Author: Andrea Grassi

Go an extra mile to help the others when they are in need.

Be there and heal them as much as you can, support them because that’s what you’d like to have when things go wrong.

It’s amazing how well someone can react when you help them, when you truly care about them. and it’s in the hard times that this shows up.

Today there is a nice sun out there.

The autumn still hasn’t become cold and you can enjoy the sun and the calm that comes with it.

I feel this should not be taken for granted.

The most simple exercise in the world is breathing.

Lately I’m experimenting with a 4 step breathing in the morning.
Basically you breath in for a few sec (let’s say 8 seconds), then you hold your breath for 32 seconds (8×4) then you exhale for 16 seconds. Then you stay “empty” for 8 seconds.

This can be summarized with a 1-4-2-1 rotation of breathing exercise that will wake up your body and relax your mind when you do it. Do it for 10 times and you’ll be good to go.

If you avoid blocking the throat when you hold the breath then you’ll also improve your speaking because you’ll train the muscle of the body that controls the keeping of the breath.

For the same reason you’ll also improve singing.

Doing it constantly works just like magic because the relaxation benefit are so obvious.
It’s no wonder that one of the great master of Tai Chi told to Josh Waitzkin “We all breathe too less”.

Just like a small addendum to what I’ve wrote yesterday about practicing and getting better.

I’m trying to write down dreams these days, and the thing is:
The more I write them, the more every day I can recall them.

If I stop doing it I lose the ability to recall them.

Just like everything, practicing is key.

Recently a friend of my was very scared of a video she put on youtube.
It was her first video and she was very nervous about it.

In fact she was nervous even during the video, but if you don’t know you might not even notice.
Yes, she talked very fast so you could get that she was very excited and she also didn’t look at the camera so often.

It was far from perfect and she knew it.

This absence of perfection was terrifying because she thought everyone was there to crush her, destroy her video and so on.
But none of that happened and yet she still was terrified.

This reminded me of a post I’ve read and a lesson I’ve learned.

The post is “Less than perfect” by Nathan Kontny

The lesson is “If you were already good a it, you wouldn’t take lessons”.
This is the words used by my Improv teacher when I was talking about the fact that I wasn’t so good at it.

Mastery comes with practice and time. It’s ok for things to be far from perfect and completed yet this imperfection is required to achieve mastery otherwise we wouldn’t learn.

Hiding imperfection is like hiding vulnerabilities. It harms us because it tries to hide the parts of us that can grow instead of let them grow.