Quiet your mind to hear your body.
Quiet your body to hear your mind.
Shhhh, the quiet sound is the lub-dub of your heartbeat. One of my Ayurvedic professors, Dr. Vasant Lad wisely said to the class, “If you learn to master your breath, you master your life.” Don’t feel bad. I haven’t mastered them either.
The secret of self-awareness and self-healing lies in our breath. According to research, we take about 20,000 breaths a day. This is happening right now. The breathing cycle: inhalation, breath retention, exhalation, and breath retention. Each nanosecond counts as an opportunity for us to bring our attention to our whole existence, the mind, body and spirit union.
Your mind, body and spirit is one unity, not separated entities as described often in traditional schools and pop cultures like the part of a machine. It’s through this separation that things start going haywire. You’ve probably seen this commercial: a guy was experiencing heartburn while eating too much food that did not agree with him, so he took a pill to override the symptoms. He went on eating more of the same food with a big smile. Freeze frame. The voice over went on to mention all the side effects from taking that pill.
How strange? How is it ok to encourage people to carry on indigesting food that their body is unable to digest? It’s mind boggling.
This would be my altered commercial: the same guy was experiencing heartburn so he stopped eating the food that was giving him digestive issues. He sat upright in a chair, placed one hand over his heart and another over his stomach. He practiced deep breathing to calm his nerves. He made himself a cup of herbal tea to help reduce the acid reflux. He knew he had to figure out what was causing the problem; therefore he mentally played back the events that led to the heartburn, including his food consumption to help him understand the food combination he should try to avoid in the future.
Health is a process not a static state. When we are stuck in our head not noticing how we are feeling or bottling up all our feelings, something eventually will give. It might manifest as a low back pain, a weak knee, headache and so on. Discomfort can be seen as the first alarm, this i’s your inner self asking you to pay attention. As we continue to grow, our daily routine will need to reflect what we observe if we seek balance in our lives.
Change is the only constant and yet we tend to resist it. Understanding what needs to be done is not the same as doing the actual work. The best strategy is to make consistent small actionable adaptations toward the end goal. At times you might fail, but remember that every time you breathe, it signals the possibility you are able to adopt a new way of thinking, and being. My husband made this remark to me the other day, “Free Will is not in doing whatever you want to do but in your choice of how you respond to every situation. When you go on autopilot without awareness you forfeit your free will.”
You are a once ever phenomenon. You got this. The ancient wisdom from your ancestors is coded within your cell. You are truly your own medicine woman and man.
Shop hand illustrated punny bee as a reminder of who we are on men and women's t-shirt, sweatshirt, hoodie, notebook, bag, and water bottle!
. 
