oxygenating the source

if your devotion live

outside of yourself

tell me

how does it breathe?

if you place all your devotion, attention, and energy outside of yourself, your top priorities and commitments (devotions) have no reliable energy source. if your devotion is not inside of you as the focal point, it is not connected to you and therefore is without oxygen or life force.

any energy that happens to be available to expend will be finite in supply and rapidly dwindle. eventually, your devotion and what you are devoted to will wither away— in one way or another.

an extension of ‘putting on your oxygen mask before helping others.’

this does not mean myopia, darwinism, selfishness, competition, egoism, exceptionalism, or self-centeredness. in many ways, we sustain ourselves so that we can be truly interdependent.

interdependence is our truth and our balm. i see we are and will continue to be challenged by this call & fact of life. will we step over each other to self protect or for a quick come up— or will we invest in humanity, integrity, and the long game? at one point or another, we are all going to need each other.

so it’s very interesting to witness the decisions and stances people are taking in these last few days.

crisis can unearth our unresolved shadow in many ways. i had to pause before almost writing that crisis shows our “true nature,” because that’s not true— our true nature is love.

i’m not standing here from some high horse; there are thoughts that have crossed my mind that don’t make me feel very proud. but i am doing my best to hold myself accountable and try to be the person i want to be.

while some still think preparedness and vigilance are alarmist and have some stuff to sort out within themselves, there are many folks who are forced to make precarious decisions because they are backed into a corner. because of survival. because our system fails us.

i think about shows like survivor, a film like hunger games, and societal periods of extreme hardship and chaos. challenging times are what test our character most. they show us where we are out of alignment. where we don’t trust. where we are in lack. what we fear.

there are always choices we get to (and are forced to) make.

so i ask again: who will we choose to be?

much love and ease to hearts <3

you were made to breathe easy

watch a sleeping baby breathe, and you’ll notice their belly effortlessly rise and fall with each inhale and exhale— it’s automatic. babies naturally breathe deeply.

who cares about deep breathing? stress relief cares, for one.

and oxygen isn’t just to keep us alive, either; like water, an ample supply is needed to keep our biological systems running as they should.

breath is also our first line to replenishing our life force energy. breath it is our birthright.

the traumas and stresses of life eventually bring most of us out of our natural deep breathing flow, and as a result, we typically become shallow breathers— even breath holders— as we grow older. no bueno. good news is that we can re-train ourselves to breathe abundantly!

know how singers are trained to sing from their diaphragms and not their throats? similarly, deep breath comes from the diaphragm and has a few names: diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing, or belly breathing.

fun: i’ve been told that one of the reasons the buddha statues often have a large belly is to indicate all the abundant life force he held. clearly from all that good ass breathing.

alright, so for those of you who want to try some good ass breathing. lie down, get real cozy, and put your hand on your belly. imagine you are filling up the ballon that is your belly. practice inhaling slowly, feeling your belly expand, and then exhaling slowly, feeling your belly contract. play with seeing how far you can fill your belly up.

you might notice that as your belly is expanding and contracting, your chest is also automatically rising and falling along with it to a certain extent. on that note, here’s a second version to try: 

put one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. now on a big long inhale,  first fill up your belly, then your abdomen / rib cage area, and then your chest. they’ll all kind of fluidly rise along with one another, becoming most pronounced once you intentionally reach each respective point. slowly on the exhale, begin the release of air in your belly, then your abdomen, and finally your chest; feel them collapse as you go along.

the first time i did the second breathing exercise for about 10+ minutes, i felt super relaxed and high off of the oxygen— my body had become unaccustomed to that much oxygen!

soon after that first experience, i began using this deep breathing technique when i wanted to inquire about something with my higher self; it’s a really great way to deeply relax, quiet my mechanical mind, and make way for my subconscious / higher self to speak.

if you’re looking for a deeper dive into a similar deep breathing method, look up “pranic breathing.” last time i checked, there’s a book and an audio guide.

the more we practice deep breathing, the more that information is strengthened in both our conscious and subconscious, which makes it more possible for such breathing to begin to occur on its own. whether practiced more formally during a designated time period, on the fly whenever we remember, or in a stressful moment, it's all valuable.

now go get the life force, health, and wisdom that's yours to claim. <3