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Being Present

Hello

Being present, mindfulness, and breath.

One of my favorite ways to help others begin to get a handle on being present or being still has to do with breath and breathing.  We are all automatically breathing without much attention to it.  Focusing on your breath is a very enlightening experience.  When one focuses on one’s breathing often the depth of their inhalation increases which is so good for a person.  Deep inhalation (breathing in) and long exhalation (breathing out) are the first line of action for reducing anxiety – in fact the fastest way to slow down your heart rate and get into the present moment is to focus on your breathing.  I know those of you reading this that are busy and functioning well at a high degree of multitasking are lol right now at this suggestion.  It seems unreasonable to suggest you take time from your already over packed schedules to stop and focus on your breathing.  But it works.  It moves you out of the automatic mode into the mindful mode and that transition will help you make fuller assessments and more accurate decisions and ultimately increase the amount you can accomplish effectively.  Why?  Because you will have access to all your senses including the intuitive, instinctual sense.  It’s as if breath allows for the traffic of the information to move more smoothly and congregate into the proper groups so that your decisions have more depth and breadth, and more relevance to the present moment.

The best way to practice focused breathing is to find a quiet space where you can sit for 5 minutes – in a pinch the bathroom at your office, or the privacy of your car, will do.  Sit down and breath in for a count of 5 and out for a count of 7.  Doing this for a couple of minutes.  If you are scientifically minded you may want to take your radial pulse before you begin and then after practicing for 2 minutes – your heart rate will have reduced after the two minutes of focused breathing in this way.  Note:  it’s important that your inhalation be shorter than your exhalation if you breath in for a longer count than breathing out you will increase your heart rate and feel anxious and hyperventilate.  So keep your inhalation shorter than your exhalation.  As you practice this over time you may find that you may also desire to increase the length of your inhalation and exhalation – that’s great just remember to keep your exhalation at least 2 counts longer than your inhalation.

I encourage you to begin practicing this today and do it whenever you think about it for 2 to 5 minute intervals throughout the day – several times a day.  And to keep this practice going when you are not necessarily stressed but rather to increase your skill at it.  After a bit of this practice, you may want to use the breathing technique when you are actually feeling stressed or when you are trying to get into the present and not act from an habitual reaction pattern.

In my opinion what we put our attention on increases, so focus on what is working in your life and be grateful you will find that more is right than you originally thought.

See you tomorrow.

Beth


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Hello world!

Hello.

My name is Beth Gineris. For over 25 years now, I have been teaching, consulting, and training individuals, families and groups on what I call Instinctive Health Medicine. I have graduate degrees in Counseling, Business Administration, and Oriental Medicine and run a small clinic in Albuquerque, NM.

For several years now my friends, patients, and clients have asked me to start a blog or get out a book on my thoughts and suggestions for health and parenting. Since it’s a new year it seemed like a great time to offer a daily blog about Instinctive Health Medicine and habitual reaction patterns versus authentic present moment choice making or mindfulness. I know those words all together seem a little complicated, because what we do is to complicate our process of interaction and development. I’m focusing on simplifying how we relate to the many confluent stimuli at any given moment.

As a culture, in America, we have developed a style of habitual reactions as a way to simplify our responses to the many stimuli that accost us each day – we don’t utilize authentic, in the moment choice making (mindfulness) we are re-acting to past emotional experiences; we reflexively get angry or irritable or defensive as if something has happened when indeed it actually is only our habitual interpretation of what is going on.

Think of the last time you had a fight with your partner or child – commonly you or the other person reports they didn’t say what you heard or visa versa. Why? Because for the most part none of us are very good listeners we are too busy multitasking to actually focus on what is said and interact with the wholeness of the other person. We’ve short circuited our communication style. This is most common in those relationships that are most important to us – our most intimate, longstanding relationships.

It’s a smart aspect of human mechanics gone awry. We create shortcuts to organize everyday or routine interactions and doings. That’s good but in human relationships that tends to create a problem. We end up interacting to each other and sometimes our own needs in an habitual way that leads to us reacting to our histories not our current needs, wants, or selves.

Instinctive Health Medicine integrates the Spirit, Mind, and Body. It allows for the senses and intuition that we naturally have as human beings to guide us in our relationships, well-being, and parenting. Instinctively we HAVE all the information we need but over time as we develop in our less than perfect environments we replace our instincts with our habit reactions – actually thinking the habit reactions are our instincts…this leads to a lot of trouble.  After awhile people like me get called into help.

I’m going to be blogging every day and putting up articles and guidelines to help anyone interested in creating a more mindful, balanced life. Ultimately I’ll be working myself out of the business of fixing people and families and groups and into the business of helping people never need my fixing services.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Until then think about this – what did you really want to do when you were young and what did you change that into as you grew up? Whatever is missing in that equation may give you a clue about where your imbalance lies.

Talk to you soon

Beth