028 - Mini Musing: Your Center
Welcome, dear ones. In today’s mini musing, I explore widening our perspective, finding our center, and chakra meditations for self-connection.
I begin by revisiting my reflections on widening and discussing the power of expanding our perspective to help us regulate our system and alleviate feelings of anxiety or threat. Then I explore the importance of narrowing in and finding our center, as both expansion and contraction are necessary for balance and healing.
To support you in returning to center, I share a hand motion and meditation taught to me by Brigit Viksnins and Karen Kenney.
Join me to learn an embodied practice for moving from wide to center, where we’ll travel the chakras together from our crown to our root and back again.
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Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:05]
Hello, welcome. I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love, and life-saving tools. Join us.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:37]
Hello and welcome to Mini Musings. In episode 22 of Threshold Moments, I did a mini musing on this idea of widening. What happens when you're looping in an old pattern, when your mind is ruminating, when your body is tightening up and you're thinking about the same thought or feeling the same feeling over and over again. Maybe you're in a double bind where You have these two things, I must, but I can't. The sacred third is not available to you. The idea of widening was that it not only changes our hormones for us to begin to see and feel differently, but as we change our stance to being wider, as we change our vision to being wider, as we start to notice more things outside of us and around us, there's a possibility that our system may begin to regulate, that even just as our eyes begin to look wider, something happens and that our breath changes, our head tends to move back in space a little bit more, and it tells our nervous system we are not in a threat situation. And I think sometimes the way we hear something is that therefore wide is good, centered and focused would therefore not be good. However, of course, this is the both and scenario.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:07]
So that widening is a tool, but also coming to center, narrowing in, in, in, in. So like we have our expansion and we have our contraction. So today I wanted to step into the field of our center. our central line, ourselves coming home to ourselves. I told myself this one does not have to be long. It could be as simple as when you begin to notice that you are worried about Joe and what is going on with his family and is he okay? And then you're worried about Janine and what's going on with her back or her marriage or her left foot or the male person or, and you just notice that your worries and concerns are for everybody else around you. that there's this really beautiful hand motion that Bridget Vixens did for me in our session when my mind was doing this. But also I'm recalling that Karen Kenny also does this. She has not been on the podcast yet. She has her own podcast. She's hilarious. She's deep. She's wise.
Sarah Tacy [00:03:40]
So if you were to take your arms out wide, spread out from your chest, spread out from center line, and then begin to bring your hands in towards center so that all 10 fingers are facing up towards the sky. And as they come towards center, your right hand would come directly underneath your left hand and the right hand lands just about in the center of the chest. And it's this mudra that reminds you to just come back to you. It can also remind us of, right, heaven and earth. Come back to you. Come back to yourself. I did an interview with Bridget today that will come out on the next episode. So your center is episode 28, what you're listening to now, and episode 29 will be with Bridget Vixens herself. And as I asked her about her process of coming towards self love or self-care. And what I was really looking for her to share with the listeners was how for her, it had to start with self like love for others until eventually her capacity would grow for love for herself and for just even acknowledging like, oh, and I exist. And what she ended up doing was kind of taking us through this chakra meditation and The chakras in the yogic tradition are seven energy centers. And so from the top of your head, just above your head, you would have your seventh chakra.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:24]
And this one is going to be about spiritual knowledge, connection to the divine. And there may be parts of you that are like, yep, nope, don't have that. That's frozen, that's blocked off. Or maybe it's like so widely opened and then something physical is blocked off. But we'll say for today, as we're thinking about the center line, again, the easiest way is just saying, I'm going to bring my attention back to myself, back to my body, back to here and now. If we were to start at the top, It might be just a statement like, I know. I understand. It might be, I am divinely guided. And if I were to bring it to my third eye, the sixth chakra, I might begin to notice my intuition. And if intuition feels elusive, which it often can when we're like spread out in all directions, if I bring my attention to my center and actually to my third eye right in between my two eyes and maybe just so it's slightly above right between my eyebrows, I might say, then is there anything I can intuit? I see my wisdom, my inner wisdom. And even if I don't have an answer, like if I'm worried about all these things and there's no answer for all of them, it could just be that I bring my attention back to, I call my attention back. I call my energy back to my intuition, my awareness, whatever clarity will show itself. And the fifth chakra. So this is going to be the throat center. This is going to be about communication, self-expression. This might go back to the Tamika interview about truth aches.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:01]
This chakra has to do with, you know, really connecting that inner wisdom, that sixth chakra and the fourth one of the heart. Bringing your heart and your intuition and using those to speak your truth, my truth. I speak my truth. And as we bring our attention down to the heart, if you want, you could take your hands to your heart. There's a part of me that's like, don't speed over the fifth chakra. I speak my truth. And just knowing that each one of these is like its own lifetime journey and that small dual piece of just declaring it. And as the hands now come down to the heart, maybe I'll add that the heart is the color green. Go back to it later and add the colors. The heart is going to be about relationships. So we're going from this like ethereal, spiritual wisdom to your self-intuition to your truth and bringing that wisdom into verbalization and then coming down to the heart, you're including others. relationships, compassion, healing. And the statement might just be, I love. Whoa. I have a heart. Maybe I love is too big. I have a heart. And maybe there's I love. Maybe there's I love nature. I love another. Maybe there's an I love myself or part of myself. I love. Moving down to the solar plexus. This is going to be about your strength, your purpose, your personality.
