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BALANCE from the Big Intentions Card Deck by Erin Lee and Tracey Keturah. 

The natural world continually ebbs and flows, creates and destroys, rises and falls, expands and contracts — it’s forever seeking equilibrium.

You are a part of nature too.

As an Earth-ling, you are automatically alchemising as you navigate your way through life, finding Balance.

Sometimes, the greatest lessons in Balance come through the hard knocks that send us flying afar …

Small knocks endured over a long period of time, can also leave us feeling misaligned.

What can we do when we’re feeling like this?

There’s no better guru to turn to than Mother Nature.

Notice how she deals with a tree that falls in the forest …

There might be a temporary shock, but watch how new growth emerges in the space created from the change.

See how it takes time and appropriate conditions for plants to grow, flowers to blossom and coral reefs to spawn.

Embodying Balance - Visksasana, Tree Pose.

In the same way that a tree stands firm but remains flexible in changing weather, Tree Pose asks that we deepen our connection to Earth while remaining flexible to manage the sway and swaggers of life.

This is an invitation for you to restore balance in your body. From standing position, gaze at a focal point ahead.

Press one foot into the ground, keeping a micro-bend through the knee and activating the glutes. Gradually lift the other foot away from the ground, placing the sole against the inside of the calf or thigh of the standing leg. Angle the bent knee to the side.

Root down through the standing foot as you raise your arms up towards the sky to resemble the long and flexible branches of a tree.

Set your fingers in GYAN mudra to promote focus and wisdom. Connect your thumbs with your forefingers and extend the last three fingers long.

As you breathe in, broaden across your heart space, relaxing your shoulders away from your ears. Breathe out and point the base of your spine down towards the Earth, keeping your pelvis neutral.

Lift the crown of your head high towards the vast sky above. Matching this effort with your deep connection to the Earth beneath you.

Invite balance in.

Grace from the Big Intentions Card Deck by Erin Lee and Tracey Keturah. 

Natarajasana - DANCER’S POSE

In Yoga Sutra 2.46, Patanjali refers to sthira sukham asanam, which translates to a ‘stable and comfortable posture’.

To achieve this in a yoga pose we must take steady action – consistent effort over time without unnecessary tension.

This is how Grace works in everyday life.

Grace lives in the space that exists between effort and effortlessness.

Grace is the divine space in and between all things.

It’s the music that happens in-between the notes

...the pause between impulse and response.

Grace is born in the balance of

action and non-action,

effort and ease.

Whatever position you find yourself in,

make sure there is space to allow the God energy of Grace

to move through you.

When we bring the stillness of our being into what we are doing,

we tap into the miraculous flow of Grace.

To achieve balance in Dancer’s Pose, take each step forward with steadiness and ease. Discover the Grace that lives in the space between effort and ease.

This is an invitation for you to notice Grace in your body.

From a standing position, gaze gently at a single focal point ahead.

Press the whole of your right foot firmly into the ground. Keep a microbend through the knee of that same leg, and activate the glutes.

Begin to lift your left foot away from the ground, sending the heel toward your bottom. Catch the foot with your left hand and cup the inner arch with your fingers.

Level both hips evenly. Broaden the tips of the collarbone.

Lift through the crown of your head, and reach the right arm out ahead of you with your hand in Gyan Mudra to promote focus and wisdom as you prepare to expand – connect your thumb with your forefinger and extend the last three fingers long.

Breathe in and begin pushing the left foot into your left hand. Breathe out to lean forward gradually, to your extent of this pose in this moment.

Make sure you can still breathe.

Invite Grace in.

Surrender from the Big Intentions Card Deck by Erin Lee and Tracey Keturah. 

Balasana — Child’s Pose

Surrender is a conscious decision to soften resistance. It asks us to loosen our grip on the things we try to control — outcomes, identities, expectations. When we surrender, we allow life to move through us, rather than wrestle with it.

Try this: clench your fists as tightly as you can. Notice the tension, the effort. Now, slowly release. Feel the space return. This is what it means to surrender — to let go of the fight and return to ease.

We can only hold on for so long before it causes harm. Exhaustion, resentment, tension — these are signs we’ve gripped too tightly. Surrender isn’t defeat. It’s choosing trust over struggle. It’s remembering that a greater intelligence is always holding us.

