What Releasing Distraction has Brought Me

By C Alexa | September 4, 2026
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By Christina Alexa
Founder of Prema Shala & AYI Institute, RYS
Co-Founder of Enjoy the Journey Retreats *

This week marks the last week of a four-week Mantra Medicine series, in which many gathered – in a Facebook group and live online – to learn a new mantra each week and develop a practice. Chanting mantra isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I love discovering people who are open to trying it, to seeing where it might take them.

I think of mantra as an existing current of energy, fed for thousands of years by the singular intention of everyone who has ever come to that particular resonance. The current finds us when we sit in sadhana with genuine earnestness, easing into the effortless effort of showing up in the present and invoking what we need. Through mantra we remember we are supported – or rather, when we open to it, we experience that support, of something greater than us and of which we are also a part.

I hear myself, through the years, saying the same things over and over, because I am speaking about my experience and my truth. The older I become, the more I realize life is simply a stitching-together of simple truths. We tend to overcomplicate growth and transformation. I believe the formula for liberation is already mapped in countless traditions, and in nature itself, if we’re willing to observe long enough. Observing the natural world alone takes us 99% of the way there.

My point, I suppose, is this: as I reflect on my own purpose – to live it out until this vessel tires of me – I keep landing on a handful of these simple truths that make my world go round. When I forget them, this is where I return. Nothing else really does the trick.

1.Atha. Now, the teachings of yoga. Yoga is to still the stirrings of consciousness, so that awareness can know itself.
All possibility reveals itself only when we enter the portal of the present; the first four Yoga Sutras remind us of this. Replace the word “yoga” with whatever you like: “Now, the teachings of… mayonnaise.” Becoming present means entering the sacred hall, moving from the mundane into what deserves reverence, including all the hard things there are to feel in the body, the emotional body, the mind. The parent witness – that aspect of our spirit that takes damn good care of us – can be accessed consciously here. The Parent Witness is always with us; we’re just not always with it.

2. As I become aware and befriend witness consciousness, I grow stronger. Practicing neutral observation of self, especially in our non-finest moments, builds a container, a boundary, a curiosity. Isn’t that interesting? We can ask, watching the repetition of a painful pattern. Hmm… I wonder what would happen if I responded differently this time? What would it look like to nudge the karmic pattern and say, “Ha! I’m on to myself now”.

3. Releasing what no longer serves us is a process, and we get to set the timeline. No one else is you. No one has to live with you full-time except you. You set the pace. You choose the curves in your own dharmic path. When someone tries to tell you anything about the pace of your growth, “Hurry up! You should be through this already!” or, “Slow down, you are moving too fast!”, take pause. Is the advice of a friend or professional worth reflecting on? Absolutely, however, you are your own highest authority. Don’t forget, you have to live with the results of your decisions for the long haul, no one else is staring back at you in the mirror except you.

4. When we decide to respond differently to our old buttons and reactions, we’ll feel small or large karmic roars – the last gasp of what we’re no longer feeding, on its way out. We feel everything we release, in short form, as it leaves us – like vomit. Sorry, but true. It tastes different as we purge, but the good news is that insight follows release.

5. Tolerating the pains of growth is a choice. Distraction is also a choice. Make one.
The best choices happen organically, in small moments, when we’re ready.

Recently I looked back over the past month and realized I’d strung together a series of small choices that quietly cleared away all my usual distractions. Without entirely meaning to, I released:

Dairy, gluten, carbs (the bad ones), alcohol, most sugar, binge-watching, excessive late nights, fear. Oh, and fifteen pounds…

And I gained, without quite noticing until a few weeks had passed:

Better sleep, the capacity to sit through waves of release without needing distraction, more energy, less anxiety, more patience, more peace, higher productivity.

I gained the ability to look up and see there’s light around the corner.

I didn’t intend to overhaul my days, it just happened, because this container of me was ready for the next thing. I reinforced it through daily japa mantra chanting. Did that help? Absolutely. Chanting reminded me I am sacred, and that when the world of disruptive thoughts descends, I have somewhere to go to remember I am held, supported, beautiful, worthy.

6. We grow best in proportion to our ground. Excessive growth without solid roots isn’t sustainable. If we find ourselves over-reaching, addictively hungry for the next psychedelic breakthrough, the next peak experience, this too can be a distraction. Contemplating the conscious and unconscious motivations behind our excessive desires, at our own pace, leads us to the sore spots behind which our real power lives. Root before you reach. Feel your own worth, and if it’s absent, fake it till you make it. Pretending you believe in yourself creates an intention. Bring that intention into the present (remember what we said earlier, about stepping into the sacredness of now?) Feel the intention, embody it – it is so, and it is done. Repeat this, over and over, until belief takes hold.

