Inhale; Exhale.

I recently heard a yogi say that upon entering 2014 they made a list of all the things they wanted to inhale and exhale. This may sound cheesy to some, but anyone who practices yoga knows how important it is to breathe: to make sure oxygen is reaching all those muscles even as you struggle to maintain form. Even outside of my practice, when things are getting hectic, I also remind myself to breathe. Whether I’m being challenged during a run or being overwhelmed by my long to do lists: I pause, I take a deep breath in, a deep breath out, and I continue on.

While I’ve been an optimist for around 6 years, I still indulge negative vibes far too often. This block, I’ve been focussing on inhaling the bright side of things and exhaling the desire to go from venting to complaining. I’m not advocating bottling things up, but I’ve noticed that sometimes my venting becomes to widespread. It happens to all of us: something pisses you off, so you tell the story to your roommate… and your friend… and your family… and the next friend you see. Before you know it you’re ranting about something trivial over and over again.

This is a pit fall I often fall into. But lately I’ve been stopping myself and asking: will talking about this make me feel better? Does this person need to know this? Will either party benefit? And often I realize that adding another person to my rant list will only bring both of us negative vibes–exactly what I hope to exhale.

There’s a saying that goes,”if you hold a negative up to the light you don’t really see the light you just see the negative”. To me this reigns true. It’s not about ignoring problems, but about letting go of the trivial annoyances that weigh us down and stop us from seeing all the wonderful things around us. Now, when I have a negative thought instead of going into rant mode I try to evaluate the severity of it and find that, usually, it’s not a big deal. So instead I inhale, I exhale, and I move on–taking that positivity with me into all the work that lies ahead.