Breathing and Ego

This talk is regarding the use of breathing in creating space during intense moments and also when it's appropriate and how to drop your ego during that time. One of life's most basic autonomic reactions is breathing, yet so many of us forget to actually breathe when we need to.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome to the Divine Balance.

My name is Patrick and today we're going to talk a little bit about breathing and ego and how those two work together or even sometimes how they work against us.

Usually when faced with any kind of intense trying time or any kind of difficult situation,

It's vital to do a few things for yourself before acting.

While it might sound cliche and very basic,

One of the first things you need to do is breathe.

Stop everything and breathe.

Taking that moment of breath and giving yourself just a moment truly helps create just enough space before engaging in the situation.

Now in my previous life as I like to call it,

I was a pilot.

I used to fly private jets with very wealthy people all over the country,

All over the world.

And one of the things about being a pilot is having sufficient training.

Not just training on how to take off or how to land or how to shoot an instrument approach,

But even things like how to deal with extreme emergencies,

Dealing with stress,

Dealing with what they call crew resource management,

Which is working between the crew and how two minds are better than one during a situation like that.

Most times,

Not all times,

But most times.

So an example would be one day we were flying empty.

We didn't have any passengers on the airplane.

We were going from Eagle,

Colorado back to Schenectady,

New York.

And when we were flying home,

We were just about near Chicago.

I remember looking down at Chicago and we were flying at about 38,

000 feet.

And when you're flying at 38,

000 feet,

There's really very little room for error.

At that altitude,

My co-pilot was a fairly new guy with the company.

He was with me on this flight.

It was a boring,

Normal flight.

Rich was reading a book.

I was looking out the front window,

Looking down at Chicago,

Far,

Far below us.

And it was actually pretty peaceful until a yellow master caution light came on.

My co-pilot quickly dropped his book,

Looked at the caution light,

And the caution light was for a right engine DEEC,

D-E-E-C,

Which is basically just a computer that the engine uses to control itself.

And my co-pilot pretty much panicked.

And he just,

He looked at me very frantically,

You know,

With the whole,

What do we do?

What do we do?

Before he could even ask the question,

I had already taken my breath.

Because as captain of a jet like that,

You've got a lot of responsibility.

With that responsibility,

Like I said,

There's a lot of training that goes along with it.

And I knew what to do.

And panicking was obviously out of the question.

I looked at my co-pilot with a very calming smile.

And I said,

We're okay.

Good to go.

And I had my hand already on that right throttle.

And I said to him,

Look,

I'm the DEEC.

So basically I'm the computer.

I'm the one controlling the parameters of the engine,

Which is basically all that the DEEC did.

In a moment that was just a very intense one.

All I did was follow my training in my instinct to breathe.

And I said,

Look at the situation and deal with it.

Breathe.

That's all you have to do.

Let's talk about how breathing works in conjunction and how it pertains to our ego.

First,

We each create our ego.

And,

You know,

Science has been looked at and studied and all this.

And we typically create that ego at a very young age,

Like by the time you're seven years old.

It's there basically to help protect ourselves.

So when I speak about myself and I use the term myself,

I do it in two distinctly different ways.

The first way that it's written and spoken as a single word,

Myself.

It encompasses me and how I see the whole of who I am myself.

The second way,

You guessed it,

Is it's written and spoken as two separate words,

Myself.

This is done highly intentionally.

And I've been doing this for a little over 10 years now.

It takes a lot of practice being able to not only separate the two,

But first being able to reconcile that there are two.

Like I said,

We create our ego to protect ourselves.

It's literally a survival instinct.

And every single person develops one.

How we use it or allow it to control our actions,

That's up to us.

So yes,

We all have the ability to just say no to the ego.

Think about this.

Every day you drive your car and you're stuck dealing with other people also driving.

In that sense,

And by default,

It can get intense.

Let's say you're driving and you're either on the highway or some busy street and all of a sudden a car speeds past you and cuts you off.

And it's the only reason they cut you off was to turn at the next light or get off an exit.

Your first thought might be,

Motherfucker,

Come on,

Tell me you've never yelled that.

Of course,

You're in your car by yourself.

So it's okay to say that.

The reality is,

Why did we get upset in the first place?

Why did we get upset?

Because how dare they?

So we take it as a personal affront.

