Breathing Room (part I)

Negativity has an energy about it.

I was having a cranky morning. The stars were misaligned, Mercury was in retrograde, everything is a mess, I had a bee in my bonnet, couldn’t find my other bonnet without the bee, whatever—I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Midmorning, while complaining to myself and wrestling with some blankets, hastily trying to make the bed, I accidentally knelt on the nearby window curtain and all at once (CRASH!) yanked the curtain down, with half the rod, broke the rod, and was unceremoniously (BAM!) clonked on the head by it.

I yelled a curse of some kind (we all know what kind, wtf), and because I was already in such a sour mood, I also had an immediate, visceral reaction to this extra-annoying (undeserved!) wallop – my instant physical instinct was to go full INCREDIBLE HULK on it and use all of my frustrated and thus superhuman strength to rip the entire thing, brackets and all, right out of the drywall. And maybe even punch right through that stupid window!

I somehow summoned the presence of mind, in that suddenly charged, negative space, to register my crankiness and reactivity, STOP, and take a Very Deep Breath. Okay, it took several—but with a few moments of stillness and breathing, I calmed down enough to assess the situation and make a better choice about what I wanted to do next. Like maybe see about fixing things instead of breaking them more.

A few helpful lessons I think we can take from this whole ordeal:

Try to remember to pay attention to what you’re doing so you can avoid accidentally breaking things. (And once more, with feeling: “Do or do not. There is no try.”) Pay attention. Remember it.

Practicing works—or at least increases your likelihood of being able to recalibrate when you need to. Keep practicing and cultivating self-awareness and mindfulness (maybe via meditation and/or/especially YOGA—more on this in a sec) to increase the likelihood that you’ll have the sensitivity and control needed to register what’s happening and stop yourself from intentionally breaking things when you (inevitably, because you’re human) lose your cool. Enough stuff breaks on its own! Is breaking!

Negative feelings have dicey, unpredictable energy – sometimes BIG (hulking, paranormal, Marvel-monster-sized) energy that, if left to run amok, can very easily make everything much worse. Keep an eye on those Bad Larrys. Don’t let them run the show.

And one more thing:

Can breath sometimes cast an immediate magic spell? Totally.

What’s extra cool is that the magic of it lives right here, in your body. The nervous system takes cues from the emotional system and the emotional system takes cues from the nervous system. This is basic physiology and applies to all of us, all the time.

When confronted with meaningful stimuli (whether pleasant or unpleasant), we experience emotions in what psychologist Ethan Kross calls a loosely coordinated response between our feelings, our thoughts, and our bodies. Some of the physical response is discernible to us (heat, shortness of breath, butterflies) and some isn’t (cellular activity, hormone secretion, chemicals surfing our bloodstream).

The magic part is that because of the symbiotic relationship between these various systems, we can marshal the body to settle the mind—and vice versa. It’s a bit of free, natural wtf witchery that’s always available to us.

This is one of the most fundamental underground principles that sings beneath the Yoga mat. Breathing through the challenge of a long hold Warrior II (my legs are on fire! Abort! Abort!) prepares us to meet and endure challenges off the mat. To come calmly back into Tree Pose when (“Timberrrrrrrrrr!”) we fall out sneakily helps us accept that when we get thrown off balance in daily life, we can calmly work our way back to finding it. It’s a great model: Making a fuss won’t help. Take a deep breath. Just try again.

It’s easily one of my very favorite things about the Yoga practice: it travels.

And, of course, the human body and all its wild workings! The whole thing seems like big magic to me that we take mostly for granted most of the time. Like when you get a cut and put a band-aid on it and 3 days later it was never even there? WTF is that?!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and keep saying it: Anyone who thinks magic isn’t real just isn’t paying the right kind of attention.

Whether due to a busted curtain rod or a different kind of broken flow, the challenging feelings of frustration, anxiety, irritation, and overwhelm all have something in common: they’re crowded. When we actively cultivate awareness, resilience, hope, optimism, and a tendency toward positive attitudes, we’re less likely to be jostled around by difficult or annoying happenings—but our better angels (the ones who laugh, shake their celestial heads, and get to work solving our problems rather than multiplying them) can still get crowded out sometimes, no matter who we (bumbling humans) are. They have wings! They need a little room.

To get that room and better ensure they’ll be nearby when we really need them, we need to practice making space. Sooooo. . .

How can we make a little more space in our lives?

✨Tune in next week for some ideas. ✨

And, if nothing else, I hope that ridiculous Hulk graphic I made for us gave you a laugh today. It might be my favorite one I’ve concocted so far. 😅

Love & light from (the meltdowns and) the margins,

ali ✨

Star in the Margin is free and open to all, but does require lots of time, love, and energy! If you’re into the vibe and want to cheer me on. . .

Buy me a coffee! ☺️

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