Day 276 - Embracing the In-Breath

I became aware of a cool point today while practicing my breathing application. I was laying down during the final resting pose in yoga (savasana), and this is a moment that I used to let my mind wander. My physical had just undergone a strenuous workout, and I always considered savasana to be prime time for daydreaming. The thoughts would run so naturally and my body would melt into the floor as I drift away in consciousness. It's interesting to consider that I typically fall asleep this way as well..

Over the past few months of practicing yoga, I began utilizing my savasana as a time to practice staying in my body, with my breath. I do this by applying the 4-count breath technique. Lindsay Craver did a blog post that gives a good idea of what this tool is and how it is used here.

I've tried this technique many times to support myself to remain present and grounded, here, within my physical body. Today I finally noticed a pattern of having the most trouble with holding the in-breath.

I contemplated on what this could mean. The first thing to mind was my presence. By anxiously rushing through the in-breath hold, I was severely compromising my presence. I associated this phenomena/habit of cutting my in-breath short with self-doubt and impatience. I experimented: When I held my in-breath, I was really, really present for it. I could visualize myself moving more effectively from this starting point.

Now, I am noticing myself fall into another consciousness trap. From that in-breath, I decided to direct myself into a visualization/imagination of potential out flow. That in itself isn't the trap. The trap is buying into or becoming vested in the feeling of being in control, unencumbered as a result of my imagined successfullness. I walked that point in the beginning of my 10 day series on success.

pic credit

Recap:

• I realized I've been short changing myself by not being present with my in-breath.
• I realized the power of staying present within my in-breath is presence itself,
• and the ability to direct self.
• I directed myself into an experiment of testing the difference in my relationship to my in-breath when cut short vs when I am patient and give myself the full 4 counts.

Why might I be rushing through the in-breath:

• Self-Trust
• I do not trust that my breath will carry me.
• weird fear, maybe related to my underwater fears post.
• Self-Doubt
• Related to not trusting myself
• fear of being present
• fear of being self-responsible.
• trusting the mind consciousness system
• feels safe, known, & comfortable

Consequences:

By not embracing my in-breath, I am not present. It's the difference between automatic living mode and self-directed living. It's very easy to forget about the breathing...must set lots of flag points!

Solution:

Utilize flag points to prevent full system possession states of being. Acquire awareness and build flag points through writing. Awareness of every breath is not a goal I hope to achieve tonight...or ever (within the context of hope). I will stay consistent within my process of self-realization within self-honesty to realize my breathing in every moment. To hold an expectation, goal, or hope is to externalize the responsibility to live as this mental/behavioral change.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to undervalue my breathing application.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value my breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself not to just breathe and be the breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is hard to be aware of my breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to forget that I am my breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that becoming aware of every breath is a process that will be walked over the course of many years, that my mind is the starting point of wanting it done as soon as yesterday.

I commit myself to repeatedly bring myself back into my breath, not to fight the mind, but to work with it in discovering why and where I am still afraid to fully be with every in-breath.

I commit myself to becoming evermore acquainted with my breath, until it's of my nature to be within and as every breath.

I redesign myself here.

Give it a try @ DIP Lite

Day 216 - Namaste = Respect Design

Tomorrow is my last day of my $30 month long trial at a local yoga studio. I have been going for the physical benefits, and have been trying to just simply ignore all "enlightened" spiritualism aspects; however, I found myself in a negative relationship toward this community of people. I've become annoyed, and that reaction is worth a serious investigation (link to be placed here). But for the moment, I would like to walk a point of showing respect for my yoga instructors.

In the world of spiritual identification, we use the word "Namaste" to convey respect. It's a ritual of placing prayer hands at heart center, bowing and saying the word to roughly signify my soul/spirit recognizes, honors and bows to your soul/spirit. So that's all groovy right? No it's not.

