“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging….” ~ Joseph Campbell
Opportunity: This past month, a group chose to cold plunge in 19-degree water for two minutes as part of an Emotional Intelligence and Consciousness Training.
Preparation: In addition to proper attire, we stoked our internal heat with rigorous, “fire-dancing pranayama.”
Launch: Once we generated core body heat, we held hands and slowly walked into the water with the intention of reaching neck-level. We applied our learned calming pranayama while we silently and powerfully locked into one another’s communal intention, attention, and energy.
Landing: Our fearless leader signaled the time, and we slowly walked out of the water to shore, stood barefoot on a blanket and immediately commenced the “fire-dancing pranayama” to safely raise our core temperature back to baseline.
Learning: We have deep and wide reservoirs of wildness within us that, when appropriately tapped, elicit sovereignty, adaptability, connectedness, and presence. The breath is one of our greatest tools to combat stress and chaos and transmute stagnate energy to coherence and elevation. The beauty of moving through challenge together ignites a remembrance of our belonging.
“Awe is what moves us forward.” ~ Joseph Campbell
We don’t have to walk into freezing cold water to generate single-pointed awareness but perhaps our responsibility could be to find one tiny thing each day that disconnects us from our past programming and nudges us toward a future of awe, humility, and receptivity for the highest and best of all.