I Know Where The Answers Are
For the last three weeks I have added a new daily habit to my days. It’s called breath work and I can’t believe I’m writing this. Until this point, I have hated conscious breathing. Lion’s breath, box breathing, belly breathing, Wim Hoff breathing, all of it was bullshit. I’d get dizzy, uncomfortable sitting up so straight for so long, annoyed with myself when my thoughts wandered. I put zero stock in the benefits so many people have touted (and some have touted for thousands of years!) I was the biggest breathwork sceptic.
My body resisted this practice with overwhelming gusto. But then…my friend Moe from high school reached out to me to connect over our mutual sobriety (four months yesterday for this gal!) and our conversation led to her sending me a YouTube video called, “40 Min Breathwork Journey to Rewire Your Subconscious Mind” from Breath with Sandy.
Cue major changes drastically and quickly.
Breathwork is like a high I have never experienced from any drug before. It’s a bit pharmaceutical in essence with a hit of clarity and connection to something bigger than myself- like morphine and MDMA had a baby and this is its offspring. It’s about getting really uncomfortable and then sitting with it. It’s cool air entering your nose until it’s painful. It’s filling your belly and then taking one last sip to fill it more. It’s stretching and expanding. It’s a buzzing under your skin that is both ethereal and grounding. It’s feeling your pulse in every crevice of your body. It’s honing in on your thoughts but also separating yourself to witness them. It’s absolutely incredible.
The biggest lesson I have learned already from adopting and embracing this practice is this: every answer to every question you have is within you. YOU hold all the answers. It’s not in any book or free workshop or therapy session (although really good therapy will help you mine those answers within you anyways). It’s not external in any way, shape or form. It’s you.
You are the question and you are the answer.
When I do this breathwork and I ask a question, I get an answer. It’s not usually one I like because most people, myself included, prefer external answers because they’re typically easier (“if you’re lonely, buy a dog” versus “if you’re lonely, get quiet with yourself and ask yourself why you’re lonely”- most people are going to go get the dog.) For instance, this week I asked my anger where it came from. My Inner Knowing told me: “judgment. From family, from society and then from yourself; your judgment of yourself, your husband, your kids. It all comes from judgment.” Whoa. Okay. I had been searching for that answer for the last three years and there it was. Point blank.
Another one I did this week was a breathwork for manifesting. It actually brought me to tears to feel into future me and my successes. I sat in meditation visualizing the future I wanted and I came out of it feeling on top of the world. I emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically and energetically felt like a famous, successful author and speaker. It was a powerful feeling that I had never had before.
I’m slowly learning to quiet my thoughts better and really dive deep but in three weeks, I’ve already noticed immense change. Knowing the answers are within me has released me from the desperation to seek out answers elsewhere. It’s pitiful how much money I’ve spent on books, courses, workshops, and more to have a stranger try to give me the answers to a life they don’t know anything about. It’s sad how lost I’ve been since a teenager, stuck in a perpetual existential crisis, floundering to find answers from anyone, anywhere, in any way. I cringe thinking about it especially with this new found knowing. I was never lost. I was here all along, dormant, waiting, knowing I’d find me. The soul always knows.
I’m finding a trust within myself and a symbiotic relationship with my body that has been stifled and ignored for too long. Our bodies have this beautiful innate wisdom that has been suffocated by modern culture, society and medicine. We know so much more than we give ourselves credit for. When you connect in, and really listen, your body will tell you what you need to know whether you like it or not!
All of this is to tell you to try it. Yes, the ‘sceptical, this-shit-is-bullshit’ believer is now a ‘try this and you WILL change your life’ believer is telling you to try a breathing exercise. Once, twice, a week, whatever: just try it. The more people connected to themselves means more people disconnected from the bullshit society tries to distract us with. The more connected to self, the less we need to rely on anything that doesn’t serve our highest good (drugs, alcohol, gambling, mindless scrolling, etc.) A connected person is a dangerous person. And we need more connected people than ever before.