You are going for the “Highest First.” You are transcending. You’re leading a spiritual life. You expand your awareness, you expand your mind to who you really are. You are getting closer to knowing who you really are. Maybe you already know who you really are, which is infinite absolute being, quality less, infinite energy, light, Being. Being is really the thing, isn’t it? Yes. It is Being plus everything else.
Now comes the next step. And the way I say this is because I’m trying really hard to not be so “you must do this or else.” It’s really hard for me, because you know what I went through.
I was a very inward person. I’m very spiritual. I thought I was leading a wonderful life, and suddenly I had a major health crisis that could have potentially ended my life.
And Deepak Chopra said: Well girl, it’s time for you to heal yourself with your voice. You need to learn to sing, you need to learn to speak up, you need to learn to express yourself. So you can understand why I’m feeling slightly passionate about this.
It is wonderful that we now know who we are, that we have our awareness expanded, that our mind is big huge, and that our consciousness is powerful, and feeling wonderful and invincible and infinite. Now comes the next step:
You must, must, MUST put it into your breath and express it with your voice. You simply must.
It’s another step. It’s the missing step.
You probably do Asanas right? You probably do Yoga. That’s wonderful. But does that mean that you’re done with dealing with your body? Does it mean that you never walk, never dance, never swim, never run, never workout, never exercise? Of course not!
So why would you think that simply by meditating and then going back to your little life — and I’m not putting it down, just saying: you’re one, one, one life in this one body — is enough? It is not enough.
You have this wonderful experience that’s a real experience, right? It’s not a fake experience, it’s not like you’ve read a bunch of books and are now lecturing about it. No, you’ve actually tasted it, you’ve experienced it. You know who you are, and it is so beyond any description, which is why I’m trying so hard to describe it.
That wonderful infinite feeling now must be translated into the body. So what are the practical steps? There are three practical steps, plus one really vital bonus I’m gonna share with you, okay?
Here’s #1: Feel this infinite space and now put it into your breath and this is how:
Breathe in into your nose very gently, and feel how this air goes into your sinuses. You can even crinkle your nose a little bit to enliven these parts, okay? And then feel how it goes into your lungs, and don’t stop there.
Take a huge breath. Like I tell my students: feel like you’re blowing up a gigantic inner tube all the way around, all right? Your ribs must come out all the way around, your tummy may pop out, your back may pop out. Feel really filled up like a bodybuilder, okay? In my last video for singers I mentioned a bodybuilder.
How do bodybuilders walk around? They inflate their chest and they walk around all strong and invincible, and they make themselves larger. Yes, it’s a really great idea. Just play being a bodybuilder just for a moment. Put this huge awareness into your breath.
This infinite space that you are on the inside translated into your breath. Why would you want to do that? Because the invincibility must be made manifest. It must be integrated.
And what does it result in? It results in greater strength, greater lung capacity, stronger immune system, happier, more buoyant feeling in the body, more energy, and all kinds of good things that researchers have researched for singers.
Now if you’re not a singer that’s all right. You don’t have to be. Just like you use your body and yet you’re not an athlete, as you heard me say before, you do not have to become an opera singer.
However, you must use the same mechanism, the same tools, the same feeling in your body as an opera singer, even if just for exercise. Just like we run, and we work out, we stretch, we dance, or whatever we do. We do that not because we want to be an Olympic athlete, right, not our Dharma. We do it because it strengthens our body, it keeps our body flexible, and fluid, and strong.
Same with your breath, same with your voice. You must incorporate this feeling of unboundedness into your breath, and how to do it is by breathing in, inflating all the way around, ribs out, and then keep the ribs out and see if you can keep them out while you’re talking or while you’re exhaling, okay?
This is number one of putting your awareness into your body.
The benefits are amazing. You will feel better. You’ll get those ribs off your lungs.
When we get older there’s a tendency to shrink, to have them collapse, to walk hunched, and to have less and less lung capacity. We don’t want that. We want to keep our torso expanded, and we want to keep tall, we want to keep open, and we want the lungs to be free, therefore: get the ribs off your lungs. That was number one.
#2: The freedom you feel when you have meditated, when you are in that wonderful space of your Self, you take that into your body by yawning, by creating space in your throat chakra, in the connection between heart and mind.
It is vital. You do not want a gridlock there. You do not want to shut up when really you want to sing or speak or even breathe. You want to have this open, you want to have this relaxed. And how to do this, is simply by yawning.
Do this right now. Yawn by lifting behind the upper molars, and then simply feel this wonderful stretch coming on, and suddenly a yawn. Do it again. Train yourself to yawn. It is the beginning of the yawn that’s the most freeing. In the beginning of the yawn the uvula goes up and the larynx goes down, that first stretch. Later on everything goes back to normal, and you don’t want to memorize that.
