The Breath of Change

I was doing some yoga this morning. I always do a little bit of yoga before I start my Daily GPS. Today I really wanted to focus on the movements of my yoga and the breathing of my yoga. There were a couple of things that that did for me. First of all, as I was really focusing on breathing and focusing on the movement, I realized that all the distractions went away. Everything that was outside of me in this moment doing this yoga everything completely disappeared. And I thought that it was really powerful to know that I have that power to be able to get myself into a place where all the distractions and everything disappears, and I get to be in my own little space. 

The other thing that I noticed was that as I was breathing in and then breathing out, with very conscious breaths, I was being really focused. As I did that, it just occurred to me that as I was changing positions, I was breathing in, and then I would hold the position for a moment. While I was holding the pose, I was breathing out and kind of relaxing into the pose. It just occurred to me that this is a really great way to handle when I was shifting into a new pose. So this would be kind of like shifting into a new change. I'm going to try to lift this up just a teeny bit. 

As we head into the holidays, things often happen on the spur of the moment. For example, you might get a text from somebody that says, 'Hey, we're having a get-together. Do you wanna come?' A lot of times, if we already have plans or it's unexpected, we might think, 'I don't know what I would wear. I might have to make a dish and bring it.' These thoughts can cause us to immediately give the go-to answer 'no,' because we think, 'my day's already planned.' 

But if we can take a moment and breathe and just listen for really what would be important and what we want to do, the details like what we would bring, etc. works out, and we might think yes, that would be a great experience.' Then our answer might be yes if we would just take that time to breathe. I want to give you a little example of something that's been happening to me in the past couple of days. I hired a social media manager, and of course, I will still be doing the content because that's my genius, this gift of prophecy that I have of receiving inspiration and being able to send it out to you.

So I'll continue to do that. But I hired someone to do all the posting for me because I'm a digital immigrant. I'm not super great at doing all the social media technical stuff. So she's going to take the content that I create and just post it and do some fancy stuff to make it more attractive. So when I hired her, you might think I was happy and feeling relieved, but I went into a kind of panic mode, almost like a fight or flight response, because, like I said, sharing with you is my genius. The gift I give out to the world is the words and everything I share. So when I was considering it, I said out loud, "is this even something that I can delegate? I don't even know if this is something I can delegate."

So like I said, I was in a fight or flight. I was like, I want to fight for my right to do it my way, have it be my words, my voice. I was this close to saying, you know what, never mind, I'll just do it myself. That would've been a flight. So when we get faced with a change, with a shift, even if it's an upshift, if it's something where we're leveling up, it's stressful, and there's fear involved. It's like, can we do this? Is this going to be too much? Is it adding too much to my flight? Or is it taking too much away from me? So over these last couple of days, I've been able to let this idea settle, and I realize it is really important for me to do this because there are some really important things that I need to do, and doing all the social media stuff has taken me away from that. So it is important for me to delegate some of this stuff. 

Now I've been able to kind of relax into it, breathe into it, and be like, 'okay, yes, we're doing this.' We might need to have some interaction in the beginning, to make sure that she can understand what the message that I want to put across is and all of that. But this is a good change. Breathing into it has helped me stretch into this change. So whatever is happening for you, whether in your business or in your home or elsewhere, you might have a different thing happening, a dynamic happening in your household with your kids, or, you know, you might be becoming an empty nester. There are like all kinds of different situations that would create a change.

And even though very often it's a good change, it's a happy change, and it's something that we really want, it causes this fear and kind of this fight or flight. So we're going to go through this little exercise today, doing a little bit of yoga, and I want to really have you focus on your breathing, and of course, you're going to be listening to me. I hope you get the principle down with this exercise and use it throughout your days. First, I want you to pick three of your favorite stretches. If you can't think of any, I suggest a forward bend where you touch your toes, secondly, a side stretch with one arm overhead and then the other, and a third stand up straight with your arms above your head. Whatever stretches you choose, the important thing is that you hold the stretch for a few seconds and breathe into it. This way of breathing and stretching that I discovered today is that I'm translating into a change in real life when we're actually experiencing some change.

So first, you are choosing a stretch to do. Secondly, you shift your body into the stretch position while you're breathing in. Now that you're in the stretch hold the position while breathing out. Breathe out through your nose in an audible breath, opening up the back of your throat. Then as you breathe in again, change the pose to your second stretch. 

Now hold that second pose and breathe out and relax. As you relax, you can allow your shoulders to relax. Allow your body to relax your core to keep that kind of tightness in your core, but allow your insides to relax and allow the stretch to happen in your body. If you're feeling any kind of discomfort or anything like that, allow that breath as you're breathing out to relax into that discomfort so that even that tightness is changed, so it doesn't feel like discomfort anymore. Now let's breathe in and shift into the third stretch. Once you get into that third stretch position, breathe out and relax into the pose. Allow your shoulders to drop. Notice that your feet are planted firmly, and just relax and breathe in as we come back together and relax as you breathe out. 

I don't know if this is the proper way to breathe in yoga, to breathe in and breathe out during each stretch, but that was the lesson that I learned today, to breathe in as you are making a shift in your life, in your day, and then allow yourself to relax into it. Breathe out. 

I've noticed that this is true in nature. It's everywhere we look. It's in the wind; it's in the waves; it's everywhere that we look. There is breathing in with change and relaxing into the change as we breathe out and then breathing in again as there is a new change. With life, as long as we're growing, there is constantly going to be change. Just take a moment, breathe in as you're changing, and breathe out, relax into it, and get comfortable with it. Then you'll be ready for the next change as well.