle,

All the menstrual cycle.

And by charting and take notes you will see that.

Then we have natural bliss I said.

So in this phase you have the ability to enter vastly enlarged states of awareness and experience blissful loving states of being and oneness.

Mistration holds an extraordinary secret that's rarely known.

It's the ability to experience altered states of consciousness naturally and effortlessly.

There is a beautiful video that I watched on youtube so you can all watch it.

I think it's called the history of menstruation.

Yeah,

I'm pretty sure it's with the article the history of menstruation.

It's very informative and I checked out some of the sources she used for the video and they're all valuable.

So watch it,

It's very very beautiful and interesting.

So I'm giving you all this information just to make you,

Because I think every woman should know these things.

And I'm a yoga teacher so I do yoga in order to balance all these energies and movements and phases that are going every day in our life.

So before I mention something about the moon.

So,

Mestration comes from Greek and Latin terms that means month and moon.

And,

Mestration connects us to nature while also providing information about our health and chakra system.

This period of the month,

It's link to nature was valued and appreciated by early societies.

And this also you will definitely see in this video that I mentioned before.

And like in ancient time,

Women from the same village they all had menstruation during the same time and usually it was always during the new moon.

And if someone didn't have the menstruation the same time then they were praying and asked to reconnect to themselves and to the other woman.

And during this time they were all gathered together.

So they were living,

Their husband,

Their kids and gathered together in a tent or in a place and make rituals together and I think this was,

This is very beautiful and I would really love that this would come again because it's just so magical almost.

So back to the aspects of this winter phase.

We say that the dosha is kapha dosha.

So winter is a kapha season with strong vata undertones.

According to Ayurveda the kapha dosha has all winter qualities which is why it is primarily a kapha season.

However if you are very cold and dry during this time or if you tend to feel more lonely during the winter months vata will be a big component for your inner winter season and you will want to actively keep vata placed as well.

So how do we balance this kapha?

There are many ways and of course you can literally use anything you do during your day to balance your kapha,

All your energies all your phases,

Everything.

My favorite things or at least the things that I'm looking at in order to help myself are first of all yoga,

My diet and I also use oils and crystals.

So yoga more that we mentioned already before so I will not go through again about what is yoga which is union,

Union more within yourself first and then within nature and everything else that exists.

Many people see yoga as a philosophy but more than a philosophy it's a method.

Yoga is a physical and mental practice for inner peace achieved by stealing the waves of the subconscious.

Pranayama is,

Which is,

If some of you don't know what pranayama is,

It's a breathing method,

Is especially beneficial during menstruation since it helps to relax the mind and balance emotions.

It can also assist with the pain management.

Keep in mind that there should be no straining of the breath as well as no kumbhaka or bandhas as this will increase the heat and channel the prana upward.

So keep breathing is especially effective when done in tadasana,

Pond pose or savasana,

Which is the core pose.

The techniques of brahmari,

This is one of my favorite,

Is a hamin beam breath,

Maybe it's complicated for me to explain to you here but there are many videos on youtube,

You can figure it out.

Anulom Vilom,

It's another breathing.

Pranayama very suggested.

Ujhaya,

Shitali and Shitkari.

Meditation is another beneficial activity at this time,

Especially when one is more sensitive and alert.

Om chanting,

Like the om syllable.

And meditation are two techniques that can be used.

Inner silence exercises also,

It's very very nice.

Simple meditation,

Like breath meditation,

Chanting meditation,

Mantra meditation.

Yoga Nidra is also very advised for your inner winter.

So what I suggest usually during your inner winter is definitely to rest,

As we mentioned before,

This is the key for this time of your menstrual cycle.

Usually the day when I have heavy flow I don't do yoga,

I mean physical yoga,

I do more breathing exercises or simply savasana and try to focus on myself.

But during the other days then slowly you should keep moving and try to do a little,

Like to reach the comfort zone,

To go a little bit over the comfort zone and push a little bit more your exercises.

So I will name and suggest some asanas that I usually do and are very beneficial.

I said one is savasana,

Bananasana,

Literally like banana the fruit,

Supported setubandha sarvangasana,

Maybe I will say also the English,

It's supported bridge pose and this is really one of my favorites during my inner winter,

I can stay there during winter forever.

Then supinespinal twist,

Pavan muktasana,

Knees apart,

Wind relaxed pose,

Katinkau vidilasana,

And then a lot of stretchings,

Like seated stretchings are very helpful so you sit in easy pose and then you bring your arms up or in one side and all this of course you do with breathing,

Exercising.

Then bhadasupthasukhanasana,

Shoulder stretch poses,

Sukhasana,

Neck rotation,

Vatrasana,

Squat pose and also squat on toes,

Those two are very very balancing during my situation and our first chakra,

Vatrasana with ankle stretched,

Gomukhasana,

Cow face pose,

Kaputanasana,

Sleeping swan pose,

Suptavirasana,

Reclining hero pose,

Hardagomukhasana,

Half cow face pose variation,

Jhanushirasana,

Head to knee pose,

Upavishta konasana,

Seated straddle pose,

And also caterpillar pose.

These are,

I think,

All the asanas I mentioned are either seated or are prone and I always suggest gentle asana but during the change of the face,

So when you're going into spring then I suggest some standing poses.

One for sure that is super powerful during this time is the samsa lutation and uttanasana also is another pose that is very powerful during this phase.

I think I mentioned pretty much everything what I wanted to say,

One extra thing I would like to say is do henna.

There is an episode,

A podcast episode,

I think it's called henna with sachi sundari.

Henna it's an herb that gets dried and then you make it into a powder and then you mix it with some pure essential oils,

A little water and then you make it into a paste and then you do art,

Henna art in your hands,

In your body,

Wherever you want.

And also really you should listen to my podcast episode where sachi sundari is explaining all the ancient tradition and how beneficial is for our hormones.

Henna is female herb,

It's definitely woman herb and it's super beneficial and it regulates our female hormone,

It's very powerful.

I say I order just some,

I make it my own and I'm just looking forward to meet with other girls and painting each other.

So this is not just for fun,

Really of course for fun too but as a ritual,

As a remembering how important we are as a woman and how beautiful we are and that we really need some time for ourselves to celebrate.

I know many people,

Many women are,

They have like a small little celebration when they get menses like they do,

Very small they light a candle or they do some prayer.

I think it's important for all of us to remember that we are very very lucky to have menstruation and this is a powerful tool we have.

I will make a workshop at probably at the end of October where I will explain more things about this so if you are interested don't hesitate to subscribe to my website,

To my newsletter and I will let you know when the workshop,

It will be for free,

A free workshop so just subscribe to my newsletter and you will know when it will be.

Thank you again for listening and see you next time we will talk about our inner spring.

I hope this episode fulfilled its purpose of inspiring you.

If you like it feel free to share it,

Give a review or a rating,

Subscribe and if you have any questions please get in touch at aikoyoga reiki.

Com.

Namaste.