I can’t believe it’s already Week 5 in the program! Week 5 is all about centering. Baron Baptiste describes centering as “emancipating”. He explains, “As we practice staying centered we discover that we have the capacity to be aware of the little gremlin voices in our heads and that we don’t have to get caught up in the illusions of our own story.” (Baptiste, 2004, p. 178). As I interpret it, centering means looking inward for answers instead of outward and also being fully present. Centering works in conjunction with two laws of the 40 Days Program. Law 9: Don’t Rush the Process and Law 10: Be True to Yourself. The theme of centering and these laws shaped our practice, meditation and nutrition for the week.

This week’s practice was centering. We are now moving through the entirety of the Baptiste Journey into Power sequence every day. During our in-person meeting, we focused on aligning in camel pose. I learned that I was doing what we refer to as “duck butt”. I was tilting my pelvis forward. With a partner, we took photos of each other before and after we were correctly aligned. This was extremely helpful for me as I am a visual learner. We also noticed that many of us felt lighter in our practice after the fruit feast of Week 4.

Meditation is a key component to staying centered. This week our meditation time went up to 25 minutes in the morning and again at night. Some members of the group were concerned about being able to make these times work with their busy schedules. However, our group leader said we could break up the time throughout the day. For example, we can meditate for 15 minutes when we wake up and then for 10 minutes in the car before we walk into work. This has been working well for me. During our in person meeting, we meditated together and I had a breakthrough. We tried meditating while listening to the sounds around the studio. As I meditated, I listened to the sounds of a class that was in session, cars going by, and sounds of people breathing. It reminded me so much of falling asleep as a child. I would go to bed earlier than my parents and I would be able to hear them moving around the house and talking, as well as the sounds of nature outside and cars passing by. Then I would drift into a peaceful sleep. I think this is why this method resonated with me so much. This is definitely something I will use in the coming weeks.

Our nutrition this week will center us by grounding us after feeling light from the Week 4 fruit feast. We are focusing on eating root vegetables and mineral-rich foods. This includes potatoes, seaweed, leafy greens, fruit, nuts and sunbutter. I had so much fun getting creative with this. I made a potato salad with boiled gold potatoes, parsely, white onion, green onion, olive oil, lemon, maldon salt and pepper. I have plans to make veggie summer rolls with peanut dipping sauce too. 

Centering feels like coming home to yourself and aligning from within. It is exactly what I needed at this point in the program. Stay tuned for the last post of this series, highlighting Week 6!