Need a Proven Stress Reliever? Try Kirtan Kriya

Did you know that some meditations are proven to reduce stress? Today Christian Yoga Instructor, Katy Willis, teaches us the Kirtan Kriya.

If you would prefer to watch today’s episode as see the techniques Katy teaches, watch the YouTube version here:

Episode Discussion Points

  • Katy tells us how she got into Yoga and Meditation and how it helps her

  • Katy teaches us the interactive and proven method of the Kirtan Kriya meditation

  • How the chants in this particular meditation relate to Jesus Christ and Christianity

  • How our mind is uniquely wired and our Savior can help us as we learn to process things in our unique way.

  • Why it is important to find stress relieving techniques that work for us so we can build our mental reserves for the challenges we face.

If you would like to hear Katy's story, you can listen to it here: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/podcasts/katy-willis-how-to-be-still-amidst-trauma

If you would like to hear Katy’s intro to breathing techniques, you can listen to it here: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/podcasts/stressed-try-these-3-breathing-exercises

Resources

#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #meditation #kirtankriya #stressrelief

Transcription

Tamara Anderson 0:00

How many of you out there could use a another stress relieving technique that you could tuck in your back pocket so you can do it when you're really feeling stressed or something to help you avoid stress? Today I have a special treat for you. I have a friend who is a Christian and a yoga instructor and she's going to teach us a cool form of meditation called the Kirtan Kriya. Stay tuned. You won't want to miss this.

Tamara Anderson 0:33

Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times--all with God's help. I'm your host Tamara K. Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.

Tamara Anderson 0:58

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Tamara's Takeaways. I'm your host Tamara K. Anderson, on the Stories of Hope in Hard Times podcast. And today, I have an extra special treat for you. Because usually I just do a takeaways episode all by myself. I've been researching some more amazing stress relieving techniques, because I feel I need it. And I know everybody else probably does, too. And so I thought it would be so fun to bring Katy Willis back on today because she has some specialties that she's willing to share with us. And the cool thing about Katy is she has such a huge and broad background not only as a nurse, but she's also a certified Kundalini yoga instructor. She's a certified practitioner in quantum neuro reset therapy. And she is also a Christian. And so what is cool about this is she can kind of give us a Christian's take on meditation, which I love it, but I don't, you know, I don't know as much about it as she does. So, Katy, thank you for being with us today.

Katy Willis 2:06

Again, so much for having me. And wow, what a warm welcome. Well, this is so fun.

Tamara Anderson 2:13

Now, Katie is going to talk to us today about meditation. And I have to tell you, I've done just a tiny bit of meditation, minimal instruction, I know it's like pausing and thinking and my meditation, don't laugh usually ends up more like a prayer. I'm like, okay, Heavenly Father, I want to set the intention to . . .and I just go about it that way. And I know the lady that was teaching me once said, You're not supposed to start with a prayer. I don't know how else to do it.

Katy Willis 2:44

Oh, I like that.

Tamara Anderson 2:47

Anyway, so so my meditations that I've done so far, and granted, I am just a so novice at meditation. So tell me, how did you find meditation and and tell us kind of some tips and techniques of how we can use meditation as a form of stress relief.

Katy Willis 3:06

So I found meditation at the same time that I found yoga. And if you're jumping in, and you haven't heard the other episodes that we've done together, I found yoga, nine months after my husband had relapsed with addiction. And it had come across my path multiple times from people in my life who I trusted. Did a little bit of research. You know, at the time, it was like, This is so weird. And here, I'm this Christian, are we allowed to meditate? You know, but as I did a little bit of research felt good about it, I ordered my first DVD, which was a yoga class, and then also included meditation in every class. And so as I started doing this, I'll, I'll explain as we go along, and maybe it'll make more sense. But this first introduction was to a form of yoga, which is called Kundalini yoga and meditation. But it was so you know, out there, and I'm like, this is kind of weird, but I feel awesome. So I just kept doing it day after day after day.

