The past couple of day have been unique in the sense that I've felt incredibly morose. I'd have little spurts of happiness and levity but my underlying experience was sadness.
Knowing what I know about myself and my bodies' response to different techniques I used my training time to alter my general mood.
I practiced breathing techniques, sprints on the treadmill, heavy lifting, really slow concentrated lifting, inversions, whole body exercises, kettle bell and yoga.
Nothing held. I'd feel the effects of the training but they wouldn't last.
In moments of mindlessness I found my wondering mind search for the problem.
My little daughter didn't sleep well.....
My wife is asking too much of me....
Life is demanding to much......
Things aren't going my way fast enough.....
Then as my mind is want to do it started projecting into the future....
Your goals will no not be achieved.....
Your mistakes will hurt you.....
You will fail......
You are not good enough......
At any given moment I felt my minds propensity to hang around one possible lamentation as though waiting for me to fixate on it to give it life.
Like a dog waiting for permission to eat, my mind was waiting for me to identify with anything so that it could find a thousand reasons why one malaise was the true problem.
My wife asked me what was wrong after the third night I wasn't quite myself, and I felt all the possible answers clamber towards my mouth hoping to be picked by me as the cause.
But there was nothing to say. I looked deep into my wife's eyes and told her very truthfully that there was nothing in particular that was wrong. I was just feeling down and that was ok.
Today the feeling is gone. Like nothing ever happened. My mind is still producing this, that, and the other, thought and each one is clambering for acknowledgement but gone is the heaviness.
Things feel different and yet everything is the same.
Last week I posed the question "which part of the breath is most important"?
There is the inhale, the exhale, and the pause.
Clearly the inhale brings in life, clearly the exhale sends out waste, but what does the pause do?
Clearly the inhale provides the foundation for all human biological processes, and yet so too does the exhale. Do the trees not breath in what we breath out as fuel for their existence?
Inhale is clearly up, exhale is clearly down.
But what is the pause?
Inhale surely expands towards the heavens, exhale obviously grounds towards the earth.
But what about the pause?
I think the pause is God.
I think the pause is Krishna because it isn't anything and yet it distinguishes everything.
I think the pause is Allah because it's not up or down, but allows for up or down to exist.
I think the pause is Buddha because the pause is the platform of awareness.
I think the pause is Yahweh because everyone experiences it whether they realize it or not.
I think the pause is God because I can rest in it when the down is prominent in my life.
I think the pause is Jesus not giving into temptation during his 40 days in the desert.
I think this because even though I don't feel down anymore my mind still wants all of my awareness and that's a slippery slope too.
ARMOR DOWN UPDATES
This post was guided by the 107th stanza of the Art of Peace, a book written by Morihei Ueshiba
Armor Down is backing Legislation "H.R. 3516" AKA "The Veterans and Armed Forces’ Health Promotion Act of 2013".
This bill will
• Expand the scope of holistic care education and research for signature wounds such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
• Establish complementary and alternative medicine pilot programs for mental health and pain management treatment for veterans.
• Create a grant pilot program to upgrade Veteran Service Organization facilities, expanding the reach of wellness services directly into economically strained communities.
Show your support for this legislation by signing this petition.
A new comedy on Fox, called Enlisted is really funny. Check it out.
Folk singer Big Cat Wilson created this song which was inspired by Armor Down.
Mindful Memorial Day is coming in May.
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