by Brianna | Apr 19, 2021 | Chanting, Healing Yoga Practice, Kirtan, meditation
Chanting is one of my favorite practices. I have loved it for years now but it didn’t start that way. In the beginning the first time a teacher offered a chanting practice I picked up my mat and left. But once I discovered Kundalini Yoga where chanting is an integral practice – chanting became a regular part of my daily life. Music is a form of medicine and our nervous system is particularly tuned to the act of using our voice. This connection is due to the wandering nerve, also known as the vagus nerve or the 10th cranial nerve pair. This nerve innervates the vocal cords and the muscles of the throat (along with the heart, lungs, diaphragm, and digestive track – hence its “wandering” nickname). A sensory and motor nerve the vagus nerve both gives information to the body from the brain and takes information from the body back to the brain. It in many ways sets the tone for our overall resilience and in fact a healthy vagus nerve is one considered to have good tone. Chanting can seem intimidating but in actually it is just singing a repetitive verse or word (mantra). It may seem boring but there is known power in repetition – repetition can in fact relax us. This scientific reality was quantified by Dr. Benson at Harvard in the 70’s when he discovered the relaxation response by studying meditators who used mantra. The relaxation response, rest and digest response or parasympathetic activation (the peace part of your autonomic nervous system) is a zone of healing, peace and calm that is available to...
by Brianna | Feb 7, 2020 | Breathing, Change, Healing Yoga Practice, practice, Transformation, Yoga
I love a good 40 day practice. I find that the challenge of maintaining pushes me to stay focused and affords a depth of understanding that I can’t achieve without repetitive commitment. 40 days allows me to really experience the impact of the “work” and investigate how it makes me feel in a myriad of moods and states. Here are a few examples that I have committed to over the years: Kriya Yoga Set (Current 40 Day practice – read more below) Journaling Chanting a specific mantra Seated meditation Abhyanga (Dry Brushing and Oil Massage) Sun Salutations (2, 4, 6 – what number is right for you?) 5 Minutes of Breath work Currently I am 7 days into a 40 day practice of a Kundalini Yoga Kriya called: Kriya to Make You Enchantingly Beautiful(KTMYEB). The name irks me. So dumb. The Kriya however is a favorite. One thing I always liked about KTMYE is that it is a perfect 20 minutes – the first 14 minutes are real intense – I am modifying three of the five postures – then you rest. Over the next 40 days I will get stronger. Modify less. Meditate More. There will be days I hate it. Days I love it. Days I don’t want to do it. Days I do it twice. There will be insight and boredom, excitement and drudgery. Times it will feel like three seconds and others that I swear were hours. What I find is that there is a lot of power in the experience of simply showing up and doing the practice. What type of 40...
by Brianna | Jul 24, 2017 | Affirmations, Breathing, Change, Chanting, Healing, healing footstep to footstep, Healing Yoga Practice, Maine, practice
I have loved the word bittersweet since I first encountered it. I find that it describes the ebb and flow of life – also known as the flipping roller coaster of life – perfectly. So bitter that it bites. So sweet that it is like the first taste of nectar on the tip of your tongue. Life is more often than not a balance of opposites. Laughter through tears is something that I have experienced more times than I can count. So many feelings. Like a friend said to me once: “Brianna, you have feelings about your feelings.” July started with a beautiful bang. A book tour the length of the Maine Coast with workshops, readings and signings. My husband and I having downtime in between. My beautiful dog in her favorite place. My parents. My healing house. All good things. Delicious things really. But then life tilted and my ground shifted. In the very midst of all this beauty, joy and gratitude I had to put my beloved Shanti-dog down. One minute soaring, the next on my knees. I will write more about my Shanti-girl at a later point. She deserves her very own post but, I know you hear me when I say: its all too close right now. My grief is too heavy on me to really do her powerful being justice. This post is about the choice I had to make about my own behavior. It is always a choice and it is mine alone to make. Two options were clearly in front of me when this drama/trauma started. I could have either gone kicking...