Katy Willis 4:09

I feel like with meditation, you know, it's funny, you sit down to meditate, and you're like, dang it, my nose itches. What's going to be on my grocery list, you know, when I go to the store? Or Oh, I'm so mad at that person, or, you know, having gone through trauma, like in meditation, then sometimes some of those heavy, hard things that haven't fully been integrated are coming up. And so in terms of meditation as a lifestyle and bringing meditation off of the mat into our daily living. I feel like for me, I roll up that yoga mat, but because I have practiced during my meditation, sitting in the discomfort, rather than running away, turning to distraction, turning to coping, because I've stayed in that discomfort and the Things that I really like about the Kundalini Yoga meditations, is almost every meditation has an anchor point built into it.

Katy Willis 5:08

We are intentionally breathing. So anytime that that discomfort is coming up, or my mind starting to wander, I can gently escort my attention back to my breath, or a lot of Kundalini Yoga meditations use what's called mantra. Mantra is something that we are saying, and I love looking up. Most of the Kundalini Yoga meditations are in different languages. Most of them are in Sanskrit, some are in a language called gurmukhi. Summer in English, but I love looking up the translations and knowing what I'm chanting. And where this is a Christian audience. I was trained that when we chant mantra, we chant with devotion. That's where the power comes. And Kundalini Yoga is a form of yoga that talks about God. And so for me, when I'm chanting mantra, that one, I feel like when meditations include mantra, I can do that one piece of cake, because I love all of those things that I feel like mantra represents to me.

Katy Willis 6:15

And then the third thing is what's called mudra. This is finger or hand positioning, sometimes it also includes our arms. And so as we are meditating, and we have that discomfort coming up, or our tendency is to turn away, distract away, we can find these anchor points to escort our mind back. I am more aware of my thoughts and I've learned how to sit in discomfort. So when that discomfort comes up, as I'm interacting with somebody else, I'm ready to meet that in a different way. Because I've already practiced sitting through discomfort, so I can stay here rather than turning to my favorite coping mechanisms, which may or may not even be a full blown addiction. I'm not running towards the stories that my mind is telling me, you know, that "Oh, you're an unlovable person," or stories about other people and villainizing them, or stories about, you know, the way that the world works. I'm not running towards that.

Tamara Anderson 7:21

Yeah, I think so. So why don't you give us an example and maybe walk us through a Kundalini yoga, meditation?

Katy Willis 7:29

Okay, awesome. Let me tell you a little bit about this meditation. And then we'll segue into, there's a mantra that we chant, before we do any Kundalini Yoga meditations, and then we'll teach you how to do that meditation. So this meditation is what's called kirtan Kriya. And it is the Kundalini yoga meditation that has been studied more than any other Kundalini yoga meditation. Well, we'll link in the show notes. I did a recording that's available on Soundcloud for free. And within that link in the description, I gave links to the research that I'm alluding to, and then also a link to written instructions, that you can also see that there, okay,

Tamara Anderson 8:18

this is great.

Katy Willis 8:19

So when we get ready to do anything Kundalini Yoga, we start by rubbing the palms of our hands together, there are 72,000 nerve endings on the palms of our hands. So as we rub them together, we are activating those nerve endings. So as we rub our hands together, pressing palms together, this is waking up, left and right side of our brain. And so it is helping to neutralize the mind. We will bring all of our fingers together except our thumbs will be apart from our other fingers. And there's a little notch on our sternum bone, that bone that links all of our ribs together. So we find that little notch at the bottom of the sternum and we hook our thumb up our thumbs up and in

Tamara Anderson 9:12

So kind of where your thumbs hit your diaphragm or where your ribs hit your diaphragm.

Katy Willis 9:19

Yeah, just about that area a little bit up for me. It's maybe I'm trying to measure maybe an inch.

Tamara Anderson 9:26

Okay.

Tamara Anderson 9:28

But it's it's a little bit tender when we hit that point.

Tamara Anderson 9:31

Okay, yeah.

Katy Willis 9:32

Okay. Yeah, I'm glad you asked. Closing the eyes, if it feels safe, or softening the gaze of eyes remain open. If we close the eyes, then we might choose to focus our gaze up and in at that point that's just slightly up from the bridge of our nose between our eyebrows that brow point is what we call it in yoga. And taking a moment here, noticing our breath. Beginning to inhale and exhale from our nose if we aren't already really rooting down on our sit bones. And as we talked about briefly in the yoga class, by engaging our abdomen--that core, it frees up the tailbone to point straight down to the earth, pressing deeply into the ground. And we're able to also lift the sternum up, to reach our thumbs, shoulders drop down and back, slightly, tucking the chin back, aligning ears over shoulders.

