Spirituality is exploring the meaning of life, purpose, and connectedness to each other and the world itself.

At Mandala Den, our practitioners believe that regulating the nervous system is crucial to living a healthy life. Many of the tools we use to practice spirituality help to heal the nervous system, taking us out of the fight or flight, anxious, stressed state into a more calm and relaxed mindset where we recognize that life happens with us, not to us.

Our sympathetic nervous system is the adrenaline fueled act of survival from a threat. This was very important when we had to fight against the elements and wild animals to survive in the wild. Now we see that being activated from survival in our current world where we feel caught in having to work more, take care of our families more, continue to do more and more.

Our parasympathetic nervous system is the part where our bodies can complete the calming tasks of digestion, rest, and replenishment. This is our homeostasis; the energy that we want our bodies to live most of the time. But because of our constant stress and anxiety in the world, both in our own lives and in the lives of all of those around us, we are unable to stay in this homeostasis long enough to allow our bodies to perform their natural duties.

With the sympathetic nervous system continually activated, this is where we see the most disease happen. Stress taxes our hearts and many other organs by showing up as high blood pressure, obesity, and depression. When we are depleted of energy because we are overdoing ourselves in the things we see as mandatory; work, family, household chores, we do not have the energy to exercise or eat properly so that then shows up as inflammation in the body, lack of mobility, poor diet resulting in poor digestion, decreased mental clarity from overthinking and worry, and so many other things.

When we reactivate the parasympathetic nervous system, we are able to calm the body, mind, and spirit down so that we can experience more joy, happiness, clarity, and energy to do everything we need to and want to.

It is a practice, which means there is no one thing that can “cure” you. At Mandala Den, we practice daily through meditation, yoga, mindfulness, eating healthy, and our own methods of reducing stress. We are eager to share those methods with you!