Don’t even give me that! – you too can meditate.

I’ve heard so many say, Meditation isn’t for me. Breathing isn’t going to help me. Yoga isn’t my thing. Oh please, I don’t have time for that. Well, I’m here to tell you, don’t even give me that!!!! It’s not about yoga, it’s about the time we gift ourselves. How many of us show up for ourselves on a daily basis?

In a world full of technology that seems to upgrade at extraterrestrial speeds, there isn’t time to slowly digest and address what’s going on. No wonder, anxiety and depression, (might I add constipation…lol) are at all-time highs. Between the shit show we’ve come to know as politics, the pandemic, our new inconsistent form of news-media, increasing costs and living wages, and the everyday living of raising a family, maintaining employment, health-related issues, etc., it’s ever more important to practice some form of yoga. Even if it requires no movement on the mat. (Though, I fully encourage movement- Our brain houses the mind; our body houses the brain)

Meditation is Yoga. Meditation is an ancient practice anyone can use to help calm the nervous system to help unite mind and body. The simplest way I can describe it is by comparing meditation to an old-school antenna. Before high-speed Wi-Fi, there were antennas that received signals in order to project a clear picture onto a television screen. Meditation is like that. When you focus on breath manipulation and find your inhale/exhale-print, over time you receive a clear picture of your own movie. I call it an In/Exhale-print because just like the thumbprint, each of us have our own breathing patterns and like bad and good patterns, we can break the ones that don’t benefit us when we are aware of them.

When we aren’t aware of our True-Form, life gets in the way. Our picture becomes fuzzy. Bullshit statements imprinted on us from old or current trauma, or stress marred in the mind begin to wiggle their ugly thoughts into our heads. Or the person driving in front of you is wearing your patience thin. Or your in-laws show up last minute, your child needs a tutor, jumping out of a plane for fun (pranayama also exercises our lungs, helping receive oxygen while under intense emotion), on and on. Whatever stressful situation you’re in, whether good or not so good, breathing through it, physiologically changes the way we react to outside stressors. Our parasympathetic nervous system keeps us going through the storm while it rings alarms. Some of these alarms are false alarms, but the body doesn’t know and reacts to them anyway, unless it’s aware.

It’s normal to have better days than others, that’s life. No one escapes the pendulum swing. How big is that swing, most times can be up to you by empowering yourself with the proper tools. Becoming aware of your breathing patterns and pranayama (breathing tools) helps get through those days. Pranayama helps with our endocrine system, the system of Homeostasis, the basis of Balance! Our endocrine system houses the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus.

It’s only when we are in balance, we see the whole picture. We can’t possibly ever know everything, but at least we know what we’re working with. If we like what we see, we keep watching. If we don’t, we change the station.

Practicing meditation isn’t learned overnight, nor benefits felt in one week. Attuning to your frequency and much like anything else you wish to acquire; you have to work for it. It takes time, dedication, patience and above all, a pure heart to open the pathway of connection. For even a malfunctioning heart receives a pacemaker to receive signals to and from the brain.

With much love and gratitude~ Liza