Katy Willis 10:43

We will repeat the mantra called Adi mantra, it's "Ong Namo Guru dev Namo." We'll take a slight breath after namo. This translates to "I bow to the wisdom that's innately inside of me." And the way that I would describe it is we're tuning into our body. We're tuning into our mind. God within us. So I would invite you to maybe listen to the first round, and as you feel comfortable, and you might join in the second and the third.

Katy Willis 11:20

So inhaling through our nose, holding the breath for just a moment, releasing, letting go of the breath. Inhaling a second time, gently holding and releasing out through the nose. And inhaling to begin this first time. "Ong Namo Guru dev, namo," inhaling "Ong Namo guru dev Namo," inhaling, "Ong Namo guru dev Namo."

Katy Willis 12:15

Inhaling, and we might suspend the breath for just a moment. and exhaling slowly opening the eyes releasing hands. That's just the tune in but man, I don't know about you, when I take that moment to do the tune in, to breathe intentionally, to check in with my body, my posture. Just even that tune in I feel amazing.

Katy Willis 12:38

I think the reason why kirtan Kriya is the most highly studied Kundalini Yoga Kriya is because it is such an interactive meditation. And kirtan Kriya is tapping into that because there's a mudra. We're doing things with our fingers. And this particular meditation, we're using all 10 fingers. Each finger lights up a different part of our brain, we're using 10, ok.

Katy Willis 13:08

There's also a mantra. And mantras are so powerful. There are 84 reflex points in the mouth. When we're chanting mantra, it's vibrating. What's on the other side of the roof of our mouth? It's our brain. So there is a complex cascade of events that happen just simply by chanting mantra. We're activating the brain in specific ways. We are also getting into the release of hormones through the glandular system. We're strengthening not only the nervous system, but also the immune system. Simply by chanting Mantra.

Tamara Anderson 13:50

we need that

Katy Willis 13:50

I know, Amen. So this meditation is tapping into mood drop mantra. And then additionally, there is an eye focus. So this particular meditation is loaded in in the benefits that we are getting to literally rewire our brain, because we are activating so much of it at once. So our mudra. We start by touching our thumb tips to our pointer finger tips. And then we will move thumb to middle fingers, thumbs to ring fingers, and thumbs to pinkies. And then we always start back with thumb to pointer fingers. Okay? So you always start with pointer and always end with Pinky. We're doing both hands at the same time.

Katy Willis 14:38

The mantra lines up with the mudra the mantra is Sa, Ta Na, Ma. SA Ta Na, ma. So as we say saw, we're touching pointers. Ta we're touching middle na we're touching rings, Ma, we're touching pinkies. Okay? I would rest my hands on my knees while I'm doing the mudra. Sa means birth. Ta means life. Na means change or death and ma means rebirth. For me, as a Christian, I love this because I feel like it's a reminder as I'm chanting it, of the power that every day and every moment can be different. I don't have to be who I once was. Every inhale that I am taking into my body, I am literally saying yes to life. And because of Jesus Christ, I don't have to be who I once was, even who I was the last breath before this one. There's always chance for change, and to be reborn, from moment to moment.

Katy Willis 15:55

We will be chanting the mantra out loud, for part of the meditation, whispering for part of the meditation, and then what we call mentally vibrating for part of the meditation. It is incredible the way that our brain is set up. When we think about something or silently read our scriptures. It creates the same physiological cascade, as if we are saying the words out loud, pretty incredible to me. So when we are mentally vibrating, for that portion, we will keep the mudra going. But we are thinking in our mind Sa, Ta, Na, ma. Lastly, the eye focus, eyes closed, focused up at that brow point. So just slightly up from the bridge of the nose between the two eyebrows. We'll do a three minute version of kirtan Kriya here. So we will chant out loud for 30 seconds. You just heard me heard me chant it there's a melody to that part.

Unknown Speaker 17:01

Sa, Ta, Na, Ma

Tamara Anderson 17:05

30 seconds of whispering I'll warn you whispering "sa, ta, na, ma." One minute of mentally vibrating and then we sandwich it. 30 seconds of whispering again. 30 seconds of chanting out loud. And then we'll follow that with a minute of silence.

