the breath of fire within, a lesson in breathing

breath fire lesson confidence yoga health

Confidence is a hell of a drug but when you can’t find it anywhere close by, what do you do? You either reach out to others aggressively, stay inside and mope, or find yourself seeking gratification through social media, coworkers and strangers. Really, though, the best dealer for the drug called confidence is yourself. You will never find it comes through anyone else, because it first and foremost has to derive from the deep pit of fire within yourself.

We all have that flame within us, whether it is a raging bonfire or a flicker in the night close to extinction. Our fires’ strength depends on how it is fed.

Breath is a main source of how large our fire is, not only spiritually but also in the physical world where the strength of a fire depends on breath.

We all breathe, so it seems simple enough, but fire cannot live off of erratic spurts of uncontrolled breathing, it thrives off of a steadiness we create on our own, which feeds our individual flames based on our varying circumstances.

For the past two weeks I have been living amongst a hurricane of emotional chaos that has tried to extinguish my inner fire.

Ranging from heartache to heartbreak, confusion to illusion, anger to carelessness, and I was aggressively fighting all of this internally while hiding from the world outside. Whenever I chose to take quick trips to the outside world, I once again was struck with one of these emotions and retreated back to my shell wondering if the storm would ever pass.

It took a breakdown on the burnside bridge for me to realize something was really wrong and I needed to no longer fight but listen. Listen and observe the lessons that the Universe was trying so aggressively to teach me. We have to be humbled constantly to realize our worth on this Earth.

I just didn’t think I’d be standing amongst the hobos and heroin addicts next to my bike in the pouring rain creating my own monsoon from my tear ducts. We are all equal, we are all here on this Earth with a purpose and we can not beat ourselves up on the journey of finding that purpose.

And sometimes we need to stand alone in our fight even though that can be the most terrifying part.

I’ve always thought of myself as a strong, independent, young woman who didn’t need anyone in my life to fulfill me personally.

SMACK. We all need our community, our family, friends and loved ones, yes! However, we can not treat them poorly, act manipulative and flaky towards them and then expect the utmost love and respect from them.

I will admit, I do connect more with nature, animals and inward spiritual practices but we all need humans in our life. I forget about this necessity because of the constant exposure through work and my love of solitude, but that does not justify treating the ones I hold dearly in a poor manner.

It’s all about a balance. How we individually find that balance is a key piece to our own personal puzzle.

The Universe will deliver hints in ways in which you can never foresee but that is the beauty of her nature in accordance to our lives.

Remain humble and open minded to the direction in which the current takes you and just remember that everyone else is on their own path and just because it isn’t ours doesn’t make it the wrong one. We just have to remind ourselves to steady our breath and keep our fire lit inside of us.

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