The "Definites" of Energy, Breath and Information

There are very few beliefs I classify as “definite” in my universe. It has been my experience that as sure as I’ve come to the conclusion that, “Yup that’s it,” without fail something shifts. I am confident that this shift has, in fact, been due to the shifts in my own perspectives.

There are however, a couple of “for sures” that have pounded themselves—sometimes not so gracefully—into my present reality. These “definites” of mine are based on “my” truth and “my” experience. They have also evolved my thought pattern from one “plane of believing” to another “plane” altogether. A plane of “knowing”—or “just plain knowing.”

Call them your demons, your moments of grief. Name them: trials, tribulations or hard times. Perhaps you just call them your “sad stories.” We all have them, these “sad stories.” In whatever form your sad story has manifested, there are always details in the narration. Often those details grab our attention and consume valuable energy. For myself that consumption of “energy” became more like a hostage taking in my body.

The experience of this hostage taking was a turning point in my life. This turning point has led me to my first definite: It is not the “hard times” in your life that matter. It is how you deal with the energy that remains as a result.

I know that it is not the sad story that matters. I know that the details or content are immaterial. What I realized is that the worth of this whole “finding my way in the world gig” is in those seeming “left-overs.” These are the emotions left over after I survived the “incident.” These feelings or emotions often became trapped somewhere in my body. My pattern was to talk myself out of honoring the intuitive knowing that could have expanded my world and supported my own evolution. Habitually, I said something like, “Suck it up, keep the peace and move on.” The problem is, that unless I processed the experience fully, I could not move on. Instead, I slammed down my emotions, dismissed my brilliance, and buried that energy as deep as I possibly could. Ultimately, I surrendered my power. I lost my “self.”

I finally began questioning whether or not this energy was serving me well or if it had anything to do with “wellness” at all. As it turns out I have gained as much insight and strength from asking the questions as I have in the freedom of the answers.

This particular “definite” is wrapped up in this revelation. It is now a “knowing” for me that it is not about the content of the “hard time.” Rather, it is about the energy that remains as a result. In finding more resourceful ways to engage the intensity of this energy and let it move inside my body, I have created space to decode the messages and have invited myself to do so. In the decoding (which involves asking lots of questions of myself), I have discovered my “truth.” Quite simply I call it “getting nosy and getting out of my own way.”

So I am tempting you to get nosy! Get nosy about how this “energy” is showing up in your life.

The “getting nosy process” leads me to my second definite: Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you’ve already got.

Once I discovered what this “left-over” energy felt like, I was able to consciously create a new reality for my “self.” Getting nosy helped me uncover the connection between this “back off and shut up” energy and my past. Once, while recovering from kidney stones I was graced with the realization I had been making most of my decisions about movement and growth based on beliefs, values, attitudes, and fears from the past. If I was making choices based on my past, then it’s clear that I was not making them with regard to what would work best in the present. Given that the present is all I have in my physical world, if I am not making a present day choice, how can my decisions follow through with the highest intention for my future?

This “definite” is so basic that it’s summed up in a saying that’s been around for a long time: “Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting what you’ve already got.” If that holds true then imagine the capacity for transformation if my actions are motivated by what holds greatest meaning for me in my life now—not what I cling to from the past. Using “another perceptual filter” is what my friend Cathy Carmody calls it—a filter of my own choosing created out of my desire for “more.” My choice and my creation! Remembering as well that I always have a choice. Remaining “at choice” is a choice.

Getting something different involves taking a look inside. The only place my energy or emotion is taking place is inside “me.” What does this look like? For you, I don’t know! For me, in reference to that aforementioned hostage taking and on at least five occasions, “it” looked like kidney stones. Felt like them too! Not my idea of a good time, suffice it to say! For someone else, perhaps the hostage taking looks like sciatica, nail biting or overeating.

What takes place inside you is all about you. What is taking place inside me is all about me. So what do we do about it?

Housed under my “what to do about it” intention is where I state my third and for today final, “definite:” Name it and claim it, in order to change it.

I have come to know that in order to use this energy as information instead of have it “use” me, I have to do something much more clever than what I have done in my past. The first thing I did was recognize it. I could have said, “I just have kidney stones because my Dad did.” This time though, I decoded that message. I became aware of “family patterns and hard wiring.” I recalled the alignment of my Dad’s kidney stones with memorable, and perhaps for him stressful, family events—births, deaths, and weddings. Interestingly, at the time I passed my first stone I had just ended an eighteen-year marriage. Exposing myself to other worldviews has taught me the power of a “reframe.” Reframing and digging deeper into my own truth has changed the way I maneuver life’s crazy curves.

