Don't miss your chance to win an autographed copy of The Chakra Diaries plus a canvas book tote featuring the same, beautiful chakra heart. Just enter to win on the Giveaway page at www.TheChakras.org.
Namaste!
Becca
Namaste!
Becca
Becca, After reading The Chakra Diaries, I want to test my chakras to see where I may have imbalances. What do you suggest? There's a very good questionnaire at www.EclecticEnergies.com, that can give you an indication of which chakra/s could use strengthening. You can also have someone test you with a pendulum - any object hung on a string or chain that is able to swing freely. It works by responding to micro-muscular movements of the fingers, which are themselves responding to a focused question that you ask about something... you can choose what meaning to give to the following kinds of responses, e.g., clockwise circle - open chakra; counter-clockwise circle - closed chakra. I have also experienced a perfectly still pendulum when a chakra is closed. There's more info on how I use the pendulum in the prologue to The Chakra Diaries. If you're unsure which chakra to focus on, do a Chakra Meditation to balance all your chakras, starting at the root chakra, the base for all our security and balance in life. Try the guided visualization on the Meditations page of my website www.TheChakras.org. Namaste! Becca For those looking for a gift idea for their loved ones or for themselves for Valentine’s Day, The Chakra Diaries provides the answer, inspiring the reader with the healing power of love. The book begins with Rebecca explaining, "I never promised a road map to miracles. Yet, the men and women in my chakra workshop came seeking to find romance and riches, remove the hurt of past betrayals, fight depression and even beat death." As the facilitator, she witnesses miracles and magic, twists and turns she never expected in herself or the others. The book ends with her own quest for love with the one person who may damn her forever. Because of her humanity, she tends to love too much and overstep all the conventional boundaries, but she stirs her students at levels where they can discover themselves too and find truth, passion and everlasting love. Reviewer Marya Mann, PhD, writes, “The Chakra Diaries is new age fiction you’ll cherish for its wisdom as much as for its drama and sensuality. It is such a fantastic read, full of passion, sensuality, humor and great teachings. The antagonist in The Chakra Diaries is an amalgam of lost love and false beliefs, and it is these perilous obstacles that drive the book and make the ending, the soul of the story – showing love never dies – all the more uplifting.” People can enter to win a Valentine’s Day Giveaway which includes an autographed, first edition copy of The Chakra Diaries and Valentine’s Day gift card - just fill out the form on the Giveaways page of www.TheChakras.org. Here's to love! Becca To be physically strong, capable of giving and receiving love and to be poised to develop spiritually, our Heart Chakras must be nourished and stroked – literally paid attention to like the plaintive cry of your child or the insistent mewing of your cat. So, just as Barry, one of the characters in The Chakra Diaries did, we can start by surrounding that person in the mirror with green light, color therapy for the Heart Chakra. Like a rags-to-riches infomercial, results may vary, but just give it a try. Another technique to boost your feelings of self-love is to re-visit those times in your childhood when you felt most loved, appreciated and supported and transport those feelings to the present, to right now! You CAN revel in those feelings again and carry them with you regardless of which purse you are packing. Feel them pump you up when you are down. Tweak and tune them, brand them as your own. Now that we have you started on your merry way, how about some loving first aid for the other people in your life… When someone else in your life is sad, try this warm and fuzzy exercise. Sit next to them and caress the tips of their hands. Notice the feelings that pop into your head. Stroke the back of their hand and then the palm. Which touch does your friend or lover respond most to? When you have reached an end, shake off any unhappy energy toward the ground and ask your friend to repeat the process with you as the recipient. Tomorrow, we will learn about ways to feed our heart when we are alone – sorry, no chocolate involved in this one. Namaste! Becca In my chakra balancing workshop profiled in The Chakra Diaries, one student’s fourth chakra was profoundly closed. He was as suspicious of others as a stray cat, resentful at life for handing him not that bowl of cherries that he felt he so richly deserved, but a crate of sour grapes and buckets of ill will filled with woe-is-me. No wonder that despite his rugged good looks and stable income he was having such a “hard time” finding a lover and soul mate. His inner peace was pockmarked and fragmented, it resembled a battlefield of negative feelings littered with remnants of squandered life force. He was in every sense of the unspoken word, a mess. I suggested that he passively meditate at every opportunity, allowing his memories of love and relationships to surface so that they could be examined and balanced. He taped ten affirmations of self acceptance on his bathroom mirror and car dashboard to guide him in becoming more grounded and open to love and compassion. Over the course of the workshop, I saw this delightful, yet challenging man grow into a balance of his internal and external worlds. He became more open and accepting of life and less apt to sling blame, point fingers and retreat into a fortress of self-pity. He led the group in a practice of saturation blessings and appreciations of abundance, reminding the group that blessings flow where attention goes and that all power comes from within. In the final tally, he gave to the group far more than he took and I am forever thankful that he crossed my life. And I know he is sharing love wherever he goes now. Namaste! Becca I was recently asked why I wrote The Chakra Diaries and other questions by YogaLifeJourney.com. Here are some of my answers: I started writing The Chakra Diaries