How you breathe is how you feel, and how your body moves is a big part of that.
You can do all the self-help exercises, hit the gym, and push yourself to the max but if your breath is short and shallow, and your body is tight, you’ll feel like crap.
So what’s the answer?
Perhaps it’s breathing and moving mindfully. That is, breathe with intention; feel where you’re tight in your body, and move your body with intention to stretch and expand those tight muscles and fascia.
Breath goes a long way here. Let your breath extend your stretch and move you further. Yoga is great for this when done slowly and mindfully.
Movement is so important for the natural energy flow of your body, as emotions and energy can get stuck and stagnate in our bodies, keeping negative feelings stuck inside of us.
So when you’re feeling blah, uninspired, or unenergetic, move your body and shake up that energy.
Dance, shake, get outside, go for a walk, hum, sing, and create vibration in the body. And when you do, be mindful of how your body feels. Don’t tune out here, tune in. Your attention is co-creating the experience of greater expansion. Your attention is helping to liberate this energy to free you up to reach new levels of potential and change in your life.
When you feel blah, pay attention to how you’re breathing. Can you deepen your breath? Pay attention to the breath filling up your body and moving energy inside it. Check in often, and prioritize your breath because how you breathe is how you feel, and you can take control over how you breathe and how you move to feel better minute by minute, day by day.
The mind will pull you away from it, focusing instead on that task you have to accomplish or that thing you have to do later. All we can do is bring our attention back to the breath. And if we work at it, maybe we can work and breathe at the same time, keeping our attention with our breath while we take care of our business.
That will be a practice, no doubt, and you’ll lose that fight many many times. But just remember, when you’re feeling anxious, when you’re feeling tight, remember your breath and remember to move your body. And do so mindfully, and with grace because, I believe, over time, we can begin to coax the body out of its patterns of tightness and shortness, and start to expand our breath, our bodies, and our lives.