That right there,

That is our ego.

So what if you took a breath?

What if instead of motherfucker,

You said,

Wow,

That person is really in a hurry.

I hope they're okay.

I hope the loved one is all right.

That kind of changes things,

Changes our perspective.

It allows for a paradigm shift away from being egocentric.

It allows us that opportunity to take ourselves out of it.

It gives us a chance to,

Instead of feeling like they did that to us,

We just take ourselves out of it.

Why?

Because it's about them.

And here's the proof.

Imagine that person in the car that suddenly speeds past you and cuts you off when they get to the light or to get off the exit is you.

And here's the proof.

How many times have you been driving and you do something boneheaded or whatever,

And you look over the car that you just passed and you're waving with a,

Sorry,

Sorry.

We've all done that.

And when you did that,

I need you to really think about this.

When you did that,

When you did the whole sorry wave,

Like they can't see you.

They didn't see your face.

They didn't see you mouth those words even,

But you did it because you knew it was wrong.

And you knew that you were doing something boneheaded.

And you knew that you were doing something that wasn't quite nice,

But you didn't do it to that person.

You did it because you were late for work.

The store you were going to was closing in 10 minutes,

Whatever the reason.

You did it for your reason.

You did not do it because that Prius was there.

You didn't,

In other words,

Again,

You didn't do it to that person.

When you can breathe and take that pause when a car speeds past you or when,

Hey,

Who knows,

You might be a pilot listening to this.

When something happens,

When you're at flight level 380,

You breathe first.

You don't act.

You don't speak out.

You breathe.

That breathing allows you to,

First of all,

Slow the pace.

And second,

And as far as I'm concerned,

Just as important,

It allows us to kind of drop that ego protector,

That little kid inside us that's trying to save us from whatever the situation is.

Being able to drop that ego is truly vital to living in peace and living with love and light.

Being able to drop that ego allows you to even have a proper argument.

So the example for that would be when talking to someone and things are beginning to get heated,

We all have experienced that part of us that just says things that don't even mean anything to the argument or to the discussion.

You'll bring up something from two months,

Two years ago even,

Because what's happening is you're not wanting to hear these things from the other person.

And your ego,

That little child inside of yourself,

Is trying to protect you.

And so you throw out something that really has no bearing on the arguing.

And I don't even want to say it that way.

I don't even want to call it arguing.

It's a disagreement.

You're just not on the same page.

Arguing just always sounds combative.

And I don't like to be combative.

I luckily stopped that a long,

Long time ago.

I can tell you that when you're able to drop your ego from that disagreement,

From that debate,

From that discussion,

When you're able to drop your ego,

You have now opened yourself up to what I call honest listening.

I have now put myself,

And you have now put yourself,

In a place where you can truly listen to what the other person is saying.

You have now taken that ego part,

That part that wants to project your fears or your defenses,

You've now taken that part out of the equation,

And you will allow yourself to honestly listen to what the other person is saying.

I've been with my wife now for 23 years,

A little over 23 years,

And we have had discussions.

We have had disagreements only a few times,

Literally 10 years ago,

2012,

When things got really bad between us.

Was there ever any yelling?

But it was after that where I was very upset once,

And I yelled,

And I heard myself.

And when I heard myself,

It kind of triggered me to stop.

And just as I said,

I took a breath,

A very deep,

Calming,

And cleansing breath.

And in my head,

I knew what I was doing.

I was being defensive.

I had a retort before she finished her comment.

And what I learned was to take myself out of it.

I took myself and put it behind me,

And didn't allow it to be in front.

And again,

Myself,

My ego,

Little six-year-old or seven-year-old Patrick,

Was behind me and out of the way,

So that I could truly open my heart,

Open my mind,

And open my ears,

And do some true,

Honest listening.

We all have that ability.

I'm nobody special.

I've just learned quite a few things.

And my hope,

My want,

Is to give that information to people and help heal people by giving that information to them and helping in my own little way to help heal the world that makes me fulfilled.

So again,

When we change that perspective and allow that shift in paradigm away from being egocentric,

Once you begin to practice little things like that,

That is when you can truly begin to heal yourself and heal yourself.

For The Divine Balance,

I'm Patrick.

Go in harmony.

Reviews

This is exactly what I needed to hear. 🤍 Thank you for sharing.