JUST BREATHE

STOP!!! TAKE A BREATH... That pretty much sums me up. I needed to slow down. Connect. Breathe. I was always in a hurry. Waking up, wishing I could get back into bed. Going to work with the end of day on my mind. Quick engagement's with friends, little appearances with family. The inevitability of picking up, getting loaded and waiting for a moment and feeling that never came. This was my life, my normal. If I showed up to work everyday and paid my bills no one looked to closely at me or my behavior. My (dis)functioning in society justified my lifestyle choices. happiness and fulfillment weren't important. I was a being in perpetual motion, constantly reacting, unable to change the rhythm or rhyme of my life, never taking a break, always chasing the high, chasing the money; trying not to fall to far behind, always playing catchup.

In my mind, life was something that hadn't happened yet. My belief was that one day I was going to show the world who I was. People would see how important I was. They would wonder how they managed life for so long without me. that was the fantasy that preoccupied my reality, keeping me bonded to beliefs and limitations that were equally false. "Be here now" was certainly not a part of that belief system. One day I was going to have my big moment that was going to stretch into the rest of my life. One day... One day... One day...

The truth. I didn't know how to slow down. My actions. My thinking. I was always planning, always living in tomorrow, waiting for the next thing, never present, never here, never now. Everything was going to happen when "so and so" was done, or when I had x amount in the bank.

Yoga became my doorway to that internal place of presence. More specifically pranayama. I first connected with it in treatment. I quit smoking and it seemed like all I had left was breath. I became aware of the miscommunication between mind and body through the phenomenon of craving. It became clear to me that on an instinctual, intuitive level, my body would never ask for something harmful. My thinking had created these stories of craving. Stories that had been told for so long I didn't know anything else to be true. The breath was key to changing this conditioning.

When I would do yoga in the mornings I would fell my breath laboring, fighting to be in sync with my movements. I felt it change with pain and strain, and noticed the relief when the practice ended. In the gym and when I ran, my breath felt desperate, pleading with me to stop, panicking as I pushed myself. My stories became so intense in these moments of exertion that I couldn't ignore them and more importantly couldn't hide behind them anymore. In those moments it was clear how untrue they were. I didn't need a cigarette, I wasn't going to collapse during these workouts or practices. My tolerance was going to grow, my abilities were going to change and my body was going to start telling a different story.

I studied breath in India and I'm so grateful for my time at the ashram. The Holistic approach with attention to cleansing practices, philosophy and lifestyle expanded my limited understanding of yoga. It became the design for living that I hadn't been able to find up to that point. It's such a cool thing to know that my greatest tool is not some external thing I need to obtain, or some place I need to be. Its right here right now, Its keeping me alive weather I pay attention to it or not. For me the breath is one thing that is real, true and happening right now. Its a direct pathway to connecting with myself. It's my baseline. My troubleshooting software. My alarm system. For years I suffocated myself, not listening to what my breath was telling me. I realize now its the language of my body, and learning to speak that language has changed my life at a foundational level. Are you Connected with it?

Is it something you're aware of?