Les 1
Be Here Now: Get Present & Go!
Arrive in the here and the now. We begin the course with awareness: awareness of all the anxiety, the stress, the joy, the pain. We tend to avoid or resist what feelings or emotions are within, but presence asks that we observe all that we bring into each situation. If you want to shift something, you must attune to how it is working (or not working!) in your life in order to understand its impact on you. In today’s lesson, we look at what your life is like right now, what kind of phase you find yourself in, popular mindfulness terminology, as well as the importance of your commitment/ intention for the course.
Les 2
A Product Of Our Environment: Anxiety In Many Forms
Anxiety lives in us all. It may waver from day to day, it may help you stay on task, it may cause you to feel disconnected from your body, but no one is immune to it. Awareness (once again!) of how you get caught up in disempowering interpretations or in toxic holding patterns is key. In today’s lesson, we review the definitions of anxiety and stress, why they are important to experience and how they can lead to illness if unchecked, or run uncontrolled as well as how the busyness of life and technology can be welcomed into this search for clarity and calm.
Les 3
Feel Your Breath: You Are Alive!
Breath is life. Breath is a profound, yet simple tool to keep us present and grounded, yet we easily forget when the over-analytical or anxious mind takes the wheel. Anxiety tends to keep us believing we can control or grasp a certain state and breath represents the certainty that life continuously ebbs and flows – nothing is static or fixed. In today’s lesson, we explore the various breathing zones in the body, the best zones to use in certain physiological states and how to connect to each area of the lungs.
Les 4
The Roots: Looking Within To Move Forward
Your past does not inform your future. However, what you have experienced in life imprints in your cellular makeup and can hold you captive if left unresolved. The challenges faced throughout your life need acknowledgement - in order to fully let go and move forward. In today’s lesson, we honour our hardships, we honour how we survived (in the best way we knew how) and we honour the part of ourselves that is now willing to grow, heal and move forward with more breath.
Les 5
The Nervous System: Extracting The Nerves
Communication is the purpose of the nervous system. In a perfect world, we would understand when our lives are in true danger and when we can rest easefully and each branch of the system would transmit such messages accordingly. However, our constitutions have adapted based on ways that we have responded to triggers and continue to determine how we think, move and breathe into current situations. In today’s lesson, we build upon the hardwiring of anxiety and its demise through soothing breathwork and fully releasing tension in the low abdomen, which is the second brain in Eastern medicine and home of the nervous system, as well as breaking down the basics of controlled breathing and its impact on the nervous system.
Les 6
Relax The Body: Feel Whole Again
A harmonious relationship between the body and the brain will lead to true health. We are really beginning to understand that breath and mindfulness can help us achieve this balance. The body is often included last in the practice of mindfulness when it is truly pivotal in providing cues of impending burnout, depression and other chronic health issues. We have let the brain lead for far too long and it has led to a disconnect from the wisdom of the body. In today’s lesson, we step back from the details of the nervous system and the scrutinization of anxiety in order to take in the whole body, how to pay attention to it, how to include it into decision making, how to give it care.
Les 7
The Mind: Servant Or Master?
The mind believes what it is told. The body and mind respond to messages from one another; each has the capacity to convert emotions into permanent thoughts & physiological states. Many opinions and beliefs have been informed by our own feelings, and they can be rewired – with training, mindfulness and the gentleness of breath, all via a new inner dialogue. Looking bravely at the mind is the true warrior’s path – according to Buddhism. In today’s lesson, we practice an affirmation to undo embedded feelings and perceptions that cause us undue stress. We use breath and a new inner dialogue to start shifting the way we think and feel – rather than being at the whim of the mind and its drama.
Les 8
For Today: Journalling & Personal Assessment
Write and get clear. In a world where typing, thinking and rushing are valued, to stop and write is a beautiful thing. Writing is a practice of mindfulness, to sift through the ongoing chatter of the mind. In today’s lesson we assess the shifts mentally and physically thus far in the course, your observations around breath, refining of goals and intentions and creating simple written reminders to hold yourself accountable.
Les 9
How To Pause: Integrating All The Work
Pausing as deeper work. Finding the space to pause and take a deep breath before slipping into habitual patterns is no easy task, which is why we broach the topic near the end of the course. In today’s lesson, we step into the advanced work of pausing – of not doing on an external level, but giving our triggers and our insecurities a long hard look in order to instigate change. The breath and all the knowledge from previous days has prepared us for this quiet introspection, for this opportunity to create long-lasting change.
Les 10
The Beginner’s Mind: Breathe And Be The Change
You are change. You are ready. Your breath is here for you. Listening within to the wise voice of the beginner, beyond the anxious mind will be your greatest practice moving forward. We acknowledge that new ways of breathing and pausing are slowly integrating into your entire system. In today’s lesson, we reaffirm all the tools that we have available to catch anxiety, the people that we have to support us and the practice of pausing with breath whenever stress arises. You’ll have many takeaways and many tools to take into life with you – be a beginner and be open to continuous learning above everything!
