It’s time to take a deep breath. January starts with breathing.
Personal Gentleness
I am an advocate of being gentle when communicating. I often advise colleagues to send “gently worded” emails when making personal requests to members of management. It is a way to deliver a message with more persuasive qualities and doesn’t immediately become just another work task. The average email is read at a level below what the writer intended in terms of tone. The technique of sending gentle words puts the writer into a different mindset. Requests can be scary. Someone might answer no. Rethinking emails as gentle messages allows for the thought of the sender to be in the right space. When we think gently about someone else, they are more likely to end up on our side. Tactical procedures for connecting with those who have reached a dangerous edge, like hostage takers, start when the well-trained technician comes in to start a quiet conversation. The de-escalation of the situation decreases heart rates and makes it less likely that something sudden and shocking will occur.
Gentle Breath
Let’s take a moment to slow down and take a gentle breath. While you read this message, take a great big inhale, hold it for an extra second and then let it out completely. Continue to read and repeat two more times. You are multi-tasking, which some of us love to think is more efficient, and you are starting to control your physical being. During this year of transformation, there will be more reminders to take a breath. Our actual life depends on breathing but we don’t pay much attention to it unless we are having issues doing it. It is helpful to know personally what your breathing feels like when you are well so that you become more familiar with it if something changes. Take another breath in and out and feel the air coming in and out of you like a machine. You remain alive as long as this breathing thing can be done without help. Consider the reverse. It is unsettling that something so ordinary as breathing remains the benchmark for your life. It might make you reconsider its importance more often.
Heart Breath
We tend to think of our heart as an organ that just pumps blood. But our actual hearts send out more messages than our brains do on a daily basis. The heart developed prior to the brain and those beating noises are what we first hear from future humans. We have no idea if they can think, but we know that blood is pumping. And that means that the heart is sending out important messages to other parts. Even though we tend to believe that our big brains make our decisions, it is actually our hearts that we should trust. Brains can be unreliable, and thoughts can be false. But when you ask your heart a question, it rarely lies. We just know. It is heart-felt. Let’s take another few breaths. But take them this time with your heart. Yes, feel yourself breathe through your heart. It is completely different. Taking in a breath through the heart involves a more physical aspect and has a depth that actually feels more complicated than our usual shallow top-of-lung inhalations. Heart breaths are more complex.
Proceed Gently
Consider what your life would be like if you treated yourself more gently overall. It might be a little slower, more deliberate, softer or even involve more self-love. You have a gentle heart. You are a gentle person. Today’s activity is to breathe gently every time you see or think of another person. Include everyone you think of or talk to or see at a team meeting or waiting on the check-out line. Notice them and take a gentle breath for them. Slowing down the energy around you has a beneficial effect on everyone. You might even get them to accidently slow down to your gentle breathing. Eventually, life will speed up again, but if you are lucky, there will be millions more chances to take a gentle, deliberate breath. Start now. Add this to your transformation. It will help you make better decisions by including your heart in the process. One might even say life-giving. Take a breath.
Questions to consider: What does your breathing sound like? What does actual breathing feel like? Do you take fuller breaths when you breathe through your heart?
