Heeding Autumn's invitation to pause and turn inward, the same call-to-breath comes periodically in life. If we don't take pause, we lose inspiration and we turn our backs on that which has 'expired' in our life. 

This is particularly true for the seekers. I get it - I am one. I looovvve books, documentaries, poets, speakers and wisen teachers who are agents of personal growth and evolution. Eckhart. Thich Nhat Hanh. Rumi. HH Dalai Lama. David Whyte... and the list goes on.

Nevertheless, I have learned not to be seduced by everything that comes across my path. I do keep my mind open and apply knowledge and practices, however I also know that a great deal of energy stands to be lost when I'm tempted too far from the tried and true. 

Don't get me wrong - it's incredibly seductive and with so many interesting things available at this time, I see more and more well-intended people spreading themselves thin like a tourist hotspotting their way to good health. Over the years, I have come to recognise that like all good things, we deeply benefit from taking the time to marinate ourselves in our practices in order to reap the fullest rewards. 

With patience and commitment we enhance our awareness and  can better assess if we need to do things differently... move in a new direction or switch some things up. 

We humans are creatures of habit, although not all our habits are life-enhancing. Only you can answer this. Are you happy where you are (health, job, relationship...). If honestly YES, keep doing what you are doing. If NO, it's useful to remember that if you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you've got.

Get a cup of tea and reflect on WHERE you are. WHERE you want to go. WHO do you want to be.

Maybe you don't know and that's OK. A first step may be to switch things up and say YES to doing a few things differently in order to learn more about yourself. 

• Consider the habits of the people that inspire you.
• Smile at strangers
• Go to a (different) yoga class
• Walk a new route
• Eat a new food that supports your dosha (your Ayurvedic constitution)
• Go to bed before 20:00 and rise before the sun
• Learn a new skill
• Breath with more awareness

Whatever it is - stay open!

If you hear yourself saying. I don't "do" yoga - remember that yoga is much more than movement. Likewise, Ayurveda is also much more than a diet. Both ancient sciences are time-tested (estim. 5000 years) on how to live in balance, healthy and in union with everything. It's inspiring to me how these days people are genuinely waking up to the gold nuggets in these sciences. I hear and read books by therapists, athletes, doctors, public figures touting the wisdom and foundational principles of these sciences. It's not new, but we're coming full circle because we have lost touch with nature (our nature) and these sciences work! 

I hope this little exercise helps you to find power in how little you can or need to do, so you can enjoy the beauty and abundance that naturally comes when we act from inspiration. 

If you are yearning for things to be different - let's make a date to discuss - or join me for yoga, Part 2 of Ayurveda in Daily Life, my Breathe Into Being workshop.  Don't simply believe me, let your results speak for themselves. 

It is our work on this earth - to embody and celebrate the joy of living. Easy to say - not always easy to do- right?!

One of the many reasons, I love Transformational Breath® is that it animates that which is stuck and dense in us - the traumas, hurts, wounds, limiting self-beliefs- so that we can feel and connect with our joy.

This may sound a bit too feel good and new-agey for some, and this is why 4 days working with and attending Gregg Braden's Human By Design Master Workshop was both life and work affirming for me. He shared hours of peer-reviewed scientific research on why your breath is a powerful process for metabolising the neuropeptides that hold traumatic and challenging emotional experiences.

Neuropeptides are a chain of amino acids that is released directly into the blood where it activates receptors in the body or directly into our brain where it activates receptors in the brain. When a neuropeptide is released it binds to a receptor activating a series of events in a cell (the neuron) causing the neuron to become active. Because neurons that wire together, fire together, these neurons can activate a neural circuit triggering emotions, behaviours and potentially disease processes.  

​Gregg is a big fan of Transformational Breathwork, for its ability to mobilise the emotions that are stuck in the body and that keep us bound and reactive to triggering circumstances.  Indeed, the body knows and houses everything and when stuck emotions are metabolised, we are able to step into a deep coherence with our heart's intelligence and awaken our highest potential. In essence, we become less reactive and more response to life. 

For this reason, he dedicated one entire day to the powerful role of the breath and attendee's (230+ people) did 2 full one hour Transformational Breath sessions. You can just imagine the energy in the room. The room was full of people that are actively working on their personal evolution and growth, and so, to hear the feedback after their breath sessions was very touching. The people I personally supported were therapists, psychologists, doctors and body workers, to name a few.

Science has shown us that we interpret the world through neurons and that the heart's nervous system contains 40,000 sensory neurites arranged to create a complex neural network. With practice this second brain is able to grow and open us to the true reality of who we are. For who are we but the stories we rehearse, tell and believe about ourselves? You are, in fact, beautiful, intelligent, strong and wise.

How do we change our story and hence our life? It's not as hard as you think - but it like everything we wish to master, it is a process and does require commitment. The science and wisdom traditions show by bridging the connection between our brain and heart, breathing consciously, and rewriting our story from the wise and compassionate place of the heart, we are able to rewrite our story. 

