Breathe

Breathing gives us life.  Isn't it amazing that our bodies take over 20,000 breaths per day, and that the breath removes up to 70% of toxins in our bodies?1  And we don't even have to think for this to happen, it just does.  Focused breathing exercises can help reduce stress, depression, anxiety, ADD, headache, and other dis-orders of the body and mind.2  In as little as five minutes a day, we can practice simple breathing techniques that can center us, bring us more focus, reduce stress and bring more productivity to our lives. 

A short breathing practice:3

Begin by sitting quietly, and taking several deep breaths through your nose, focusing on where your breath enters and exits the body.  When you are ready, inhale your breath slowly to a count of three. Hold for one count and exhale slowly through your nose to the count of three.  Next inhale to five, hold for two and exhale for five.  Next breath inhale to the count of seven, hold for five, then exhale to the count of seven.  Resume calm, relaxed breathing until you are ready to open your eyes and resume your day.

This breathing exercise takes less than five minutes and can be done anywhere, anytime we feel stressed, even while driving. 

Suggested action:  Use this technique a few times this week and let me know how it goes!

1 - Via Relax for Success

2 - These statements have not been proven by the FDA or other medical entity. :)

3 - (c) iPEC

Filling our cups

Ever wonder why, when life gets crazy and out of balance, we find it so difficult to share our love freely with others?  And that no matter how hard we try, the prospect of giving any more of ourselves to yet another human being becomes unbearable? There is a reason we use the words "tapped" and "running on empty" to describe these feelings.  If we liken our stores of love to a cup, life balance to a full cup and love as what goes into the cup, we can see how when things get out of balance, more and more is spilled out of the cup while nothing is being put back into the cup.  When the cup is empty, we are fully "tapped out."  So how do we keep the cup full even through those stressful, out-of-balance times?  With self care.  We must continue to give ourselves permission to engage in random acts of kindness to ourselves.  That might include meditation or centering, exercise, enjoying time outside, eating healthfully, massage or other body work, dancing, or any number of things that refill and refuel you.  When we love ourselves fully, and engage in healthy self care, our cups stay full and we have plenty of love to share freely and often with others. 

Stretching

Trying something new or stretching our envelopes can be really difficult, especially when we are so comfortable living inside these cozy little boxes we have made for ourselves. The key word here is that we MADE that box, and now it contains us in a way that is limiting us.  But if we made it, then we can tear it down, right?  When we are contemplating starting something we have never done before, we encounter great resistance from our Inner (and sometimes Outer) Critics who tell us to stay home, do it tomorrow, or just leave it be (isn't it comfortable right here where we are?).  But if we think about a time in our lives when we have been successful in a similar situation before we built that box, we can apply that same courage and strength to silence our Inner Critic and move forward.  Visualizing ourselves stretching our perceived limits, remembering a time when we did stretch with success, and then formulating an action plan to take those initial steps is a process that will eventually poke a hole in the sides of the boxes that contain us and set us free.

Motivation

Finding the motivation to do something day after day can be difficult. We wake up, we go to work, we come home, we make dinner, we go to bed.  And then we repeat the same cycle over and over again.  Pretty soon, every day looks the same and whatever inspired us in the beginning (love, friendship, community, family) gets lost in the process and the habit of going through every day on autopilot.  So how can we "get it back"?  We look inside and connect our actions with a strong internal value.  For example, we can remember that the reason we go to work each day is because we value helping people.  And the reason we make dinner every night is because we value spending time with our kids, or saving money, or feeding our bodies healthy food.  If we can link our actions to our values, then motivation and inspiration are the natural result.  If we can't link our actions to any values, then the action will become a source of negativity, breed resentment and of course, we will no longer be motivated to complete the action.  Internal value + external action = continued motivation and inspiration!

The space between

We live in a world of dichotomies.  Things can be good/bad, fast/slow, up/down, hot/cold, right/left, either/or, yes/no, right/wrong, black/white...well, you get the idea.  Finding the middle ground, the space between, allows us to look at both angles without judgment, take a breath, and just be.  Often we feel the need to categorize and compartmentalize because that's how society has taught us; when in fact, not labeling our experience as "this" or "that" can be liberating and take the pressure off of ourselves to see things a certain way.  Instead, we see things as they are, in the moment, without expectation or judgment.  Because we take in the complete picture, we see that the lines are not as clear as the labels appear to be, for every "this" has components of "that" and every "that" has components of "this," as everything is universally connected.  Sitting in the space between, we see that it is so and we are no longer driven to label our experiences.  We are free.