This morning I was working on my Note on Anders Olsson’s great book The Power of Your Breath.
I wrapped it up by featuring the hero’s journey HE had to embark on to dedicate his life to studying breathing so he could share his life-changing wisdom with us.
It’s easy to take someone’s wisdom for granted. So, I like to pause and reflect on the heroic courage it ALWAYS takes to do ANYTHING great.
So…
I featured this passage in the final Idea for the Note: “Without a doubt the most valuable thing I have done for my health and quality of life is to improve my breathing habits. … The main lesson I have learned from practicing the Conscious Breathing Method is that I choose to be true to myself more often. To be brave enough to look inward and learn about myself in depth is the most amazing journey I have ever been on, and it’s a journey I wish everyone could experience.
My colleague, Cecilia Salmi, and I held the first Conscious Breathing course in the spring of 2010. ONE participant came. Two people came for our next course. Despite the modest interest in the beginning, there was never any doubt in my mind that this was what I was supposed to do. My current courses have hundreds of participants, but during those early times I had to sell my house in order to be able to afford to continue educating myself about breathing techniques, and to develop the Conscious Breathing Method.”
I smiled as I read that story about ONE person showing up at his first event.
And the fact that he SOLD HIS HOUSE to continue studying.
(Pause and think about that for a moment.)
As I personally reflected on that level of clarity on and commitment to one’s purpose in life, Robert Greene’s Mastery, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity, and Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life all came to mind.
btw: Check out all those Notes if you haven’t yet. Or, if you feel so inspired, re-read them. I think you’ll love them as much as I did just re-reading each of them AGAIN. (Seriously. Wow.)
I could copy/paste each of those Notes in their entirety here.
But…
Alas, that would make this a +303 so I’ll go with one wisdom gem from each Note.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us: “Creative persons differ from one another in a variety of ways, but in one respect they are unanimous: They all love what they do. It is not the hope of achieving fame or making money that drives them; rather, it is the opportunity to do the work that they enjoy doing.”
Stephen Cope tells us: “Having first named and claimed our dharma, we next begin to systematically organize all of our life’s energies around our calling.”
Robert Greene tells: “No good can ever come from deviating from the path that you were destined to follow.”
Today’s +1.
How about YOU?
Are you on YOUR heroic quest?
Here’s to rocking it one breath at a time.
TODAY.
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