Cleansing Body & Mind To Sweeten The Connection To Your Soul

43:01

43:01

Cleansing Body & Mind To Sweeten The Connection To Your Soul

by Birgit Penzenstadler

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4.8

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talks

Activity

Meditation

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Everyone

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896

When we cleanse our body and our mind, we have a chance to get more connected deep inside, to find an opening in our heart, as some of the distracting layers are vanishing or taking a backseat. Join me for an hour on how we can cleanse physically & mentally to benefit also emotionally & spiritually.

Meet your Teacher

Birgit Penzenstadler

Gothenburg, Sweden

Meet your Teacher

Birgit Penzenstadler

Gothenburg, Sweden

Transcript

Take a moment to listen inside what you wish to get out of this talk because setting the intention and being present with it is gonna make a big difference for you. And the first thing that comes up is good. So be with that for a moment and then allow yourself to let that be. There's no need to hold on to it. We can let it be and then return to it later on. So when I say cleansing the mind and cleansing the body, There are quite a few levels in there. We'll spend about 15 minutes on the body and then 15 minutes on the mind and then tie that back into how that can benefit you emotionally and spiritually and then we have time for questions and specific interests. So starting with the body. I got up about an hour ago and I like to start my days with a quick cold rinse off. It's a good way for me to energize my body, To feel all of my body and to get a fresh start into the day. And all the recommendations or suggestions I have here for you are scientifically proven and I invite you to try them out and then see what sticks with you. Not every practice may be your jam and that's okay. The idea is not to do all of the practices. The idea is to find what benefits you best and then stick with that. When we try to take on too many practices at a given time then the chance is higher that we drop off fairly quickly so maybe instead we can choose one or two and then stick with them. So first one in my morning practice is a cold rinse off and if that's not so much your jam then maybe dry brushing is a great one to go for. So using a massage brush to brush your body from the extremities towards the heart it gives you a beautiful way to increase your circulation without getting cold. It makes your skin really glowy and soft and it helps you release any toxins that you may have stored. So starting with either a cold shower or a dry brush you could even do both. In that case you would start with a dry brush and then do the cold shower and then put some soothing oil on your skin. When you do have a shower in between the nice thing is you actually only need very little oil and if you put it on your wet skin instead of on your dry skin it's easy to spread and you get your whole body with a little amount of oil so you don't feel all oily afterwards because that can be a little overwhelming or sticky in your clothes. So that's how I love to treat the outside of my whole body and especially during winter time during the time when it might be more likely to get a cold and also in between throughout the rest of the year I do nasal rinses like this nutty pot that you can get at most drugstores where you use a saline solution water with a teaspoon of salt to flush through your nasal cavities and I am really sure that this one has significantly prevented me from having colds for quite a few years now. I've been doing this for over 10 years now and it helps me significantly especially if I haven't done it for for a while and then I notice this very slight stuffiness in the morning of oh there is something going on in my nasal cavities and then I do it for a few days in a row and I never get a cold. One of my favorites. By the way salt water is is pretty magic it's also good for when you have an onset of a sore throat to girdle with salt water warm salt water. So that is another follow-up as we move let's say further towards the face and then another piece for that in the morning is using a tongue scraper it's very also a very common practice in the areovitics to use a tongue scraper if you do not have a tongue scraper yet then you can use the back of a big spoon not the back the front so you have the edge of the big spoon to scrape down your tongue in the morning and to help you release any residue and that's been there. Some people use a toothbrush for it I'm not so much a fan of that I prefer the tongue scraper and if not if I don't have one available then I use a spoon. So that's the biggest one for taking care of the outside of my body and then yes there is physical exercise in whichever form that does you good so whether it's walks in nature or whether it's more vigorous I do alternate in between gentle practice I always get my yoga asana in because I love it and I may not do a full class every day I do some asana every day because it really benefits my body and the older we get the more beneficial it's gonna be so the earlier we pick up the practice and make it a solid part of our day the more gentle our body will age or or age not so much because we keep the joints lubricated and we keep ourselves flexible most of the injuries that we could get prone to get in later stages in our lives are due to falling and if we keep ourselves mobile and flexible but most importantly mobile then that chance lowers significantly. I got a good linea to my family for that my grandma is about to turn 99 I also still have my second grandmother so I'm I'm blessed with that and I won't take it for granted so moving every day to make sure that your joints are lubricated that you got some cardio in and working with weights to some degree you don't have to become a bodybuilder not at all science has shown that it's really beneficial to work with some