2020 has been a crazy year! And, it ain’t over yet… Still, I love the season of Autumn with its cool evenings and mornings, warm afternoons, and wild bursts of gold, orange, and red everywhere you turn.

Fall is the season for letting go, surrendering to What Is, and going with the flow. Not easy, my friends. I want to share three practices to support you in this season. I’ve been recently reminded of them by my friend Melani, a fellow energy healer, to help me make it through this election cycle with a bit more equanimity.

Microcosmic Orbit 9-Breath Meditation (< 3 minutes)

You can find lots of ways online to do the Microcosmic Orbit, a practice that dates back to ancient China. This is my quick and simple version to get you started.

• 3 Breaths: Place your tongue on the roof of your mouth and tighten your pelvic floor muscles (like doing a kegel exercise). As you inhale, imagine drawing the oxygen and energy up your back and over your crown. As you exhale, visualize the co2 and energy flowing down the front of your body. Keep going for a second breath. You are gathering up and concentrating stress that has accumulated in your body. On the third breath, release your tongue and pelvis on the exhale, and visualize giving the gathered energy to mother earth to be cleansed and recycled.

• 3 More Breaths: For the next three breaths, keep your muscles relaxed. As you breathe in, draw energy up from the earth into your root chakra, and up your back. As you breathe out, allow the energy to move down the front of your body. You are flowing love and light into all of the cells of your body.

• Final 3 Breaths: Once again, place your tongue on the roof of your mouth and tighten your pelvic floor muscles as you continue to breathe and visualize in the same way. This keeps the energy from flowing out, and strengthens your core. At the end of your final, or 9th, breath, relax all of your muscles and notice how clear and alive you feel.

Loving-Kindness Meditation (~ 10 minutes)

This is another practice that has been around for a very long time. Recently, scientists have found this meditation to have measurable benefits, such as decreasing your bias towards other people, increasing your feelings of empathy, and boosting your pro-social behavior. You can learn more from my post 3 Ways That Loving-Kindness Meditation Can Make You a Better Person.

Over the years, I’ve found this practice to be especially helpful when dealing with my frustrations towards other people, like my live-in, 96-year old mother-in-law, those idiotic politicians in Washington, or the rioters who are looting and burning our cities.

This is my version of the meditation. I find it helpful to use the Timer feature on the free meditation app Insight Timer to cue me with a bell, every two minutes.

• Begin with a self check-in. How am I feeling today? What three intentions or well-wishes would best support my balance? Phrase your intentions using positive “I am” language. For example: “I am peaceful. I am joyful. I am strong.”

• For two minutes, repeat your intentions to yourself: I am peaceful. I am joyful. I am strong.

• For the next two minutes, give those same intentions to someone who is, in that moment, easy to love. It could be your partner, your child or grand-child, your dog, your best friend. Picture that person and repeat to yourself: May you be peaceful. May you be joyful. May you be strong.

• For the next two minutes, give those intentions to someone you feel neutral about.

• Here’s where the meditation gets most interesting… For two minutes, share your intentions with someone you have an issue or conflict with: May you be peaceful, joyful, and strong.

• And finally, for the last two minutes, share your loving intentions with all beings everywhere. In those 10 minutes, you have done your soul work for the day!

Qigong Flow for Autumn (17 minutes)

This flow by Marissa really helps to open the Lung Meridians. I have found this to be especially helpful in recent weeks, given all of the smoke and ash in the air from the wild fires. It can also strengthen your lungs as a safeguard against the corona virus.