Murti means ‘body’ or ‘form’ in Sanskrit. It guides the breath to settle deep into the pelvis, anchoring balance, stability, and comfort within both body and mind. By grounding yourself and feeling your connection to the Earth, you cultivate a sense of presence and embodiment.
Murti mudra enhances the exhalation which allows the mind to relax and the body and energy to soften. It’s a soothing balm for a busy mind and restless energy.
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HOW TO: Fingers are interlaced with little fingers pointing forward. Hands are placed in Murti Mudra resting in the lap, or in front of the navel.
Hold for 5-10 natural breaths. State the intention statement three times out loud, then silently. Notice how you feel in body, mind, and emotions.
FIVE ELEMENTS: Murti Mudra activates and balances the Earth Element, and the Root Chakra, as well as the downward flowing current called Apana vayu. This allows you to release stress and feel presence within your body and solid ground beneath you.
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Increases both steadiness and ease.
Cultivates mindful awareness in body and mind.
Helps to optimally align the spine.
Release of stress and can lower blood pressure.
Supports treatment of anxiety.
Cautions: None
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These mudras and information provided are modified from Mudras for Healing and Transformation by Joseph and Lilian LePage, Integrative Yoga Therapy.
Here are ideas for some of the most important ways I’ve found to live fully embodied.
Above all, remember that your body is a gift from beyond, a mystery to honor, respect and listen to.
Practicing Body Scan daily by listening to a recorded yoga nidra, or silently guiding it on your own is a deep way to connect, with a listening ear to your, body and it’s messages.
Spend time outdoors (in every season) to allow your natural rhythms and clock to balance, to breathe the air and to feel your body on the Earth. Be sure to notice all the beautiful and sacred forms and shapes of nature all around. Even if you’re in the city, find trees, sky and look for where there is a gathering of nature – it’s everywhere!
Exercise your body gently doing what’s fun for you each day. It’s so easy to play one song in the house and have a good ‘ol dance to it to wake up a sense of flow in the body! Yoga postures, walking, the gym, swimming, anything that feels good to you.
Make getting enough sleep a priority. Set helpful boundaries to support it. For example, in my house, we turn all ‘screens’ off at 8:30pm and find that helpful for winding down.
When there is pain or discomfort in the body parts, often it can be muscular tension. Try these easy remedies:
Drink 3x as much water as you are now. Rehydrating the body can help to soften and dissipate pain.
For muscular tension, massage the body part gently with a tennis ball. This works great on the upper traps (above the shoulder blades) and between the shoulder blades, thighs, calves, feet, and especially the gluts.
Practice daily self-massage with warm oil to oxygenate the soft tissues, help remove toxins from the body like lactic acid, and foster a nurturing connection with yourself.
Abhyanga is a potent healing and rebalancing self-massage for your internal five elements. The rhythmic flow of movement activates the lymphatic system to help you detoxify. And the relaxing nature of this massage shifts you into the parasympathetic healing mode of the nervous system, allowing your body and being a chance to balance and heal naturally.
You can practice Abhyanga ‘dry’ over clothing or directly on the skin. Or you may like the addition of warmed oil on skin like almond or sunflower oils (BanyanBotanicals.com has many options for constitution and season). When using oils, take a shower afterward, using minimal soap to allow the oil to soak in. The oil acts as a ‘medicine’ which the steam of the shower helps the skin and nerves absorb. This aids in calming both the mind and nervous system, and also the oil and steam draw impurities and toxins out of the body.
Practice daily if possible: in the morning or before bed at night are good times. Seated comfortably on the floor, use long, repetitive strokes on the bones; and circular strokes on the joints. I send you many blessings on your journey of health and wellness!
“The first duty of love is to listen.” ~ Paul Tillich
Listening is a skill that has not always come easy to me. I have had the opportunity to grow over the years with the help of some very skillful teachers and methods at Kripalu Center, where for the last twenty years I have had the great fortune of being both a student and teacher.
Listening can bring potency to virtually all aspects of life — personal, professional and spiritual, but it can also be one of our greatest challenges. Are you able to quiet your own thoughts and put aside your need to figure things out, to create space to listen, really listen, to the person in front of you speaking?
Do you find yourself butting into your friend’s story to offer them your solution before they’ve even finished? Do you sometimes try to get your own words in, to make yourself heard, instead of truly listening? Can you simply be with another’s words, taking them in, letting impressions wash through you before interpreting and responding? Listening can be difficult – we may feel we want to be helpful and fix the other person, or perhaps be reminded that we ourselves want to be heard.
What’s interesting is that people who listen well are respected, trusted and sought after. Good listeners can be so rare that when you’ve found one, you don’t want to let them go, because you feel connection, like they understand you; you feel special, heard, important and that you matter — which you do — and a good ‘ear’ gives you this confirmation.
The secret power of listening is that it fosters connection and brings us closer together as human beings. Unity! Your ability to listen helps everyone around you feel respected, honored and seen, whether its the mail person, check-out clerk at the grocery store, our children, family, beloved, friends, workmates or even that person who annoys you. Feeling more connection and togetherness instills peace, belonging and can increase relaxation within the mind, emotions, and the nervous system.
CO-LISTENING PRACTICE
One of the first communication methods I learned at Kripalu is still my favorite is Co-Listening. This is great to do after a yoga or yoga nidra practice or class, with a friend or partner. This technique helped my husband and I learn how to listen to each other in the beginning of our relationship. It turned arguments into understanding and for that I am truly grateful!
Here’s How
Sitting shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip with another so that you’re facing opposite directions, you each will have a turn to play the role of ‘listener’ and ‘speaker’ roles.
Set a timepiece to chime after 2-3 minutes, or more if you like. Speaker #1 shares their authentic truth, speaking in “I” statements about themselves and what they notice in this present moment. (E.g. it could begin with reporting out how your body feels “My leg aches… my belly feels great…” and go from there).
Imagine the listener has big ears, a big heart, and no mouth! The role of listener is to simply receive what the speaker shares without needing to fix the person or respond in any way.
After the chime rings, take a few deep breaths and switch roles.
