by Stephanie F. Earls
Well, if you read the last post and have tried it at all, you've gotten some good information for yourself about how you feel in relation to the thoughts you choose. And depending on how in flux your thoughts have been, there is the possibility you could feel a little like a see-saw, bouncing back and forth between positive and negative thoughts, which brings me to this post.
A few nights ago as I was putting my four year old to bed I found myself saying the exact words to him that my dad used to say to me at bedtime when I was a kid: "turn off your brain". As a kid I did not have any idea how I could do that or even that it was an option, there was just thought and it was going all on it's own. And this very night my son looked at me after I said those words and asked, much to my surprise: "mom, how do I turn off my brain?" After I laughed at the sheer fact that 30 years later my son is asking the very question that plagued me, I found the words coming out of my mouth that I use in yoga everyday: "Just notice your breath. Follow your breath in and feel your belly rise then follow your breath out and feel your belly fall." In that moment my words and description suited a four year old a bit more than a room full of adults practicing yoga, but the message is the same: breathe here.
If the mind is busy, whether we "judge" it as positive or negative, we can bypass the endless cycle of thoughts by bringing our attention to the breath, especially in two places in our body at the same time. So, maybe notice the feeling of air at the nose as well as the rise and fall of the belly. Bring your hand to the belly for extra sensory input. Or bring one hand to the heart and the other to the belly and notice the expansion and contraction of your rib cage and the rise and fall of the belly. Engaging the senses this way helps short circuit the mind's hooking you into your thoughts and letting them run away with you...all of you: your body, breath, being, mind, health...your well being. Use yourself to your advantage, take the reigns and hold steady, using your body as a tool. Find balance regardless of thought.
Now I know it all sounds well and good on paper or hunky dory if you can get to a yoga class or sit quietly to meditate (which help you integrate your practice) but what we all ask is: is this for real? Can this be used in day to day life when your kids are screaming or the work you just finished got torn to shreds or your sick parents need constant care or someone you love just died or you are just bummed out about life? Well, if I had all the answers I might not be writing any of this but what I do have is my experience. I have the chance to learn, I have real life stuff (again, alternate s word) happen all the time, and most of all, I have PRACTICE. And I can say though it's not easy, it does work. Sometimes we start to practice and fight with ourselves about it but that is just part of the balance...getting through the fight to the place where we CHOOSE breath, which is choosing space. And once you choose breath you open up places to make other choices.
In my last entry I was advocating, if you are going to be in your mind, choosing "positive" thoughts, which is still a worthwhile tool and one which as humans we have available until we die. However, there will be days when even what we deem "positive" can not lift us out of the place we feel stuck in. It comes down to realizing that with thoughts we are driving the bus and have a choice, and taking the chance to link our thoughts to action. The breath is our most simple, free and powerful tool to help us "turn off our brains" at the appropriate time.
The breath is our source, it is our life and it will show us the way to peace when we choose it, and not just peace of mind but peace of being. What I love most about breath is it is centered in our body right at the heart, the true center of peace in our being. As we developed in our mothers' wombs, before there was a brain, before there was breath, there was heart. It is the place where heaven and earth meet. Our breath serves to direct us back to our center, to our heart, to balance.
Use your breath, come back to your source. Get out of your head and into your body. If you love being physical, run, play sports, do yoga, dance...notice your breath. If you are not so physical, rub your hands together, bring them together in prayer or rest them on your heart and belly. Either way bring it to the basics of noticing your inhale and your exhale. Let yourself get to the "heart" of balancing your thoughts, taking the mind down to the body and following, observing, feeling. No need to change anything. No judgement about whether the breath is right or wrong. It's just breath. It is. And then like magic you begin to transcend the positive and negative thoughts and find a balance that resides in your whole being. You come to the space where the divine in you shines from your center, balanced. All it takes is for you to breathe here.
Not bad
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