Just Breathe!

Listen to your body, open up your mind and your soul to better awareness and, ultimately, better health

Listen to your body, open up your mind

DECEMBER HAS COME. Winter is here, and the streets are beginning to cover with snow. It’s dark at 5 p.m., and we are spending more time inside than outside. My evening hot yoga classes are packed. Everyone seems to realize that when it’s cold, there is a need for light and warmth. In the summer, tha days are longer and we spend lots of time outdoors in the sun. We are more energetic and active. Do not despair! Winter is a good time to practise cultivating the light from within. Beyond the layers of skin, muscles, flesh, bones, cells, there is a flame, known as the soul, waiting to be ignited. When the flame inside is ignited, we want to live our best life – to quote Oprah – and illuminate the world. Instead of letting the winter get to you and make you feel tired, weaker, think of it as a time to take a step back, relax your body and open your heart to more awareness. I define awareness in this way: it is your perception and reaction to all things happening in your life.

So, how do we open the heart to more awareness in your life?

For years, meditation and yoga has helped me to do this. Being a lawyer, as I am, can be very stressful and without some way to release tension, the mind and body will not be relaxed. But not all of us get to do yoga and sometimes life’s challenges begin to get to us. A close lawyer friend of mine worked crazy hours and never seemed to find a moment to breathe deeply until he had to stop working for a very long time. After months of therapy and yoga, he began to rediscover his “breath” and healed himself by cultivating awareness. Breath is the physical manifestation of the energy of your soul that makes us alive and well. When there is awareness, this energy of breath flows throughout our body and brain, and we begin to relate to the soul – the much deeper flame within. The breath is the physical translation of what your soul represents spiritually. Awareness of the breath will therefore lead us to discovering the soul. Awareness will also affect how we perceive and react to challenges in life. Whatever you are going through, the status of your breath will determine the level you are at mentally, emotionally, and physically. If we lose touch with our breath, then our body and soul connection becomes weaker. The body and heart harden because of our difficult situations. We begin to rely upon our physical powers and slowly forget that within there is infinite power.

Breath is the energy of the soul found everywhere and is present as much in the brain as it is in your smallest toe. We should understand that the soul is found in each organ, tissue, cell and molecule of the body. It represents the entirety of characteristics and personality that makes us who we are. Your body was tailor-made to fit the needs of your particular soul. When the soul reaches deep into the body, this leads to a higher level of awareness. It empowers you to share in the feelings of love, pain and joy and to sacrifice your personal interests for the sake of others. Everything that exists in the soul also exists within the body. The body and the soul together carry the qualities that make us both physical and also spiritual. No person on this planet can ever be either one or the other, since being both is essential to life. If either the soul or the body were missing, we would cease to exist.

DEEP BREATHING

is a good start in letting go of our worries, anxieties and limitations and freeing ourselves. Because breathing is part of the soul, it will lead you deep inside where there dwells a pure light that never goes out. Breath affects everything about you. It can be short, long, shallow or deep. With awareness, we breathe differently. We increase our perception, reaction and action each time we think or feel with more consciousness. And remember to:

Cultivate awareness To do so, we need to simplify our lives and maybe be less demanding. Rather then waste time feeling aggravated, use your energy for the positive. Reach out to another you know you can help or who is asking for your attention. We need to be more aware that what we say or do can affect others. Without even realizing it, much of the pain we feel physically is a result of emotions that have been suppressed or never resolved, remaining instead inside the body. Walking, swimming, yoga or any other sport you do, do it with more awareness through inhalation and exhalation – our breath is being drawn into each part of our bodies. Winters have a tendency of making our bodies feel rigid. Yoga will help us breath better and keep the body soft, strong and supple. The winter is also a good time to appreciate the freshness of the air.

Gather loved ones And perhaps, most important, how about quality family time where you can have fun by creating auspicious moments of closeness? We can also call some friends over and hang out like the old days. We can do many things together that can huddle us up as a family and be fun whether indoors or outdoors on a good day.