Why? The spirit is not who we are. We are the flesh. This a fundamental difference between religion and Desteni. I do not believe I am anything more than what is physically here. Yes, there is energy. Some people can even see the different colors of our auras. The mystical, mysteriousness indicates that it must be real, right? I once thought that these energies were the answer. I mean, they seem so great and powerful. When I started actually hearing the Desteni perspective of oneness and equality, it seemed legit but implied that I must stop my spiritual ascension process. If I was to keep up my identification with my energy body, that would mean that I am supporting separation within self-interest within fear. Contemplate that!

So, I do not respect the energy, the systems that we have become as self-interested robots continually covering up fear. I do not support myself as predictable energetic robot of mind, so why would I support that in you? The only reason I would respect, accept and allow you to be system is if I am wanting to protect  my own consciousness system. I no longer say Namaste. Join me in discovering who we really are as physical beings, as life, or remain enslaved to the apparent glory of energy that just seems too hard to let go of.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate within the system design of respecting others as more than their physical from a starting point of separation and desire for validation of my own self-concept.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I am operating from a point of wanting to be respected in return for respecting another, together validating our existence as "more than" the physical reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am more than the physical and will conquer all fear by being a positive person, despite the evidence of how effective the yogic community has been in stopping world-wide atrocity.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to 'respect' the good parts of another, not realizing that I am thus wanting to be respected for the good parts of me. And in this, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that this perspective does not consider the reality, just the positive part, and in turn, we support the negative by overlooking it within self and others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can change the world through being a positive person, not realizing that in so doing, I support (suppress/ignore) the negative polarity as evil in this world and in self. This is no real solution.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I am giving my power away to the system of mind through respecting another / wanting respect.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that I am being dishonest with myself by showing respect for other mind consciousness systems, and so desiring respect myself. Within this, I am not standing one and equal with others, and for that, I forgive myself. I have found myself within a self-compromising situation of unequal stance. I will go more into this when I get more into my negative relationship formation toward yogis.

--

When and as I see myself respecting another, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am being dishonest with myself in not seeing my starting point in separation of another, trying to maintain a respectable self-image. I commit myself to further investigating these subtle/buried points of self-interest.

When and as I see myself thinking that we are more than the physical reality, I stop I breathe. I realize that the appeal of these energetic perceptions are designed to lure us into consciousness enslavement. I commit myself to stopping the pursuit of higher and more energy as soon as I realize my breathing.

When and as I see myself accepting others as systems through respecting them, I stop I breathe. I realize that this is a flag point indicating a relationship of self-preservation of self as a system (fear of loss). I commit myself to finding where, and understanding why I accept and allow myself to respect others whilst ignoring or bearing with their aspects/beliefs of which I do not agree. Simply put: what am I trying to protect within myself by hiding aspects of another from my verbal consideration through selective, partial respect?

This yogic relationship will continue to be deconstructed in blogs to come. The system design of 'respect' will also become more clear as I continue to investigate my experiences through writing. Thanks for reading...I respect you as one an equal within the reading/writing of my expression.

*Photo found all over the internet; source unknown

Day 213 - Self-movement: Perspective

Today, I kept thinking about this perspective for some reason. It's the perspective of the detailed effort involved in a physical movement or set of movements to get a task done. This is hard to describe inside of myself, so I'ma write it out!

This perspective that I am going to do my best to describe it seemingly common sense movement. Great example: Walking across the street. What does it take to do that? FIRST, it's a turning of the head in both directions to check for cars. Then, there is a step, followed by another step, etc, but even before that there is a neck movement to place one's head slightly off balance in the direction we want to walk.

One of my real life examples from today: I waxed my snowboard for the first time, so maybe that was another reason why my movement-perception wasn't so automated. From one perspective it takes a lot of work, almost an overwhelming amount of work (thus the $8 alternative of paying someone else to do it). This overwhelming perspective happens before any time is spent. When one is willing to dedicate the time, the series of steps naturally unfolds when the tools and the know-how are available. Heat the iron, drip the wax, spread the wax with the iron, scrape off the excess, clean up the excess, turn off the iron. Even this quick description I didn't immediately think about having to toss the excess wax in the trash. Heck, we could have swept the floor if we wanted to be thorough.

