Hello fellow breathing humans. Here’s your weekly reminder to breathe. Take a quick moment to sit up straight and slowly breathe in and out of your nose. When you’re doing this, imagine with every inhale you invite healing and positivity into your awareness; with every exhale you release any tension that you’re feeling internally. This is a great way to focus your attention on the type of internal environment you want to create. In the past, I’ve been a little skeptical because it didn’t work at first, but the more I practiced, the more I started to feel the difference in my mood and energy. It’s all about *feeling* better through intentional focus, which is always available to us. Give yourself some grace (hey, hi, hello, we are human) and invite yourself to believe that you can feel good, often. Our breath is powerful. The ability to choose I’ve been thinking about this lately—the ability to choose. What am I choosing, right now? My thoughts, what I eat, how I speak, how I react, what I watch, what I believe about myself. Our brains are extremely powerful—the fact that we can tie our shoes without thinking about it or instinctively know how to wake up and move through patterns we’ve done every single day of our life. We are learning more about the brain every day—it’s exciting. Our brain responds to our environment based on previous experiences, most of the time. The light is red? I’m going to stop. I am hungry? I’m going to eat. I am ansty? I am going to go for a walk. We know how to do many things because of choices we’ve previously made that ended up well for us. I satiated my desire to eat, which felt good. I stopped at the red light and I was safe. I was antsy and walking helped me release energy. We carry what we learn into the future, and these responses dictate future experiences. We often have chosen not-the-best responses in the past. Some of this could look like overeating because we are stressed. Snapping at your partner because we are tired. Being mean to yourself because you don’t like the way you look (been there). When it comes to rebuilding habits around our relationships, thought patterns, the way we see the world, etc, it starts with becoming aware of the fact that it is possible—by choosing to change it. You don’t have to live in a perpetual cycle of self-loathing. You don’t have to live in an environment where you are constantly trying to please people. You don’t have to limit yourself and your inherent capacity for greatness. There are a million ways to choose what happens next. The question to ask yourself is: is my next thought/action/view helping reiterate the negative pattern of X or is it creating new brain waves (literally) and helping me become the person I want to be? Ask yourself that question this next week. Notice how you feel and what comes up inside of you. You have the ability to choose the life you want to live. Are you moving towards it or away from it in this next micro-moment? I believe in you, fully! Abe
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