Breathing underwater

Also, my current favorite things

On Saturday, I attend a breathwork session by a teacher named Mary. I don my eye mask and chunky headphones, transporting to a world where all is air and music and voice and avalanches of energy shaking, dislodging. The message comes through clear: “You must make this a practice.”

So I plan. Over the weekend, I plan. I decide how and when I’m going to breathe, I find a video to breathe with. I decide I’m also going to wake up earlier, to change my daily rhythms. 

Monday comes, and I have to return to a misaligned space/energy of work after 8 weeks of abstinence. I don’t want to, but I feel I have to. The computer opens and immediately, my lungs constrict. My breath becomes short. Someone is sitting on my chest, they have their hands on my throat.

The most prominent campaign at my company right now is (in my own words) about accepting constant change and challenge as part of life/business. I try to laugh at God’s sense of humor. I try to take the message to heart. I try to stay calm despite the growing feeling that I’m underwater.

Someday, somehow, I’ll find a job that fills my lungs. A work that leads to easy laughter. A way to bring in financial support that feels in alignment with my desires, my being.

But today? 

I do the breathwork exercises. Attempt to convince my body that it’s safe to exist an imperfect situation while I find something that feels right. Stay gentle and ease-ful with myself, as much as I can. Keep my vessel clear of sugar, caffeine, alcohol, weed. Keep my mind clear and sharp and open. Keep myself present in the raw, unyielding Right Now.

And maybe this challenge, this un-ideal situation, is exactly what I need to finally gain mastery over my nervous system and learn Felt Safety in any circumstance. Lordt knows I’ve been trying for a while, but maybe I didn’t really believe all the power was in me. Some people say the power is in the breath. I’m on an exploration to see.

Maybe this is the new kind of warrior spirit, y’know, instead of hustle culture. The new kind of ambition. Commitment to calm above all else. In sync with breath. Regulated, despite easily accessible chaos right on the other side of so many thin screens. Alive to what’s here. Feeling deeply. Nothing more.

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Current favorite things:

• This ambient playlist by independent artist Glowydot: DELICIOUS SOUNDS

• Oh Reader Magazine, a publication that reminds me just how great books are, and the people who read them: BOOKISH MAGIC

• Marlee Grace’s pristine gorgeous lovely inspiring online co-working container, Flexible Office: IMMACULATE ENERGY

• This naturally nutritious skincare product, Bee Yummy Skin Food, which I’ve been using as a (luxuriously effective) makeup primer: PROPOLIS DREAMS

• Lapse, a new social media app where photos take an undetermined time to “develop,” so you can snap them and stay in your real life: SOCIAL NOSTALGIA