We all have times when things aren’t going the way we expected in our day or in our lives. Maybe we feel anxious, frustrated or upset with someone or something. We feel closed off from the flow, like we are not supported by the universe. And this closed feeling is the perfect gift! It is a wake-up call from our soul: an intimate communication inviting us to “choose again” and reconnect.
The truth is, our separation and suffering is optional. We know that we create our experience with our thoughts and the meaning we give to life’s events. Stress is caused by our judgments of and reactions to our circumstances, not the circumstances themselves. So, our constricted feeling is an opportunity to make a conscious decision: how do we want to experience life– open or closed, loving or and fearful? It is up to us to make the connection. After all, it was us who chose (often unconsciously) to disconnect.
So, how do we get back home? Simple, we breathe.
Like going to the mountains, forest or ocean to get some fresh air, we simply step outside of where we are in the moment — physically, mentally, and emotionally — and make the conscious choice to take a deep breath and let it go. Then take another, and another. Simply feel the breath coming in and going out. Merely shifting our breath will shift our thoughts. When our breath flows, our perception becomes more fluid. We let go of our insistence and resistance.
It is this easy to reconnect with the universe. Whenever we disconnect, we constrict our breathing. A deep breath will bring us back to our center. As we inhale, we fill our bodies with the oxygen needed to replenish our most basic physical needs, allowing the air to circulate within us. Exhaling, we release the old, that which no longer serves us. We let go and allow, releasing tension that constricts us. Deep relaxed breathing can take us gracefully into the stillness that lies at our center. We reconnect to the universe.
So, feeling closed off can become a blessing, a transformative experience, once we become conscious of it and notice our tight shallow breath. We consciously choose to breathe deeply. Once we make the connection in our minds, our bodies know what to do and gently bring us back to the connection we seek.
