Exploring the Chakras Through Yoga: Chakra 2 – “Creative life force flows through my entire body and life”

 As we continue on our journey through the chakras, we move up the central channel of the energetic body from chakra one to two. Through the first chakra we explored ways of connecting to our energetic roots and deepening our relationship with the earth through our yoga practice. The second chakra, or SVADISTHASANA as it is called in Sanskrit, invites us to reach out, expand, and connect towards “other.”

It deals with polarity, receptivity, sensation and desire.  Its element is WATER, whilst its associated celestial body is the MOON which pulls the oceans of water to and fro in a dualistic rhythmic motion. When the second chakra is balanced, we are able to experience emotional pleasure, flexibility, fluidity and creativity in life.

Energy blockages in this chakra can show up in co-dependency, neediness, or the feeling that we are not worth anything unless we are with someone else.

Through the practice of yoga we can explore ways to deepen our understanding of and connection to the fluid nature of this energy centre, helping us to bring the qualities of flexibility, creativity and fluidity into our lives.  The invitation with the second chakra, is to move slowly, fluidly, feel sensuous with movement and notice sensation within.

Each chakra is associated with a colour vibration. The colour of Svadisthasana is ORANGE. Try bringing more of this colour into your life, thereby attracting the vibrations associated with a healthy and functioning second chakra.

Orange Colour Meditation
Start by focusing softly on the centre of the sunrise in the image. As you inhale and exhale, imagine that you are breathing in the essence of the colour into the space just below your tummy button, that goes right the way through your middle to the sacrum, at the back of your body. Allow yourself to be infused with the colour vibration to feel renewed and emotionally balanced.

Millie Brereton is a certified yoga teacher, fitness and 

nutritional advisor and general lover of life. She is the founder of The Kula Centre of Learning and Personal Development and co-founder of Project Huerta. She lives in rural Northern Spain and delights in nature, Tantric philosophy and seeing the good in everyone who crosses her path. She can often be found in her kitchen blending juices and cooking up tasty treats from her organic farm, or bounding through the mountains with her two dogs, Bonnie and Kin. You can connect with her by visiting her webpage,www.thekulacentre.com or connect with her on facebook.

The Kula Centre - Yoga in Pamplona
Kula Kids Academia de Inglés, Pamplona

Project Huerta - Txoto Hill Farm

Valentine’s Day Partner Yoga

Seeking Love and Acceptance from Within and Extending Trust towards Others

As Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, for many people it represents feelings of loneliness and unmet expectations. In her article for the Huffington Post, Sara Ivanhoe likens our search for love to  “hungry tigers, we go out on the hunt and we'll eat it up in any form; romantic love, parental love, sibling love, love for a pet, adoration from our peers, approval from our teachers -- we'll take anything.” When we seek love from outside of ourselves we are often left with the feeling that we are “filling up a bucket that has a hole in the bottom -- no matter how much comes in we are left empty.”

I believe giving love and receiving love is essential to a happy life. The only way to get love is to give it – and give it to ourselves first.

Our yoga practice is a bit like giving

ourselves the gift of our own self-care and love. It invites us to accept ourselves just as we are: warts, saggy bits, racing-mind and all. By practicing compassion for ourselves, we are more likely to maintain our emotional stability and objectivity in our empathetic interactions with others.

When we go deeper into our own practice we get to experience the truest and best parts of ourselves. At the heart of Tantric philosophy is the teaching that at the core of each of us is Love. Our yoga practice allows us to connect with our truest Self, building a wholeness that makes us strong enough to support ourselves on our journey toward our own goals. That same strength is what enables us to say an authentic “yes” to others who need or want our help and support as they travel on their own paths.

Partner yoga offers a whole new and fresh perspective to our practice. Working with another person helps us to change pre-conceptions about what we can and can’t do. There’s an invitation to open our heart and body when working with someone else. We have to trust that the person

working alongside us will help and support us and we are invited to be there to do the same for him or her.

Whether you are a practising yogi, yogini, tantrika, meditator, or none of the above: find a moment as this Valentine's Day approaches, to sit or stand and connect to your breath. Breathe in love, acceptance and compassion for your Self, and as the love within grows, extend it out into the Universe. Extend your trust towards others by letting them do something for you, or support you in some way. Together we are One! 

Millie Brereton is a certified yoga teacher, fitness and

nutritional advisor and general lover of life. She is the founder of The Kula Centre of Learning and Personal Development and co-founder of Project Huerta. She lives in rural Northern Spain and delights in nature, Tantric philosophy and seeing the good in everyone who crosses her path. She can often be found in her kitchen blending juices and cooking up tasty treats from her organic farm, or bounding through the mountains with her two dogs, Bonnie and Kin. You can connect with her by visiting her webpage,www.thekulacentre.com or connect with her on facebook.

The Kula Centre - Yoga in Pamplona
Kula Kids Academia de Inglés, Pamplona

Project Huerta - Txoto Hill Farm

Celebrating the Winter Olympics with Children

The Bobsleigh Team

Celebrating the Winter Olympics with Children

The Winter Olympic Games have just begun! We've had a great week introducing our Kula Kids to this year's winter games in Sochi. 

Our kids loved diving into the dressing up box to pull out Winter clothes and accessories to look and feel the part as we took a “Trip to Russia to participate in the Games”! 

Figure Skaters

Snowboarders

We practised some yoga postures that represented some of the key winter sports at Sochi this year.We had great fun leading our own Classroom and Yoga room Olympic Games. 

We learned about the Olympic motto “Citius—Altius—Fortius”, which is Latin for "faster, higher, stronger." The intended meaning is that one's focus should be on bettering one's achievements, rather than on coming first. This served as a great lesson in the importance of taking part and doing your best.

Olympic Rings

We coloured our own Olympic rings, each of the five rings is a different colour and together, they represent the five inhabited continents (The Americas are treated as one continent).

Painting Olympic Themed Ice Skates

We talked about how the rings are interlaced to represent the idea that the Olympics are universal, bringing athletes from the entire world together. 

We ended the week by watching classic figure skating clips on youtube and making our own Olympic themed ice skates!

Adding Sparkles to the Ice Skates

Olympic Themed Ice Skates