Month: April 2014

So Who is a Joyful Yogini?

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When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Rumi

Joyful Yogini…

is a gatherer and creator of joyful moments.

knows that joy doesn’t just happen.

is prepared to take a leap and make a commitment to claim her joy and vitality.

is in touch with her feminine side (goes for both guys & gals)

insists on love and light. (Tweet that)

feels that her life is a work-in-progress.

is not enlightened, nor does she want to be a guru.

just wants to find love and light in her regular day, brackets of peace in her daily, stressful, chaotic and beautiful life.

is not perfect.

stumbles and falls many times.

picks herself up even more times.

is sometimes lost in a big, demanding, cruel, fast, complicated universe.

is sometimes lost in her struggles, judgements, fears, repeated patterns, and worries.

eats chocolate, lots of it.

eats cakes, pies, muffins, ice-creams, candy and cupcakes too. 🙂

loves to give, is hesitant to take.

is connected deeply to other joyful yoginis as soul sisters.

knows that she changes moment to moment, her being dances in waves.

doesn’t always know or feel how amazing she is.

is a soulful, loving, caring, joyful, life-full, beautiful, divine being.

If you feel I am talking about you, if this is you, join me in exploring ways to create more joy and light, in expressing ourselves as joyful yoginis.

To join the tribe:

Prepare to get your heart expanded because that is exactly what I am set out to do!

With love and light,

Damla

 

My Crystal Story

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My crystal story begins on my couch on a December night. It was a cold cold night and I needed some tv-candy as I call it (aka. mindless entertainment). And by that I mean I was browsing interviews on my favorite online subscription for new age stuff: Gaiam TV.

I came across an interview called ‘Healing with Gemstones’ with James Tyberonn. First of all, one minute into the interview, I remember sitting up straight to wake myself up. This was something I did not want to miss. James Tyberonn is a Geologist and an Engineer who worked with crystals his entire life. He was talking about his spiritual journey, which is really cool. But what amazed me was how he regarded crystals as living beings that hold consciousness.

This was my turning point. I decided to learn more about crystals. Next week, I went to a crystal shop and got myself ten new crystals. There was one issue: I didn’t know what to do with them! I started to research more about ways to use them. I came across an energy exercise where you slowly bring your hands towards each other and stop when you sense energy. Then you repeat the same thing with a crystal in your hand. I did this using a clear quartz crystal. I was shocked at how much more sensation I felt with the crystal compared to without!

I started to experiment with the crystals I have, laying them on my chakras and falling deep into meditation.

My next issue was not knowing which crystals to use. I still knew very little about their specific healing properties. Then it occurred to me to trust a better resource: my intuition. I started to use my Pendulum to decide on which crystals to use. The results were phenomenal! My meditations deepened. I was getting somewhere. I also found out how to use my Pendulum to measure if a chakra is blocked, depleted, overworking or healthy.

I decided to try what I learned on others. My first client was my mother-in-law, Zeynep (you can read her testimonial here.). While she was on the table, I intuitively added two guided meditations to get her into a relaxed state so that she could fully enjoy the benefits of the crystals. I also called upon her angels, guides, ancestors and ascended masters for healing help. Then I worked on her using some Reiki energy healing methods I know as a Reiki Master but mainly by letting my intuition guide my hands. She woke up telling me that she didn’t want to come out of it. There were tears on her eyes, she saw healing lights throughout the session and heard a beautiful music that I didn’t play.

My next few clients also reported seeing lights and feeling lighter at the end of the session. At that point I haven’t yet used these guided meditations in my own practice, so I decided to give it a go. I chose my crystals and followed the same process I now follow for my Chakra Bliss Healing clients.

Right after the guided meditations, I saw a bright green light and knew that I was visited by an angel. Even though I had called upon many healers, this Being told them to step aside and after getting my permission, worked on me extensively. My second chakra had been chronically blocked ever since my C-section. After this session, it measured as depleted, which meant there was some movement in it! Later I checked some reference materials and came across Angel Raphael who is said to emanate a healing green light.

This is the story of how my Chakra Bliss Healing sessions came to be. It was a natural intuitive progression for me. In the end I decided to give up my need to know everything and trust a source that is bigger than me to guide my hands and heal those who choose to work with me.

I continue to be amazed by crystals and the powerful healing they initiate, both in my own meditations and in my clients. I feel blessed to have found them and l look forward to exploring their gifts.

The strange thing is each time I do a Chakra Bliss Healing, it gets easier. I suppose that is the grace of the healers who are helping me.

If you would like to give the Chakra Bliss Healing sessions a try, visit my Chakra Bliss Healing page to schedule your session. I offer them in my home studio in Durham, NH and via Skype.

