My sister subscribes to a lot of magazines – every thing from glossy fashion to cutting edge innovations. One of them is a woman’s mag our mom used to subscribe to and it has monthly contests. One of the contests asks readers to submit responses to a question for a chance to win a bag full of cool stuff – not just a bag, but a designer purse or weekend traveller and full of things like cell phones or mp3 players, fancy lotions and cosmetics – it’s a pretty decent goodie bag. I’ll admit it was the buttery leather bag with well placed pockets that first caught my eye but the question motivated me to sit down and email an answer I was sure would not only win the bag but be of use to future readers.
how do you find calm throughout your busy day?
Yeah, I’d been working on an answer to the first part of the question for months if not longer. My nervous system was a mess, repressed stress and anxiety had covered a third of my skin in some kind of dermatitis and prior to moving in with my sister I had been having night sweats. The wheels were off the wagon. I needed to park in a safe place and get some major reconditioning, so I had come back to my home town where I had the solid support of family and old friends. I was immediately able to start reconnecting with some of the tools I’d gathered from studying yoga, ayurveda, meditation and Traditional Chinese Medicine. And then I saw the contest for the yummy bag, was this Kismet or what?
I received a reply a few weeks later letting me know my answer was short-listed. Whoo hoo – I was already cleaning out my old bag. I was also reverting to some old patterns that didn’t support that elusive inner calm – skimping on sleep, an extra splash of vino, picking fights with the BF instead of expressing what was really bugging me. When they published the winning answer I was bummed – and irked. I was among the honorable mentions and as far as I could tell we were all saying the same thing except the winner had a baby – in her answer the baby transitioned from being a source of stress to the source of calm and focus in the present moment. They say never act with dogs or children because, case in point, the baby will upstage you. Thankfully some of the high-minded yogic wisdom prevailed and I didn’t get stuck in a baby hating rut – baby hating is so not cool. I focused instead on the running theme of the answers. We were all offering our version of putting the brakes on the chaos and finding your center.
So without further ado, one of my little tricks for getting back to center, as published in Chatelaine magazine:
yoga has taught me that if i can calm my breath, i can calm my mind. this is dead easy and i can do it anywhere even on the subway. i just close my eyes and focus on the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling for ten breaths. by the eighth, i already feel more focused and grounded. even if i have time for only three breaths, it’s enough to bring my shoulders back down from my ears.
It always comes back to the breath – catching our breath, releasing the breath, taking a breather. Just don’t forget to breathe.
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