Tips on How to Work with Fire for Your Wellbeing and Energy [Episode #813]

This week’s topic is: Tips on How to Work with Fire for Your Wellbeing & Energy

Fire is a very interesting element to work with. It is the element of transformation as we’ll get into today. It can help to burn away toxicity in the body through digestive ugly fire. It can purify us to clarity, to understanding who we really are at the core, to the True Self. It can also be used in excess, for instance, practically speaking, if we eat a lot of chilies and fiery spices, we can start to get heartburn. We can start to get inflammation.

If there’s too much fiery energy, too much reactivity in our nervous system or if the fire, this vitality and light inside of us is too dim. On the other hand, we can start to experience depression and lethargy and slow, low energy, have a difficult time getting out of bed, and many other iterations of that. We want to work with fire across all of our Cornerstones and utilize it for our own empowerment.

As the topic of our show is, really working with it for our wellbeing to have this consistent level of fire, which means we’re motivated, we’re inspired, we’re energized, and we feel alive in our lives. This show is directly inspired by some of my own practices and things I’ve been following over the past few months, and I’m really excited to share them with you today.

I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!

There are lots of ways to share your responses or questions about the podcast:

• Comment below
• Connect on Twitter: @_kimberlysnyder
• Follow the conversation on my Instagram
• Comment on my Facebook Page
• Ask a question: mysolluna.com/askkimberly

Be sure to Subscribe to the Podcast and follow me on Soundcloud, so you never miss an episode!

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE

You may be really intrigued by podcasts, but you may just know how to listen or subscribe. It’s very easy, I promise! To listen to more than one episode, and to have it all in a handier way, on your phone or tablet, it’s way better to subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Want to know what to expect from other episodes of the “Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder”? My passion is to inspire and empower you to be your most authentic and beautiful self. We offer interviews with top experts, my personal philosophies and experiences, as well as answers to community-based questions around topics such as health, beauty, nutrition, yoga, spirituality and personal growth.

The intention of the Feel Good Podcast is to well…help you really Feel Good in your body, mind and spirit! Feeling Good means feeling peaceful, energized, whole, uniquely beautiful, confident and joyful, right in the midst of your perfectly imperfect life. This podcast is as informative and full of practical tips and take-aways as it is inspirational. I am here to support you in being your very best! I have so much love and gratitude for you. Thank you for tuning in and being part of the community :).

LEAVE A REVIEW ON ITUNES

Listeners really respect the views of other listeners, so your response helps people find good material they are interested in! If you enjoyed the podcast, please tell your friends and give us a rating or review. Many thanks in advance.

[RESOURCES] 

• SBO Probiotics
• Detoxy
• Digestive Enzymes  
• Feel Good Starter Kit
• FREE Gift: 7-Day Meditation Series (DIGITAL COURSE)
• YOU ARE MORE
• Beauty Detox Solutions
• Beauty Detox Foods
• Beauty Detox Power
• Radical Beauty
• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
• Be a part of the community Join the Feel Good Circle
• Four Cornerstone FREE PDF: Text GUIDE to +1 (855) 741-0602
• Additional resources in transcript

Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• The Four Cornerstones and Self-Care
• Advice For Feeling Your Best – Inside and Out!
• Self-Care to Support Your Purpose with Vaidya Jay
• The Importance Of Self-Love and Self-Care Practices

Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne

• Feel Good Digestive Enzymes: Use code: boosthealth for 20% off

Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:00 <silence> Namaste. Loves and welcome back for our Monday solo cast show, where our topic today is Tips on How to Work with Fire for Your Wellbeing and Energy. So fire is a very interesting element to work with. It is the element of transformation as we’ll get into today. It can help to burn away, draws, delusion, toxicity in the body through digestive ugly fire. It can purify us to clarity, to understanding who we really are at the core, to the true self. It can also be used in excess, for instance, practically speaking, if we eat a lot of chilies and fiery spices, we can start to get heartburn. We can start to get inflammation. If there’s too much fiery energy, too much, you know, reactivity in our nervous system. If the fire, this vitality and light inside of us is too dim, on the other hand, we can start to depre to experience depression and lethargy and slow low energy, have a difficult time getting out of bed, and many other iterations of that.