I hope to meet you soon 🙂

With love and light,

Damla

My Story

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Find a place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”

Joseph Campbell

For as long as I can remember I have searched for meaning and purpose in my life. I looked for them in a lot of wrong-for-me places. I got an engineering degree, an MBA, a well paying corporate job. Somehow my thirst for meaning remained there parching me for something deeper.

I stumbled onto yoga during a particularly tough time in my life. I had just lost my grandmother, got diagnosed with migraines, and was completely spent traveling and working  as a business process re-engineering consultant. Yoga was my magic. In the next 5 years, I immersed myself in it. I bought every book I could find, subscribed to Yoga Journal, went to classes, attended conferences, wore the yoga clothing, bought the yoga jewelry, you name it. If it had yoga written on it, I was all over it.

Finally I decided to leave my corporate life and took a 200 hour Yoga Teacher training. Completely life changing experience is an understatement. This was it. I had found ‘it’! Then came my 500 hour Certification, Prenatal Yoga Teaching Certification, Pfilates, Reiki and quite a few other ones.

Then came motherhood. My little sunshine daughter was born. She rocked my world, opened my heart chakra to the moon. The first year of motherhood did a number on me though, leaving me in a state of fog. My body didn’t feel my own. That yogic bliss, that sweet awareness was gone (together with my well earned yoga butt). I was feeling lost again. This time even deeper than before. I didn’t know where I was going, who I was as a person and what I wanted to do next.

Then I took a leap of faith. Even though I didn’t feel like it, I kept insisting on love and hope, and searched for ways to feel whole again. I also kept doing my down dogs. I remember crying after doing my very first sun salutation. It felt so strange to be in my body. It was around this time that I turned to mantra. Movement was still not mine to breathe into but I could chant while my daughter slept in my arms or in my tiny shower breaks. Something began to shift and lighten. I felt like being reunited with a long lost friend. I started to read more and more about mantra, and practiced it at every opportunity. I fell in love with the sanskrit mantras and the possibilities they created. And I decided to share my passion.

I still had very little time to myself, being busy with my daughter during the day. But I would take notes on my iPhone at every little opportunity. My daughter only slept in two hour increments at night (at best), so when she went into her deepest sleep at 3am, I would sneak out to my laptop and work on my notes and presentation.

That is how Mantra Immersion was born, a training to add mantra to your daily life to help you deal with challenging moments and give you a powerful tool to navigate through your thoughts and emotions. Everything I know about mantra, based on my own practice, training, and research, went into Mantra Immersion. I have been teaching it to joyful yoginis since then. Learning a ton from each and every one of you I encounter (you know who you are, namaste and hugs to you! 🙂 ).

Mantra Immersion was my gateway to dreaming this website and blog. I realized that after becoming a mom I had lost sight of my dreams, I had trouble remembering who I was before and didn’t know where I was headed. I started daily journaling and mantra practice. That’s when it hit me. If this, being a yoga and meditation teacher and a healer, is ‘it’ for me, I had to give it my all. I started to read and research about yoga and business. I realized that even though I did work on multiple studios as a yoga teacher, workshop facilitator, a studio manager and a business consultant, there is still a lot that I can do to continue to grow.

From that point to this one (designing my own website and blog from scratch, teaching myself web and photo design, making my own logo,… ) is another adventure in and of itself. I can tell you this: This feels right, in my heart and gut.

I know that with A Drop of Om, I have something to offer to you and it is this:

  • My honesty, what you see is what you get
  • My dedication, you will always know I gave it my all and will continue to improve on my offerings
  • My tried-and-true wisdom, what I teach and offer is what I know-for-sure works for me and my clients

So go ahead and sign up to my Newsletter, browse through my pages, check out my blog for new tips and tools on mantra, yoga and beyond, and keep coming back because we are just getting started!

With love and light,

Damla

Hey There!

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For today, all you need is the grace to begin beginning.”

Julia Cameron

Countless sleepless nights, pages and pages of dream journals, tons of ‘aha!’ and ‘oh no!’ moments later, here I am (I am Damla by the way) and here is ‘A Drop of Om‘, a place of inspiration, community, mantra, yoga and joy.

As with all new beginnings I have butterflies in my stomach. One thing is very clear to me, this feels right, this is what I am supposed to be doing (Tweet that), this is my calling, my service and offering of light. And there is a lot that I want to share with you, but first things first, here is a virtual hug! (consider yourself hugged 🙂 )

I invite you to subscribe to my Newsletter (see the box above) and like my Facebook page (to your right). While here, check out my blog posts and offerings. I will be sharing tons of yogic tips, tools and mantra goodness to add to your life right away.

Whether you are brand new to yoga and mantra, or a seasoned practitioner, or a yoga teacher looking to add some pzaz to her classes, you are at the right place.

This is going to be an awesome ride!

With love and light,

Damla