The Surrendered Path

Everyday in life we practice. We practice our hobbies, our cooking, we practice patience and we practice being kind. We practice righteousness, goodness. If we are lucky, we incorporate fun and practice dance moves, and laughing more throughout the day, too.

Something really cool happens when we can align with our principles and values and carve out specific rituals. Daily habits that are so important to us, they become part of our “daily practice”.

To me, your daily practice is a beautiful symphony of all of the things most important to you and the dance they do throughout the day to accomplish incorporating them all.

There has been so much of my life in my teens and 20s on auto-pilot. There was no daily practice. There were habits and unbalances like staying up late and subsequently needing coffee. No exercise, no self care. What a disservice I did I now see. However, I am so thankful for those moments as they have led me here. And I REALLY like here.

So over the past couple of months, we have stumbled upon another way to supercharge the body. While quieting the minds, we developed, arguably one of the most fulfilling practices.

We have begun meditating and, while we quiet the mind, something incredible happens, your brain switches from beta brain waves to alpha brain waves. Alpha is the state you slip into right before sleep.

Joe Dispenza is one of my favorite neurobiologists and scientists studying the brain. He says it best in my opinion, “In Alpha, the voice in your head, goes away. The brain tends to see in images, in pictures, it’s the creative state. In Alpha you are out of survival, you’re looking for answers, you’re creative. You’re looking for a new way of doing things. You broaden your focus. You start seeing all of the different neuron compartments of the brain, once divided, all of a sudden start to unify. Different communities of neurons that were fragmented, start to synchronize in coherence, it links in the brain. The hemispheres have polarity. The person starts to feel whole and in coherence. The higher the amplitude of the wave the higher the energy in the brain. The person starts to become very relaxed, no longer stressed in a program, alert and awake.”

He could go on for ages, and boy so could I.

Alpha brian waves are where the magic happens. You can feel all of the body’s energy surging through you, all of the clusters of nerves where chakras lie, energy centers in the body, working in unison. It’s exciting.

So this practice Marcus and I have valued so much because, in addition to gaining head space, perspective, and peace, we have left our time on the mat feeling recharged.

The results have naturally spilled out all over the rest of our days. Our peace brings more happiness in the moment being present with our task at hand. The quieted mind focuses on what it wants and stays out of the past or future for the most part.

“What if” negative situations don’t feel good or fit. (What a huge daily improvement! Not thinking about fake situations that most likely will never happen. What a waste that was.)”But when I say staying out of the future I mean mostly with worry. “What if” negative situations don’t feel good or fit. (What a huge daily improvement! Not thinking about fake situations that most likely will never happen. What a waste that was.)

In keeping with this, we have begun unofficially calling each other out on any negative talk. It is a fun lighthearted task, we are all guilty and there is no judgment, just honest human laughing, reflections at the cocktail of crap that can come out of our mouths at times. “I bet I’m going to mess this up.” Is one example. I mean what is that!? That’s how you miss free throw shots is what that is.

MOST of the time it makes us laugh to hear what we said, again. Excitedly it has brought more space before speaking which feels good.

This has been an insane boost in loving, positive, and life moments.

The energy of our family is unifying and staying positive longer.

It kinda feels like when you see a sports team bond in a movie.

Eckhart Tolle nails it when he talks about the pain body. We all have stored emotions from every emotion that we didn’t process in a healthy way. An emotion would get stuck and then add years that have passed like rings on a tree, and you can imagine what some of us are walking around with.

Makes it easier to send everyone love when you understand it’s truly not about you.

Can you imagine now what happens to families during intense grief and the loss of loved ones. This is what tears so many people apart, they all get triggered and are already overwhelmed with powerful emotions, each so hurt and they just keep bumping into each other, blinded by what they are personally going through. Each flooded with emotions. I really feel for families, it’s not easy. Remind yourself of this next time you get triggered. I encourage finding a fun way to catch yourself. We say ‘cancel cancel cancel cancel’ quickly and energetically to the person’s negativity. It makes us laugh.

A pain body, if it gets triggered, the reaction is pretty autopilot. Now back to present life for us. It feels great to be aware of that in the moment, dissolving it and each of our reactions. That’s an incredibly profound and powerful feeling of present moment consciousness.

So today, we will continue to practice and I hope you do also. Whatever you are working on, keep practicing, keep getting better stronger faster and keep asking yourself about what you let in daily.

Are you prioritizing yourself or thinking of yourself last when everything else is done?

It’s worth a long walk, or a quiet park bench, or long bath to think about and reflect. We are born, we get a great adventure, and we die. How’s your adventure going, when you are at the end looking back, what do you wish you changed, doubled down on, remedied, or stepped into? Once you know, execute!

Xo,

Katie