01:27 So we wanna work with fire across all of our cornerstones and utilize it for our own empowerment. So as the topic of our show is, you know, really working with it for our wellbeing to have this consistent level of fire, which means we’re motivated, we’re inspired, we’re energized, and we feel alive in our lives. But again, there isn’t too much fire, which leads to depletion and inflammation and it’s not too low. So I have been working with fire consciously in with intention over the whole summer and it has been an amazing, amazing, maybe the best summer of my life I would say. So this show is directly inspired by some of my own practices and follow things I’ve been following over the past few months, and I’m really excited to share them with you today.

Please leave a review on iTunes and Subscribe

Before we get deeper in, I wanted to give you a little reminder to please leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to our show, which is a really amazing way to support. So thank you so much in advance. Please also subscribe to the show for your own wellbeing, so you stay in the flow without having to click extra buttons and take extra steps. And while you’re over there, please be sure to share the show with anyone that you think would benefit out there. It could be a particular episode or the show in general. It could be a screenshot, it could be a link, but it’s really wonderful for abundance and just giving without, you know, expecting anything in return to share and share as much as possible.

Get Your Copy Of YOU ARE MORE

03:07 Also, a little reminder that our latest book Baby is out in paperback. You Are More Than You Think You Are. If you haven’t read this book yet, it was, it is a wonderful summer read. It’s a wonderful book to take with you on the train on a weekend trip just to have next to your bed to read a chapter or so a night as part of your daily practice. It really is practical spirituality. It’s about really aligning yourself to your truest potential inside of you. And I look forward to hearing how the book supports you. You can write to me and ask questions to me over on our website, my sauna.com. There is a section there for comments and, and podcasts, questions, and so on and so forth. So I encourage you to take advantage of what is over there. Okay, so let’s get into our show today.

Solocast: Tips on How to Work with Fire for Your Wellbeing and Energy

04:00 It’s an interesting show. We’re talking about using this element of fire. So first of all, all the elements within us are externally as well. We have all of the elements. So in our physical body we see ugly, the in the digestive fires, um, the fire, the the, the ways in which there are more acidic parts of our body. And then there’s the water elements, of course, which we see through our lymphatic system and our blood and the liquid parts of us. There’s the earthiness, the earth privy, which is in our bones known as ti. It’s through the structure of our system. And then there’s air and space. There is, you know, despite the fact that everything looks so solid, there’s a great deal of our bodies which are actually in this. Um, I say vacuous. This, this space air element is in our cells. It’s part of who we are.

04:57 We’re not completely dense. We actually have a lot of air and space inside of us, and that’s part of us being human. So we wanna balance all the elements all the time. Like I mentioned, we’re gonna focus today on fire. We don’t wanna have too much fire. We don’t wanna have too low fire. We know what happens when we have too low water. We get dehydrated. On the other hand, we can actually get over, we can get water logged if there’s too many fluids, we can develop, um, edema, swelling many different disorders. And when there’s not enough earth and structure, we can develop disorders like osteoporosis. So this, it’s a balance. And these are the same elements that we find in nature, which again confirms that we are part of nature. Nature is part of us. We cannot divorce ourselves from this timeless, universal truth. Fire is what I wanna focus on because for many reasons we recently did a q and a about, you know, Pitta

Kimberly: 05:56 And balancing the Pitta, which we’ll talk about a little bit today, which is fiery foods. August is a Pitta month. There’s a lot of fire that’s accumulated outside. So that’s part of what we’re talking about here. But this is really a timeless podcast because we can choose to work with fire anytime we are called to transform ourselves. And this could mean on a physical level, it could mean emotionally, uh, spiritually, mentally. We wanna blast through. We start to be aware of parts of us that we wanna let go of. This has been my experience this summer, seeing, oh, these are still ways in which I’m reacting. These are still ways in which I’m attached to my ego. I wanna let all of this go. Now I wanna burn this away. So what’s left is the true self which rises up like the phoenix, which cannot be extinguished.