We live in a culture where our goals, our identity, our worth are often tied into what our culture values and other's expectations of us. We may understand this intellectually, that I am not my academic achievements, my athletic prowess, my looks, high paid job, ... but within us lives a child who wants to be seen, witnessed and valued, and who sometimes, without even knowing it, gives their power away to others.

I know this for myself - in my teens I dreamed of going to art school, however without even speaking about it I adopted the way of my parents who both had post-graduate university degrees. In my early 30's I started to revisioned things, doing more art which grew into a greeting card and design company that was represented in over 3000 stores including art galleries and museums in Canada and the USA. 

I also continued to work in psychology and studying yoga, until 2007 when I sold my design company, moved to Japan and focused exclusively on yoga, lifestyle writing and growing my energy medicine practices. The rest is history.

How to Not Care What Others Think
We ought to care deeply about ourselves and others, but not about what they think of us. Why? Because we are often wrong and even if we are right - is it worth giving our authority to them? 

Caring what others think about us bites hard because deep in our subconscious we hold deeply ingrained beliefs that dictate how we interpret our experiences and the world. Adding to that, humans have a negative bias which has helped us to survive, but hasn't necessarily made us happier. And so, until we examine and revision our limiting self-beliefs, our worldview remains biased and untrue. 

Ask yourself honestly and let your soul speak:

• Do you wake up every morning excited about your life, work and relationships?
• Who am I seeking validation and approval from?
• Imagine yourself at the end of this life. How would you have wished to live? Love? Accomplish?

Now, work backwards from this so you can live each day intentionally moving towards THAT.

My dedication to breathwork is not only based on my own journey to reconcile and release old and unserving beliefs, but also that which I have witnessed in my clients. What makes it so beautiful in this age of striving and doing, is that by opening our breath we deconstruct and unlearn all that has amassed and constricted our deepest aliveness, so that we can be at home in our bodies and with ourselves. 

To make authentic shifts and become the authority of our own life we need two things: INTENTION (shared in August's newsletter) and ACTION. That is, we need to be clear and committed to what we want and we must take action on it, otherwise we are just hopeful and dreaming.
​
Breathing is the most readily available resource you have for creating and sustaining your energy, presence and personal authority. It changes our biology, resting  the default network that keeps us in our mind and estranged from really feeling.  Nevertheless, no matter what you choose to practice, the strength and degree of our growth and evolution lies in our daily routine.

In Transformational Breath we encourage a daily breathing practice to open to joy. In kundalini yoga we use 40 day Sadhana's to change a habit and install a new one. In Ayurveda the wisdom of daily routines is at the foundation of creating balance and authentic health. 

My advice is start somewhere and commit to it. Whether it is yoga once a week, eating an apple a day, daily conscious breathing, walking in nature twice a week. You don't need an App or Instagram ♥ for this - listen to what's working for YOU and commit to it. 

Live your unique expression and know that not one of the 7 billion people on this earth are like you. Don't conform - be YOU.

Intention setting is a powerful tool that is often overlooked. My relationship to intention setting has be nourished and become second nature through my breathwork.

Because intention is different from a wish or affirmation, I wish to elaborate more on it here. 

A wish can arise from a longing, a desire that feels a little out of reach, something we feel we are not able to actually make happen, but render it to grace, to universe's good will. Like a seed offered to the wind to go on it’s flight, to hopefully land on soil that is nourishing to root and grow into a reality. We can send off many wishes each year, some may come to flourish, some may travel the winds for some time and some may never find a place to grow.

Affirmations are short statements designed to retrain your mind/ thought process/actions into behaving differently so that you may better and easily manifest a certain outcome. 
An intention, on the other hand, is an active deed of creation. It is very specific and it´s power consists of clarity and direction. In order to set an intention, one must already know that it will be achieved, one must commit to making it happen. 
Many intentions evolve around inviting more abundance, self-care and success into our lives. So in order to set a powerful intention in these fields, we must enable ourselves to feel more self love, more self appreciation and to trust our abilities.
We may find that being generous with ourselves is not so easy and when we think of personal success, we may all of a sudden be filled with doubt and worry. We sense a deep underlying fear that we are actually not good enough, not worthy, have not worked hard enough, are not smart enough, are too insignificant, etc.

This is where Transformational Breath® is very effective because init addresses both the conscious mind and deep subconscious. It is from the subconscious that we interpret most of experiences within and without (90-99%), and therefore the place we can shift old and entrenched limiting beliefs and integrate traumas that deny the truth of who we are. It only reveals what we are ready to work with.

I find it useful to see intentions as actions that you and universe are co-conspiring into creation. Conscious breathing with intention first thing in the morning can set the energy for the day and reinforce every cell in the body with it's expansive truth  (eg. I am supported, I am enough, I am loved).
In forming an intention, allow yourself to trust your intuition, your gut feeling and commit to it, without hesitation and keep it safe from doubt. Give yourself permission to not second-guess yourself, to rely on a feeling, your feeling.
Maybe as we move through the second half of the year, your intention will be simple, it can sum up to acknowledging yourself and your power, to honouring your truth, a commitment to not stand in your own way.

Next Breathe Into Being Workshop Sept 11 @ 19:00-21:30.