significant weight for the resistance of your bones so whatever those exercises could look like for you maybe it is some squats maybe there's something else maybe it's push-ups that is also gonna be a long time preventative measure to keep you healthy way into old age and then from the outside part of the practice let's move to what we put into our bodies most importantly for me where I noticed the biggest difference the most quickly is hydration so to make sure I stay hydrated well enough is super important both for cognitive tasks where I need my brain and for physical tasks I start my morning with lemon water hot lemon water or warm lemon water and I've heard from a couple of people that it started bothering their teeth after a while what I've done for that to not be the case is I don't use a ton of lemon in there so I don't squeeze an entire lemon in my morning water I do a couple of splashes and that works really well for me the warm water helps our digestion to get going so that's the most gentle thing you can do to then go to the bathroom about ten minutes later and the lemon in addition helps your body release things that it doesn't need any longer so lemon water first thing and then I'm also a fan of celery juice if you're familiar with the medical medium then you know what that is all about if you're not familiar maybe you've heard about celery juice first of all it's one of many green juices that you could drink and I'm a big fan of green juices I would have a hard time eating all those veggies raw that go into a green juice for the simple amount of it and while the fiber in there may certainly be good for us as well I know that I would not chomp down an entire stalk of celery every single morning an entire bunch of celery I should say I have no problem drinking the juice of it and I get all the benefits from it I've done that for about one and a half years now the lemon water and the celery juice every morning and I feel that that has made big shifts for me and has done me really well in addition to this same liquid start into the day the main recommendation I want to make here because all of our bodies are very different and our nutritional needs may be quite different so instead of talking specifics I would like to invite you to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables in your diet it can be as simple as that when we have a lot of fruits and vegetables in our diet and you know what's best for your body there and if you don't know then there is a lot of qualified professional help out there to get you closer to that then that means there is less space for the stuff that is maybe not so great for us I know that I default to eating not so great when I didn't do my due diligence in shopping if I went grocery shopping and got myself a good bunch of fruits and veggies and that is what I default to if I didn't then I'll find whatever I can eat at home and that would usually be things that help me last a little longer so that we will be then dry goods and often stuff that I should not be consuming large quantities so that's where I want to leave it at with the nutritional part so getting a liquid start into the day warm water of any kind if you like to squeeze a bit of lemon in it it's great to get the digestion going and then celery juice or another green juice if that floats your boat and then a lot of veggies during the day and fruit as much as you consider it good for you oh last one for the physical body really important our breath breathing breathing is such a magic tool so for those of you who have been following me for a bit you know that I also have breathing practice here on inside timer but on a yam as we call it in the traditional yogic lineage and while specifically in pranayama we use the breath to also move energy through the body and have more benefits to it even if we look at it purely on a physical level for the benefits of releasing things then your breath is the easiest way to release stuff from your body that has no business being there so the breath can be used to release emotions really well the breath can be used to help release thoughts that are stuck and that are not helpful to us and the breath will also release a lot of the toxins that we get into our body over the course of the day now I don't want to sound like doomsday when I say the toxins that we get into our body over the course of the day there is a lot of exposure that is more difficult to avoid unless you're very diligent about it whether that's your exposure to plastics or to environmental toxins if we live in the city then there naturally is quite a bit of exposure and so every way how we can release that again is great and deep breathing is one of those ways and then because these breathing practices also really help us with the mind let's use that one as a transition to move on to cleansing the mind so the breathing practices here will allow us to put our mental baggage down to let go of what is going on in our thinking mind to give ourselves a break from ruminating to give ourselves a break from suffering through some emotions because we're following the trains of thought that are attached to them and with that a lot of peace can come so if you would like to try out those breathing practices I have a set of them on my website to get started in a little course for free and have breathing practices on insight timer recorded and ready to go there's different lengths of them and while we know for example that it may be beneficial for us to do 30 minutes of exercise we know that five minutes of exercise is definitely better than no exercise so I want to invite you to pick it up for a few minutes if you can instead of saying I don't have half an hour and then see if you notice benefits for yourself how do you feel after five minutes of deep breathing to a certain pattern and there are patterns to release energy there are breathing patterns to get more energy and there are breathing patterns to balance out everything that is going on so the