This time honored simple yet powerful technique of relaxation is easy to learn and practice. Even five minutes of this mindfulness breathing exercise leads us to a deep state of relaxation, calmness, serenity and wellbeing.

• Belly breathing-Diaphragmatic breathing: As you inhale slowly, deeply and softly, let your belly rise and as you exhale slowly, deeply and softly, let your belly fall and release toward the spine.
• Keep the upper body quiet: When we are stressed, we breathe through the chest and hold the muscles in the jaw, throat, neck and shoulders tight. Our breathing becomes short, shallow and irregular. When we do the belly breathing, we relax the jaw, throat, neck and shoulders that facilitate the relaxation response.
• When we do the belly breathing, our breathing rhythms feel like a lullaby, soft, smooth and flowing. Let our breathing become easy.
• Extend the exhalations: When we are stressed, our breathing becomes short, shallow and choppy. When we are relaxed, our exhalations extend and get longer than inhalations. To create a deep relaxation response, gently extend exhalations by two to four seconds.
• Linger in the pause: When we are deeply relaxed, each exhalation is punctuated by a short, sweet and restful pause. Lingering in this pause evokes a profound sense of calmness and stillness.

When you do this exercise, you may progressively start with the lower parts of the body and end with your head. It is a good idea to conclude the exercise by letting the whole body breathe.

The success of this exercise depends on how consistently and regularly you practice it even for a short time.

“The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can be open to the vulnerability to our own hearts. Breathing in, connecting to the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.” –Tara Brach

Listening to oneself silently is a profound dimension of awakening and awareness, a way of knowing the truth of our self and being intimate with our self. Listening silently to the other is a profound way of knowing the other and being intimate with the other. Genuine bonding takes place when we listen to our self silently and deeply and the other silently and deeply.

Silent and deep listening has the following qualities: curiosity, caring, compassion, courage, friendliness, non-judging, interest, openness and receptivity. We can wisely respond to the other if we silently and deeply listen to the other.

Why do we not listen to our self and other silently and deeply? Not enough time? Preoccupied mind? Fear of finding something we do not want to see? Fear of changing our default habitual patterns? Hearing the truth? Fear of being our true self?

Intentionality is the door that opens the door to listening. I intend to listen silently and deeply to uncover myself, to know the different layers of myself and become an integrated whole and wholesome person.

Exercise: Bring to your mind someone you know who is a good listener. What qualities do you see in that person that helps you to be open to that person? Explore how such an experience helps you to be yourself and be connected with that person.

Exercise: Bring to your mind someone you know who is not a good listener. What qualities you see in that person that blocks the flow of communication between both of you? What can you do to remove that barrier between both of you?

Have an anchor to cultivate the skills of deep and silent listening. Use your breath as an anchor to be consciously present. When the mind wanders, bring it back to your breathing. Listen with the ears of your caring, open and compassionate heart.

Active listening is one of the most effective ways to foster empathy and connection. Everybody wants and needs to be heard and understood. This exercise is meant to achieve this goal.

Follow the following steps:

• Select a quiet place to avoid distractions.
  
• Invite someone or be invited by someone to talk about a problem he or she may be facing.
• Ask: What is on her mind? Invite her to share with you what she is going through that is causing her emotional pain. Request her to be more specific so that you can understand her.
• Paraphrase what she told you. It sounds like-- -- -or what I am hearing from you-- -- - Make I statements.
• Ask questions to elaborate her thoughts and feelings. Be fully present to what she is saying. Demonstrate your genuine interest.
• Be empathetic to understand her perspective, her thoughts and feelings.
• Acknowledge and accept.
• Do not move quickly. Have patience.
• Remain open and relaxed.
• Avoid making judgments.
• Engage with your body language.
• Hold back your advice.
• Ask if it is OK to offer your perspective.
• Four Horsemen that disrupt relationship: 1. Contempt 2. Criticism 3.Stone walling 4. Defensiveness
• Fostering relationship: 1. Humor, teasing and playfulness 2. Appreciation and gratitude. 3. Forgiving, letting go of grudges and negative feelings 4. Acknowledging, empathizing and accepting

We all experience a wide range of emotions, positive and negative. Our emotions have an impact on us and others associated and connected with us. It is wide to learn how to regulate negative emotions for personal and interpersonal health and happiness.

