There is a quieter way to build a life.
A way where there is no need to force ourselves into expansion. A way where pushing to grow is not the approach either and the allure of hustle culture is entirely redundant too.
A way where performing in attempts to create certainty and validation has no place, and chasing momentum instead of flowing with it is recognised as the assault on our nervous systems that is truly is instead of some misplaced kudos.
This way starts with the simplicity of increasing our internal capacity. The capacity we inherently hold to live our lives in the most meaningful ways - whatever meaning we claim, and whatever meaning makes sense to who we are.
For a long time, I believed clarity meant thinking harder and having it all figured out.
If I could just organise my ideas better and share them. All I had to do was identify that one correct strategy and find the perfect words. If I could do all that, then everything else would click into its correct slot.
The idea of better, harder thinking came from my limited understanding of what being human meant and the way I absorbed unquestioned reverence to my mind as the beginning and end of what mattered.
But clarity doesn’t come from more thinking alone.
It comes from being more connected to all of my experience and that means my body along with my mind. It comes from being able to acknowledge what is interrupting clarity and spaciousness, not just in my thoughts, but also in the signals my body gives me. And the shortcut to identifying all of that is - noticing when I am bracing.
Bracing is subtle.
It doesn’t always loudly announce itself and say hey 👋 - look at me. It may look like anxiety. It may look like fear, worry or stress, but it often looks like capability.
The type of capability that looks like:
Over-preparing.
Softening of tone.
Saying yes when your body says no.
Delaying decisions that should feel simple.
It’s the presence of contraction running quietly through every part of your life in the background.
Contraction isn’t however wrong.
It’s an incomplete experience. Something that at the time caused us to feel challenged or threatened enough to want to turn away from it, and in turning away from feeling our way through it, we held on to it - tightly.
Life naturally contracts and expands.
The problem isn’t contraction itself, the problem is when contraction and the experiences that cause it never fully integrate into who we are. (There is a whole other exploration of what this means coming soon ;)
When your breath stays shallow and your body stays guarded and your system keeps scanning for the implications of consequence. That is where contraction lives.
That’s when capable people start to feel stuck, unable to navigate, yes some of the more complicated aspects of life, but often the most mundane day to day things too.
It is not about a lack of intelligence, or discipline but because their internal capacity is maxed out.
Enter the beautiful simplicity and efficacy of the breath. Breath is the bridge.
When your breath leads you in life, both the easy and the challenging parts, integration happens. When integration happens in real time or even after the fact, choice returns.
Choice returning opens up more potential and in that potential capacity expands.
When capacity expands, leadership becomes natural. It becomes effortless.
There is no longer a need to perform and force to achieve the results we desire. We are no longer trapped in cycles of frustration and repeated opposition. Our behaviours open up, we find space between experiences and unwanted reactions and we reconnect with the sense that life holds more for us than may have gone before.
There is a steadiness sprinkled with the excitement of possibility.
This is why my work begins with breath.
Not as a technique or system.
Not as a trend.
But as the mechanism that allows contraction to be completed.
When contraction completes and there is no longer a need to remain braced against that part of life, or that old experience then expansion becomes safe.
And when expansion becomes safe, you stop managing your life in holding capability in unhelpful ways and you move into every increasing capacity.
You no longer have to manage your life, instead you start leading it.