On today’s auspicious Buddha Poonami, that is, the full moon attributed to Gautama the Buddha’s Enlightenment day let’s talk about transcending boundaries.

There is a quote from Sadhguru that I love. It is also happens to be the quote I hate the most. It inspires me and it threatens me completely and constantly. It makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Yet I keep coming back to it again and again.

“It takes a completely different kind of consciousness and awareness to stretch yourself to your ultimate limit without anyone’s expectations. That takes something else within you. Right now you are not like that. You are only driven by people’s expectations. So let them expect bigger and bigger things from you. You manage the situations to the extent you can manage them. Some things will always be out of control, and the more things you get into, the more things will be going wrong in your life. But many more things will be going right also. The quality of your life, or the success of your life need not be measured in terms of fulfilling something. It needs to be measured in terms of whether you are giving yourself totally or not. What has to happen will happen according to your capability, the situations, and how everything falls together – many things are included in this. But are you giving yourself hundred percent to whatever you care for in your life? That’s the question.” – Sadhguru

I look at a tree, a bird, a bee. They are all doing their best every day. They get up at sunrise and do their best.

But me? Well… you know… so many excuses… so much comfort… so much…

I hate this quote because it tickles the exact point I don’t want to be tickled because I know that I’m bound to be uncomfortable if I indulge in this.

The best living examples I’ve seen of this are David Goggins and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. They are just fully on every day. I’ve also seen a several Isha Volunteers with this quality.

I love this because it challenges me to be my best in every moment of my life. To give everything I have. I hate this because I see how self evidently it is not at all the case for me. I rarely go to bed thinking today I have given everything I could. Yet I know from experience that when I do those are the most fulfilling days. I can clearly see I have not given my best every moment.

I hate this because I makes me realise how much I delude myself.

There is a tendency to self-flagelate. To self-punish because you aren’t where you want to be. Because you aren’t doing whatever standard you are striving for. Yes, you don’t have to do that shit. But if you do, let it become fertiliser for your growth.

I hate this because it shows me how much I rely on others in order to act. Your friends, lover, coworkers, people in society aren’t holding themselves to such a standard of excellence. Why the hell would you? Why put yourself through such a demanding standard every moment of your life?

That is the fundemental question.

• Why pick up that piece of plastic on the ground to put it in the trash?
• Why make your bed in the morning?
• Why take care of your hygiene?
• Why fold your clothes neatly?
• Why be pleasant to others?
• Why make that piece of art?
• Why call that person and say sorry?
• Why start that business?
• Why get in shape?
• Why be truthful?
• The list goes on.

That single question will come up and challenge the slightest discomfort in your life. “WHY.” Three letters that can unravel most minds and make you quit.

Why indeed?

Because you’re gonna die. Yet another truth most conveniently set aside by most. Yes, you are going to die. No question about it. It is the only guarantee in our little life, on this little planet, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Why not see what the hell you’re capable of before that inevitable fate happens? Why not see what you’re capable of giving before you die? Oh, wait, but you want something in return? Some form of compensation? Some insurance? A reward perhaps? No such thing. Only death. And perhaps the knowledge of whether you gave it all or not.

You want people to see all that you have done? You want praise? Appreciation for your actions? How many more things are you expecting before you give?

What if you are given absolutely nothing? Or just enough to survive? Would you still give your best? Will you still give your best?

And also that list of conveniently never-ending excuses:

• I’ll do it tomorrow.
• The bed is warm.
• I want to spend time with wifey, the children.
• It’s raining outside.
• Those people aren’t doing it.
• It’s not that important after all.
• I’m feeling sick.
• I’m unwell.

Yes, all that may be true. But can you still give yourself and be your best? Squeeze every drop of life out of your system before you die?
Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps. Let me think about that. I’ll let you know. Maybe tomorrow…

Comfort or Excellence?

Can you strive for excellence without imposing it onto others? Can you be an example rather than an empty preacher?

Remember, you become what you give. You do not become what you keep. It is also 100% guaranteed you will die.

Why not go out burning bright? Or do you want to die stifled, crippled, depressed, full of unexpressed life?
To Burn and go out like a Fireball. Or to wither away… life unexpressed.

This morning I woke up and wanted to continue sleeping. I was awake. My body had had enough sleep. But my mind wanted to stay in bed and sleep.

I wondered: Am I trying to be a Sleeping Beauty?

I recently watched Sleeping Beauty for the 3rd time in my life. This time it was different. The first time I watched it as a kid. The second time I watched it out of curiosity to see if I still enjoyed the classic. This time I watched it conscious of the archetypal story and the underlying symbolism.

It’s a classic representation of parents trying to overprotect a child from the forces of evil in the world. The king and queen decide to celebrate the birth of their daughter Aurora, and invite the whole kingdom conveniently excluding Maleficent – the personification of Evil.

Maleficent, uninvited, nevertheless shows up and casts a deadly spell on the child. Sleep and unconsciousness is chosen over facing the realities of life. The parents choose to shroud their daughter in ignorance so that nothing ever happens to her. She is consequently isolated from the world.

