To: The Wellness Community
Everyone has the right to breathe.
There is an undeniable power in our breath. A collective exhale. A sigh of relief. An exaggerated inhale to think before speaking. Breathing mindfully to calm the nervous system and quiet the busy mind.
As a yoga teacher, I help teach people how to breathe. The breath is a tool we all have and can use in a multitude of ways.
- To check in with how we’re feeling : Observe your breath, without judgement or criticism. Is it shallow and causing a heavy rise and fall of your chest? Is it choppy? Are your inhales or exhales longer in duration? Our breath is like a mirror reflection of our minds. It is a direct body-mind connection. When we have a lot on our minds or are feeling anxious, the breath can be shallow and choppy. When we’re in a restful state, the exhales become longer. By taking time daily to observe our breath, we can perform a surface-level check of how we’re doing.
- As a form of meditation : Those of you who have a meditation practice know the struggle of running after every thought that passes by. To help keep the mind focused, you can inwardly say to yourself Inhale as you breathe in, and Exhale as you breathe out. Inhale, exhale, repeat.
- To amplify the sensation of letting something go : When we feel relieved about something, we let out a deep exhale as a natural physical response. Whatever weight we had been carrying on our shoulders, in our hearts, or in our minds is further able to be released with a sigh of relief. To coincide with this natural bodily response, when I teach I often ask students to visualize something that has been causing them to feel heavy or to locate a place on the body that is speaking to them, and to then take a big exhale out of the mouth to let it go.
As a yoga teacher and therefore a member of the wellness community, I am here to say that when one of us can’t breathe, we all can’t breathe.
It is the role of wellness community leaders to practice what they preach. When messages about compassion, the importance of mental health, and self-love are spouted within a studio space and online, but then there’s no follow through in everyday life, that is hypocrisy. Obviously no one is going to be perfect at this, I certainly am not, but saying one thing and doing another is a problem, as is not recognizing that not everyone is afforded the same access to the self growth we all talk about.
We must breathe into the fact that not everyone is in a place of privilege to focus on their own meditation practice, mental health, or whatever else is being talked about within the wellness community. How can someone focus on meditating when they live in fear everyday? The mind is a scary place, so why would someone want to go into such a place when that’s already the kind of place they live in? We must hold space for one another. If our basic human needs of safety are not met, we cannot move toward mindfulness, compassion, self-love, or anything similar.
How can we work to heal ourselves when not everyone has the privilege or access to begin to work on healing themselves? If one of us can’t breathe, we all can’t breathe.
Places to Donate:
- Reclaim the Block – helping “Minneapolis community and city council members to move money from the police department into other areas of the city’s budget that truly promote community health and safety.”
- We Love Lake Street – helping to rebuild small businesses in Minneapolis, MN
- Dive in Well – “cultivating space, COMMUNITY, conversations and CHANGE for a more EQUITABLE and accessible wellness INDUSTRY.”
- Black Lives Matter – “global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities”
