… a felt-sense of internal safe-haven or your mini holiday!

Would you like to feel in control most moments of your life?  Would you like to experience a sense of ease, well-being and security.  Would you like to have a tool accessible to you every day, anywhere and anytime to help you navigate the ups and downs of life?  Then let’s explore the idea of an Inner Resource together.

Where from and says who.

The term Inner Resource stems from Richard Miller, founder of iRest Yoga Nidra.  The idea as such is not new. However, there are a few concrete steps to help us find, anchor, and practice our Inner Resource.  It is also one of the full ten steps to an iRest-Yoga Nidra practice.  I recently had the good fortune of taking a course with one of his senior lecturers.  You will have experienced Yoga Nidra in one of our Retreats, Master classes and Meditation Workshops.  For more on Yoga Nidra, please see my blog “What is Yoga Nidra” here: https://theartofbalance.com.au/what-is-yoga-nidra/

What is an Inner Resource?

An Inner Resource is a tool to help you feel secure, in control, at ease, joyful, nurtured and happy during the practice of iRest-Yoga Nidra, meditation AND most of all, in daily life.  It is a resource that you can come to at any time.  It is totally unique to you.  Your Inner Resource is designed to help you feel empowered, in control of and at ease with every experience you have in your life.  Your inner safe-haven.  It can be a multi-sensory image that you create in your imagination and feel in your body and that you can return to at any time you chose to.

How to find your Inner Resource.

1. Think of and bring to your mind a place, a person, an image, an object or an experience that brings you feelings of joy, safety, wellbeing, calm and ease. This could be: your children, your pet, a loved one, a holiday destination, a special place in your home or garden, a symbol, a wisdom figure, a photo, or a memory of an experience.  See if you can add as much detail as possible to this image.  You can add sound, taste, a smell or touch to the image you have brought up in your mind.
2. Now see if you can determine where in your body you feel those feelings like joy, safety, ease, happy, nourished when you imagine this image. Really allow yourself some time to locate exactly where in your body you feel these feelings.  Where is the impact of your Inner Resource in your body?  Make a visceral connection. Often this can be the heart, the chest, the stomach/belly or the throat.  Your choice, your sensation.
3. Now allow yourself to notice what exactly you feel in this body part. What are the bodily sensations you feel in that region/part of your body.  What is the effect of your image, your Inner Resource on that particular body part?  What are the energetic experiences? For example, you may feel the impact of your image in your stomach.  You notice your stomach feels warm, perhaps expansive, perhaps light or heavy, without any tension.  Perhaps your image makes you smile.  Perhaps you feel it in your heart as a warm & fuzzy feeling.  This is completely up to you.  Allow yourself the time to notice.

When and how to use my Inner Resource?

This information may seem basic or it may seem overwhelming to you.  Sit with it and see if it makes sense over time and if you can feel it.  Affirm your Inner Resource as truth in your mind and then feel it in your body.  The more details you will add and the more you use it, the more helpful it will be.

Now that you have found your Inner Resource, you can use it and bring it up anytime and every day in any way you like.

Allow your Inner Resource to emerge as a felt sense within your body.  Initially you may want to bring it up whenever you feel the need to feel secure, safe, calm and at ease.  Perhaps whenever you feel upset or out of control.  In the dental chair or before a flight, when taking uncomfortable phone calls, or trying to fall asleep.  Take your time with this.  Over time you may want to sense it when you’re happy already, or perhaps first thing in the morning to set the tone for the day.  Perhaps you’d like to finish the day with it.  Of course the more you practice it, the quicker, and more reliable your Inner Resource will become for you.  You can come to this well of love and inner calm whenever you need to.  It will become a state of being.

Traditionally, it can be your backdrop in any meditation, not only Yoga Nidra, whenever uncomfortable emotions and sensations come to the surface.

Let your Inner Resource be your backdrop, your inner safe-haven or your mini-holiday.

A final word.

The ability to sense, feel, experience and respond to the messages in our body and mind depends on our relationship WITH our body and mind.  Yoga, meditation, Yoga Nidra will help us address, develop and deepen that relationship.

So here we are, another reason to step on our yoga mat.  Another explanation why a wholesome yoga practice is more than a simple workout.  Another way of recognising yoga beyond asana (posture) practice.

Where can I get some and more?

All our yoga classes are wholesome and incorporate physical, mental and energetic practices. You will experience meditation and yoga nidra in our meditation workshops, master classes and our half day yoga & meditation urban retreats.  See website and social media for dates and timetable.

Happy practicing, see you on the mat.Here is how.

Commit to doing all or some of the following.  Commit to acknowledging that taking care of yourself first, is not selfish, it is essential. It is taking care of others too.  Acknowledge that you are enough and whole the way you are.  Right now.

• Appreciate your efforts. At work, at home, in public.
• Say to yourself “I am enough”, “I have enough” “I do enough”.
• Believe that you are enough.
• Do more of what makes your heart sing.
• Learn to say NO!. If it is not a hell yes, it is a no.
• Believe and say to yourself “I am a good father, I am a good mother, I am a good friend, and I am a good spouse. Acknowledge and know that you are doing a great job.  Rather than always strive for more, better, busier.
• Allow yourself to make a decision and then be ok with it. This one is huge.  If you decide to have that extra piece of chocolate, cake, fries etc, then be firm in your decision and support it.  No regrets.  Don’t beat yourself up after.  If you fall off the yoga bandwagon, do it with gusto, acknowledge, and come back when you are ready.  No regrets. No should haves.
• Feel what you feel. If you have physical sensations, acknowledge and validate them.  No, I shouldn’t feel that or that.  Acknowledge and notice, it is real.  Then of course if you feel you need to investigate, shift, change, you can respond accordingly.  First, acknowledge and validate.
• Notice what you notice. An emotion or a thought.  You ARE feeling that way, thinking that way.  Simply notice.  No judgement.  Do allow yourself that freedom of noticing and acknowledging.  If you feel sad, angry, tired, guilty, so be it. Notice.  If after that anything needs a response, well that is another story.  First – notice only. And validate.
• Don’t hide behind the ‘lack of time’.
• Write down your values.
• Own your values.
• Come to yoga class. This one allows you to practice many of those ideas.
• Look at yourself in the mirror. Start to connect to your body.
• Appreciate and thank your physical body. All of it.
• Buy yourself flowers
• Notice your food. Slowly and lovingly eat.  Fully present.  Because you love yourself.

What do I gain again?

• A healthy relationship with ourselves allows for healthy relationships with others. Love yourself first, if you’d like to attract love from others.
• Give love – the ability the love oneself fosters the ability to truly love another. No resentment, no deal. Unconditional love.
• Self confidence.
• Whole and lasting well-being and happiness.
• A new found zest for life.
• Less stress.
• More freedom to do the things that are important to you.
• Role model to those who watch you.

May you learn to fully accept and love yourself.  Have a wonderful day.

Bettina