06:49 So I wanna share with you a very powerful practice. Um, this is called, and this is in Sanskrit as well. Let me see if I can say it correctly. This is three words, Sanaha tantra, which means subconscious purification by fire. And this is a, um, I’m reading here from a book called Living with Shiva. VAAs are subconscious traits, complexities, or subliminal tendencies, which is driving forces, color and motivate. One’s attitudes and actions. Visa, VAAs are gl or some conscious impressions, some scars created through repeated or powerful experience. DHA means to burn consumed by fire. And a tantra is a method or technique. And the method here is to write out clearly all problems as well as emotional happenings, unhappy or happy that are vibrating in the subconscious, instinctive intellectual mind. When the eyes through the intellectual mind or conscious mind see the problem written down, the emotion attached to the memory begins to diminish, then crumple up the paper and burn it in an ordinary fire, such as in a fireplace, earn or garbage can to totally release some of life’s burdens from the subconscious and dispel the suppressed emotions as the fire consumes the paper.

08:25 This symbol tantra removes the vasanas from memory and the emotional recesses along with the emotion resentments, hurt feelings and misunderstandings. Soon the subconscious pranas will begin to flow and our natural peaceful self emerges. And we may be left wondering, why was I ever bothered about that trivial incident? So this practice, again, Sana DHA tan is something that I

Kimberly: 08:54 Have been doing on a daily basis this summer. My kids and I go to a, a temple, a local temple, and there is a fire safe pit. Of course, if you wanna do this practice, you must use a fire safe container or you can burn it figuratively in your mind and simply rip up the paper into a tiny million tiny pieces. We do not ever wanna play with fire or use fire where there is a fire hazard outside in nature where there’s dryness and forests. We never, ever wanna, you know, threat the nature. So if you do this, it must be in a very, you know, fire pit or a very safe contained space. I wanna emphasize that very strongly. But if you have that available, I have been writing this out, you know, writing out old memories which have created patterns, writing out things that I realize are not who I am.

09:50 I’m still attached, you know, to what people think of me or I’m attached to things going a certain way, whatever it is. And then I burn it. And this is a practice I do with my kids. They love to watch the fire. If you’re interested in actually seeing this literally happen, a few months ago I posted a video of us doing this fire practice together. So you can check it out on my Instagram feed, just scroll down a little bit and you’ll see it. My kids do it. They write out bubby wrote out in the video saying things I don’t mean ’cause he was calling his brother poo head and saying things and we were getting really exacerbated with it. And he realized it was harmful and hurtful. And so he wrote it out. So this practice alone, I can’t tell you how much relief this has given me.

10:33 There’s something about the transformation of actually seeing the fire coupled with the intention to let it go. It could be something that you have had trouble forgiving yourself for or forgiving someone else for. And then to understand that it is a burden to hold it and we really intend to let it go. And it gets consumed in the fire before your eyes is really beautiful and powerful. So that’s one of the ways I have been working with fire every day. And when I’m done burning the paper, I say, and so it is. And so it is, it’s a very powerful declaration here. I let go of it, I’ve decided. And so it is, and sometimes you need to burn something a few times before it totally releases the memory if there’s a really deep old imprinted memory or something inside of you. But, um, it’s powerful and it’s, you know, again, a way that we can intentionally work with fire in this beautiful, beautiful way.

11:34 Another wor way that we can work with fire in a controlled way is to, when you sit down to, to bring a ritualistic element, when you sit down to meditate or to pray or to have group prayer, group meditation with your family or whatever it is to light a candle. And so there’s this flame, it’s bringing energy, it’s a focal point into the altar or into the space or on the table at dinner. <laugh>, you know, wherever you are bringing energy and attention, fire is alive. You know, fire is the sun energy brought into this candle form, into this very small element. And it can light things up literally. It can light up your attention, your awareness, your point of presence into that space at that time. So bringing in candles and again, controlled setting, working with fire and, and burning away things that you are not are two ways I wanna bring up.