Aurora eventually fall in love with the first man she sees. Inevitably the maleficent forces happen as you cannot suppress them. The princess falls asleep and drifts into unconsciousness that can only be reversed by true love’s first kiss.

The prince gets trapped and wants to see his love. He needs to face his fears. He needs to go though the hero arch and face the dragon with the sword of truth and the shield of virtue.

Once the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil, the veil of unconsciousness is lifted. Now the prince and princess can marry. The story ends with them dancing at their wedding, Aurora wearing an alternating pink and blue dress.

All of this unfolds in a couple minutes on the screen. There are many ways to look at this story. Fundamentally, as all good archetypical stories do, it depicts our human experience, and how the mind functions.

The masculine and feminine principles are respectively incarnated by Phillip, the prince, and Aurora, the princess. The protector aspect is incarnated by the parents of Aurora. The magic of life is incarnated by the 3 fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. And of course the destructive aspect of life is incarnated by Maleficent.

How many times do we avoid situations with sleep? With unconsciousness? How many times do we avoid life?

Logic favors overprotection and avoidance. But you can’t avoid life. You can’t avoid death either. You must face reality. Many times this will take courage. There will be many challenges. In the end, truth and virtue always prevail. The masculine and feminine principles can only dance and unify if you have the courage to wake up and face the world.

And so there I am, in my bed, pondering if I’m acting like a sleeping beauty. I know what I need. I know I want to get up. But I’m still drawn to stay here in my bed and sleep.

That’s the whole point of the story. Simply get up and face the world. No need to plant more seeds of unconsciousness. The birds and bees are already going about their day.

Get up sleeping beauty…

I remember first hearing about the importance of nose breathing when I read the Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown a couple years back. It intrigued me. I experimented with sleeping with my mouth taped shut for 30 days to see if it changed anything. I felt a little more relaxed in the morning when I woke up.

Sometime later as I was reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. I vividly recall the story of the Native American tribe who lived to run and produced some of the best long distance runners. How did they train their people to run? Well, you had to keep your mouth full of water for 10 kilometers then at the end of your run you were expected to spit all the water out. I experimented with this too. Almost choking once or twice because I didn’t expect it to be that difficult and require so much attention. It was a fun experiment but it showed me that the point of the exercise was to train you to nose-breathe. I continued running without the water. I didn’t need it.

I used to track my runs and look at my heart rate zones to make sure I was in aerobic breathing for optimal training. After nose breathing for a couple weeks I noticed that if I’m nose-breathing during a run, it’s like a barometer for my aerobic threshold. Essentially the moment I needed to open my mouth I would be leaving the aerobic heart rate zone.

This gives you a pretty simple heuristic, if you need to open your mouth while running it means you’re running too fast. If you want to train for endurance you had better shut your mouth and run.

Then, over the years my interests evolved when I discovered classical hatha yoga as offered by the Isha Foundation. It was all about breathing through your nose too. I was stunned. It produced fantastic results for me. Mental and emotional balance. Physical agility. A sense of exuberance and vibrancy. Who would have guessed that if you use your body the way it is designed, it actually works wonderfully well !

Now when I go to the hospital to see patients I can’t help but notice how many of them are breathing through their mouth. I can’t say it is the only reason they are sick. But it is strongly correlated. What is more amazing to me is the level of ignorance regarding this subject even amongst medical doctors. Most simply don’t know about nose breathing. It is time this changed.

It’s been proven scientifically now that nose breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system and helps you relax. Mouth breathing activates your sympathetic nervous system. If you chronically mouth breath you are at risk of structural deformations of your face (namely adenoid face), increased risk of sleep apnea, hypertension and even metabolic disorders.

In fact if you mouth breath, you aren’t able to fill your lungs the same way you would if you were to close your mouth. Your body gets less oxygen and can’t use it as well.

Plus your nose is designed for breathing. It warms up the air you inhale, humidifies it, and filters out the dust. But if you mouth breathe it just goes into your lungs without all the needed preparation and transformation. Everything that goes into our bodies needs to be adequately prepared, otherwise it will eventually cause problems. This is why we clean vegetables and process our food, cutting it, cooking it, spicing it up. All this just to make it palatable and easily digestible, in order to absorb as many nutrients as possible.

Your nose in a way digests the air you breath. If you don’t digest your air, you won’t absorb it in the best possible way. Essentially the quality of the air you take in will be worse and you will slowly breathe yourself to disease and ultimately to death.

Now we all know that if the next inhalation does not happen we will fall dead. The breath is that important. But we aren’t always aware that the quality of air we take into our bodies is equally important. How fast your breathe also dictates your lifespan. Animals that breath fast like dogs rarely exceed 25 years old. Whereas animals that can breath much slower like turtles can live up to 190 years. If you breathe through your nose your respiratory process will become more efficient and your breath will eventually settle down and slow down. Health and quality breath are intimately connected.