Balasana, Child’s Pose, invites you into this softness. Forehead to earth, arms extended or by your sides, heart gently folding — it’s a physical prayer of letting go.

A prayer:

Dear Universe, I release my resistance.
Guide me from here.
I trust that your intelligence holds my highest path.
Let me rest now, and be held by life itself.

Loosen your grip. Breathe.

Notice how everything starts to realign — not through force, but through your willingness to soften.

Peace from the Big Intentions Card Deck by Erin Lee and Tracey Keturah. 

Peace is your natural state of being.

But it can be hard to feel peaceful when there’s chaos around you or storms stirring within.

We’re wired to look outward first—to find the cause of our inner unrest in politics, family, or society. It’s an inbuilt mechanism.

Yet true peace doesn’t come from the outside in.

Disharmony exists both internally and externally, but one does not govern the other.

When you become consciously aware that disharmony lives within you, you awaken the potential to return to peace.

Disharmony becomes a messenger, pointing to where something is out of alignment.

You are always the master of what goes on inside your own head and heart.

Ask yourself:

— What needs to happen in order to create alignment?

— What needs to be let go of?

— What needs to be spoken?

Peace is revealed when you choose it.

It doesn’t live in the future, or in a perfect version of life.

Peace already resides within you—patient, still, waiting.

Like the sky, it’s always there.

It only gets clouded now and then.

All you need to do is release your grip on expecting anything to be different from how it is, right now.

Being peaceful doesn’t mean inaction.

It means that your actions are born from peace.

And that changes everything.

Card for the day is Love from the Big Intentions Deck by Erin Lee and Tracey Keturah.

When love flows freely, we feel at ease. Without the medicine of love, we become sick, in a state of dis-ease.

Obstacles to love are often born out of past experiences. We've felt love come and go, sometimes involving heartbreak. We may have told ourselves that we'll never trust love again. We may have withheld love in fear of it not being acknowledged or returned.

As a result, we put conditions on love.

It's easy to love when convenient, but when things aren't going our way, obstacles like fear, judgment, and aversion can distill love's presence.

Deep within us, we all desire unconditional love.

Love is more than just a temporary emotion, or a one-off loving gesture...

Unconditional love holds everything, everyone, every view, every opinion, and every way of life in the same living space.

You can even extend love out, while at the same time saying "no".

For true love to flow, we must give and receive freely, without putting any rules in place.

Every person on this planet needs love. To give and take love is the perfect medicine. No prescription needed.

Notice how love continues to flow when she's free.

Forgiveness from the Big Intentions Cards - Guidance for Embodied Purposeful Living by Erin Lee & Tracey Keturah 

Supta Baddha Konasana — Reclining Bound Angle Pose

If we have control over the design of our life, there would be many events and situations we would prefer not to experience.

Adversity happens in the moment of time, yet it's common for us to carry the weight of suffering for years, months, years, even lifetimes beyond the event. It's a paradox to willingly hold onto the memories that we feel most resistant to.

We don't want to carry them, but we do.

We don't know how not to.

To be free of the burden of the past is to forgive.

FOR-GIVE = To Give.

Some of us may try to force forgiveness by attempting to think our way through it, bypassing or overriding core emotional wounding, but that's not true forgiveness. Forgiveness is not a mental or willful process.

Forgiveness is an emotional movement that happens in the heart as an automatic response once the emotion has been released.

How can we deal with emotions of the past?

Identify the emotion.

Is it anger, fear, sadness, or shame?

Be with the emotion.

How does it present in your body, breath, and thoughts?What does the emotion feel like? Once you can feel the emotion, hold yourself gently. The act was not okay, but the emotion is.

Allow.

Honor the emotion by giving it time and space to release.

Notice.

Acknowledge the space you've now created in your soul where the burden once lay. Sense and feel the space within, through which divine love and grace can enter. Now there is nothing left to forgive. The process is complete. With wisdom in your heart from the experience of the burden, new life choices can now be made.

Give thanks.

Now that you've resolved the emotion and integrated the event, express gratitude for the whole experience and for the growth that it has brought your soul.

Forgiveness is liberation, marking the milestone of our soul's maturity.