You are Your Home

You are your home.

Take care of yourself.

Inside your brick and mortar home, you choose the vibe. You pick the colors, textures, scents and sounds that make it your haven. As the gatekeeper of your space, you decide what kinds of food to buy, movies to watch, and candles to burn. You control the thermostat, decide when to open the windows, and whether the lights are dim or bright. It’s your call who’s invited over and who’s not. And even though your living space has bones… you decide how to work with what you’ve got.

When something feels off, maybe you rearrange, paint some walls, or organize your drawers. Maybe you get tired of the way it feels to live inside your home, and so you do some spring cleaning, or switch your laundry soap and buy some flowers to spruce things up.

The same goes for your body.

Sure, it came preprogrammed with DNA and predispositions and a certain “build.” And you get to decide what it feels like to live inside. You get to eat and drink the things that nourish you and give you energy. You can fill your mind with poems and books and positive thoughts, fill your ears with beautiful music, and keep your nervous system calm with meditation and deep breaths. You decide what’s welcome and what’s not.

In yoga, we use a Sanskrit word for breath: pranayama. Prana means life force energy and yama means to move or rearrange. So, in the yoga tradition, the breath is the modality we use to rearrange our energy. 

When your body starts to feel cobweb-y or claustrophobic or it just doesn’t feel like somewhere you want to be, deep breaths can be a great way to start the process of rearranging your energy and making changes to the way it feels to live there.

The body’s central nervous system has two modes: 1- fight or flight and 2- rest and digest. Only one mode can be on at a time, and pranayama is a great and always accessible way to turn on rest and digest. Often we don’t like how it feels to be in our bodies because we are stuck in fight or flight. Try a few deep breaths to start to come back to homeostasis.

Some things I like to do to make sure my body is the kind of home I like to be in:

 Daily:

1- sleep enough

2- drink water

3- eat a plant based diet that gives me energy

4- meditate

5- move

6- listen to music

7- read books

8- spend at least 10 minutes in the fresh air and sunshine

9- get regular massages

10- connect physically with my partner

When I’m stressed:

1- deep breaths right in the moment

2- extra rest and sleep

3- mental affirmations

4- squeeze and release (tense up the whole body then relax)

5- 10 minutes of vigorous exercise - a run, fast paced yoga, or something else to move prana quickly

Your body is your home from your first breath to your last. Make it an environment you like to be in.