Sarah Tacy [00:10:14]
I love putting my hands here too. This is the center of fire. Manipura. I will because I choose. I love to add choice into this one. I don't often see it on charts, but I feel like this is choice. So it's like willpower, but willpower with choice. This is very much like, this is where you bring yourself into the world and say like, okay, had this idea, I spoke about it, and now I'm going to make it happen. This is the, I will, I can, I do creativity. This is Digestion. I, I can, I will, I choose, I do. And moving down, down to the belly, I tend to notice as being right below the belly button, your sacral chakra, that center of sexuality, often seen as the color orange, pleasure, sensuality. I often. And this word creativity can get moved to different chakras. I often think of this as creativity. I think of this as masculine, feminine, kind of weaving back and forth. It's a water element, emotions. Like belly dancing, Shakira is coming to mind. That's definitely not on the chart.
Sarah Tacy [00:11:47]
This is, I feel. We open our song circles on Wednesday afternoons at our studio, and it's like, what are you feeling? And it's not that you are that thing, right? It's just kind of like a passenger coming by, a feeling that's in the body at the moment. And to not even have like a good feeling or a bad feeling, but just, I feel. What do you feel? There's no stigma on any feeling. And you begin to name with more discernment various feelings. What do you feel? And when there are no names, just to notice even sensations, which maybe go all through your body, but this place of pleasure, sensuality, like I claim pleasure. I claim my sensuality, my ability to sense. This is an area of reproductive, again, going to creativity. It doesn't have to be a human. I feel. and the bottom one, the first chakra. And so you can go in any order here because you can see how top down would give a certain energy to it as if you're moving from the ethereal and when you get to the base chakra, the red, the root chakra, the energy of grounding and health and family and money, the adrenals, the idea of safety. This is also the physical form. I have a body. I have legs. This is an I am statement.
Sarah Tacy [00:13:22]
This is the place of existence. I am here on this earth. I have a body, which for many people with trauma, when you kind of escape from the body and you just stay in the head because it's a safe place, you get to kind of skip out of the feelings, right? And you just go right up to the head. This sometimes could be really scary for someone to come down to, I feel. Each chakra has its place for trauma where it's like it could be hypo or hyper in balance. This is like your adrenals kind of drop down a little bit. They can rest in your lower back. I am safe. I am grounded. I am here. I exist. The hyper. would be, Bridget and I speak about this in the next episode, this idea so fast. I'm going to try to get all my work done. I have so many to-dos, and if I have my to-dos done, it'll prove that I exist. It'll prove I'm here. It'll prove that I'm worthy, and I'm going to go, go, go, go, go, go until I collapse. This is going to be like, I start with I'm safe, one in health, right? When this chakra is in health, I start with I'm safe, I'm here.
Sarah Tacy [00:14:45]
And then your adrenals can give you healthy velocity, healthy speed, healthy fast, and then we would rest again. If you're curious about somatic exploration or nervous system support, you can check out the link below to make a connection call if you're feeling serious about it or truly curious. You can do a one-off session. And because this work, especially in relationship to the nervous system, is small, doable pieces over time, I would consider thinking about a one month, two-month, or three month period of time that you might dedicate towards nervous system support. Again, you can start with a smaller step of a connection call if it's calling you. I'll go from the bottom up, not in as much depth, but just again, to bring us back to center. So remembering the medicine of widening and now also coming back to center. So if you find yourself worrying about the past or the future or other people or how other people should do things, And all the should, here we come back to center. You can do that arm motion that Bridget did for me, that Karen Kenny does, just as like, oh, from wide to center. And maybe that your hands come together or that they stack. We take a breath here. And then maybe lowering the hands all the way down to your lower back. I am here. I exist. Maybe you even feel your legs. I have legs and adrenals. I am grounded. I am safe. And in trauma resolution work, if you and I were one-on-one, if any of those didn't feel real, we totally wouldn't force it. You'd go, yeah, get it. You're not grounded right now. We'll put in a representative. We'll put in like a little rock on your desk of imagining into the one who is grounded or holding a space for one that doesn't feel grounded, and we'll come back to that one. So imagine if anything I'm saying is kind of ******* you off because like, that's not true. That you could say, hey, I'm going to come back to that one who obviously would love, or maybe not even obviously, who possibly could use some attention. Then we go up to the second chakra, orange. I feel I am sensual. I am creative. You can see which ones work for you and which ones don't and leave the ones that don't for now.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:12]
Moving up to the third. I can, I will, I do, I choose. This is my place of fire. This is where I digest and transmute. This is my spark. Moving up to fourth chakra, I love. Leave what doesn't work for you. Keep what fits for now. That brings you to your center. I love, I love myself. I love parts of myself. There are some people in this earth that I love. There are some pets and animals and creepy crawlies that I love. There is nature that I love, I appreciate. I see myself in an ecosystem. Moving up, I speak. I aim to speak my truth. I use my voice for self-expression and for communication. Moving up to the third eye. a place of intuition. You might bring your fingertips. I find myself bringing my middle finger and ring finger and pointer and kind of just rubbing this place in between. I see. I am clear. I have access to wisdom. I have access to intuition. Clarity is available. And finally, crown of head. I understand. I have access to bliss, to a central nervous system. I know. I'm open. May this be in service of you, to you, for you. I would say if you're in a threshold, but truly just living life, if today your mind is moving faster than you want it to, or maybe overwhelmed and therefore in a freeze, that perhaps you could do today's mini musing. and find yourself, come back to yourself, return to yourself. And if you're needing widening, it's as easy. It's like moving your head back in space, that these two can actually coexist and that it might help give some of those really great supportive hormones of power if you just, you know, need it to broaden your stance a little bit too. I'll say you have choice here. in hopes that this is of deepest service and with such great gratitude for every time you choose to tune in and possibly share with a friend. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Sarah Tacy [00:21:46]
I am grateful. Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy. It's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacey.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom, subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.