They all say to stop and breathe, but how exactly do we do it?

Oh my goodness there are a ton of posts on mindfulness, meditation, and anxiety reduction. Almost all of them have some form of, "stop, be still, and breathe to calm yourself." It's great advice. And it works. The trouble is, how do you stop, be still, and breathe when you might be scared, anxious, nervous, or downright freakin' out?

What are the magical steps? How do you grab onto the focus and calm that lets you take any sort of breath when you are already stressed? And even if you manage to take a deep breath, are you doing it correctly? Will you get the most relaxation bang for your inhalation buck?

Most of us breathe inefficiently. I've taught thousands of people to sing and speak and I've watched them breathe to assess what they are doing and how they are doing it. Almost every single person breathes in such a way that she or he uses up a great deal of energy and motion on the breath but almost never gets the full benefit of either that breath or that energy expenditure.

So, let's take a look at breathing. In these next few posts on Communication Thursdays, we'll go over it step by step, and get you the information you need to breathe deeply and effectively.

We breathe involuntarily. We don't think about it. Some people have to think about it because it's not a voluntary action to them and that must be arduous. Others have breathing issues like asthma, and although this post might be helpful to them, I admit it's not geared towards them. For the rest of us, breathing requires almost no thought. If we aren't sick or having other breathing issues, we breathe easily. However, although we breathe easily, we often breathe inefficiently. And if we want to reap the rewards deep breathing can bring, we must become efficient breathers. With full and mindful breathing, we will reap the many benefits that such breathing can bring.

Let's take the next few minutes together and breathe with purpose. I'll show you how. Stand up (if you aren't already) and take a big ol' breath. I'll wait right here. :)

How did that feel?

Did your shoulders rise up when you inhaled? Did your belly, back, and chest feel tight or cramped? If you don't remember, bring your awareness to your body, take another breath and try to answer these questions. I'll bet you answered yes to at least one of them. If so, then you can improve your breathing.

Did you feel balanced when you inhaled? How did it feel to take that deep breath? See if you can become aware of how you are inhaling and exhaling. Take care if you start to feel a little lightheaded. We are not used to deep breathing and the extra oxygen can make us feel a little woozy. If you start to feel that, sit down, relax and try it again after the feeling passes.

Ready to try again? Good.

Now, let's take the breaths we were taking and make them even better. 

First, let's think about our alignment. Whether we are breathing deeply to sing, speak, address discomfort or just for the sake of these exercises, it is a good idea to maintain good posture and alignment. Let's start from the bottom. 

Our stance is the core of good breath. And a good stance will be to keep your feet hip width whether or you are standing or sitting. So, let's try it. Stand (or sit, if that is what is comfortable for you) with your feet hip width apart. To make sure your feet are hip width apart, stand (or sit) with your feet facing forward draw an imaginary line from your second toe (of each foot), through the middle of your ankle, up through the middle of your knee, and up to your hip points. Hip points are the part of your hip that points in front of you or juts out to the front. It is not the outside of your hips. If you stand with this alignment, you are well on your way to maintaining good posture.

Next time, we will talk about your trunk, shoulders, neck, and head and how to maintain proper alignment in those parts of your body. Once you have proper alignment, we will talk inhalations, exhalations, and every part in between to get you breathing deeply, fully, and effectively.

In the meantime, whenever you must speak, sing, or even just stand for any length of time, try to remember this alignment tip. It will help you stand longer and more easily. 

Until next time, here's a thought on breath.

Yoga, freedom, and forgiving ourselves

I've been using an app called Yoga Studio to create customized classes. The app has a vast number of asana that you can add, mix, match, and play with to create your own classes that address where you are in your yoga.

Playing with the app makes me feel creative and that is fun on its own. I love that I can create a class that will give me all the benefit of working and finding balance, strength, and flexibility at my level of practice for today. And what's even better, I can relax into doing the exact yoga practice I want to do for today without needing to maintain the plan, if you see what I mean. I've already made the plan and programmed it into the app. So, while I'm doing the yoga, I get to breathe, and practice. That allows me to be present in my yoga, my body, and my thoughts in way that would be much harder if I had to stop and think of what asana to do next.

I believe that our yoga experience changes day-to-day just as our ability to do yoga changes day-to-day. There are days when I feel strong and capable and practice advanced asana with little trouble. And there are days that I step on that mat and I can barely do a downward dog (and this from someone who has practiced pretty much every day for twenty years). I bet this sort of variability in ability happens to everyone. We all go through high and low times in our practices, and heck in our lives. They key when this happens is not to judge ourselves. Where we are to day is where we are today.

My deal with myself is that I am required to step on the mat every, single day. If I then do a 45-minute practice, that is excellent. If all I can do is stand on the mat and take one deep breath, I am then allowed to step off the mat, roll it up, and move on with my day.

The key? I have no judgement about what I have done because it was what I could do today.

What an amazing thought! What revolutionary change occurs inside us when we don't judge ourselves harshly for not doing something we think we *should or are supposed to * do? I would love to measure how much energy we save when we stop berating ourselves for our choices? And if we save that worrying energy, where else might we use it? Could we use it to create? Could we use it to show a kindness to someone else since we have already been kind to ourselves? Could we free ourselves to think greater thoughts for that same amount of time we might have used to worry or fret? That potential for presence and truth is just there waiting to be utilized. To me, that means for that little while, the possibilities are limitless.

I have never just stood on the mat, breathed, and walked off it, but it feels great to know that I could. It allows me to feel my freedom in the larger scope of my life that I believe is vital to living in truth, honesty, and joy.

Happenstance Art - A lesson in mindfulness

I love Happenstance Art. It sneaks up on me and throws fairy dust in my eyes. It challenges me to stop what I'm doing and pay attention. It reminds me to be mindful.

