Breathing Exercises
In itself a remedial, borderline pointless task. Why does it matter if we breathe differently? Breathing exercises recenter. We dedicate that time to check in with our bodies and our minds equally. Quiet our minds without the starch requirement of having to find stillness. Breathing exercises aren’t one size fits all, give yourself time to find your rhythm.
A whole minute for you to remind yourself that you are, in fact, making it through. It feels silly at first, not doing much of anything besides inhale and exhale. But, after the minute or so of the exercise, you find the ground under you. Anxiety episodes start to peak by lunch? We are living beings. With every breath, we make space to separate our feelings from us. The mind and the body are different and connected. Breathing exercises link the physical to the mental.
It’s a hyper focused wake up call, shooting mind back into body. We don’t control the world around us, but breathing in and out? Newfound anxieties and stresses the world is coming at us from all angles. Introducing breathing, is the least resistant way to care for our physical and mental health.
Get a laugh in
When was the last time we could remember that we squealed, grunted, or chortled? The kind of laugh that makes the sides of the body ache. Instead we’re held up on puppet strings that pull our mouths taut in a blank expression. Our cheeks have had enough of a rest. The goal is to actively seek out tiny moments of joy. We could refresh our spirit and see some light around us. Trivialism is a common plague we find all around us and it’s hard to notice.
Once we hit a certain age, hello twenties, the world around us starts to pale around the edge. We’re heavy with this feeling that there’s no laughing matter. Now more than ever, we can indulge in experiences that bring us joy! Watching our favorite childhood tv show. Laughing at the same jokes we did as children. Laughter is to be coveted and celebrated.
At what point did we stop laughing and smiling every day? Why laugh exclusively in regards to recent misery? We’ve stopped giving ourselves permission to feel something happy. With an endless variety of things to be sad and angry about being thrown at us from every direction. Time is better spent seeking the light than staying in our shady comfort zones.
Get off your phone
Moms might have have thought they drilled this into our heads, and yet, we aren’t listening. Bopping heads, yeah , we hear ya. Yeah, we get it. How long have we been scrolling on Instagram, again? How many times today? Is it bedtime ? Who got cancelled, why? Oh, shoulda known. Our phones hold our whole worlds in the palm of our hands, especially with COVID-19. The place we go to relax and unwind holds our whole professional lives.
They’ve cracked the code, we’re simple creatures of validation. This thing is living in our pocket, at our fingertips in a moment’s notice. We depend on our phones to make us feel good more than we do people around us. They make us feel valuable and whole. When we feel like there’s nothing else to do? Our phone is there for us.
Social media is beautiful and amazing, in moderation. We’ve become so comfortable with our social media accounts. We allow it to take over our days with no resistance. We know that in the back of our minds, it’s easier to go on social media then put the effort anywhere else.
Putting down our phones, the world around is scary. Everything comes into detail, all at once. It’s a whole new set of things that are unfamiliar in their normalcy… before we’re utterly bored out of our minds. Get into the habit of putting down your phones (aka in the other room).
Releases the invisible grip. After all, there’s suddenly have time to do all those things we’ve been talking that we don’t have time for. We could make some progress on those things from Twitter screen time alone. Constantly refreshing, every time finding something that engages or enrages us.
We can spend more and more times off our phones. The day has more possibilities. At first, it’s hard to focus on the episode on Netflix without the weight of our phones. When we start warming up to the idea of being away from our phones? Suddenly, comes the excitement of filling the time. Anything can fit neatly into our schedules, besides brooding on the state of the world we’re living in.
Curation is key
What we consume, what we see, and where we are becomes a part of us. We don’t control the leaders of our communities and countries. We control if we make our beds in the morning.
Curation is an unsung hero in times of varying types of mounting discomfort. We have the power to follow accounts that inspire us. We have the power to make our rooms a personal, revitalizing oasis. We have the power to listen to songs that make us feel good.
Here’s our reminder that we can exercise this power at any point. Block anyone. Be unrelenting with the content, energy, and experiences we want to cultivate. Go to your social medias and audit your feeds.
A quick checklist to make this process a little less tedious.
Framing things this way, we focus on how the content we consume makes us feel. How it serves us, instead of remaining complicit.
Change around the furniture, make your bed when you’re not in it. Take out the trash and put everything back in its place. While the initial task will be grueling (podcast or music will be invaluable). The maintenance let’s you cash in on the coveted compound effect.
Once we start to curate our lives, it’s a start to falling in love with the process. Waking up one morning, and it’s like our dreams start believing in us too. The day may not be as it was yesterday.
We make time for our passion projects and our goals because we start to see it all around us. We reflect the type of greatness we want to be and the world starts to tick in that direction. Curate days, weeks, life. Climb back into the director’s chair and set up the win.
The compound effect takes the edge off once we pass the start line. It won’t be automatic, but it won’t matter. Living our lives and working towards our dreams will be something we look forward to regularly. We are no longer so available to things that never serve us.
Curation motivates. When it doesn’t motivate, it builds our resolve.
Yesterday: https://t.co/SahecfQeCH?amp=1
Day 3: https://medium.com/@sincerelyyoli/the-big-scary-7c408b5a8be3
