You are what you breathe

How to Empower A Healthier Future

Did you know that your breath is a renewable energy source? You breathe around 20 THOUSAND breaths daily, and each one is recycled back into the atmosphere and then back into breathable energy. This means you are breathing the same air as great leaders throughout time like Gandhi, Harriott Tubman, Elenor Roosevelt, and Einstein.

You can breathe easy knowing that you can access deep wisdom and universal truths through our collective breath. The problems come when you look around at your environment and see who you share your breath with.

The same energy to which greatness flows can also be dark, polluted, and cause major health problems.

What you breathe out others breathe in. It’s an endless cycle of offering out and receiving in. So the question is…What are you breathing out?

Knowledge, love, compassion, acceptance, and kindness?

Or does it feel more like…

Judgment, resentment, disdain, or hate?

When protecting the air you breathe, you must consider what thoughts you are breathing out into the world, and what you are taking in. In the search for a cleaner and kinder environment, you must decide what kind of future you want to sustain and breathe into that.

Clearing Out Stagnation

As Summer Approaches it’s the perfect time to clear out old stagnant energy. Not just internally, but around you. Look at your environment and decide what is positively serving you and what it’s time to let go of.

I’m in the process of moving and I can feel a great weight of stuck energy beginning to flow. As I prepare my new space with freshly painted walls and newly found possibilities, I am also purging out old furniture and thoughts.

In my daily breath practice, I consciously clear my energy, but I haven’t been great about clearing out old relationships, commitments, and people who breathe negativity into my life — parts of myself I have outgrown and no longer want to invest in.

This external energy is often the hardest to clear because it’s rooted deep within my psyche.

I hold on to these external factors longer than they serve a purpose. Maybe out of habit, or loyalty, or because I fear what will happen if I let them go.

As I pack up my home I can see it’s time to release what no longer serves me and make room to breathe into something new. Something fresh, something more worthy of the woman I’m becoming. It’s time to let go of the stuck energy and make way for a cleaner source to shine through.

Change Your Breath, Change Your World

Your breath is so much more than a mindless act of inhaling and exhaling if you choose it to be. It is, after all, the gateway between your internal and external world. It’s one of the few functions we do automatically that we can alter and use to our benefit.

Every thought you have is associated with a different breathing pattern you hold. So by changing your breath, you begin to change your thoughts, and you can begin to see the world anew.

Think about it this way, if you were to close your eyes right now and take 10 deep belly breaths. Consciously noticing the cool air enter as you slowly pull it in and actively feeling the release each exhale offers, you would notice the difference right? You would feel calmer, less stressed, and more present. These feelings would activate more peaceful thoughts. This is why breathwork and meditation are so essential. But if for the rest of the day, the other 19990 breaths were fueled with thoughts of frustration, judgment, or the countless other stories you live out in your thoughts then it doesn’t do much good.

The trick is to notice at work, in the car, when you’re with your family and friends the type of thoughts and breathing patterns you are connected to.

And if you notice that work bestie and you are bonding over the daily trash-talking of everyone else, well… Then it’s up to you to decide if that’s the environment you want to fuel.

Your breath, your thoughts, and your energy are moving in and out continuously, feeding into whatever you attach your attention to, and this is how become what you breathe.

Climate Control

Now that you are noticing the type of energy you are breathing into it’s time to make room for change, and that is easier said than done.

Your internal climate is the only one you can learn to control. External factors will always be there. You might not be able to escape the year run-in with your racist uncle, but you can learn to protect yourself from the energy he emanates by not fueling his fire.

This takes work. This is the process of deciding every day to show up and breathe into a healthier mindset. One that will begin to be reflected in the people, circumstances, and events that surround you. Who knows, maybe by breaking the chain of workday toxicity you finally get that promotion and begin to love what you do.

Breath and mindset go hand in hand. It feels so simple, almost too simple that it becomes easy to not show up and breathe, to not pay attention to your thoughts, and let the emotions of them control your day. I have created a FREE 7-day breath challenge to help you start to find the breathing patterns that help you show up for yourself daily. That is the key. Show up for yourself and notice how good it feels to take control of your internal climate, one breath at a time.