as a short story – an homage to a colleague and friend, an energy healer, who got cancer, but died in peace and full of love because of the forgiveness work she did during her last few months. I had to make sense of her life’s story and I found I could do that through the lens of the chakras. So too, for the other characters who tell their stories in the “diary” format – you can see where their problems originated and experience their transformations and manifestations along with them. The soul of all their stories is the healing power of love. As the chakra workshop leader, my character is on her own quest to live a life of discovery and love. Because of her humanity, she tends to love too much and overstep all the conventional boundaries, but “she stirs her students at levels everyone wants to be moved,” as one reviewer remarked. Chakra balancing can help a person overcome emotional, physical, mental, social and spiritual challenges, and I wanted to show all these road blocks being removed by the rainbow of the chakras. While The Chakra Diaries is not a teaching guide (there are many fabulous reference books on the chakras), I hope it engrosses the reader with its true-to-life drama, sensuality and miraculous moments. Yogis and yoginis will probably nod their heads in agreement at many points of the stories and even get up and do some of the poses recommended by the workshop leader. For the complete interview, see http://yogalifejourney.com/yoga-authors/yoga-story-becca-chopra-author-the-chakra-diaries/ Dear Becca, In addition to eating the right foods to balance an unbalanced chakra, can you offer any other advice on the right diet for better health? From, "In a Diet Dilemna" Using “food as medicine,” and diagnosis of the correct foods for each person’s constitution and body type is a major focus of Ayurveda and can help answer that question. Ayurveda, derived from the ancient Sanskrit roots, ayus (life) and ved(knowledge), is the traditional system of holistic healing from India. In Ayurveda, all aspects of an individual are considered and treatment is prescribed to bring balance to all levels of life: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. “One need not be sick to come for an Ayurveda consultation, as we suggest the proper diet to live 100 years without having diseases,” according to Dr. S. K. Kamlesh, a seventh-generation Ayurvedic doctor, and Founder and President of the International Society of Ayurveda. According to Dr. Kamlesh, the appropriate diet to balance the three physical doshas or energies of the body – Vata, Pitta and Kapha – can help to promote health and longevity. Through the practices of Ayurveda, a person is requested to get involved more and take responsibility for their own healing. Seasonal cleansing and rejuvenation, as well as appropriate diet, are suggested to maintain health and to slow aging. If you’d like to pursue that path, I'd recommend a personal health consultation with an Ayurvedic physician. After a diagnostic check to find any health problems in the body’s organs and determine an individual’s percentage of Vata, Pitta and Kapha energies in their body, you would be provided a personalized diet program, with suggestions of foods, herbs, spices, aromatherapy oils and supplements for healing. Namaste! Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries Once you're feeling rooted and grounded by balancing your root chakra, move on to a Sacral Chakra Meditation.... Inhale deeply, hold your breath and then exhale. The Root Chakra's red whirling ball of energy moves up to the center of your pelvis and turns into a beautiful orange color. This second chakra is related to the element water, and to emotions and sexuality. It connects us to others through feeling, desire, sensation, and movement. Listen to the gentle, flowing music and begin to move with it, allowing your body to relax into it and flow with it. Let go of any pain or tension. Be aware of every sensation in your body. Enjoy them. Allow yourself to become part of the music of life. The 5 Tibetan Rites are once-secret, ancient yoga-like poses developed thousands of years ago by Tibetan monks to slow aging, increase energy, calm the mind and strengthen the body. The secret to the 5 Tibetan Rites became unveiled in the 1930's when a retired British army officer discovered a remote Tibetan monastery where the monks were rumored to have discovered the legendary Fountain of Youth. The remarkably old, yet amazingly healthy monks claimed that the secret to reversing aging lay in the five special movements they performed daily. The officer learned these exercises from the monks and taught them to Peter Kelder, who documented them in the book “The Ancient Secrets of the Fountain of Youth.” Practitioners reported improvements in strength, endurance, and energy, relief from joint pain and headaches, better memory and vision, weight loss and even a more youthful appearance. On Saturday morning, September 11, Jo Caron, a certified Kripalu yoga instructor, will hold an experiential 3-hour workshop on “The 5 Tibetan Rites and the Chakras” in Volcano, Hawaii. According to Caron, who will be focusing on the spiritual, mental and emotional (as well as the physical) benefits of the 5 Rites, the second edition of the book included a new chapter on the power of the mind. Through further research, Caron realized that the 5 Rites were meant to stimulate the energy centers of the body, the chakras, by speeding up and coordinating their spin. She recommends focus on each chakra during repetition of the exercises for increased benefits. By activating and stimulating the chakras which, in turn, stimulate all the glands of the endocrine system, the 5 Rites benefit the body's overall functioning and aging process. The man who brought these 5 Rites to the West, stated that, "Performing the 5 Rites stimulates the circulation of essential life energy throughout the body." |  Becca Chopra
A holistic healer and writer. New to fiction, but inspired by life stories that have haunted me until printed on the pages of The Chakra Diaries. Now also editing other inspirational novels and self-help books at IndieAuthorCounsel.com.   ArchivesMay 2012 CategoriesAll |
RSS Feed
