Just Breathe.

breath is an amazing thing. freaking amazing! the thing is, it's easy to forget how amazing it is, since we breathe automatically. every day. all the time.

i was reminded how amazing our breath is while watching a sitcom a few days ago. in the sitcom, a pregnant woman's boyfriend attended a lamaze class with her. he remained calm during the class, but after the class, he was talking to his friends saying "they expect her to deliver a baby just by using her BREATH!!"

i heard him say that, and i laughed so hard i started crying. once i caught my breath, i smiled. yes. i had forgotten how amazing the breath is. i was (am) stressed. i was (am) exhausted. i was (am) super low energy. i was (am) overburdened. over the past month, i've still been practicing and teaching yoga regularly, but even my yoga-breath was a little autopilot.

it took a freaked-out dad-to-be on an old UK sitcom to make me remember. but i remembered. MY BREATH IS AMAZING!

over the past week, i have been thinking about the breath: how it supports us, how it sustains us, how it gives us life. ...how it calms us down and repairs us when we're stressed/exhausted/super low energy/overburdened.

want to be amazed too? feel your breath: sit in a comfortable sitting position on the floor. sit tall with a long spine. take long, slow breaths, in and out through your nose, using ujjayi breath (how to do ujjayi breathing) if you like. with the first breaths, feel your belly expand. with the next breaths, focus on noticing your lower back expand. then, take your attention to the side bodies expanding. finally, feel the expansiveness through all the areas simultaneously. take another ten breaths or so, noticing the lightness and openness you've created. just by breathing.

just breathe. JUST BREATHE!

Adapting to Extremes

Some weeks are crazy: exciting, stressful, emotional, upsetting, or busy... and some weeks are all of those things. This week was one of those weeks. The week began amazingly: On the weekend I went to an awesome Anusara yoga workshop with John Friend; went on an beautiful beach walk with a good friend; got "free hugs" from adorable young boys on the beach; and came home tired on Sunday night to dinner cooked by my husband. My heart was as stuffed as full as it could get.

Then there was Monday. Obama announced to the world that bin Laden was dead. My entire self felt full. But I wasn't really able to define the feeling--it was confusion about all of the responses I was feeling, a nagging reminder that bin Laden was not the entire anti-American movement, mixed with some sadness for the lost of a human life. Whatever feeling that might be called, it didn't feel good. And watching American reactions from Australia, as well as being one of the only Americans in my workplace and fitness environments, I felt extreme pressure to comment on the whole situation and to respond to the numerous questions I received.

The rest of the week seemed to follow the same pattern--intense highs and lows with tremendous levels of stress on top of the other extremes, with an injury thrown in for good measure. Maintaining my sanity throughout the week seemed to be secondary to just making it through the week at times. I felt proud of myself for making the small windows of time to get on my mat, but I also felt frustrated and unbalanced. My yoga practice was minimized to gentle yoga for short stretches of time to compensate for both the injury and the minimal time I had to devote to it this week.

I think that was the key to the "success" of making it through the week, though: adaptation. Even though it was, at times, unwilling adaptation, I adapted. And that's something we all have to continue to do: grow, change, accept, repeat.

On the Saturday ending this week of extremes, I woke up exhausted and unwilling to try to do anything. I didn't want to work, play, relax, or be. But I did a little hard-work-adapting, made it through Saturday, and on to a Sunday filled with love. Today (Sunday) I reconnected with an old friend: we met in a park and then came across a Buddhist festival where we created lotus lanterns out of paper. After we finished gluing the paper petals on the paper base, we were invited to write a wish on a piece of paper and to hang it from the bottom of the lantern.

Putting together the layers of the lotus lantern with my dear friend felt like the perfect ending to my extreme week. I think my lotus lantern wish will be for continual, but perhaps slightly easier, adaptation. And I'm manifesting it out to the rest of you--I wish that your adaptation is also continuous and that you are accepting of the changes you experience. That's a hard sentiment to fit on my slip of paper attached to my lantern, though, so I'm writing and wishing it here. x