The Skill of Chill: Is your mind pulling you by the leash?
Last winter our son, Lion took a friend’s dog ???? for a walk in Seattle.
The dog, named Cloud, outweighed Lion by about 40 pounds.
Lion loved walking the dog when a squirrel came running by, Cloud chased it. He soon discovered what it’s like to be WALKED BY A DOG rather than the other way around.
When I saw this, it hit me that this is what our emotions do to us. They are big dogs that we should be walking, but instead they are pulling us as they chase squirrels.
Our normal strategy for these out-of-control emotions is denial, ignoring, “stuffing down” or drowning them with distraction many times in the form of red wine.
What we call Chill is usually about unplugging. The yogis call this Tamas.
Most times we don’t realize it, but what we are actually unplugging from is a connection to our Inner Light.
Yoga teaches us that there is a different type of relaxation that is still connected to Light. It’s called Sattva.
It is a calm and peaceful state. It opens the door to the deepest essence of our being.
But finding Sattva in a busy, frenetic world is not easy. Culturally, we are focused on external circumstances like accumulating material things or winning over the approval of others. This makes Sattvic inner peace harder to find and we become like a dog walker getting pulled by the dog. Our minds are pulling us, and it feels like we have no control.
What I’ve learned is that there is a Skill to Chill.
This is what our Commit to Bliss course is all about Nov 14. By strengthening our tools of yoga, meditation, philosophy (perspective,) and embodied physiology, we can step outside of the prison of the mind. We can relax into our greatness.
In case you can’t do the course, my top tip for the SKILL OF CHILL is to focus on the FULLNESS of breath.
Breathing is easy but BREATHING FULLY IS A SKILL. To feel our ribs moving so we can breathe into our potential means that we need to find what is restricting the movement of our breathing muscles.
We breathe fully, we will make peace with thought loops that manifest as holding patterns in our bodies.
Luckily, when we can unblock these places, the breath becomes more enjoyable and we tame the squirrel-chasing dog of our minds.
You’ve got the leash, so guide your mind. ????
Breathe out your tightness, breathe into your lightness.
Chill is a Skill.
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