by Brianna | Mar 24, 2017 | Change, Chronic Fatigue, Cooking with Intention, Five Minute Yoga Practice, Healing, healing footstep to footstep, Healing Recipes, Healing Yoga Practice, Maine, Moving Meditation, Power of Thought, practice, restorative yoga, silence, Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, Yoga
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 24, 2017 Brianna Bedigian Quiet Winds, LLC 240-409-2722 info@briannabedigian.com Spend An Afternoon with a Healer Book Signing and Sound Healing with Crystal Singing Bowls Saturday, April 29 in Davidson Davidson, NC (March 24, 2017): Local author and healer Brianna Bedigian will be hosting a uniquely restorative reading of her book Healing Footstep to Footstep at Main Street Books in Davidson on Saturday, April 29 from 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm. During this offering, Brianna will interweave excerpts of her writing with the pure sound of crystal singing bowls, aromatherapy and guided meditation. Crafting a multi-sensory healing that will leave guests refreshed from the experience. William Rollow, MD, MPH from the Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine had this to say about Brianna and her book, “How do we heal? Although each path is different, some footsteps are common: intention, acceptance of responsibility, turning toward the eternal, practice, support, doubt and darkness and pain and fear. Brianna knows how we heal.” Healing Footstep to Footstep is for anyone suffering with an illness – emotional, spiritual or physical. The willingness and intention to heal despite exhaustion and pain are often absent in stories of healing journeys. The reality is that healing begins one step at a time, often slowly and with acceptance of the self. Through storytelling, recipes, yoga lessons and meditation exercises, Brianna takes us on a journey of Self, where all healing begins. Available April 25, 2017 on www.amazon.com. About Brianna Bedigian Brianna Bedigian is an author, artist, teacher and healer who utilizes her personal journey, and years of formal...
by Brianna | Nov 18, 2015 | Fear, Five Minute Yoga Practice, Healing, Healing Yoga Practice, Yoga, Yoga Davidson
I think we can all agree that what is happening in the world is scary. There is violence, strife, poverty, and heartbreak pretty much in every direction. So much suffering is being actively created by the hands of FEARFUL man. Title it what you like but it is fear that is breeding the violence, greed, racism, extremism, the endless arguments about borders, and creating the absolute hell of war. That is fear – often labeled as something else – operating behind the scenes. Which begs the question: “How do you behave after you become afraid?” Not the very instant the fear strikes. But after it settles itself. After it becomes normal rather than abnormal to feel afraid. When the fear has become your bedrock. How then do you behave? Anxiety has always been an issue for me. My practice over time has become my medicine. If I don’t practice enough I notice my anxiety begin to spark and fire. I notice the heat beginning to build and I know I need to get back on my mat for longer practices. And I do. I hate anxiety! So I practice. She noticed her anxiety sneaking around, its darkness at her edges. It appeared as a crawling thing in the corner, a demon in the shadows. It took up space and sang its siren song of misery. Excerpt from Healing Footstep to Footstep For a long time I though my anxiety happened in a vaccum. I was anxious because I was anxious. OKAY?!?!?!?! But through the awareness that practicing yoga and meditation ultimately brings I now recognize that what I...
by Brianna | Oct 22, 2015 | Affirmations, Breathing, Healing Yoga Practice, Hypnosis Davidson, Power of Thought, practice, Reading Yoga Betterment, Yoga Davidson
Whenever I am out moving through a beautiful landscape it is so much easier to feel at ease. There is an abiding peace that happens when I spend time with the waters, the forest, the desert, and everything else in between. Does that happen for you? The world did not have to be beautiful to work. But it is. What does that mean? Mary Oliver Nature is my personal church. I find it easier to pray if I am outside. Usually I am walking. Sometimes I am dancing. After all, there is always a reason to rock out to the Joyful Song. Last night I listened to several interviews with Mary Oliver – she and Rumi are my most favorite poets. Much of the conversation was based on her love of a walk in the woods, both in reference to exercise and Walden’s beautiful book. Like him, her love of nature resounds throughout her writing. For an entire year, at the end of every yoga class I read Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese. Arguably a repetitive offering to my students. But I often find that there is power by way of repetition. I have certainly seen that power in my personal practice and in my students’ practices. During the course of the following interview she speaks to the the necessity of repetition and rigor in her art. She touches on the many failed attempts and the requirement to keep going, keep doing, keep writing. Plus she recites Wild Geese: Mary Oliver On Being Question: Where have you seen the power of repetition in your own life? To...