But in the beginning of the yawn is when you want to be alert. That is what you want to commit to your muscle memory, all right? So begin to yawn one more time, simply by feeling like you’re being lifted behind the upper molars into this stretch into this yawn, and then simply open up and yawn. You could even make a sound which is extra wonderful, or just simply yawn right now. Feel that freedom, feel that openness.
#3 how to put this awareness, this invincibility, this freedom, this expansion into your body: That feeling of invincibility is a feeling of power, right, of infinite power, not a bad power, like I’m gonna… no. Of power that comes from real true strength of feeling so expanded that there’s nothing to control, nothing to be afraid of that you will be controlled. It simply is, it simply is.
That feeling you can train yourself to put into your body by strengthening your power chakra. You see how all these points are connected?
In my book Sing Yourself Well in 7 Seconds I go into greater detail into all the seven steps you must do for perfect wellness, for incorporating that wonderful unbounded feeling into your breath and into your body, and it is so vital that you do.
For now these are the three most important ones:
Once you have put your expanded awareness into your breath by expanding your lungs, expanding your whole torso, hold your breath for a second. Feel that powerful feeling of having so much air to spare. And once you have expanded into your yawn, putting that feeling of infinite freedom into a yawn, into that relaxation, then hold your breath for a second and engage your power chakra simply by doing this: Ssssssssssss.
And you can do it with some vigor. It doesn’t have to be meek. It will get stronger over time, so don’t worry if it’s not super powerful in the beginning. It’ll get stronger the more you do it. But pay attention to keeping the ribs out while you do it, and ideally keeping some form of a yarn at least in the beginning, all right?
So now you have learned (#1) how to put this wonderful feeling of expansion of your consciousness into your breath in a very practical way, to use it for your health, for your strength, for your happiness. You have also learned (#2) how to put that feeling of freedom and relaxation into your breath, into your body by yawning, expanding into a yawn, making sure that your chakra of self-expression is free and relaxed and open, allowing the heart to talk to the mind and the mind to talk to the heart, and speaking your truth. You’ve learned ( #3) how to put this feeling of invincibility and infinite strength into your body by simply strengthening your power chakra, going sssssss, all right?
Those three are super powerful to create more possibility in your life, and now comes the Bonus. Once you have incorporated those three — and ideally all seven from my online course and from my book — but at least those three:
Play. I beg of you. When you have been everything — when you are One with literally everything, everyone, being plus everything — if there are two things, which there aren’t which you know now — be a different character!
Why would, imagine, why would any actor in their right mind choose to play the exact same friggin’ role all their life? They wouldn’t do it. Maybe they’ll have a favorite role, that’s all right, but they like to play different flavors.
Same with our incarnation. Pretty please, if you are by nature dharmically called to do one thing only, that’s all right, then take just a few moments to play.
And how do you play? You put this awareness into your breath. You walk around like a bodybuilder, for example. All huffy and puffy and full of yourself. Just play, feel how it feels. You yawn, you feel really important, maybe you feel like a lion, and you want to roar, you feel powerful, s-s-s-s-s. You feel silly giggly, you feel expanded, you feel all possibilities in your voice in your breath.
During the day take a few minutes and simply play. Play to be somebody else, but play it from the level of unbounded awareness translated into your breath in at your body. Because if you’re trying to put a different character on top of your usual self — and by usual self I’m now collapsing it to whatever that flavor is for you. We all have our flavor believe me, I know, I have it, too.
We all fall into that, right, it’s normal, we’re humans, we’re in one incarnation. But if we can transcend even for a minute that feeling of always just being that one character, imagine how much more freedom we would feel. How much more health we will feel. How much more empathy we will feel. How many more emotions are at our disposal.
We must play the different characters from that feeling of infinity. We cannot play it, put it on top of our own incarnation. That’s why some actors are really bad actors, actually I think many actors struggle with that: “oh how do I, you know, play this character?” because they are
coming from their small self. And to put another character on top of the small self is really difficult, it’s almost impossible. You always fall back into self-consciousness, right?
So you want to first let go of everything, be infinite, become unbounded, feel the freedom, feel the power, infinite power, and from there you choose: Hmm, today I’d like to play this character, today I want to play this character, today I want to play this character, okay?
Play. Go into your room, into your house, into your kitchen, into your garden, and just for a few minutes inflate, yawn, go ssss, and then just have fun: choose a flavor of emotion and play it fully with that unboundedness, and then choose another flavor. It doesn’t have to be long, just a minute or two. It’ll help you feel freer, more powerful, more expanded in your current incarnation.
So, that was it for today. I really, really hope this helped you. This is so dear to my heart, to get out of our own little tiny world even in activity, not just in the absolute, but in the relative. Meditate and ACT, all right?
That was it. Love you all, and I’ll see you soon. Sing yourself Well! 🙂
