$hit hit the fan when I did this!
Do you ever question if your daily routines are actually serving your highest and best good? Maybe you're reading this and thinking “I've had the exact same routine for the last 5 years and I have no intention of stopping them now” (kudos to you, you must be a Virgo) OR the guilt of “I couldn't tell you the last time I stuck to any type of routine” popped into your head, in which case welcome to the human experience!
Many times we keep routines out of habit. But have you checked in with yourself to see if that habit still serves you for where you want to go and who you want to be?
I'm going to be very honest with you, I recently dumped my very supportive routine out the window when I started getting extra comfy in my reality. Well here's the REALITY that smacks me in the face recently… my reality was being supported by that routine that I just dumped! And you know what happened after that? My ego saw an opportunity, took over, and sent me into a massive downward spiral!
The routine I'm referring to is my morning breathwork practice. At the beginning of this year I was called to dive deeper into the specific modality of Breathwork Detox which became part of my daily routine rather quickly.
Now I'm not going to sugar coat this experience, because I was resistant to it the whole way! The only thing that got my ego to show up was a good 'ol fashioned initial 30-day challenge to keep myself committed to the discomfort that is this practice! IFYKYK
I dove deep, SO DEEP that I wound up at Breathwork Detox Teacher Training this past March. Seriously, some days I still don't know how I wound up there!
I'm someone that must believe in what I teach to actually talk about it. You won't ever find me selling/promoting/talking about something I don't actually do myself and fully believe in. So of course as I was bringing this breathwork practice to all of you, I made sure to dive deep into this journey for myself first.
But it started to become a blind following of a routine I had created out of habit. A good habit yes, but I became disconnected from my WHY of it.
In an effort to “shake things up” I drifted away from my breathwork practice while on vacation, but somehow it felt challenging to invite it back in once I returned. So as I went out, now leading others through this transformational experience, I was drifting further and further away from my own practice.
Guilt began to set in and my ego had fully taken over my daily thoughts without having any practice to challenge it's fears and worries. I quickly ended up sending myself into a downward spiral of negative thoughts, seeking dopamine hits in anything I could find, and seeking external validation for everything I did.
You know the saying “you don't know what you got till it's gone”? Yeah well let me tell you, this doesn't just apply to people!
In 2021 I found Breathwork Detox on a podcast, told myself I'd try anything once, and was somehow sent down a journey I was quite oblivious to until recently. It's been that one practice that I would visit every few months, here and there, for years! It never left, but I never fully committed. Talk about being in a non-committal relationship!
On New Years Day 2024 a flip inside me switched on and all of a sudden I was on a fast track down “Breathwork Detox Lane”. Didn't know how I got here or why. Sometimes blindly following your intuition leads you to the best places, but let me remind you to eventually stop and ground your body into your experience so you don't float away on autopilot like I did!
If I'm being completely honest, I truly didn't realize how much this breathwork practice had been doing for my body, mind, emotions, and soul. I'm not kidding! Of course I believed it's a helpful practice, I wouldn't have taken the time to get certified in it if I didn't believe in it. But I never took the time to ground into the reality of the journey I have been on. I just listened and ran and never stopped.
It wasn't until I let it drop out of my life for longer than I would like to admit that I was gifted the deepest awareness and power of this practice! Inviting it back in has been quite the process because I had to clear a path through the built up emotional garbage first. And now recommitting to myself is more about me showing up for myself time and time again.
Before, when one little thing would come up, I would bring it to my breathwork practice, work through it on the mat, let that $h!t go, and be able to continue on with what actually matters to me in life instead of letting my ego attempt to sabotage and take over my every thought! I didn't let things get to these “explosion" or “tower” moments because I cleared them out when they were a little tiny nudge.
So if you have a routine that you've been habitually committing to on autopilot, I ask you to really ground into “Why are you doing this? Is it helpful? Does it support you?" And if it does and it's what continues to clear out your self sabotaging egoic thoughts then absolutely keep it in your life as long as it serves you! And if you do this check-in with yourself and you need to reevaluate your “why” (whether or not you continue your practice or not), ensure you truly believe in EVERYTHING you give your efforts to.
