Self: Inner Voice

"Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts." -Thich Nhat Hanh

This is my first of many posts about self. I think it's a subject matter too many of us "fluff" off. How many of us can actually say we are completely happy with ourselves? How many of us can actually say we listen to and are at peace with our inner voice? Whether you believe it to be your intuition, your Buddha, or a little green cricket with a conscience badge, we all have this inner voice. We need to make a habit of listening to it.

Our senses are constantly overwhelmed in our daily lives. We have our laptops, cell phones, ipads, video games, televisions, dvr's... we are overloaded with information on a superficial level. This distracts us from learning and listening on a deeper, personal level. It makes it easy to ignore ourselves and our surroundings. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I don't fall into this category myself. There is so much information accessible to us, I do find myself lost on my phone or on the internet for a good amount of time during the day. But what is this doing to us? It is alienating us not only from our loved ones and our lives around us, but also from our center.

The very basic principle of any Eastern religion or practice is the art of breathing. If you concentrate on your breath, each inhale and exhale, you are brought back into the moment and the very essence of your life. You don't need to be a zen master or even good at meditation to adopt this practice. Simply by taking the time and being aware of your breathing can help you become centered and open to listening to your inner voice.

This voice is always talking to us... sometimes it is whispering, sometimes it is yelling. It guides us through life, warns us when danger is approaching, and lets us know when we are unhappy. If we take some time in our day to be silent, I think we will find we actually have a lot to listen to within ourselves. This in turn will help us to make improvements in our life to achieve contentment and happiness, which will improve upon our relationships with ourselves and our loved ones.

The key to life is balance. Let's start one breath at a time.

Breathing tips from Thich Nhat Hanh:

The best way to experience the air element is the practice of mindful breathing. "Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out." After saying these sentences we can abbreviate them by saying "In" as we breath in and "Out" as we breath out. We don't try to control our breathing. Whether our in-breath is long or short, deep or shallow, we just breath naturally and shine the light of mindfulness on it. When we do this we notice that, in fact, our breathing does become slower and deeper naturally. "Breathing in, my in-breath has become deep. Breathing out, my out-breath has become slow." Now we can practice, "Deep/slow". We don't have to make an extra effort. It just becomes deeper and slower by itself, and we recognize that.