Tag: breath work

Open Heartedness

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Letting energy flow through you.

“If your heart is open it can’t be broken.” This statement was given to me by a stranger in passing. This mantra marks a lovely moment of synchronicity in my life. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. I didn’t know this person and after this moment I have never seen or heard from her again. And yet her gentle teaching has stayed with me for years.

Today I was reminded of this lesson as I did a grounding meditation. The purpose of the meditation is to bring life back into focus so we’re not scrambling after every small offense or ruminating on any particular situation too long. Overthinking be gone!

As I did the breath exercises I remembered that part of this lesson has to do with our desire to hold on to our emotions, anger, frustrations, or even joy. We can’t hold onto these things unless we wish for them to go toxic. Much like grains of sand, the tighter we squeeze the faster they slip through our fingers. Therefore, as I did this exercise I released. I let go of trying to control or understand. This released the desire to manage the outcome and by doing so I am no longer ruminating. I am free to enjoy my day, free to savor the present moment, and write freely.

And that’s the word that stands out – free. When we let love, energy, emotion, etc. pass through us, as welcome visitors, we get to enjoy them in the moment. When we attempt to hold on too long we are left clinging to a shadow of that experience. Letting things flow through our lives frees us to embrace the transitory nature of life. Therefore when we are having fun or experience joy, we savor it. Just as when we suffer it too will not last. Remembering the temporary nature of life is frees us to enjoy the good and endure the bad. With open hearts we accept the love poured into us and remain open when love leaves for whatever comes next. 

Trusting ourselves and the universe begins by listening to our own inner voices. When we trust that more will come, we do not need to hang on for dear life. Our open heart knows there will be more joy, more laughter, more friendship. We do not need to cling to what we have and we do not need to own it. There is nothing that we own in life – least of all our emotional state or those we love. Without ownership there is no responsibility to manage or control.

Therefore it is with an open heart I wish you a beautiful day full of love, ease, comfort, laughter, and faith. My hope is that you try allowing everything to flow through you rather than into you. Ride the waves rather than being worn away slowly like a rock. Even the thought is liberating. Those mountains you are carrying you were only meant to climb. Let’s stop carrying undue burdens and weighing ourselves down with obstacles. Let us instead choose to free ourselves and let the universe take care of the rest. As they say in yoga class – Namaste. 

Savoring the Good: Five Steps to Staying Present

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Today I want to talk about savoring those moments that are sweetest. Our days and lives are full of beautiful, lush, and lovely moments that we often miss. Our brains are so active and full of energy that they are often rushing to solve a problem rather than enjoy the still and silent moment that is happening right now. We spend so much time looking forward or looking back that we forget to enjoy where we are right now – and now truly is the only time we have. Here are five steps I use to get out of my head and into the present moment – all you need are your five senses and a few minutes. 

Start with a few cleansing breaths – deep ones that fill you up. If you inhale to the count of three and exhale to the count of four that should help. Also, extra points if you exhale a sigh, which vibrates the back of your throat and soothes your limbic system as well.

When you’re ready:

Eyes/ Sight – I look around the space I am in and name five things I see or want to see. I’ll do this exercise as I write so you can follow along and do it yourself with me. I see:

  • blue sky
  • sunlight on the carpet, 
  • trees, 
  • warm yellow walls, and
  • a painting of a tree

Ears/ Sound – List four things you can hear or want to hear.

  • a dog barking
  • an airplane overhead
  • tree leaves rustling, and
  • a bird calling for its mate.

Hands/ Touch – List three things you can feel or want to feel.

  • the gentle keyboard keys under my fingers
  • the slick comfort of my athletic pants, and 
  • soft cushion of the chair I’m sitting on.

Nose/ Smell – List two things you can smell or want to smell.

  • my post-meditation chocolate 
  • a warm fall breeze that smells like change

Mouth/ Taste – List one thing you can taste or want to taste.

  • more chocolate!

And here I am, very much in this room and this time, present and enjoying this moment as it happens. I hope you are too! Feel free to re-arrange the senses and use what works best for you. I hope it helps calm and soothe you. I hope it brings you into the present moment and truly alive in your day. 