7. Ahimsa. In the absence of violence, what remains? Yes, the energy of creation, love… and space for truth to arise. Satya. Study the yamas and niyamas, all of them, or better yet, study them with me, with the Practical Yamas and Niyamas (the book, now in its third revision as a subchapter of One Well), because I love the company of community. Community is stronger than willpower.

The One Well Arc of Healing
And here I’ll leave you with another repetition I will live by, and speak of, until my days are done:

  • Become aware of your capacity to witness yourself – the innocent, organic moment you first found yourself witnessing, awake almost as if for the first time, without being new. Embrace the light, the brilliance, the perspective of the East. The First Witness.
  • In that space, tune into the truth of the body – the feelings, physical, emotional, mental, that have been trying to get your attention. Your body knows. Let it invite you into joy, into play, into laughing at yourself, into the endurance of tapas, of fire. The Body’s Truth. The South.
  • What illusions are dissolving in your life right now? What truth is piercing through what you once mistook for a veil, one that, try as you might, can never again be pulled back over your eyes? Illusions.
  • Do not fear the sacred descent to the depths of you. This journey is divine, and it is on purpose. You are meant to hold your nose and dive and then realize you can breathe underwater. Grandmother Ocean holds you here: the divine mother, the sacred feminine, the place of dreaming. The Sacred Descent. The West.
  • Face your wounds. Feel everything. Your power lives here. The Origin Wound.
  • When you feel the curious rise that comes once power is found, remember, you’re not home yet. You’re traveling home. Let your energy rise with the prana now filling the space once held by stagnation, buried beneath the origin wound. Released, fly, and see with new eyes. The Rise.
  • GROUND. Return home, in yourself, carrying the wisdom gathered from moving through every direction of your own medicine wheel, around this one issue, this one lesson, this one wound. Healthy restraint resists the urge to rush past the moment of return. Celebrate this new ground, this new perspective. Life looks different from here. Celebrate the ancestors who are always celebrating you, cheering you on, loving you when you forget to love yourself. Give gratitude to the teachers who came before and showed you the way. Take your rightful place in the North, among them. The Return.

This is what I’ve been sitting with this week and every day, day after day. Always. If you want to share your journey with me, join me on the mat, in Satsang, or through the ether, with heart.

In love,
Christina
 

Invitations

 

Want to work with Christina? Where to go from here:
If something in this article stirred you – an old pattern you’re ready to name, a distraction you’re ready to release, a longing for the kind of community that holds us steady – here are a few doors open right now:

  • Keep the mantra going. The four-week Mantra Medicine series may be closing, but the current doesn’t stop. If you missed it, or want to keep building your practice, reach out, we’ll find you a way in.
  • As mentioned above, join us for FREE Sacred Sunday Yoga online. All are welcome to this brief but transformational forty-minute practice every Sunday 8 – 8:40 am. Video on or off, and stay after to share in a community of friends.
  • Join me at the Possibility Retreat, September 18–20, 2026. Led for its third year by Heather MaGuire and Sue Penney Bergman, I am honored to join in to offer opening and closing ceremonies, teach some yoga and ground a gorgeous “Om Session” during Siesta for those that want to integrate Om for clearing and amplification. In partnership with YMCA Overnight Camps, we’re gathering at YMCA Camp of Maine for a weekend built exactly for what this article describes: releasing distraction, returning to ground, finding community that’s stronger than willpower and much more magic!
  • Join us in person, Thursday evenings at Prema Shala. Satsang continues at Prema Shala, a space to sit together, chant, witness, and remember we’re not doing this alone. All levels, all bodies, all stages of the wheel welcome.
  • Schedule a private session online via Zoom or in person at Prema Shala. Shakti Point Balancing sessions include a chakra reading, energetic clearing and aligning. Read more and schedule a session here.
  • Go deeper with the teachings. Practical Yamas and Niyamas (currently in its third revision within my book, One Well) unpacks everything hinted at here and more. If you want self-study companions rather than a solo walk, consider the 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training January – October 2027, or the upcoming One Well Arc of Healing programs.
  • Just want to talk? Reply to this, message me directly, or find me on the mat. However you choose to reach out, I’m listening.

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