I think that most of the time, art is placed as something separate from our day to day lives. We tend to think of art as something we must to seek out rather than something that is present all around us and inside us every minute of every day. We need to look at images, paintings, sculpture, etc. that were created by artists specifically for being studied and appreciated. We go to museums. We look art books. We treat art as something magnificent and yet purposeful. And often, those of us who don't feel we are creative, believe art is to be created by those other than ourselves. Here's the message from me to you: We are all creative. We are all artists. And we have an incredible opportunity to share what we see and sense.

Art is there every second. The curve of the line of a guitar's body can take your breath away. The way a car changes lanes with skill and finesse so that it melds its motion with and against all the other cars on the road has a certain artistic beauty. The pillars of light that filter sun rays and grace us with heavenly visions have an artistic sense. These all appear in our lives and can give us that momentary sense of the sublime.

And sometimes, art goes a step further. In an otherwise innocuous moment, it presents itself like a dare. "See me! Acknowledge me! Bathe your senses in me."

This morning that happened to me. Art smacked me awake when I was changing my guitar strings for a video shoot I have this evening. I slipped the G-string out of its packaging, and it made this:

I love the shape and the lines. I also love how my fingers holding the string winder make it all look somehow like a stylized imagine of a tropical bird. This morning the simple act of changing guitar strings transformed into a profound meditation on the state and nature of art.

I had to stop and appreciate it, because to do otherwise would be to ignore art's insistence that it be acknowledged. What a wonderful lesson first thing in the morning. "Remember, art comes at you. Your job is to meet it and play in its world."

Be good at what you are and remember to count your blessings even if you can't count anything else

Ah, the day I've been dreading. It will be full of administrative work. Type this into the database. Enter that into the file and make PDFs. Oh and then read 130 pages of dry dry dry RFP to see if I can help with the thing I've been asked to help with. And then, more administrative work (billing). This is the price I will pay for my fab day off yesterday.

I'm trying to be all zen about it and just do the work, and maintain a mindful aspect of awareness of the present moment, but you know what? Poppycock! I'm just not good at that stuff. And so rather than getting all zen and mindful (like Thich Nhat Hahn when he was doing dishes in his fab book, "Being Peace"), I end up a ball of stressed nerves. I can be good at lots of other stuff, right? I don't have to be good at everything, right? Right. :)

I recognize that I'm having trouble because it is a big challenge for me to read off lists and see what I've done and what I haven't done and then not miss any portions of the things I'm supposed to have done. It's a thing. It's always been a thing. It's such a thing that I try never to count my own money. I get mu husband to do it because a, he loves it, and b, it eases my stress levels. Me? I have to count it five times in order to get to a certainty that I have the right amount. You know why? Because, easily, the first three times, I'll get different sums after each counting.

Please, never try to make me be responsible for numbers or for making sure things add up in the end. It will explode, implode and otherwise 'plode if I have anything to do with it.

I remember when I was a kid, they always made me Treasurer of organizations. "She's smart. She's good in math. Let's make her responsible for the accounting." ARGHGGHGH. I have never balanced a ledger properly in my life. Sure, I can teach arithmetic (and have).  Sure, I can even teach calculus (and have). But if you ask me to do any sort of bookkeeping or to keep track of which thing has passed by me (like which names I've entered and which names I haven't), I will run, screaming for the trees.

My takeaway from this is that I ought to focus on what I am good at rather than trying to do what I'm not particularly good at. Rich doesn't quite get why it's so tough for me because it's not at all tough for him. But we all have different strengths, and in my opinion that is to be celebrated. While I'm not good at counting, I'm pretty darn good at reading tarot, or singing, or playing guitar, or teaching kids science, or officiating weddings, or writing books, or making movies. Trouble is that until the day comes when I can hire a full time accountant to take care of all the numbers stuff for me, I still need to be good enough to enter things into their appropriate slots on quickbooks (or quicken or whatever) and to fill out and do my taxes properly every year. So, my mission is clear: "Become successful enough so that you can hire your own accountant or buy your own tropical island, whichever comes first." Either way, I will be much more relaxed.

Today's Tarot: Four of Pentacles (Control, taking stock, being possessive)

Today's Tarot: Four of Pentacles

(Control, Taking Stock, Being Possessive)

The Four of Pentacles always makes me think of grabbing my life's bull by its horns and the difference between how others view us and how we view ourselves. Let's take the words self-centered. In our society, we generally have a negative view of someone if we describe them as self-centered. To that, I say, exactly what is wrong with being centered on yourself? 

Certainly, we all have responsibilities and we all live up to them to varying degrees. However, we also have a responsibility to ourselves, to take care of ourselves, and to see to our own wellbeing. Many of us will put ourselves dead last as we try to satisfy the needs of those around us way before we ever look to see what we need.

So, today, I challenge all of us to be greedy. To be greedy with ourselves. I challenge each of us to evaluate what we need out of every situation and every interaction we have. And furthermore, I say we then act in that self-interest, not in a "I only care about myself" kind of way, but rather in a "I also care about myself" kind of way.

If we are possessive with our time, our energy, and our resources, if we dole them out in a manner that is mindful about what our needs are in the moment, then we will not only have more peace, but we will be able to do what needs doing from a place of giving rather than a place of obligation.

Giving selflessly because we have already taken care of our own needs (or are at least mindful of those needs), puts us in a place to really be present and helpful to those around us. On the other hand, when we give out of duty or obligation while disregarding our own needs, everything about our interactions has a pinched, closed quality and that trick never works (to quote a famous squirrel).

The goal: Being mindful of our needs

The Mission: Evaluate your needs and then act out of that place of being centered on yourself.