Welcome to Self Care Challenge

Welcome to the Self-Care Challenge. I'm Kelly Sunrose and I'm really happy you're here. This is a 10-day immersion. These are self-care practices designed to reveal our deepest, truest nature. We'll be caring for the self, loving the self in order to, in a sense, get over ourselves. We'll be using, as our blueprint, 10 practices that have been passed down from the yogis and rishis and sages who came many many years before us. We'll be using the yamas and the niyamas. These are ways of honoring others and honoring the self. Self-care happens every day. What you do every day matters. What nourishes and fortifies you. What are you giving your attention to? Start to pay attention to the kinds of conversations you're entertaining, the media you're consuming, the things that you're putting on and in your body. These things have an effect. They affect all parts of you. So just start to notice. Our practice works in circles and it works in cycles. We prepare for the practice by doing the practice. Our sacred sadhana primes us for our sadhana. Self-trust is the advanced practice. This is something our teacher Eric Schiffman has said and it is something I have repeated over and over to myself in those moments where I just didn't think I could trust myself but knew that I should, knew that I could, knew that that is what the moment required. Self-trust is radical self-care. This is the kind of work we'll be doing in this immersion. So welcome to you. Let's talk a little bit about how this will be structured. The basic format of the immersion will have components of daily practice, daily study, and an invitation to connect. The nuts and bolts will be that every day will circle up around a topic of self-care. Again using the yamas and the niyamas, these ethical and personal practices, as our guidepost for the day. There will be a video introducing the practice where we will have an opening ceremony, a ritual for beginning the day, followed by a talk on the philosophy underlying that day's practices. Then we'll move into a movement practice, a meditation practice, or a breath practice, and usually we wind up with some sort of contemplative practice where we engage with the philosophy and look at it in relation, in relationship with our own lives. For those contemplative practices I would invite you to choose the medium that speaks to you. Whether that's journaling with pen and paper, writing on your laptop, using your voice recorder, singing, collaging, painting, whatever calls to you, go to that. Let yourself drop deeply into the practices. And finally, it's good to remember that these practices exist in relationship, in relationship with you and where you are in your life, right now as it stands, and in relationship with others. Your practice meets you where you are. Your practice is designed for right now, right here, in the middle of your life. Yoga is happening. Yoga is happening when you have a cold, like me, or when you're trying to find child care for your beautiful children, when you're trying to pay your student loans or get a new job. Yoga is there. Yoga isn't just for when things have all been sorted out or figured out. And like I said, the practices exist in relationship with others. So I would recommend that you practice with a friend or a couple of friends or with a group, if you'd like. Share your experience. Practice being vulnerable. Practice being honest. Practice trusting yourself and trusting your voice. Trusting your experience. Trusting your practice. I'm so happy you're here. We're in this together. Let's get started.