Name it and claim it, in order to change it—a borrowed and embraced view from the WEL-Systems® Institute in Ottawa (www.WEL-Systems.com). I have learned through my studies at this Institute that when I engage my body as a messenger, those seeming pains transform into information that will serve and support me in the most authentic expression of myself.

So you may ask, “How do I get there from here?” The answer is so simple you may feel like laughing or shaking you head or even rolling your eyes—breathing.

Yes, that’s what I said—breathing.

Think about it. If you stop breathing you will die. So if breath is such a life force in a physical sense, imagine what strength it gives within a “reach for the moon” context. Imagine what you may find buried deep in your core. Trust the wisdom of breath! Breathe into wisdom in the face of the uncertainty of life! Breathe into the very “essence” of your uniqueness.

This, I have learned from my experiences at the Institute, is where the real living and adventure begins. To facilitate this movement of energy, I must create the space and expand my mind and imagination through information that will support me on my journey. Remembering that space in the body for “life” is created first through “breath,” if I do not breathe—first and foremost—it doesn’t matter what I eat, what I read, how much I exercise, or what I desire. In order to fulfill any dream or desire in a physical world I must first live. No breath, no life. Breathe. Allow my self to become familiar with my body again. It is, after all, where I live.

I share with you some amazing advice that was offered to me through my friends at the WEL-Systems® Institute in Ottawa:

Breathe!
Follow the impulse!
Tell the truth!

Make space for “truth” in your life. Inhale big, feel it at the tips of your toes! Exhale!

When air moves, energy moves and truth finds a home. Imagine a windstorm. Imagine a soft gentle breeze. Pick the breath that best reflects the stuff you need to move. And breathe, damn it! Trust the gift of your body’s intelligence.

My body has intelligence?

Yup! Oodles and oodles of intelligence. Your skin is being renewed—actually every month. Every four days you receive a new stomach lining, and the surface cells that contact your food are renewed every five minutes. Oh, and by the way, how do you like that new “skeleton” of yours. That’s new too! Every three months your body obliges with a new one. Gosh, and you didn’t even have to take a trip to the mall.

This is who “I” am.
This is who “YOU” are.
“Incredible, producing, renewable ME!”
“Amazing, abundant, intelligent YOU!”

My body is willing to oblige me even when I don’t take care of it. Change at the speed of thought—or what ever speed I choose—is possible, providing my thoughts are more innovative than they were in the past.

Remember when you were eight or nine years old and you lost a tooth? Remember why it fell out? Another tooth was coming in behind it. It is like the new tooth was saying, “Hey YOU! Get out of the way buddy! I’m coming through.” So the old tooth obliged.

What if we thought of our “baggage” or our “toxic crap” or “leftovers” as no more than just an old tooth? An old tooth being pushed aside because the new tooth will serve us better. And the information or energy that the seeming pain holds is like the new tooth trying to find a home in your body. If I kept my finger on the old tooth and pushed it back into my gums all hell would break loose. Decay, entropy, discomfort, infection. Yuck, yuck, yuck! I would in fact be messing around with the intrinsic intelligence of my body. Certainly nothing good would come of that.

My belief is that Mother Nature—or the power of the universe—operates with the exact same flow of intelligence and harmony. The mechanics for the fulfillment of this exchange are found in wisdom, change, mystery and miracles: change of seasons; the wisdom of the birds flying south so they survive the winter months; the mystery of a sunset; the miracle of childbirth.

Call it what you will—the intelligence of the universe or your higher power. I think of these experiences as Laws of Infinity, happening all because they do! Because they “are.” A new stomach lining, grass growing, butterflies flitting and babies being in bliss…all because they “are and so it is”. Flowing and extending!

When energy moves, information is shared from my body to my mind, my heart and my soul. Suddenly, I move in rhythm with truth, good health, natural abundance, humor, love and bliss! What if I think of this as 'both my choice AND my birthright?'

What would be possible then?
What if I stopped, and took a big juicy breath?
What if I arrive and remain in an “eternal state of nosiness” about my “self?”
What if I invite and allow new information to find a place in my life?
What if I stopped caring what others thought?
What if I realized my brilliance?
What if I stop choosing from the past?
What might happen then?

While I certainly don’t have all of these answers, I do know this: If I do not breathe, I will never find out. True Living is not possible without breath.

However, when I honor my “self” with breath, I am rewarded through “self” with life!

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