Please take care of your body. Breath through your nose. If you need to get used to it, sleep with some tape on your mouth to keep it shut for a couple weeks. Test and see the results you get. Who knows, people might even enjoy spending more time with you if you talk less and breath more.

If you’re still wondering how big of a difference mouth breathing and nose breathing makes for your own body you can do a simple 4 minute experiment.

Simply sit down and breath through your mouth for 2 minutes and see how you breath, how you feel, how your chest expands, how deeply you’re able to inhale.

Next shut your mouth for 2 minutes and notice the difference. How does your body feel? More relaxed? Do you breath deeper?

You can take 5 minutes to experiment and see for yourself.

There are so many simple things like this that one can do on a day to day basis to maintain health. As most things, this only works if you do it.

Take care,
And most importantly,
Shut up and breathe.

Adrien

Why do I treat people differently when I communicate by texting vs when I interact in the flesh?

Every expression I produce is directly impacting another life. Raise the quality and smoothness of each one of these. Be inclusive.

What is the matter if the other is not inclusive? Will you let that determine the quality of your response or will you respond the way you know best?

Will you withhold your best because external situations aren’t always going in your favor? Memento Mori.

Liberté Égalité Fraternité sont les trois mots de la fameuse devise républicaine datant du XVIIIe siècle et constitue un des pilier de l’identité nationale française. Cependant, aujourd’hui au XXIe siècle, cette trinité républicaine est désormais un oxymore archaïque inadapté à une France moderne.

La Fraternité.

Qu’est-ce que la Fraternité tout d’abord? Pourquoi cette valeur?
Fondamentalement c’est une valeur qui est censée indiquer la notion d’unité populaire.
Dans le dictionnaire français la fraternité est définie comme un lien de solidarité qui devrait unir tous les membres de la famille humaine. Ou bien le lien qui existe entre les personnes appartenant à la meme organisation, qui participent au même idéal, à savoir dans notre cas, la nation française.

Fraternité et fratrie viennent du mot frère. Quand la république à été fondée, au sein du pêle-mêle de la Révolution Française et des Lumières, il s’agissait de compatriotes et révolutionnaires de sexe masculins. Les femmes n’avaient pas de droit de vote. Et les affaires d’état et de politique étaient réservées aux hommes. Au sein d’une armée il y a une camaraderie et un esprit de fraternité qui se développe spontanément. Dans un tel contexte il est normale d’utiliser le terme de fraternité pour suggérer l’union d’un peuple. Ce n’est qu’au XXe siècle que les femmes ont eu le droit de vote en France. À noter que dans la définition citée précédemment il est dit que la fraternité “devrait unir” tous les membres de la famille humaine, mais qu’il est évident que ce n’est pas le cas puisque plus de 50% de la population est exclue. En anglais le mot “fraternity” possède son opposé logique “sorority”. Et tous deux désignent des sociétés étudiantes où les membres sont de même sexe. L’idée de frère et de soeur est très claire, en anglais. En utilisant le mot Fraternité l’idée d’inclusion y est sous jacente mais le terme est désormais inapproprié dans notre société au XXIe siècle. Si la devise était Liberté Égalité Maternité ou Liberté Égalité Paternité on ne pourrait pas prendre la devise au sérieux. Cela semblerait même absurde. Si nous voulons parler du concept d’unité pourquoi simplement ne pas utiliser le bon mot.

L’Unité

Il est important de changer cela. C’est une idée que l’on intègre inconsciemment et qui nous impact qu’on le veuille ou non. C’est une question d’identité nationale. Une question d’intégrité personnelle et de responsabilité citoyenne. C’est même une question de santé mentale au long terme.

Malgré le fait que la trinité soit censée représenter les français, les Allemands ont littéralement la même devise Freiheit Gleichheit Brüderlichkeit (Liberté Égalité Fraternité). Il serait temps de faire une mise à jour.

Est-ce que nous voulons continuer à diviser les gens et rejeter le sexe sans lequel nous ne serions pas nés?
Est-ce que dans un monde qui vole le pouvoir aux femmes en essayant de les cacher il n’est pas temps de les remettre à pied d’égalité. L’oxymore français de l’Égalité et la Fraternité est archaïque.

Si vous pensez que ceci est d’important et qu’il est temps de moderniser la devise française il y a plusieurs choses que nous pouvons faire. À savoir le changement commence toujours par soi-même, puis en informant les autres.

• Dire Unité quand vous voulez parler d’unité.
• Reformuler la devise à chaque occasion que vous avez de le faire. Dire “Liberté Égalité Unité” que ce soit à l’orale ou à l’écrit.
• Souligner l’incongruence lexicale à notre entourage.
• Utiliser l’humour: Si nous rendons la devise française ridicule elle changeras d’elle même. Si vous voyez le mot Fraternité écrit, il suffit de fermer le F pour qu’il devienne un P et barrer le R. Ainsi sera écrit Paternité. Ou bien si votre penchant et vers la maternité, superposez le FR par un M.

Après libre à votre imagination et vos capacités pour en faire ce que vous voulez.