Hello LinkedIn friends,

May is “mental health awareness” month.

While awareness is a starting point, it’s only the beginning…

For many people, it’s the beginning to the end.

Because awareness without tools and practices to manage mental health can be paralyzing.

So many people come to me and say…

“Kindra, I am so aware of myself.”

“I don’t know where to go from here.”

“I feel stuck in a loop of being aware, however, I’m not making any changes.”

Can you relate?

So where does one go from awareness?

In this newsletter, I walk through six essential steps to moving beyond awareness into expansion.

This is a process I run clients through in my three-month breathwork program, Higher Breath that helps them get out of their heads into their bodies and make sustainable changes that last.

Step Two: Acceptance/Allowance

Accept that mental health exists.

– In our workplaces.

– In our relationships.

– In our culture.

And it’s okay.

It’s okay to be struggling with your mental health…

Why is that?

Well, first, and foremost, you are human.

Secondly, most of the time, your mind sucks.

– It lives in survival.

– It lives in separation.

– It lives in lack.

It was never meant to be in control.

But yet, for many of you, it is.

Can you accept that?

When we accept ourselves, we become a whole person.

Often, many of us are suffering from a lack of acceptance, whether it’s thoughts, emotions, sensations or experiences past or present.

Step Three: Release/Letting go

So much of our resistance in our minds is caused by holding on.

For many of us, it’s holding onto the past, or maybe an identity.

It’s the expectation of an outcome at times.

It is said, that insistence creates resistance.

Comes in the form of…

• Trying to control every little detail
• Tightening our grip on life when things don’t seem to be going our way.
• Expecting others to be a certain way to make us happy.
• Suppressing emotions and not letting energy flow into our bodies

And it keeps us stuck.

In somatic healing, it is known that the body releases energy in many ways, including yawning, crying, shaking, sweating, shivering, and belching.

When was the last time you allowed yourself to cry?

When we were kids it was so easy to cry and express emotions, however, as we become adults we learn it is unsafe to be vulnerable.

Releasing can feel uncomfortable for many people because it genuinely confronts us with what we are ready to let go of, and for some, that can be a moment of grief, sadness, shame, or anger.

It all gets to be here.

• Releasing our expectations of ourselves being something we’re not.
• Releasing our fears and worries.
• Releasing our guilt from saying no and slowing down.
• Releasing our need to control every outcome.
• Releasing our emotions.

When we release, a beautiful space is created for us to awaken which leads us to the next step…

Step Four: Awakening

Take a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth with a big audible sigh.

One of my favourite steps in this process is awakening to more of WHO we ARE.

At a soul level, which I call Higher Energy we contain it all, unlimited potential.

When we accept and let go, we create spaciousness in our bodies and thus our minds.

We feel a greater sense of calm, it’s like we can finally breathe again.

We realize we are so much greater than our minds, and though, the mind can be powerful for learning new information, memory and making decisions in a survival situation it was never meant to be in control.

So what is meant to be calling the shots?

Your intelligence.

Which is connected to the heart, which many of us relate to as intuition.

Intuition is a phenomenon that science has only scratched the surface of proving as it goes beyond our thinking minds and accesses the intelligence of the heart.

Your heart contains billions of neurons that communicate with the brain four times as much as the brain communicates.

A study by The Heart Math Institute found that the heart responds to future events with impulses seconds before the mind perceives the event through the eyes.

That’s why at some point in your life you knew something was going to happen before it happened.

It wasn’t some off-moment, it was your intelligence.

Sadly, many of us have lost touch with our intelligence and intuition due to stress and anxiety.

When we’re highly stressed, we seemingly disconnect from our intuition and go into survival mode.

This is why breathwork is powerful as it helps us reconnect and respond in a way that helps us navigate life intelligently.

Not to mention, our intuition is connected to imagination, creativity and innovation.

Step 5: Embodiment/Alignment

Now it’s time to embody and align to our intelligence and this leads us to the second last step.

This step is the deal-breaker.

It’s the conscious and deliberate choice to embody the thoughts, emotions, and behaviours with our breath with our highest vision.

This is where SO many people fail.

It requires focus and presence.

It requires a regulated nervous system.

Because when we’re on the edge of an expansion perhaps we’re working towards a big goal.

Our nervous system often perceives that as unfamiliar and unsafe.

And our bodies will fight back even if we have the best intentions.

That is it’s challenging to implement a new workout routine, ask for more money or close a bigger deal especially if you’ve never done it before.

So embodiment is KEY to making a lasting and sustainable transformation in the direction of your preferred state of being.

And it requires all body parts on deck.

How do we embody more of what we are and move closer to our highest vision?

It all starts with our breath.

When we breathe, we get into conscious control of our automatic function that is tied to helping us regulate stress and anxiety naturally thus accessing our higher self aka Higher Energy.

It’s so much easier when we’re not stressed to move closer to the thing we desire and become them.

This is where having a coach can be supportive and frankly, life-changing.

Step 6: Expansion

Welcome to the final step of the process, how are you feeling?

A little bit more resourced to tackle your mental health challenges?

That’s right, I got you.

Lemme share a secret with you.

Expansion happens all the time on our planet.

• We see it in nature.
• We see it in generations.
• We see it in society.

The question becomes, can you allow the expansion process to be joyful and easy or will you contract in the face of it?

This is the million-dollar question.

Because a lot of us get to this point where we’ve done the work…

We’re right on the edge of a tipping point.

We’re about to accept, release, awaken and embody a new reality and then boom fear steps in and we turn back.

Because when we’re on the edge of an expansion our fears become the loudest.

We say “It’s too good to be true.”

We forget about our big dreams.

We go back to what was comfortable and we condition ourselves especially as we get older that it’s just how life works.

But it’s not the only truth.

There’s so much more, I promise.

This is the journey we must take to expand into our highest potential.

The way we expand is through our breath.

Expanding the capacity of our nervous system, allows us to welcome and receive more.

Now is your time to move beyond awareness into inspired action towards your highest vision.

I hope you found this post helpful.

Here’s how I can help you.

• Book a 1:1 human connection call (we can map out what is working vs what is not)
• Apply for my three-month program here
• Schedule a 60-min coaching/breathwork session
• Download our free guided breathwork track

Keep breathing,

Kindra Fox