Author: Melanie Dawn

Melanie Dawn is a children’s digital media producer and writer. Throughout the course of her career she has created and produced mobile platforms and digital content for kids for Samsung Kids, Ryan’s World, Trolls the Beat Goes On!, Spirit Riding Free, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Sylvan Learning, Highlights, Verizon’s Wild & Seek AR, Monster High, Ever After High, Polly Pocket, LeapFrog, Bratz, Bratz Babies, and more. She is also known as, Living Fae, where she co-partners in the creation of an event sanctuary space called the Faerie Ring for Sunset Sound System’s Sunset Campout, as well as building altars, performing opening ceremonies, blessings and hosting holistic workshops and events. Melanie self published her first children’s book The Land Beyond Time and the Faerie Master Spell Guide for kids ages 8+, and Glennie Fairy: A World of Many Colors a poetic picture book for ages 4 – 6 is her latest children's book. .

Strengthening Your Immunity

by Melanie Dawn

b2ap3_large_spiritual-fieldIn response to the recent pandemic we are experiencing, I watched a webinar this morning with Dr. Shanti Shanti Kaur that shared some guidance on strengthening our immunity with specific information about viruses and how to strengthen the immune response in the face of current times. She has wisdom from her work as an early pioneer in HIV healthcare and through teaching Kundalini Yoga and Meditation to people with chronic or life threatening illness and their families. I want to share a recap of what she advised.

For a strong and healthy immune system we want to develop Vagal Tone. Vagal Tone is our stress resilience. It’s our ability to be calm with vitality. Developing a strong vagal tone influences our auric field and arc line which work to deflect micro organisms. In the face of the current pandemic, Vagal Tone is of utmost importance.

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What is Vagal Tone?

  • It is a complicated network of nerves connecting the brain to the heart, gut, and visceral organs. Collectively it is called the vagus nerve. More on the vagus nerve here.
  • Origin of our parasympathetic nervous system. More on the parasympathetic nervous system here.
  • The Vegas Nerve’s activation or deactivation is tied to the ebb or flow of hormones / endocrine system
  • Essential to self regulation following stress reactivity

What can do to build your Vagal Tone and to keep yourself healthy and resilient? Rhythmic Strength.

Support yourself with a consistent healthy daily routine. Even if you just implement one conscious change in your life that you may not be following it will help you. She calls it Pulse, Pause, and Play.

  • Pulse: Sleep/Wake Up, Meal Time/Elimination, Exercise/Movement
  • Pause: Regular Rest, The ability to relax deeply. Here Dr. Kaur emphases the need for regular relaxation between actions. Take conscious moments where you take a long deep breath when moving from one action to another. If you are doing a home yoga practice, it’s important to ensure you include savasana. Savasana is essential for integration of the changes in the blood chemistry and immune response.
  • Play: Allow yourself a playful state of mind. It’s important to be silly and playful. Do something that brings the joy of playfulness.

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What else can you do?
  • Pranayama Breath: Breathing exercises that works with the tongue. The tongue is a detoxifying organ, so breath the specifically works with the tongue is good to do. These include Sitali, Dog or Lions Breath.
  • Mantra: Chanting mantra or singing. Chanting, singing or humming is like initiating a vagal pump that sends out relaxing waves. It works muscles in the back of the throat that activates the vagus nerve.
  • Healthy Diet & Good Nutrition: This goes without saying. Dr. Kaur recommended cardamom specifically, so fill yourself up on some Yogi Tea. Recipe is found here. Another thing, that I do at home, is to take fire cider. We make our own. There are lots of recipes online to make your own.
  • Cold Water Hydrotherapy: Take a cold shower. I know, you may be thinking, OMG! I can’t do that. You can do it! Before I started, I was adamant that I couldn’t and now I take a cold shower regularly. You can read about the benefits here.
  • Mutual Supportive Relationships: In a time where we are starting to see social distancing being mandated, do your best to maintain feeling supported and held by your community through all your available channels.
  • Gratitude: Remain thankful, no matter what you may be experiencing. Your gratitude will propel you. If for any reason life throws something at you that moves you out of this state, simply get into child’s pose and stay there for 1 – 3min. Bringing our head below our heart is a sure way to stimulate gratitude within the body.
Some Kriyas & Meditations:
Blessings & Be well!
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491 Days and counting

by Melanie Dawn

That’s me back in the Summer of 2016 just a couple weeks before I started my daily practice. I’d been practicing Kundalini Yoga since 2007, but it was on and off over the years. In the year running up to it, I had only been to a few Kundalini Yoga / Sound Immersion workshops. Workshops with Naomi Charanpal Kaur & Liya Garber with Sound Immersion Experience by Danny Goldberg were the initial inspiration for getting me back on track with my Kundalini practice.

At the time, I was choosing to drink wine (I called in wine yoga), over doing yoga. I guess it just felt easier, and I liked wine. The thing was, it wasn’t making me feel great. If I was home alone, I felt lonely, disconnected and was honestly a bit depressed. I felt the anxiousness of what I projected as the world around me. Not only that, I was getting sick and was tired of being sick. With all these things staring me in the face, and the desire to feel good, at peace and happy inside, I decided it was time to make the practice a daily ritual. (I actually woke up from a dream.) If I learned anything about myself over the years of spiritual and personal work and development, it had to be daily, because what I had learned about myself in the past was that as soon as I took a day off from it, I’d end up distracted and right back to where I had started. It had to be daily.

How the heck was I going to integrate a daily yoga practice into my life, when I couldn’t seem to find time to get to the studio to even do it a few times a week? For me, it was finding something online that I could do any where, no matter where I was. That, and getting a minimum amount of time that I could spend on it every day for those days, when maybe for whatever reason, I didn’t make the time for myself to do more. 15 minutes was what I could wrap my head around.

Soon after I made that decision, I found Jai Dev Singh’s Life Force Academy. I started with one of his power practices, then a Self Love Class, and then just kept going. Once I got going, I was amped. Plus his classes really resonated with me. He explained it on a practical level that just made sense to me. I also counted, for me, counting the days really helped. I gave myself a 40 day goal, 90 day goal, 120 day goal and now I’m shooting for a 1,000 day goal.

Over that time, I’ve evolved my practice, and I keep evolving it as I learn more about the technology of Kundalini Yoga. For me, it works the best, and I can see and feel the transformation. What has transformed? In many ways, its challenging to describe. What I can tell you is – I feel happier and richer on the inside. I haven’t been sick as much. I make more moderate and different choices than I did before. My choices lead me to more yoga over drinking wine now. 🙂 The biggest one I’ve noticed is, I feel more equipped to handle the world around me, no matter what’s happening or what someone may tweet.

If you are interested in trying out this practice, I highly recommend it. It’s definitely worked for me, and I’m going to keep at it.

If you are reading this, thanks for checking it out.

With love and light,

Sat Nam ~ Radha Sangeet Kaur