Breathe
Right now, where you are – breathe.
Take a deep breath and imagine a rubber band around your lower ribs and inhale through the entire circumference of your ribcage.
Exhale fully.
Repeat three times.
Take your time.
Resume whatever you were doing and may your day be filled with lots of space.
(photo by Tim Goedhart)
What happens when you wake up one day and you realize you have no connection with your Self? You realize you have never seen your Self, acknowledged your Self or honored your Self. Where on god’s green earth do you begin?
My experience is you begin with listening, and you begin by seeing. Seeing all the things you may have been running from all of your life so far, covering it up with dismissal, turning away, busying yourself with distractions.
Energy extended outward, when intentionally watching, it surges inward and dances in front of me.
The amount of energy produced inside of me exceeds the amount needed to function. It overwhelms me as it comes inside and slowly reduces. I feel the production of energy is too great, and it is apparent that it takes more energy production to be external than is necessary to function internally. It is as if the extraordinary amount of energy I feel desires to extend outwards to release itself. Yet, it seems the desire to reach outwards, in actuality, generates more energy and therefore creates an antithetical loop; exchanging the desire to expel with the reaching out to expel which by its nature, produces more and adds to what was already too much.
The mind reacts to a need for shaking off, letting out, dispelling the excessive production. This need is apparent when trying to bring the energy back in. The body feels restless and responds with a nauseous sensation, a sense of being too plugged in, and receiving too much energy. It is not the unwieldiness or the lack of self-control. It is the production of too much energy driven by habitual ways of being external rather than internal.
How to be in a yoga pose?
How to be in life?
Doing. Being. Trusting. Faith. Balance. Center. This is my practice.
Looking at life and how I participate with it, I see, with clarity, a parallel between the practice of yoga and the practice that continues to evolve within my life itself.
In yoga is someone else wrong for doing a pose differently? Maybe their body is different. Perhaps their experience is different. It is not about them, but instead, it is about what works for me. In life, we compare ourselves to others. It seems we think we need to be more like someone else as we hold our self to a standard we believe we know. Yet, in yoga, I clearly see I do not compare. I do not look at someone who can stand on their head for an hour and insist that I need to jump in immediately and stand on my head for an hour. I do not look outside in a yoga class and strive to be like others. In yoga, I come back inside and do what I can, be what I am, trust in myself, have faith and find my balance. In yoga class the students respect the teacher, we listen, we observe, and then we approach the pose and enter it as our Self for our Self. We do not enter the pose to show or become someone else.
To be in the moment but not of the moment. To accept my Self fully. To embrace the physical manifestations of choice and responsibility. To let go. To accept the hanging on is something I am doing. To let go the gripping, holding, and stuck turns to freedom, flexibility, and malleable movement.
Have you ever looked at a skeleton and seen the amount of space that exists within the human body without the muscles, tendons, cartilage, etc.? The amount of space between the bones is beyond expansive than what I typically feel within the movement of my body.
Bones are denser than muscles, yet often times it feels as if the muscles are denser then bones internally. A tight back, an achy neck, a stiff shoulder, and on and on. Yet the muscles are actually malleable.
I have always known how much food helps or hinders your body. I mean we hear about it all the time about the nutrients, the vitamins, the chemicals, etc. and what is good and what is not good for your body. But, for the most part, it has always gone out one ear or the other because I have never subscribed to any diets and frankly eating always seemed like something I HAD TO DO.
Well, it sure has been awhile. Unfortunately, I have been on a restricted computer diet since the end of July. I have had to pick and choose the computer projects necessary and unfortunately the blog had to go on a little vacation.
What was the cause of this medically imposed computer vacation? I have something called Thoracic outlet syndrome. Some people refer to it by its nickname – TOS.
“Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is a syndrome involving compression at the superior thoracic outlet resulting from excess pressure placed on a neurovascular bundle passing between the anterior scalene and middle scalene muscles. It can affect one or more of the nerves that innervate the upper limb and/or blood vessels as they pass between the chest and upper extremity, specifically in the brachial plexus, the subclavian artery, and, rarely, the subclavian vein, which does not usually pass through the scalene hiatus.
There is a lot to say about the beauty of being that infuses your doing with grace. One without the other is sure to bring you a life unlived. I am learning, through experience, my human life comes to life through balance; balance between play and work, doing and being, connecting and disconnecting.
