Breath

What’s the one thing we need on earth more than anything else?

Breath.

Food we can go weeks, months even, water, a week or two, but breath? How far can you count on one hand? That’s how many minutes you have.

If you are good, in shape, and have good lung capacity.

How long can you hold your breath?

The proper way to breathe is through the abdomen. Feel your stomach expand, and then contract. Pull your stomach in as far back as you can go, and as far out as you can go out as well. Try to make yourself look pregnant.

Touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth, and breathe in and out through your nose.

Okolo

Focus

I was talking with a good friend today about focus and about the “voice” in our head. No, not like voices, but that constant chatter that is alway going on in our minds sometimes (usually?) without us even knowing it. You ever “awake” from your thoughts and notice them? At the point when you are consciously thinking about what you were previously thinking about without even realizing it, there’s suddenly a disconnect. There’s the mind that was controlling the thoughts, and then there’s the mind that observes those thoughts. Which is the real you? This constant chatter rules most of our lives. We usually aren’t even aware of what it is thinking or doing. At the moment of that disconnect, the real you shines through, and we become present. Aware of the Now as some call it. The goal is to always be present, don’ let the constant chatter run your live. Live in the Now. There’s power there.

So back to focus. Try this at home. Find a quit area and sit. Count your breathes, inhale and exhale is one, and continue to count to 100. If you lose count, start over.

Most people when they first try this can’t even make it to 10. The chatter starts up and totally takes away their focus. Keep doing it until you can make it to 100. Each time you try it, you’ll get further and further, until you can make it to 100 without any effort. Then take that level of focus into the rest of your life.

Report back how far you were able to get the first time.

Sources:
The Power of Now By Eckhart Tolle
Living in the Tao by Mantak Chia and William Wei (I don’t have the book in front of me but I’m pretty sure this exercise is in there. I know it is in Taoist Secrets of Love by Mantak Chia. Subtitle left off on purpose…)

The Purpose of Life

A wise man once said “The purpose of life is to reach your full potential.” Every time I think about that quote (original author unknown) I think of all the things I should be doing in my life that I’m not, or rather haven’t been. I’m starting to slowly add them back in.

These would include, but aren’t limited to:

* Get and stay in shape.
* Do Martial Arts regularly. (finally get my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and continue to practice Kung Fu, Tai Chi, and Chi-kung and Inner Power).
* Continue to play my violin. I know this is part of reaching my potential. Not sure what form it will take, but I’m going to practice today.
* Teach. At this point not sure what or where, but I know teaching is something that fits in there somewhere.
* Read all the books I’ve bought over the years. I’ve read many of them, but there is a much larger number that I’ve not read. Time to start to plow through them one by one. Re-reading the entire Bible, which is something I did many years ago, is also part of this reading initiative. Finally mastering speed reading, which I started to do many years ago, is also part of this potential.
* Remember the names of everyone I meet, and call them by their name when I see them. I once learned a trick to do this, just need to put it to work. (See the book Mega Memory by Kevin Trudeau. I’ll explain the trick in another post)

Well, that’s a good start.

Daily Routine

It is said that it takes 21 days to form a habit.

I’m going to do this new daily routine every day for 21 days and then report back.

1. 100 pushups
2. 100 crunches
3. 100 sit ups
4. Chi Kung
5. Walk or run
6. Read 30 minutes

Won’t you create your own daily routine, share it, and commit to it for 21 days?