simplest one that you may have heard of before to name one concrete one in here is the box breath so you can start with inhaling for four then pausing your breath for four exhaling for four and then staying empty for four let's just do a couple of rounds right here so inhale 1234 pause 1234 exhale 1234 pause 1234 inhale 1234 hold 1234 exhale 1234 pause 1234 if you like you can continue for a few rounds while I continue the talk so you may notice that this breath at the same time manages to ground you in a physical way and it usually leads to more mental clarity so you will also notice that you feel a little bit more spacious in your head a little less cluttered afterwards when you do it for a few minutes and I swear that this breath has saved me a ton of times before presentations and talks so breathing practice is one really really useful tool for many situations in our lives and to cleanse the body as well as the mind now the next piece for a mental cleanse is to first notice what are the things that we put in our minds all day long there is the work that we have there is the media that we expose ourselves to there is the media that we get exposed to for example when we walk down the street and there are same advertisements there are bulletin boards that are pretty much in our face so a lot of the time we might not be able to filter out all the media that we don't wish to be exposed to and yet we do have a choice on how much we focus on that so we can let it fade into the background we can focus on what we wish to matter for us because where we place our intention we place our attention and therefore that's where our energy flows I have also noticed even after being quite diligent for many years on which media I consume that sometimes I get into an overconsumption pattern so I go through that every once in a while with podcasts I will make it a habit to listen on part two podcasts for example on my bicycle or while walking and I get so much in the habit of doing that that I again have a constant stream of media even though it is deliberately curated it is still constant input so I would listen to it on my way to work in the morning on my bicycle and then I would be at work at a constant stream of input and then I would be on my way home with a constant stream of input or on my way to working out and so that continued input then would leave me really mentally tired and I was wondering after a couple of days like what's going on I feel somewhat disconnected from myself and then I realized oh I've been having constant input I have not been spending time with my soul me myself and I so there is a lot to be said for off technology time and for off input time in stillness and that stillness can be somewhere in nature that is actually my favorite favorite way or it can be at home by myself so the first part is let's be aware of which media inputs we let in whether that is social media whether that is podcasts that we choose to listen to whether that is entertainment in the form of movies or series and whether that's which news outlets we consume all of that matters and all of it accumulates as well and in the second piece is can we make sure that we spend some time off technology and then because that for me leaves a ton of time to pack full with socializing which is all wonderful and important and it really matters to me to hang out with like-minded people to spend time in deep conversation to spend time playing doing aqua yoga that's one of my favorites and it could be whatever playtime that is for you make sure you get some playtime in with other people and then there is still a segment for time and stillness yes that can be our meditation practice and can there be a little more of it can there be maybe some little chores that I do in silence and very deliberately or is it going for a little walk without anything else going on maybe it's riding a bicycle maybe it's sitting next to a lake and watching the lake my my parents have a little cabin in Austria by lakeside overseeing a lake overlooking a lake and we have that that joke of I gotta go watch the lake watch the lake as in guard the lake so that nothing happens which means we sit out on the front porch and we'll be looking at the lake in stillness doing exactly that and it's very precious time maybe it's looking into a bonfire or a candle maybe it's watching the clouds can be pretty magical to observe the beauty that's all around us the birds in the tree yes so you find your flavor of the magic of nature and spend some time with that and third because I mentioned other people earlier there is also a choice of how much time we spend with people who may not have such a good influence on us or with people who may have a very good influence on us while we may not want to completely cut out people that we know we shouldn't spend too much time around maybe there is a good reason for why we do want to have a relationship with them and we can be very conscious of where our energy goes when we do spend time with each other and maybe that's I don't know a family relative that you know you care about them because they're part of your family and and you wish to maintain a relationship and at the same time you also know that you want to be conscious about the amounts of time that you spend together because the way how they act and are in the world tends to drain you or tends to wear on you in some way so being deliberate about the time that we spend together and the energy that we bring to those encounters is really important and I have a practice of when I notice that an energetic space doesn't do me well and I do not choose to remove myself from it immediately then I put up an energetic bubble around me so I set the intention and I visualize an image within myself that there is my energetic bubble around me that I can feel and that nothing else can come in from the outside and it helps me a lot visualization and imaging are powerful techniques and after such encounters I will also make a deliberate effort to