Emotional regulation is the ability to identify, manage and respond to intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional experience in a growth promoting way. It is an intra-being and inter-being work. It is from inside out and from outside in kind of work. The intention is to turn the negative energy into positive energy.

Cultivating Emotional Regulation Skills

• Non-judgmental emotional awareness. Identify which specific emotions you are experiencing. Label such emotions.
• Identify which specific emotions the other person is experiencing.
• Do mindfulness processing of your own emotions. Recognize, pause, breathe, empathically understand, inquire, and respond wisely. Learn how to respond, not to react.
• Learn and use active listening skills. Ask her what is on her mind? Invite her to share with you what is happening that is causing her emotional distress. Have and demonstrate cognitive and affective empathy. Let the other person feel that she is heard and understood. Demonstrate your genuine interest. Hold back your advice until asked for. Be fully attentive and present. Be mindful of your body language. Do not move quickly and impatiently. Ask questions to elaborate her thoughts and feelings. Avoid making judgments. Remain open and relaxed.
• Ask her if it is OK to offer your perspective. Do not insist if she resists or shows reluctance. Use it for further empathic exploration. You are inviting and not imposing.
• Learn how to soothe and relax yourself when you feel distress and help the other to relax and soothe herself when she feels distress
• You may start with a short mindfulness meditation and conclude with it.

“Reactivity is enslavement. Responsibility is freedom….Taking responsibility is not accepting blame…It simply means consciously responding to the situation. Once you accept the responsibility, you will invariably start exploring ways to address the situation. You will look for solutions… your ability to craft your life situations will keep enhancing itself.

If you look at your life closely, you will find that you have done the most idiotic and life-negative things when you were angry…it is singularly unpleasant-for you and for those at the receiving end. It is also counterproductive and therefore inefficient.

Stress is entirely self-created and self-inflicted. Once you take charge of your inner life, there is no such thing as stress. You only mess up your situations by getting angry. Once you see that clearly, you’ve taken the first step toward change… in a state of anger, you are literally poisoning your system. When you are angry, your chemistry is altered, and your system turns toxic. The choice is always before you: to respond consciously to the present; or to react compulsively to it…. Responsibility is born in awareness, in consciousness. Reactivity is born in unawareness, unconsciousness. The first is freedom, the second is enslavement…Being responsible is taking ownership of your life.

Responsibility is not reaction but is not action either. Responsibility and action belong to different dimensions. The ability to respond gives you the freedom to act. It also gives you the freedom not to act. It puts you in the driver’s seat of your life… Responsibility is not compulsive action. It offers you the choice of action. Action has to be judiciously performed. 

If responsibility is “response-ability,” the capacity to be responsive to situations can be limitless.

Quotations for Reflections selected by Dr. J P Dave

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our own response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.- Viktor F. Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Himself

This idea that we can learn underneath our emotions, if we feel a sense of guilt, if we feel a sense of anger, there’s often something that is instructive to us. Now, the very clear distinction here is that our emotions are data, not direction. We can always learn from them, but we don’t need to obey them or dominated by them.-Susan David, author of Emotional Agility

Exercise: Take your time to settle down and let the strong emotion or feeling you have experienced recently or you are experiencing now show up in your mind. Be centered and consider the emotions to be data rather than directions. What do they tell you about yourself? What is the impact of the other person’s behavior on you? How do you choose to respond and not to react? Be the change you want to see in the other person.

Recall an event where you were derailed by your negative or destructive emotion. Set your intention and apply mindfulness to respond rather than react. Discern the signposts, the core values that you care about in your relationship with the other person. What is the other person telling you, is implying what he values and needs by expressing his anger? What he really wants you to hear? How will you help him to listen to his own underneath want or value?

Be mindful of minimizing or pushing or rationalizing your thoughts and emotions away. Let us not second guess when things go wrong. Let us not put it aside or forget about it or ignore it and wish or hope things will be all right. Let the thoughts and emotions show up. How do we relate to the content, how do we deal with which is critical. Do we allow ourselves to get stuck with them or be bound by them? If we do not relate to them mindfully, it will perpetuate the harmful cycle. The opportunity to learn and grow from the experience will be lost.`````````````