Non-violent communication and preserving your boundaries

I am writing this with my feet on the grass, with morning bird song all around me, looking out over grassy fields in Glastonbury. I am at the edge of Wearyall Hill, a sacred site (Glastonbury is full of them!) I have been here supporting a week-long intensive breathwork training event, which has been utterly stunning! I’ll share more in next week’s Friday Feels…

Here are five snippets of my world from coaching, meditation and breathwork in honour of Friday Feels.

1. Song of the week

An Ending (Ascent) by Brian Eno (Spotify or YouTube)

I included this in the Breath of Gold breathwork session I held this week. The theme was “Intuition – Activate Your Inner Wisdom With Breathwork”. I love how music can evoke feelings within us, helping us tune into our bodies. When listening to this song, I feel my heart opening up to the glory that is the present moment.

2. Quote of the week

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.” – Albert Einstein (see my post on Instagram)

Do you follow your intuition? What even *is*intuition?? Genuine question. It’s a curious quality. Where does it come from in the mind-body system? It turns out you can “think” with your heart. Your heart has neurons, just like your brain does! This “heart brain” is composed of approximately 40,000 neurons that are alike neurons in the brain. This means that the heart has its own nervous system. The heart sends more signals to the brain than vice versa…. so your heart is giving you a lot of information! Your gut also has neurons, and is known as the second brain. So we really can “think” with our body. Perhaps this goes some way to explain the science behind our intuition. As Einstein says, perhaps we can follow feeling over knowing.

3. Practice of the week

Cadence Breathing! This is where you breathe in for a count of 5 seconds and breathe out for 5 seconds. Cadence breathing can increase oxygen uptake in the body by up to 20 times, and it can also create coherence with the brain and heart. The slower, rhythmic breathing is an optimal breathing technique that also switches on the body’s parasympathetic nervous system – your rest and digest state – so it’s a great one for easing anxiety or if you’re feeling a bit overstimulated. Try this two-minute exercise and if 5 seconds for the inhale and 5 seconds on the exhale leaves you a bit air hungry (feeling the desire to breathe much sooner), then try 3 seconds in and 3 seconds out to start with, and you can gradually increase it from there. This is a great way to build your lung capacity over time and increase your CO2 tolerance. Regular breathing exercises also help you listen to the body more. We can’t listen to the body if we are depleted and overwhelmed, so keep taking care of yourself as best you can.

4. Article of the week

How often has someone been offended or triggered by something you said but they misunderstood you? Or perhaps you feel you can’t articulate yourself well? Often there’s a lot of misunderstanding, confusion, projection and reactivity with day-to-day communication. This means that a lot of challenges and issues arise and persist where they don’t really need to, whether that’s at home or at work. I use this Non-Violent Communication (NVC) technique pretty much every day! Check out these other awesome resources talking about how it’s used across the world. This is a useful tool to practice expressing your observations of a situation, but separating out your emotions and needs. This avoids everything blending into a big heap of meanings and feelings that can create confusion. It is a powerful solution to any awkward conversation too, and is used by international negotiators, politicians and business leaders across the word. Level up in communication, and watch the magic flow – words are spells, after all.

5. A client win I’m celebrating this week

In order to get any business flowing and earning a healthy income, having clear time and energy boundaries is really important. Do you have clear priorities every day? Or do you let your email inbox dictate where your time is spent? I helped a client get honest with herself about how much time she was giving away to other people. She had a few collaborations and different ways she was earning money. She really wanted to work full-time for herself, but felt anxious that making that leap would not make ends meet. She would swing between feeling confident about her own business, and then freaking out and looking for full-time work or throwing herself into collaborations, rather than nurturing her own business. She realised that a wounded part of her didn’t believe she could make it on her own, and so that’s why she would focus on other things. She’s now thriving, with total clarity on what was important to her, what her mindset is around money, and how to use boundaries to protect her time and headspace. Energy is the new currency, after all! So now her business and relationship can thrive. I’m so proud of her!

Work with me

Wellbeing for Businesses: As it’s World Mental Health Day on 10th October, I’m nearly fully booked for wellbeing events for businesses. I have a few spaces left for meditation + breathwork workshops, so get in touch to see if it’s the right fit for your team. I have a lot of experience running these sessions. Want to see me in action first? Yeah you do! Check out this talk for “Search London” on managing stress and focus at work from May 2021 here.

Mindset Coaching: I have 2x one-to-one coaching slots available at the moment – drop me an email if you’d like to find out more about working together.

________________

That’s it for Friday Feels! I wish you a glorious day!

Big love and a squishy hug,

Briony x