June Rituals
breath-work + visualization + mindful eating
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” Rainer Maria Rilke
After a whole week with the current visitors in our “guest house”, how are we? I have personally been begrudging a particular visitor, insecurity. There is a saying about houseguests that I have heard over the course of my life, that they are like fish because they start to stink after three days. Now, I actually love hosting guests, but what I imagine this cliché is referring to is the stagnation of energy, of someone or something temporarily damning the normal flow. Have you ever smelled a stagnate body of water?
Considering Rumi’s wisdom, when we hoard unexpected visitors, by over-identifying, or force them to stay hidden in hallway closets, by repressing, they can’t bring their wisdom as “a guide from beyond" and move on in a timely way. If your guest is anger, they will only grow more angry if they are kept from their visit. Visit…meaning it is temporary. Another wise poet, Austrian born Rainer Marie Rilke claims in his Book of Hours that we should allow all experience to happen to us, to not resist no matter how pleasant or unpleasant, as “no feeling is final.”
Did you know that experts claim we have over six-thousand thoughts a day (some claiming it to be more like seventy-thousand)? Obviously, we cannot attach to each of those thoughts. Yet, sometimes if the thoughts are connected to an emotion, they may last by developing new neural pathways. Yet, based on the research of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, our emotions have a lifespan of about ninenty-seconds. A minute and a half. After that, we are only restimulating the original emotion. She coined the “90 second rule.” This research tells us that thoughts and emotions are extremely fleeting, they aren't final. Rumi and Rilke are right. Yet, like a fishy house guest, they can stay beyond their welcome.
Now that we have identified these visitors to our guest house, what can we do make sure that we don’t deny their visit, suppression, or allow them to overstay their welcome, overidentifying?
Breath-work
Likley, with visitors we deem as ‘unwanted’ who come to “violently sweep your house/ empty of it’s furniture," we instinctively do not to think of them as a “guide from beyond” clearing space for “some new delight.” This is understandable.
These kinds of arrivals to our guest house could be, but are not limited to: rage, disappointment, humiliation, regret, shame, disgust, frustration, loneliness, depression, insecurity, etc. When these visitors appear at our door, our sympathetic nervous system becomes activated, the fight or flight response. But, our goal this month is to understand these guests as "wise." In order to sit with these types of guests, we need to understand how to tell our body and mind we are still safe. This is where diaphragmatic breath work is so helpful. We can activate our diaphragm, in which can engage the parasympathetic nervous system (rest/digest), by taking longer exhalations.
Select one of your visitors this month that you may instinctually feel is “unwanted”, like regret. Welcome regret to your guest house and use your breath to become more receptive.
Breathe in through your nose for a count of four.
Hold the breath at the top for a count of four.
Breathe out slowly through the mouth for a count of 8.
Repeat this for 2-5 minutes.
Don’t resist what comes up as you breathe, just use your diaphragmatic breath to observe and remain open.
Visualization + Mindful Meals
When you feel your breath and nervous system are calm and steady, begin to visualize this guest. Imagine them sitting across from you. Hint: it is you, frozen in what was a temporary experience. Is it you as a young child, throwing a temper tantrum because you feel unseen? Is it a heartbroken you from five years ago in the midst of a traumatic break-up? Is it you from just a few days ago, sitting in a meeting at work feeling shamed by a superior?
This allows a new perspective for empathy and connection versus aversion and repression. Connect to this visitor, a frozen version of you, and ask them what they need, what do they want? When you feel you have an answer, consider what kind of meal would nourish them. Get creative. What meal could comfort them, heal them? If it is rage, perhaps a cooling dish like cucumber soup. If it is insecurity, perhaps cooking a favorite childhood dish. Maybe even the spice of fresh garden salsa for depression.
Consider journaling if strong emotions have come up: a fit of panic “if I don’t have this emotion, how will I feel inspired,” or a bout of reactive shame “this is so pathetic, I am not a child, why would I imagine something so dumb”, or deep sadness “why doesn’t anyone love me enough to make me this kind of a nourishing meal.” These are all welcome aspects of our guests.
If it is accessible to you, take this exercise and mindful meal seriously. Honor this guest as you would want to be honored as a guest in someone else’s home. Plan the meal out, set aside time this week to make and eat the meal. Use fresh ingredients, be thoughtful. This is a love language through acts of service. Select ingredients that can heal, calm the emotion, just as your diaphragmatic breath-work.
While you eat, imagine the conversation with this guest.
What questions do you want to be asked in this emotional state?
How do you want to be listened to and supported?
After the meal, visualize this house guest changed, grateful, relieved, on a path of healing.
They are ready to leave, so lovingly let them leave. See them out the front door.
This is a practice that can be used and altered anytime one of these emotions arises. These visitors can last 90 seconds if we give them what they need: to be seen, held, heard, made to feel cared for, breathed with. Or it can become a rotten house guest that is repressed or taking over. We get to decide.
But, Amanda…some of my guests were super sexy and fun, what about them?
It is NOT all about the struggle, you are so right. Healed, peaceful, in the flow of equal exchange energy is our highest priority. I am here with you…let’s talk pleasure.
Let's include temporary morning routine. If you don’t have one, let’s work on that. If you do have a morning routine, synthesize this into the existing.
Each morning, for the rest of the month, savor a desirable house guest, those emotions you find pleasurable:
joy, curiosity, playfulness, confidence
Create this morning routine around your drink of choice:
coffee, tea, warm lemon water
This should last about ten-twenty munutes.
Aim for this not to be shared with someone else or rushed in the car.
A pleasurable guest can get at least ten minutes of your time, right?
Visualize you fully embodying the emotion/experience this house guest represents.
In this full embodiment of, for example, joy:
What do you wear, how do you walk, how do you talk to others?
How do other’s look at this imagined version of you, fully embodied in this visiting emotion or experience?
Hint: you can only visualize this because it IS possible for you.
Consider how to carry this energy with you throughout your day.
If your visitor was confidence, practice looking in to people’s eyes during discussions, smiling softly.
If your visitor was joy, pause to smell a beautiful flower, turn your face up to the sun, let yourself really laugh at a joke.
Invite these visitors’ wisdom into your life, they are, after all, "guides from beyond."
I would love to hear how this practice lands for you. Please reach out via email or through social media! You are doing really incredible work by honoring these visitors, I am honored to know you.
Be good,
Amanda
P.S. For our first VVV (vino verse & vinyl), have you purchased or rented the book for this month yet? If not, you can find several the short stories from the book online. Maybe this month, you only read one short story with one friend and go to a wine bar to chat about it (I’ll guide you a customized book club how-to on via this member site, make sure you are signed up for email updates to know when that is live--the green circle in the bottom right corner of the webpage).
Then perhaps your goal is to extend the invite to connect with even more friends next month. It is hard to develop quality time with friends and or make new friends as we get older. My goal is that we create a flourishing community with plenty of in-depth things to discuss. We deserve vitality, connection, and joy with all we collectively are going through. And, after all, rebellions are built on a community of hope.
