breathe

Alive

Deb Brock Discovery, Opportunity, Spiritual , , , , , , , , , ,

“I will not let you die”.  This is what my inner voice said to me this morning, sweating like an ox in hot yoga.  I was holding the tree pose facing the mirrored wall noticing how curly my hair was in full body sweat when I heard the words.  It isn’t important for me to state why (or how) I was dying.  I knew and so immediately understood the significance of the declaration.  So real the personal battle I didn’t even try to divert my thoughts to alternate queries like “who of my clients need I be strong for today?”  I knew I was speaking with intention, directly to myself.  As I held the sweating pose I dared eye contact, trusting the instructor’s direction to breathe only my own pace, and found myself appreciative that I looked back and willed breath and life.

I stood beside myself this morning and am glad for it.

~DocBrock

Regret: Wasted Energy

Deb Brock Opportunity , , , , , , , , , ,

August 12, 2013 – Regret: Wasted Energy

She asked me “why do I not move forward?”  She was dealing with her efforts to recreate her profession and had just noted that when she thinks of opportunity missed she feels a pang of panic.  So much energy is wasted on those darn “what if’s and if only’s”, I said.  She rolled her eyes knowing where I was heading her.

Often when we find ourselves stuck, unable to move forward, it is because our energy is being sucked up by regrets.   Regret is a poison in the guise of a nagging panic couched in judgments that echo “if only I had…” Regret, of course, can be only about the past.  We can’t regret what might come our way.  We can only regret what has passed (that we lost).  There is nothing that sucks up our energy like regret. Dwelling on “what if” and “if only” keeps us in the past.  Energy that loops on the past is energy wasted because it is incapable of moving us forward.

The only cure for regret is grief, be it large or small.  Grief that says “I am sorry”, in recognition of lost opportunity or action, will unbind us from the past and invite us to breathe “this is what I can do now”.   Nice!

~ DocBrock

Mindfulness: the Here and Now

Deb Brock Discovery, Mental, Spiritual, Uncategorized , , , , ,

July 19, 2013

Here and Now, i.e.  mindfulness:

I had a client (mother of a young child) ask me today if I had done “mindfulness stuff” with my kids.  I laughed and told her how we started a nude beach once and then suggested that it probably counted as mindfulness training.  Mindfulness, or self-acceptance and understanding, as I call it, has been around for a long time.  Mindfulness, of course, is about being present in the here and now.   I like to think that the Creator initiated mindfulness when s/he declared of herself “I AM”.  Whoa! Talk about self-awareness!  You can’t get more Here and Now than I AM.

Pretty much every day with one client or the other, I stand up and write the words
“here and now” on the middle of my white board.  Then I add an arrow going to the left  in front of the word “here” and another arrow going to the right following the word “now” (scribble it on a piece of paper so you can see it).   At the end of the arrow that goes left I write Hx (historical) and at the end of the arrow that goes to the right I write Ft (future).  I tell my clients that we are always safe in the Here and Now, which is the only place breath exists.

When we live in the past we dwell in depression, when we attempt to live in the future we swell with anxiety. There is no depression, nor is there any anxiety in the Here and Now.  It isn’t possible.  Depression is always based on the fantasy of “if only” while anxiety is based on the projection of “what if”.  Here and Now is the only place we can breathe and be the I Am that we are.

~ DocBrock