002_First of 7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath

It's because of the rests between the notes that our lives make music. It's the silence inside the sounds that gives us strength.

I am Adela, and this is Just Breathe....You are Enough™. Together we will deepen our connection with ourselves, strengthen our relation with others, and re-think together how we connect with our world.

Thank you for joining us for the first of “7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath” where the invitation is to meet yourself.

How do you schedule your time?  Do you make time for workouts and meet the team for practice?  Do you book appointments with clients?  Do you schedule meetings with colleagues?  Do you schedule classes, assignment due dates and labs?  Do you take the kids to lessons and practice?

Whatever is the way that you are familiar with scheduling your time and meeting with other people – meetings, appointments, practice, lessons, shifts – schedule a time like that for yourself.

Meet yourself.  Do it just like you would book any other meeting, appointment, practice, lesson for the kids, or class.

Meet with yourself.  Connect with yourself.  There are so many parts of ourselves that have always been there and which we have never met.

Have regularly scheduled time to meet yourself, like you would spend time with anyone else whose relationship you value, with anyone else that you love.

Where do you go to connect?  Is it a hot bath at home, a sauna or a massage, or time at a spa?  Is it the woods, fishing, time at the beach, a hike?  Is it a coffee shop or a glass of wine at a bistro or pub? Is it a run outside with time for rest beside a brook, or on a bench in the park?  Where is your place to connect?  Is it your favorite chair with a journal and tea?

Go there, and connect, with yourself. Ground, and re-group.  Connect to the stillness inside the movement.  Connect to the feeling of being.  Get to know yourself.

If you can, unplug and connect.  Go gadget-free for the time of your scheduled meeting.  Headphones off…walk.  Feel the earth beneath your feet.  It’s like water for a plant, gas in the car, plugging into electricity.  The aliveness of things is there for us to connect with all the time.  We make time to connect with that aliveness by appointment, at least until we learn how to hear the silence inside of sound, the music inside of life’s daily noise. We create time for refuge for ourselves.

Can you schedule an hour or two?  Can you do that this week?  Can you do that every week, or every two weeks, for the next few weeks?

Meet yourself.  Schedule time to be present with yourself, and apply kindness:  do whatever it is that helps you to hear yourself, the way that you would listen to your best friend.

I think of it as a date with myself.  I attend enough meetings.  I would rather go on a date.  So, I schedule dates with myself.  Sometimes it is simple.  Sometimes it is fancier.  Sometimes it is going out.  Sometimes it is staying home.

Can I touch in with the pulse of myself?  How am I doing?  The way that I would treat the one I most respect, and care for in the world – including four-footed ones if that is your best mate – can I treat myself like that for an hour or two this week or next?  Or every week, or two?

When I lived in Paris, it tended to be a bit fancier.  There were concerts and museums, art galleries and coffee shops…my favorite places on Ile Saint-Louis.

When I moved from Paris to Montreal, my place of refuge became the botanical gardens, le Jardin Botanique.  Inside the Jardin Botanique, there was a greenhouse that was dedicated almost entirely to ferns: massive ferns, tiny ferns...thousands of ferns.   There was a bench in the back corner:  I would take my thermos of tea, and I would sit amid the ferns. 

I have a fascination with ferns.   In the history of our planet, humans have been here not even long enough yet to be much more than dust on the surface. There are beings, species like the ferns, who have been here for millennia… far, far back into a deep and distant time. It was wonderful to sit on the bench, with my tea, in that corner protected by the wisdom of the ferns.

I'm a floral photographer, so I would bring along my camera, and maybe take some photographs of flowers as I made my way to the ferns at the very back of that row of greenhouses in the Jardin Botanique.

Now I'm living in Atlantic Canada: I have a special place, on a special beach which is roughly 20 minutes from my house.   I bear witness that it is actually entirely possible to live within 20 minutes of what must be a dozen fantastic beaches and never actually go to the beach.  What magnificent thing do you live close to that is just waiting for you to reach out and connect?

It's a practice - a discipline - to give ourselves the gift of actually being where we are when we're there. It doesn't need to be fancy. What it needs to be is whatever it is that will be most deeply nourishing for you. Maybe it's sitting outside on the deck - on the roof, by a fire - watching the stars.

Try to schedule at least an hour and maybe two, enough time so that you can relax and delight in the luxury of having time. You give it to yourself to deepen, enrich and strengthen the relationship you have with yourself.  You do it in exactly the same way that you would schedule quality time to strengthen the genuineness and authenticity of the relationship that you have with anyone else who is important in your life.

Do it with the intension of bringing honor and respect, and care, more deeply into your relationship with yourself.  Intension matters.

Try it. Take out your calendar right now. Find two hours in the course of this week. Plan a Date – a meeting, an appointment, a shift, a practice - with Yourself.

When I meet with myself, in a rhythmic and regular way, gradually I become better able to bring that silence – that stillness – with me back into the rest of myself and the rest of my life.  The stillness inside of the movement of my days gives me strength.

May the journey bring you joy. 

The quality of relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself. For a free list of the full menu of “7 Ways to Take a Deep Breath”, come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com”.

You can follow Just Breathe….You Are Enough™ on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening. Copyright © 2018, Adela Sandness