I am!

I had the pleasure of being at the Martha Beck Coaches Summit in Keystone, Colorado, for the past 4 days. What fun!

Today is my chill day. Four days of "work" (a.k.a. crazy fun), and now a day of rest.

How about you? Can you cut out of work early, take a day off, play hooky, and rejuvenate. You deserve it!
 

Here’s what I’ve learned from focusing on breathing this month.

1. I hold my breath. A lot. Seemingly for no reason, though often it’s when I’m concentrating. This is ironic because depriving my brain of oxygen is unlikely to help my thinking.

2. If I consciously breathe for 5 minutes, I can triple the length of my inhale and exhale with not effort. All that’s required is my attention.

3. If I breathe for 10 minutes, my mind relaxes. If I breathe for 20 minutes, my body feels as if it’s aged backward. If I breathe for 30 minutes or more, I feel like I took some mid-altering substances. (Though this did happen with less than 5 minutes of breathing yesterday--it was fabulous!)

Curious about breathing? Check out Jess Ryan, yogini extraordinaire. She teaches anyone, local or long-distance (via Skype). And she rocks.

Jess says that 10 minutes of conscious breathing results in measurable physiological changes.

Spend 10 minutes today just watching yourself breathe. Relax into it. Send the air into your low belly. Enjoy!

photo courtesy of talulayu via flickr
 

There is wisdom in your body. Can you hear what it’s trying to tell you?

When we find ourself in physical pain or dealing with a cold or illness, it is quite likely that our bodies have a message for us. It’s tired, it’s overworked, or it’s sick of the mental and emotional crap we’ve been dolling out for the past weeks...months...years.

I have come to believe in my body’s wisdom, even though it is so much easier to blame aches, pains, and sickness on more logical causes like the extra workout, a cheap desk chair, or the germs from the airplane.

Last week I got a cold. Sounds trivial, but I never get sick. Well, almost never. But last week I did. My body had been talking to me for weeks, and I wasn’t listening.

First I had low back pains, then my right leg tensed up like I had run a marathon. I started getting headaches. My sinuses got angry. Then I got a cold. I had five clues that my body had a message for me, and I ignored them all.

I find this funny because “I should know better.” How often does that happen to you? We know better, yet we ignore what we think we know.

As the aches and pains came on, I pulled up all of my so-called logical reasons for those problems, the ones we’ve been trained by doctors to believe are the real causes of our problems.

I was feeling worse and worse and then the denial came in. I knew it was my body talking, but I didn’t want to believe it.

“But I’m in a job I love.”
“But I have so much freedom in my day.”
“This has to be something else.”

The cold came, and then it cleared. The revelations then came through.

Yes, I am in a job I love. Yes, I do have freedom in my day.
And, I can still be a workaholic, maybe even more so since I’m now self-employed.

One of the amazing things I realized is that as we move towards our right life, our tolerance for living out of integrity with who we really are plummets. My essential self now expects to be cared for and catered to in ways she didn’t ask before I quit my job. I have given her wiggle room over the past 6 months, and now she wants more.

I need some help catering to my essential self. I need some ideas to entertain her and get her excited again. After all, my essential self is what fuels my passion and creativity for my business and for coaching.

I heard my body talking and I didn’t listen. I’m ready to listen now.

Here are some things I did on Friday last week to help me get started.

Played with my friend’s horse.
Went for an hour-long hike by myself.
Shopped for a Christmas tree and all of the trimmings.
Purchased a beautiful new scarf that makes me giddy when I wear it.

Your turn.

What would thrill your essential self (your inner child, the part of you that you deny when you work too many hours and please everyone else)? Please share!