Tamara Anderson 17:25

Let's try it.

Katy Willis 17:26

Okay, closing the eyes if that feels safe, focusing at that brow point again, thumb and pointer ending on pinky starting on pointer. Here we go. Inhaling to begin.

Katy Willis 17:39

Sa Ta na ma, Sa ta na ma. Sa, ta, na, ma. Whispering: sa, ta, na, ma; sa, ta, na, ma; sa, ta, na, ma. Mentally vibrating.. . . . . .

Katy Willis 18:37

Continuing with the mudra Sa, Ta Na, Ma; Sa, Ta, Na, Ma; Sa, Ta, Na, Ma; Sa, ta, na, ma; inhale, you might hold the breath for just a moment.

Tamara Anderson 20:37

Exhaling, relaxing the hands, taking a minute here. Sitting in stillness that we've created. As we're ready, slowly opening our eyes if they were closed. Well, how was that?

Tamara Anderson 21:46

I was cool. I've never done a meditation like that.

Katy Willis 21:51

And that one, again, is very interactive. But can you see what I mean? There were plenty of anchors, right? To bring our attention back to. Now, You know, we didn't mention previously, there are a number of schools of thought when it comes to mindfulness and meditation. Some people really try to promote that we just clear the whole mind away, and it's blank. And I don't know about you, my mind does not work that way. And I believe that our minds were not designed to be that way.

Katy Willis 22:28

Yogi Bhajan, who brought Kundalini Yoga to the west, he says that for every wink of the eye, so every time we blink, there are 1000 thoughts coming at us. So rather than trying to stop our mind altogether, I believe that we can learn to slow the mind down. I feel like maybe we just experienced that, right? We can slow the mind down. And I don't feel like we can clear it away to the point that it's necessarily blank. But I believe that we can find that stillness point. And, and, again, taking meditation off the mat. I don't know about you, my days can get pretty crazy. But bringing meditation in as a lifestyle practice means I can find that point of stillness, even when other things are swirling around me.

Tamara Anderson 23:25

Yeah, thank you for that. And All right, so we've learned all about meditation and Kundalini today and tell me what websites would you point us to? We'll obviously linked to your SoundCloud with that 11 minute full thing that will also give us the science behind it. But are there any other websites or apps, you would point us to with meditation?

Katy Willis 23:50

I've created a whole entire course, about the mind. And I'm a life coach. And so part of the course we focus on what I call approaching the mind from the top down, that means we're looking at our patterning our programming, and we're being more intentional about that. I build a tool into every class. So there's a tool that we can whip out in the moment. And then in every class, there's also kind of a lifestyle tool, things that we're doing intentionally every day that we might incorporate into our self care routine. That's going to help us to have a different experience with the mind. And then the other portion of the class, we're focusing on what I'm calling from the bottom up, we are getting into meditation. And we are working with a number of meditations that help us to work with our individual psychology. It's

Katy Willis 24:40

I didn't realize until recent years, just like nobody has ever lived in your body or will. And we have to learn how to care for our specific body. Nobody has your mind. And even though we can work with professionals, like therapists or other individuals who can kind Pick out the patterns, that is territory that we get to go with our Savior. So this is also a Christian based course. And there are a ton of different types of meditation that we can experience. Experience them all, because they're all different and working with our mind and our brain in different ways.

Tamara Anderson 25:19

Oh my goodness, wow! we'll see what you get in just a short amount of time? You get the windows of meditation open to you. But The cool thing about learning new and different ways to relieve stress is that you will find ones that work for you. And that you can then apply in your life whenever you need them. Especially at times, like now, when times are more stressful, sometimes we need to find new tools. And as we apply these new tools in our lives, and are able to decrease our stress, or able to increase our capacity to deal with the pressure or stress, then we can build our own hope. It's like we're building the reserves of our own strength to deal with life's challenges that surround us-- resilience, almost Yeah, what I would call it. And so this helps us build hope. Thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing these amazing techniques and meditation. Katy, you're awesome.

Unknown Speaker 26:24

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Tamara.

Tamara Anderson 26:25

Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you'd like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website storiesofhopepodcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared or quote, or a scripture verse that they really really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you are struggling with hope to carry on and with the strength. Keep going. When things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember God loves you.

Tamara AndersonSelf-Worth, mental health