release energy that I've collected so I will ground myself if I can I'll put my bare feet on the ground and with every exhale I will deliberately let that energy flow into the ground by the way if you're concerned about mama nature soaking up that negative energy its energy which means that it gets neutralized it gets neutralized when we release it back into the earth it gets transmuted it gets recycled and it's good so a little recap for the body part we talked about having a morning practice to get a good start into the day that can include dry brushing a cold shower oiling the body nasal rinse scraping the tongue and then moving to what we put inside hydrating really well warm lemon water first thing maybe a celery juice or a green juice and then having a lot of veggies and fruit during the day depending on what your body needs of course always and definitely having a lot of water-based vegetables and fruits that that you like or that you can handle well and then make sure that you get some breathing practices in because the breathing practices will help you cleanse both the body and the mind and this is where we shift into the mind practices so being conscious of what inputs we expose ourselves throughout the day whether that is people or media screen time in general specific news outlets the type of entertainment that we watch the type of social media that we consume and expose ourselves to and whether we place our energy there where we really want to place it so being deliberate with our time and energy and how we spend it that leads us to being conscious about do I get enough time off technology do I get enough time with people that are good for me to spend time with and do I get enough time to spend by myself to spend some time in stillness in nature to have the time to listen to my soul because that's truly why we do all of this yes it is to maintain our bodies and our minds healthy long term and then there is more benefit to it so this gives us the foundation to really tune in with our soul and especially if we're on a spiritual path it allows us to take the practice deeper and one of the reasons for that is it removes a ton of distractions so when we physically cleanse our body when we clean up our diets then our body is not ruled so much by sugar highs and low caffeine highs and lows and by digesting really heavy things or by dealing with a lot of processed additions and then we can become more sensitive to what is going on inside and that's then where the mental cleanse comes in because all of a sudden that action movie is way harder to handle and it used to be before like I noticed that I've become way way more sensitive to violence and movies over the years and and I'm more deliberate in what I choose to to really consume so we also become more sensitive to everything that's going on inside of us emotionally that is not triggered by media consumption that is instead coming from within we may notice that there are giggly highs during the day like all of a sudden I'll find myself riding on my bicycle and I'll just start laughing out loud because you know being a little speck of dust hurtling through space is kind of funny and then I'm a speck of dust on the speck of dust I all of this life is so fleeting and yet every moment can be so precious that I sometimes get a really good laugh out of how darn serious I take it all the time and so remembering that and letting go in a good laugh and reminding myself that I'm good I got food I got a roof I have people in my life who care and most of all I care I'm good that doesn't mean that I push away the things that may sometimes be hurting I will acknowledge and feel those as well and it's good to have that reset to remember all the blessings that I have in my life not to push the pains away to know that both are there and to know that being a human and the human experience includes that paradox of being able to hold gratitude and pain at the same time the pleasure and the worries at the same time sometimes I'm happy and sad at the same time it's all part of this beautiful gift that we have received that's why it's called the present let's sit for a moment in stillness and let that settle take a deep breath with me ah you and then notice what resonates within your soul you you you you you you and then as you listen to that resonance is there a commitment that you wish to make to yourself maybe to pick up one of these practices maybe several as I mentioned at the beginning when we tried to pick up ten new practices at a time then that may become overwhelming and we drop it all so for me it often works better to do a couple of changes at a time to be able to stick with them maybe you've taken a couple of notes maybe you take a couple of things with you for this week and maybe you take a couple of things for next week to see what resonates with you and what sticks and for some of them we will have to make them a habit for a while to be able to notice a difference for example when you take a cold shower one morning you may feel really energized afterwards and it may also get you a moment to take your moment to get over yourself to actually do it and making that a habit makes it easier the tense cold shower is not as bad as the first one and for a couple of other things it's about making it the easy default so when we want to change certain habits in our lives and we can always ask ourselves how can I make this as easy as possible for me to default to the thing that's better for me and maybe that's having the lemon ready to go in the morning maybe it's a post-it note somewhere I've posted notes all over the place so whatever works for you as a reminder maybe you put it as an alarm in your phone make that happen and choose one thing for yourself right now don't overthink choose right now good with that I want to thank you very much for taking this time to invest in yourself to take good care of yourself and hopefully getting some useful new suggestions for how you can take care of yourself even better