Focusing on the Light

This time of year, people seem to become very hard on themselves.  
I see it in the patients I sit with, many feeling anxious, and pressured and overly fatigued.  This end of year season should not fill us with anxiety, it should fill us with hope. In the Chinese calender this is the most yin month of the year.  Yin is the darkness, cold, stillness and quiet.  And culminating at the 21st, this is the most dark, cold, still, and yin month.  Yet, in that darkness and stillness lies a promise of light, and warmth and return.

Being mindful of the return of the light in all aspects of our lives will enhance and propel us into the next months with strength and purpose.  Instead of running from the cold and dark, embrace it, sit in stillness every day, breathing deeply, and finding appreciation for the quiet and darkness because they give us time to rest.  Biologically there is great purpose in being still during the winter, it preserves and replenishes the qi we will need to move, and grow and expand during the summer.

Take 10 minutes every day through the winter, sit in a comfortable position, place your hands over your lower abdomen and breathe in, filling the abdomen and pushing your hands out with the breath.  
As you do this, affirm that you are well, rested and healthy.  
This will chance away the winter blues and restore balance and harmony to your body