12:31 First and foremost, Shiva is in the yogic tradition. You know, it’s monotheistic at its core. Some people think that there’s all these different gods, um, and yoga and Hinduism, but they’re not. It’s just different aspects. Similarly, in Christianity we have different ar angels and saints, right? All aspects of the one. And the shiva is known as the destroyer, which some people don’t really understand what that means. I take it as destroying ignorance. It’s transformation, right? It’s taking away the parts of us that we held onto the layers, the Maya, the delusion, who we are not. So it has this ability to transform us. And so a Shiva temple, if you go to India and you go to anything based in Shiva, you’ll see a lot of fire, right? We understand that we as humans need to be purified. So on that note, we can purify our bodies, primarily starting with our GI tracts.

13:33 It is very important if we’re trying to get to our highest level of potential, we are not holding onto waste inside of our bodies. This is where Detoxy, one of our primary sauna supplements is essential. It contains a mix of oxygen and magnesium and vitamin C and it purifies your body without being habit forming. It is something I use almost every day. Sometimes I skip a day here and there. I credit it with having a flat tummy without doing any crunches or abs. And having two kids, because I’m purifying my digestive tract, this oxygen purifies goes through. So you in turn feel lighter in your mind. So fire, figuratively and also literally, right? This purification that happens is really important. Um, we wanna make sure that we are purifying ourselves by drinking a lot of water. So we’re talking about fire, but also we purify with the other elements as well.

14:41 Staying really hydrated, um, helps us to come into more of who we are. Purification means keeping your acne on point, your digestive, fire, digestive enzymes, which we also offer at sauna, are very powerful in this respect. I take three digestive enzymes before I eat lunch and dinner. This helps your body with the transformative process of digestion by which you want to assimilate and take in the nutrition. Remember, you are not what you eat, you are what you digest and assimilate what you absorb into your body. And for some reason, if your digestive enzymes are low, if they’re compromised, which they are, and most everyone to some extent, hydrochloric acid is low, just in proper eating for many years, you’re not gonna get the full extent of that powerful nutrition into your bodies. So the enzymes are the supplement we offer of transformation. So we could say they’re the fire supplement, if you wanna think of it that way.

15:42 And I recommend taking them every single day. Now, we don’t wanna dimm the Agni, and this is one of the core food combining principle practices that we have always taught, which is to not drink a lot of water while you are eating, which will in turn dilute the digestive enzymes on the other hand. So you wanna drink your water and your liquids in between meals and not so much while you’re eating, which would again, would have that dilutive quality. It would be like throwing water and dampening out the flame. So lifestyle wise, we wanna work with fire through motivation and inspiration. We wanna continue to read inspiring works. We wanna continue to get enough sleep so that we wake up feeling alive, doing our morning meditation, drinking hot water with lemon, which again is bringing in fire in. But we don’t wanna go over too much with a fire, which means packing too much into the day.

16:40 So we get into hurry, energy, we start to increase anxiety because there’s too much time pressure. This starts to bring in too much Pitta. We start to get agitated, frustrated, we unleash our frustrations on the people around us. People we feel safe to. But this is what Yogananda, Paramahansa, Yogananda, the great yoga guru, we call over familiarity. We don’t wanna show that sort of face to our loved ones. We wanna strive for kindness and love and sweetness in our family life and those around us. So we need to tend to that fire. We don’t wanna get overly pitta. Now, I won’t go too much into the food aspect of this because we did mention it on a whole, we have a whole show dedicated to this, which we will link to in the show notes. But Pitta means that, you know, our constitution is generally more fire based.

17:33 And you know, some Ayurvedic practitioners say that just by virtue of living in modern life, a lot of us have a lot of Pitta already in our constitution. So this means that we don’t want to have too many chilies, onion, garlic, even vegetables like the nightshades and the tomato can go towards excess. Pitta caffeine. Dr. Suhas, who is an Ayurvedic doctor who came on the podcast several times, said that throwing that drinking caffeine is like throwing gasoline on Pitta on fire. So if you find yourself getting more agitated, especially this time of year, if you find frustration rising, please limit your caffeine intake as well as your alcohol intake. It’s funny that sometimes when something is innate to us, we want it. So I’m very Vata and so I love dry crispy crackers and chips and things because that’s the types of food that Vata can go over with and pit does love.

