The Ultimate relationship

Have you ever watched a small child at play ? Completely absorbed in the moment and totally unselfconscious. Perfect authenticity. No facades. Simply being. It’s a great reminder of our inherent ability to live this way.

So when did we lose it and how do we get back there? The Ru Paul quote whilst being funny is at the same time deceptively profound pointing to our earliest experiences as being instrumental in learning how not to be authentic. For most, parental influences at times elicited a feeling of ‘not ok-ness’ leading to a variety of strategies being adopted in order to re-gain approval. The adoption of non-authentic behaviour had a short term gain. Over time however, it becomes the norm leading us further and further away from who we really are.

Breathwork is your ticket back to the rememberance of your authentic self, a journey which will open you further than you ever imagined possible. Forget Machu Picchu and the Pyramids. You journey back to you is the most wonderful adventure you will ever have and unlike even the most fabulous holiday it doesn’t stop when you get back home. It’s literally the ultimate trip.

There is so much information out there in this area that I simply want to say that working with the Breath has taught me (among other things) that:

• We generally gives ourselves a really hard time. Way more than we would ever dream of giving other people.

• We are often taught to deprioritise our own needs in favour of assisting others meet theirs. God forbid we should be seen as selfish. This is seriously flawed programming. Working on yourself doesn’t mean you are self-obsessed or self-indulgent. It makes perfect sense.

• There seems to be a lot confusion regarding self-love both in terms of what it constitutes and also how to effect it. It is in fact an incredible and worthy skill that takes practice. It is often used as an excuse for self indulgence and self-deception (the extra slice of cheesecake/glass of wine etc). It takes awareness and possibly an apt question or two to be able to differentiate.

• We often follow the path of least resistance. Apathy and being in your comfort zone is really detrimental to travelling ‘onwards and upwards’ which is why so-called breakdowns often become breakthroughs. We’re ejected from our comfort zone into a place of newness and possibly hardship at which point we are able to perceive our situation from a point of greater clarity.

• We often distract ourselves in order to avoid our issues. You name it. TV/alcohol/reading/helping others with their issues…endlessly getting caught up in the drama which of course means that we have no time to spend with and on ourselves. Happily, at some point we wise-up and decide to do things differently. We decide to take responsibility for everything that’s happening in our lives. We take stock of where we are decide where we want to be and create a plan for getting there.

• We continue to look to external factors for happiness.

• We try to change the world before we change ourselves

• A lot of us are making our future happiness conditional on finding The One.

Lighten up. You are already ok as you are. Spend time with yourself and learn who you are and what your needs and wants. Disengage from the drama. Find your centre. Find your happiness inside yourself. Do no harm physically, verbally or otherwise and consciously create a life you are happy to be a part of.

In terms of our relationships with others we can only ever go as far as we’ve already been with ourselves. What we experience in our day to day lives is a DIRECT RESULT of what we are experiencing internally. So if we’re looking for authenticity we need to be authentic with ourselves first and foremost. If we’re looking for respect from others we need to be respectful with ourselves.

Breathwork has provided me and innumerable clients with a means to begin working productively with the factors outlined above and much much more besides. In my opinion it’s the ultimate self-development tool. It’s with us always, free and easy to use and at this point in time I have yet to discover any limitations in terms of how it can be applied. It is infinite, as are we.