Trusting Your Knowing Is Power

The uncertainty of the weather this time of year can bring on so much anxiety, so much unknowing- will it rain, will it snow? This external changeability and unsettledness is only heightened by our own political climate these days in the world. With so much out of our control, this can sometimes make us feel ungrounded and trepid- reaching outside ourselves for validation or understanding. From this place, we might ask ourselves what control do I really have? What do I trust as truth? Where do I go to find my own calm knowing?

Just yesterday, I noticed myself reaching for my device to answer a question I had about upcoming travel plans for our family. The question I had was something like- what is the best town in the country we’re travelling to in August that will be the least crowded, and it went on from there to what is the closest airport to that location…what are some recommended places nearby to go.

Although seemingly worthy questions to ask for travel from the vast information hub of the internet these days- I noticed myself contemplating how we don’t even have to think very much anymore to get answers to life’s questions. And I fear this is a problem especially with the addition of AI today.

For myself, as I reached for my device, I noticed I leaned away from my body and held my breath. It was as if, in that moment, I was trusting something outside of myself more than inside of myself.

This is not the world I want to live in.

The term interoceptive awareness is defined as recognizing the subtle nature of our inner being. This could include noticing signs of hunger or need for warmth, but it is also includes having access to subtle cues related to our preferences and hunches.

Interoceptive awareness is about inhabiting our bodies so that we can find answers to life’s questions from a more grounded place. As we attune to a more felt sense of what is happening within us, we then can know if something feels right in order to make positive choices.

This is what conscious breathing practices help improve- our ability to recognize the signs of our own knowing and attune to ourselves for answers. This is empowerment.

When we repeatedly look outside of ourselves for answers to the big and small questions in our life, we lose this language of the self.

Who will we be if we’ve lost connection to our own bodies knowing? What will the world become if we are all planning our trips based on what the google algorhythm recommends for us?

There are many things outside of our control these days- I’m sure you can feel that.  But we do have an innate gift of knowing within each of us that we can trust- or learn to trust over time.

This sense of autonomy and power is what has fed immense creativity and pioneering advances in the world. This internal connection to our unique self brings about greater compassion and presence with others for meaningful exchanges.

So while we can’t control the weather, or whether two countries our warring, or even if the place we travel to will be crowded, we can harness the ability to inhabit our own bodies and to trust our own knowing. This attunement to how we feel, what our senses are guiding us to helps us to respond to uncertainty with more clarity and volition.

This unique honing devise of being within ourselves does takes practice- especially if we’ve had traumatic experiences that took us out of our body for protection in the moment.

But learning to empower ourselves and breaking the addiction of external distractibility gives us so many more choices. Without our own sense of knowingness, we all just become swimming in the sea of chaos waiting for someone else to give us the answers- or as I mentioned to my son the other day- “automatons”.

Each time we connect to our breath we build these new neural pathways of internal awareness. This helps us to awaken the knowing that has been and always will be by our side. Each breath we are present to helps us to recognize who we are and what we need in the world today and attune the cues within us.

Conscious breathing awakens the subtle and strong vibratory nature of our own aliveness- and this is the gold which helps us to navigate change in the world today. We begin to feel like have a safe place to call home- a place inside ourselves.  

As we build these spaces of connection and attunement with each inhale and each exhale- we arrive more fully to the here and now and disrupt the destructive patterns of self doubt and the need for external validation.

What if we could all take control over the one thing we have within our control- our own presence- our own breath.  

Imagine this world with all of us here-  lifting our gaze from these devices and resting a palm on our own hearts and bellys and breathing. Join me now. It begins with us.

As the Buddha once said- “don’t believe anything because I said it- put it into practice yourself and see what rings true for you”.

I can’t wait to hear what you find.

Thank you for being part of this growing community of awake and present and empowered individuals. Together we make a community.

In honor and purpose of light- Tania