The point of sharing this perspective is to unfold the decision process and bring a little awareness to the physical. I notice that I make quite a few decisions based on the perception of all the effort required to complete a set of physical movements for a given task. This "effort" is a loaded term. Effort is relative. How I relate to work determines effort perception. The relationship indicates a separation, and I think with today, for some reason, I was more tuned into what is required to complete physical tasks in a simplistic perspective that was intriguing. Just doing what has to be done.

The inverse perspective (instead of this perspective), is that the movement is automated. Decision to cross the street does not normally consider ALL of the physical movements/effort because there is a relationship toward these movements. Tilting the head forward is easy. Placing one foot in front of the other by bending the knee in conjunction with a minimal effort abdominal contraction is easy. The only real consideration that happens is how many of steps it will take.If the road is 7 miles wide (i know, crazy) then we may choose not to cross the road depending on the reward vs effort of walking that far.

Yes, this is a broad perspective, but I was intrigued with insight. It's not a new perspective, but I've never written about it before. It's a perspective I am drawn to and the primary reason I like to study parkour, free running, and everything related to balance. I really like trying to understand and gain mastery over the physical movement through space time...I think I like it because there is so much room to learn, grow expand my body vocabulary. The newness of learning how to balance on a unicycle is some kind of physical intimacy.

free use flickr image

Again, the inverse perspective would be that I already know how to...make a sandwich, or say with yoga, when I already know a posture or a movement, it is automated. I make a decision, and my mind just put my body there automatically, and I have room to think about something else. Ah, here lies the crux of it all. Long distance running, another example, on a treadmill even. The know-how of each physical body movement is squared away in the mind, and it leaves the space for us to zone out and think other thoughts and daydream. With parkour, there is more of a continual challenge and adaptation to the environment that keeps me more present with the physical reality. The main flag point of mind participation within parkour is when ego and pride step in, especially when others are saying "ohhhh, so cool, great job!" And that's how people get hurt: trying to uphold a reputation of being good or great instead of practically considering the physical limitations.

Ok, join me for some self-forgiveness tomorrow. There's a lot to this perceptual shift, and I want to see how deep I can go in releasing my physical movement programs. Also, I will report on what I notice in relation to daydreaming (separation from the physical) that occurs while I'm boarding down the mountain.

Day 198 - Embarrassed to Breathe?

Sounds silly, and yet I have identified this in me in small ways. Sometimes as backchat, sometimes as internal judgment of myself as some twisted excuse to remain in the mind. I remember this thought came up when I first started exploring Desteni: "...but other people will hear me breathing differently than normal." Haha. And I even have some fringe memory of worrying about my breathing pattern when I was conscious of it back in my younger years. Ooo, this is interesting.

When I was conscious of my breath, I would fear judgement as well as judge it myself: The way it sounds. "Is it normal?" "Will other notice me?" Fear of not fitting in. Fear of standing out.

Oh snap! This is crazy. I've defined myself throughout my years in school from the starting point of wanting to fit in and not stand out. From the moment of my breath, these were the first and foremost fears that came to mind, and through accepting and allowing that fear to direct me, I created some of my primary personalities throughout my social interactions over the past 15+ years. These still exist today.

Well, I've discovered some interesting realizations by examining my relationship toward my breath throughout time. This all started when I was in yoga noticing how loud my ujjayi breath was because my nose is a bit stuffed up. I decided that I should open up my fear of judgement in relation to my breathing, and I'm glad I did. I'll certainly be investigating these key-player characters as I move forward within my breathing purification process. For now I breathe and bring my focus back to this one point.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be embarrassed by the way that I breathe.

