I am currently reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
& I'm in Mexico.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
Here are the four agreements.
1. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD
2. DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
3. DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
Number one has hit me like a ton of bricks because it is the one I have I have been practicing for over a year now.
It is essentially about unbecoming everything you thought you were to find who you really are.
How we are conditioned by our surroundings.
School, religion, politics, parents, friends, family members, commercials, etc.
& most without intention.
It just happens.
We, as humans, express what we like and what we don't.
A very natural thing.
But when you are are growing up it feels like a ton of bricks weighing you down taking in the endless advice and opinions of others.
Especially for an INFJ like me.
Don Miguel Ruiz explains that your word is the power you have to create.
That often times we take on words out of fear for not being "rewarded" by someone in our life who is important to us, even when they don't align with our soul.
He talks about how often we believe someones word even when it isn't true. (Once, a huge fault of mine.)
This year has been my year of overcoming opinions about myself bestowed upon me by the words of someone else.
It has been magic.
I feel so much lighter.
& while I was reading his words, one more lifted which I would like to share with you.
My senior year of high school I was pretty damn sick.
I was on medication that was making me drop weight.
I was thin.
97 pounds, thin.
But I still always looked like I was about two months pregnant.
(At the time I didn't know it was because all my organs had sunk and were sitting in my pelvic floor. Nor did I know that my lordosis was so severe you could feel my spine in my stomach.)
I just always had a pooch.
I knew it.
It didn't bother me.
Until one day, I was in a black shirt that buttoned half way up and a pair of jeans.
Also these really radical black shoes that at the time I remember loving but if I saw them now, I would probably say wow. (It's crazy how much detail you can remember when it is an impactful moment in your life. I'm pretty sure my shirt was from Gap and my jeans were Lucky. The only pair of jeans I had that fit me at the time.)
Anyway...I was standing there against the wall in my last period of the day, minding my own business.
Breathing.
A girl in my grade turned around and said to me, "Even though you are like anorexic skinny, you still look like you're pregnant when you breathe."
As you can imagine, my soul sunk.
It literally felt like it was pulled out of my body from the ground and taken in so deep I would never find it again.
At that point, I started holding my breath.
I didn't want my stomach to expand anymore than it already did.
I started taking the most shallow breaths I could.
What I call now, chest breaths.
Those ones, they are no good.
Does the majority of our population breathe like that?
Well, yes they do.
Next post we are going to talk about what it means to breathe and all the things it can do for you.
Mind, body and soul.
Things like what I just explained can change your health.
Don't hang onto shit like that.
It was never about you.
It was about them.
Something in there conscious is out of alignment.
You are you.
& that is always enough.
B R E A T H E