Strawberries Low Hanging Fruit Harvest

Listening Within – 4 Steps to Focus and Recalibrate

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Today it has become aware to me that I am moving in fast forward. I am so eager to finish, to make progress, to get things done that I am not listening to my inner voice and to what would bring me joy. To do this requires only some small simple steps. But I am chasing that external satisfaction that comes from a task completed, scratching an item off of my “to do,” list. 

I am also procrastinating the simple tasks that do not bring me as much joy or satisfaction. I am delaying the simple choices that would bring me the most peace. I am putting off RSVP’ing to events and clicking send on a grocery order. I am creating an environment that produces more stress in my own life and i don’t want to do that anymore. Not that I will never do this again, but I can make it better today, for now. Here’s what that looks like for me: 

  1. Take a deep breath. This sounds simple but so often I rush through the day and forget to take a moment to breathe. I get distracted and caught up in my phone, emails, or tasks and instead of following one task to completion I find myself doing a little bit of a lot of things and not finishing any of them. Therefore, my first move is not to complete any of these things but to breathe deep and still myself so that I can decide what to do first.
  1. Find the low hanging fruit. What items on my list are easiest to accomplish? What is there that I can complete right now. Some items are as simple as moving a pile of documents from where they are sitting – on my dresser, to where they belong, stowed with the sentimental memory boxes I have across the room waiting to be organized. It’s a lot easier to organize when everything is in one place. These are small victories but they set the right tone and get my momentum moving in the right direction. It’s easier to snowball one victory into another when I’m not overwhelmed by too many major tasks and can just resolve one quick thing at a time.
  1. Let go of perfectionism. There’s going to be things I miss or foods I intended to purchase that just get skipped on the grocery list. These things happen, even when I meal plan and that’s ok. Right now I’m transforming our family diet and routines. We’re coming up on a new school year and I want to make more balanced and healthful choices for our family. This includes shifting the way we eat and the foods we consume. This is not easy as it involves tracking down new recipes and trying new cooking methods. It’s tricky, but it’s not impossible. And my first step needs to be to let go of my expectations of being a professional vegan chef on my first try, and instead remember that incremental change is still change and shifting our family in the right direction.
  1. Celebrate what you have already accomplished. This final one often gets steamrolled by the urgency to do more or the feeling that I didn’t accomplish enough today. That feeling of too little time, too much to do, pushes the goal post further back the moment I reach it. Doing this only leads to feeling more depleted and drained. Taking a moment, an evening, a week – whatever it is that you need to feel celebrated and proud of yourself for how far you have come is a worthy investment.

Letting go of scoring ourselves or rating our performance by the imaginary yard stick of perfectionism or worse yet, imagined competitions between ourselves and what someone else posts online, is not only unreasonable but it is also hurtful. We’re hurting our selves. Celebrate what you did today – you showed up, you did your best, and that is enough. That is exactly all anyone can expect of you! Look around at all you have and at all you’ve done already – isn’t that a reason to celebrate?

I like to think back on the me of a year ago, or read a journal entry from this time last year and see what my priorities were at that time. How far we’ve come in a single year! How magnificent all that we have done in a single day! That is cause for celebration!

Three Steps to Staying Centered

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There’s a lot of frenetic energy out in the world lately. As people rush to obtain vaccines, we’re all eager to travel, and all of us hoping to return to the normalcy of daily life – pre-pandemic. I’m hopeful for a return to normalcy. The comfort of hugging a friend hello. The simple joy of saying, “God Bless You,” rather than thinking, “What fresh hell is this?” Still as we all adjust to a pace that is slightly faster, as more opportunities to spend time together open up, and as the weather blesses us with the warmth and sunshine of spring I am attempting to stay grounded. 

There are a few practices that are giving me comfort as I consider for myself and my family what the future might look like for us. The following simple practices are helping me to balance my desire to get out in the world safely and my need for change, growth, and progress.

Walks – My son and I take daily walks – and sometimes when one of us is angry we’ll go on a walk until we’re ready to talk about it. We take Dr. Brenee Brown’s research into breath work and exercise and apply it to our conflicts. Exercising, getting out into nature, and allowing ourselves to be distracted and embraced by the beauty we find outside.

Meditation – I have had, “meditate daily,” on my new year’s resolution list for five years now, and I never seem to find the time. Lately, I have made it part of my afternoon routine. Walk, lunch, meditate, and write. I use the guided meditations provided by The Mindful Movement, you can find them on YouTube or simply Google a guided meditation for the amount of time you have to work with at the moment. I feel most refreshed after 20 minutes, but any amount will do.