As breathing is my expression of myself, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear what others think of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define who I am according to what others think of me, and within this I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to fear loosing what I think is my accepted version of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear loosing friends.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I fear loosing positive or potentially positive judgement by simply breathing and being myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear change because I have defined myself externally by placing primary importance on projected self-judgement. Within this, I also forgive myself that I have allowed myself to not realize the starting point of self-judgement and projected self-judgement as fear of non acceptance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear not being accepted.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to simply breathe.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear simply expressing myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel like I need to fit in and be/breathe a certain way to fit in or be liked by others.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel that who I am as my breath is not normal.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel that I could be rejected for breathing and being myself here.
--
When and as I see myself departing from my breath into a thought in relation to being accepted as my breathing expression, I stop and I again breathe. I realize that the doubt that others care about my breath is silly, and even more importantly, the fear that they might care must be disintegrated. I commit myself to disintegrating my fear of self-honest expression as who I am simply breathing.

When and as I see myself feeling embarrassment, I stop I breathe. I realize that behind embarrassment is a fear of loss construct that is based on defining myself in separation of myself. I commit myself to using embarrassment as a flag point tool to investigate where I have separated my self-definition from myself here.

When ans as I see myself in fear or worry about how others will perceive my breathing, I stop I breathe. I realize that there are rudimentary fears that have been compounded and deeply integrated into my being over years of participation. I commit myself to investigating the characters of myself that I have exposed today.

When and as I see myself trying to fit into a particular group with a certain set of accepted behaviors, I stop I breathe. I realize the question of whether or not it is appropriate to be considering how I am coming off to others. I commit myself to stopping the unreasonable moments of fear separation, and within this to allow myself to act according to what will effectively produce a best for all scenario outflow.

Thanks for reading.

Day 196 - Sending Love and Light

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate within energy to try to send messages to somebody in some sort of mystical way.

flickr

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to utilize energy with an attempt to get others to like me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to put effort into raising my energy within a spiritual context to be great and desirable.

I forgive myself that I have not allowed myself to realize my starting point of this desire which is basically fear of rejection, insecurity, and being less in general.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire another person, and within that I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to attempt to manipulate them via sending love and light toward them in a secret hope that they will then like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that by meditating, chanting or working with energy in any way can be beneficial for others that are not in directly in my physical environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can expand my aura and become of a higher and higher energy so that I will be more influential and ultimately more happy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that I am benevolent within my use of energy because I only want positivity, and not realize that I was only considering what is positive for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enter into thoughts of desire and within them attempt to manipulate others to like me by fulfilling their desire to be liked too.
- Interesting. Within this I realize that I have been attracting..and have been attracted to..those with the same design/frame of mind in wanting/desiring another within the same starting point of insecurity of self.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to give me the opportunity to stabilize within myself, as who I am, through rushing from fear into desire, and then acting within that energy even in the subtlest ways, such as sending mentally created "love and light" to the girl next to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see this instruction "send love an light to the person next to you," as an excuse to try and fulfill my selfish desire to be with another.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have backchat about winning the affection of others and not investigating the source of this internal conversation.
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When and as I see myself practicing yoga and slipping into desire thoughts for the beautiful women in the room, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am portraying that I am "showing up for me" to the point that even I start believing myself as a suppression of my desire for sex, ultimately. I commit myself to examining where and when I am not here for me when I go to practice yoga.

When and as I see myself utilizing energetic opportunities to attempt to court the mind of a female, I stop I breathe. I realize that energetic fishing will lead to an energetic relationship. I commit myself to flirting in the physical only.

When and as I see myself sending love and light to others for any reason, I stop I breathe. I realize that I have been foolishly just going with what the instructor says even though I dislike/disapprove/judge the spiritual side of yoga. I commit myself to further investigating my relationship within all dimensions of yoga.

When and as I see myself utilizing energy for a beneficial / positive means, I stop I breathe. I realize how polarity works enough to know that + must balance with - in the realm of energy. I commit myself to stop supporting the energy dominion over life.

When and as I see myself justifying the use of energy with selfish backchat, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am in a bind with fear here, and that I must face every source point related to the internal dialogue. I commit myself to push through fear, stand within it, walk into it, feel it, accept it, so that I may forgive myself for what I have allowed myself to exist as with it.

I'm not done with you yet yoga..