18:36 You know, a lot of pittas love alcohol and caffeine. Like my husband loves to drink coffee and he’s very pitta, but we wanna be aware that those foods can actually exacerbate, exacerbate our balance. And we don’t want to be imbalanced. So we want to bring in, um, sweet, bitter, and astringent tastes, get lots of fresh air, avoid oily foods. Um, and dairy in general, I think is difficult for digestion for most everyone. And there’s so many amazing alternatives out there to eat moderately, you know, spiced foods, but the hot sauces, <laugh> the chilies and pouring it on is something that can definitely be in excess. Something that we definitely wanna manage and, you know, quell a bit, especially in the summer months. So we can also work with fire in many different ways. Um, if we find ourselves being really fiery, we can cool that fire with cooling, um, oils on the skin and cooling essential oils that we breathe in.

19:45 There’s some really wonderful podcasts with Charlene Avery, who’s a national educator on essential oils and scent and what it does to our brains and um, how we can use, there was one, um, Roman chamomile that she recommended to put on cotton swabs and to tuck into your pillowcase if you’re prone to anger and irritation because some of these essential oils can really help to soothe you. And on the other hand, if you need to bring in more fiery sort of alert, um, or alertness, you can use essential oils to do that as well. There is such a range of, you know, medicinal properties within the essential oils mix, uh, world. I always have a few essential oils here on my podcast booth. I actually, um, have this, um, I would, I would say this is the, the a fire mix. This is a solar plexus mix.

20:42 It’s interesting, I just put some on right before it’s diluted with coconut. So this is one of the ones that you can put on your skin safely in small amounts. And this is from the essential oil wizardry. It’s the solar, um, plexus one and the solar plexus is our, our chakra associated with fire. The money pour, this is the wheel of the confidence. The I am that I am, right, this is the wheel of the world, our personal dealings, our business dealings. And so some of these essential oils include bergamot, black pepper, um, rosemary and Rose Wood. So that bergamot and that black pepper are really wonderful for the these invigorating fire qualities. So, um, on the other hand I wanted to mention not bouncing around too much with our cornerstones, but this is a very organic podcast, very personal to me. If you’re finding your agni dimm, if you’re finding that you do need a little bit of a lift, ginger tea is really wonderful.

21:43 Black pepper in your food, some of the spices that are invigorating but not depleting or overly pita is definitely what I recommend. Please also apply this philosophy to your body and to your exercise practices. If you’re finding yourself getting irritated, overly achy, agitated, it’s really wonderful to shift your exercise routine into something more yin, more soothing, maybe yoga or Pilates. And on the other hand, if you find lethargy coming in, you may wanna step it up, go for a brisk walk, go for a jog, whatever it is. So this whole perspective of working with fire is something that can run through your life through your spiritual practices. It can be as simple as lighting a candle before you to focus you before you meditate. It can be, you know, trying the different fire practices that I mentioned in great detail at the beginning. The burning of paper, you know, part of this fire can also be introspection, journaling more, turning the inward lens onto yourself and seeing, hey, where am I still inco or where am I still living out past patterns to help yourself continue to grow and evolve.

22:55 It of course goes into food, which we mentioned here and also in the q and a podcast that I mentioned, which I recommend that you check out, goes into our exercise and making sure that we’re sleeping well and our essential oils that we surround ourselves with. And also, you know, our, our schedule. Not packing too much in not getting into hurry, energy, which is great for our emotional wellbeing and also making sure that we listen and validate each other, which helps to reduce fire and in harmonies in our personal relationships because we wanna listen and we wanna create that beautiful connection through and with each other. So please check out the show notes over@mysalina.com for more information, more fire elemental based podcasts related to this. Some of the Ayurveda and

Kimberly: 23:45 Oil podcast that I mentioned will also be linked. And we’ll be back here Thursday for our next q and a show. Also wanted to mention that there are amazing simple recipes over there, as well as our powerful digestive supplements from sauna courses, meditations, and more. I look forward to connecting with you more. So remember you can always write to me on the website as well. And I also wanted to mention that we have a live community Zoom every month. If you happen to be a subscriber to any sauna products, you’ll automatically be invited into the Zoom via email the week prior. So sending you so much love. So much Aloha and see you back here soon. Take great care.