Breath work – Just taking deep breaths. I find my anxiety flares up when I spend too much time staring at screens. This happens with work, my phone, email. Sometimes it seems every screen I see drains something from me. So taking a break to make the bed or clean up the accumulated cups, cords, and clutter that seem to accumulate around my work space – I take a moment to breathe deeply. I’m not religious about it but that simple intentionality helps me to feel grounded and connected to the present moment.

I must say that with these practices I have found myself more present, still, and calm. There’s always something that can rattle us or distract us from who we want to be, what we want to accomplish, and the universe typically finds a way to test our boundaries. It seems to me that when I’m feeling proudest of my progress that is when the universe starts poking, just to see if I’m serious. This week it came in the form of work emails and overtired kiddos not willing to help clean up dishes without a fight. But even as these minor annoyances piled up, as they do at the end of the day, I was able to stay calm, take my main culprit on a walk and work out the challenges together. I know this won’t work every time and there will still be moments where I am not at my finest – but if I can send an email that says, “Wonderful – thank you!” instead of, “Listen here buddy,” I know I’m making progress and staying true to who I am and who I want to be in the world rather than reactive to every curveball that comes my way.

3 Tips for Staying Present and Intentional

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There’s a lot of frenetic energy out in the world lately. As we rush to obtain vaccines, travel, and all of us hoping to return to the normalcy of daily life – pre-pandemic. I’m hopeful for a return to normalcy. The comfort of hugging a friend hello. The simple joy of saying, “God Bless You,” rather than thinking, “What fresh hell is this?” Still as we all adjust to a pace that is slightly faster, as more opportunities to spend time together open up, and as the weather blesses us with the warmth and sunshine of spring I am attempting to stay grounded. 

There are a few practices that are giving me comfort as I consider for myself and my family what the future might look like for us. The following simple practices are helping me to balance my desire to get out in the world safely and my need for calm, comfort, and balance.

Walks – My son and I take daily walks – and sometimes when one of us is angry we’ll go on a walk until we’re ready to talk about it. We take Dr. Brenee Brown’s research into breath work and exercise and apply it to our conflicts. Exercising, getting out into nature, and allowing ourselves to be distracted and embraced by the beauty we find outside.

Meditation – I have had, “meditate daily,” on my new year’s resolution list for five years now and I never seem to find the time. Lately, I have made it part of my afternoon routine. Walk, lunch, meditate, and write. I use the guided meditations provided by The Mindful Movement, you can find them on YouTube or simply Google a guided meditation for the amount of time you have to work with at the moment. I feel most refreshed after 20 minutes, but any amount will do.

Breath work – Just taking deep breaths. I find my anxiety flares up when I spend too much time staring at screens. This happens with work, my phone, email. Sometimes it seems every screen I see drains something from me. So taking a break to make the bed or clean up the accumulated cups, cords, and clutter that seem to accumulate around my work space – I take a moment to breathe deeply. I’m not religious about it but that simple intentionality helps me to feel grounded and connected to the present moment.

I must say that with these practices I have found myself more present, still, and calm.

I continue to be productive but the process of getting there is much more enjoyable and gentle. There’s always something that can rattle us or distract us from who we want to be, what we want to accomplish, and the universe typically finds a way to test our boundaries. It seems to me that when I’m feeling proudest of my progress that is when the universe starts poking, just to see if I’m serious. This week it came in the form of work emails, a simple correction cc’d to the team, a routine process I did the old way not the new way, and overtired kiddos not willing to help clean up dishes without a fight. But even as these minor annoyances piled up, as they do at the end of the day, I was able to stay calm, take my main culprit on a walk and work out our challenges together. I also noticed that with my family, when I take a breath I stop that cycle of anger trickling down to every member of our household we are all better for it.

There will still be moments where I am not at my finest – but if I can send an email that says, “Wonderful – thank you!” instead of, “Listen here buddy,” I know I’m making progress and staying true to who I am and who I want to be in the world rather than reactive to every curveball that comes my way. These practices may not change the world but they will definitely change your day and for since this is the only moment I can live, it changes my world anyway. For me, that’s enough.