Life is not intentionally painful but instead you create the suffering for yourself. This is my morning reflection as I ponder why my days can feel heavy and laden with obligation, rather than uplifting and joyful. I love what I do, and yet this still happens. The feeling that I should ‘do’ something brings resistance with it, and that resistance in turn creates pain and discontent.
As I write this a squirrel hops across the lawn, clearly enjoying himself! Happiness is a choice, peace is a choice. Our human minds are so caught in the miasma of trauma, tech overload and a culture that’s racing at a million miles an hour, we are unable to pause, take a breath, and see beneath it all that we have a choice.
Slowing down is an art. Paying attention to self is also an art. In a society where your attention is captured and commoditised, we no longer know how to attend to ourselves and deeply pay attention. If we did, we would make changes. We would make different choices.
Living in each moment
Enjoyment and pleasure is always available in every moment. It’s just that we choose something else instead, and most likely have a ‘set point’ or base line that is something different. Fear, scarcity, anger, contraction are examples. When living this experience, it’s hard to imagine something different exists. Yet it does. We are living in the stories in our mind, and they keep us trapped. We replay over and over again in our bodies and energetic fields, the past, and projections of the future that may never come to bear. When we are fully in the present moment all of that fades away. We sink into the pleasure and enjoyment of life that naturally exists. The joy of a blooming flower, the comfort of a warm breeze on your skin. Why should it just be on ‘holiday’ a few times a year that we really get to enjoy life? It shouldn’t, the world is completely backwards.
One of the main reasons we don’t have the experience we desire is because we are resisting being in life. Fully in. Fully feeling everything that is happening in our experience and our body. We have become body phobic, worried that if we feel we might die. This is our resistance to life, to living, and to experiencing our true desires. In order to feel good, we must go through whatever exists in between us and that state. Often that’s the resolution of our pain and trauma, that is stored in our bodies, our thoughts, our energy field. The only way out is through. If you’re not where you want to be, it’s because you’re not prepared to open and fully surrender to what is required – to release and submit to the greater force of life that moves through your body – which will ultimately bring you to wholeness and peace.
Breath is the number one tool that will help you cross the bridge EVERY SINGLE TIME. Your breath is a powerful prayer, one that can be directed to supporting you in releasing whatever no longer serves you, so you can connect deeply to yourself and to life.
Allow yourself to feel
If you run scared of the sensations and feelings in your body, you will become a slave to them. They will keep you stuck, small and suffering, probably in silence. Emotions are not meant to be stuffed down. The energy and sensations that are moving in your body are supposed to do just that – MOVE! When your mind creates a story about the situation, perhaps how it’s ‘bad’ or you’re ‘not allowed’ to express something such as anger for example – those energies turn inwards and create rigidity and blockages in your body. Life stops moving. You become stuck and stagnant. This causes pain and lack of enjoyment. Quite literally the juice is sucked out of life, everything is flat. We feel disconnected and dissatisfied, and nothing will fill that gap – not even our ‘go to’ addictions.
When we go farther along this route we become numb, empty and depressed. Nothing lights us up, there is no hope. Life is happening but it feels like there’s a pane of glass separating us from it. We can’t connect.
Breathwork offers an avenue to close this gap, to come back alive and connect once again with life. With purpose, joy, and excitement. The feelings you regularly experienced as a child before the outside world got its dirty hands on you.
Remember those days? What did you love to do? What lit you up? What would you spend hours doing and never get bored? These are some clues, some breadcrumbs to follow to uncover your path for coming back to life. It’s never too late. Every day is a new day, one to start over if you desire.
It all comes back to your willingness to be in the moment and to be IN life. This is not a dress rehearsal and you won’t get this unique moment back again.
Take a deep breath. Connect with your heart. What will you do to come alive today?
Remember,
Breathe the change you wish to see in the world.
Philippa xo
