Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the August 2010 Breath and Breathing Report. 

First of all, I want to thank you all for subscribing to these newsletters. And I especially want to thank those of you who send such heartfelt words of love and appreciation. We all need to feel that we are contributing value to the lives of others, and making a positive difference in the world; and so it is wonderful to hear that it is happening!

I am writing to you from a beautiful beach house in Ventura California. The ocean feels like a trusted friend and loving companion. The waves wash onto the rocks continuously, day in and day out. And at high tide they crash over the rocks just a few meters from where I sit, sleep, breathe, and meditate. Sea gulls and surfers are doing their thing. And every day, the dolphins come to swim and play near the shoreline.

After almost 4 months of non-stop travel and teaching, followed by two very busy weeks on the East Coast, packing and unpacking boxes, hauling and moving furniture... I'm now enjoying a bit of quiet solitude. It's been almost a week, and finally everything in me and around me is slowing down. So much love and gratitude goes out to my friend Grace for giving me this time and place to just be!

Life has brought some very unexpected and challenging changes recently on the level of relationships. It has giving me a perfect opportunity to practice what I preach. (And as it turns out, I really needed the practice!) We just never know where life will take us or what it will bring. And when we insist that life be different than it is or when we demand that people be different than they are, the result is suffering. But as Byron Katie would say: "only a hundred percent of the time!"

It's so easy to fall into sadness, disappointment, and even anger when someone close to us is not truthful about the most important things in life. When what we are told is real turns out to be unreal, and the truth turns out to be false, it can shake our confidence and trust not only in the other, but also in ourselves and life. And yet, emotional or psychological distress is actually a great wake-up call. It's a gift!

Suffering of any kind is a very clear and unmistakable sign that we have abandoned love, that we have forgotten who we are, that we have betrayed our own soul. It means that we are not living our truth. It turns out that the only way to freedom is acceptance, and the willingness to go into through and out the other side of the pain. When we try to avoid and resist pain by trying to control or change another person, we miss the opportunity that life is giving us to heal and grow. 

Choosing to generate and flow unconditional love when we are experiencing emotional or psychological pain is very difficult to say the least. But in fact, it is the only permanent way to end suffering. The ability to let go and to accept life and others as they are, instead of trying to control and change them is the key. But you may have noticed that when we are suffering, we are often very far from being willing or able to do that.

Thanks to the recent trauma and drama, I have healed some very deep--and until recently--hidden layers of dependency and attachment, fear and anger, loss and betrayal, doubt and confusion. And because of all this purging, I am feeling new levels of love, joy, and peace, and especially gratefulness. 

It's like a bubble rising up from the bottom of the ocean... it grows bigger, expanding as it nears the surface. I felt a tiny seed of gratitude emerge from within or below all the pain and suffering, and I can feel it rising up in me, expanding as it does. As this growing sense of gratitude comes to the surface, it is large enough to encompass everything and everyone that I have been judging and blaming, and large enough to forgive myself and those closest to me. Loving forgiveness brings such freedom and lightness! 

I am so grateful! The light that I saw at the end of the tunnel--the spark I saw in the dark moments just before dawn--turns out to be a new level of love and understanding, of kindness and compassion toward myself and toward others.

I have been trying to put into words the main learning from all this, and this is the closest that I can come: when we look outside ourselves for truth, believing the words of others instead of our own inner voice, we loose touch with our intuition. When we have a feeling that something is so, we need those we love and trust to be honest with us, in order to confirm and validate our sense of reality.  

It creates such chaos in our system when we deny our intuition, ignore our gut feelings, and doubt our own inner wisdom and knowing. We always know when we are being honest with ourselves and each other. In all those times when I was dishonest, it was because I felt shame or guilt, or I was trying to avoid punishment. 

But the most common excuse I used for lying, hiding or denying my truth, was that I did not want to hurt someone else's feelings. This is such a mistake, and a lie in and of itself! Looking back now, I can't say that I'm sorry. I don't feel a need to apologize for the past. I can only say that now I am conscious and awake, and so it simply cannot happen again. 

The truth really does set us free. But be warned: it often hurts our feelings first! That's the way it is, and you just got to love it! The experience of the past few months has taught me that honesty is absolutely vital on the path of awakening. If our goal is self-realization, we need to be with people who are honest with themselves and with us. And if your partner in life is such a person, consider yourself blessed!

And so that is the great lesson I take from all of this: re-committing to being that kind of person. My decision is to be impeccably honest with all my words and actions, to be ruthlessly truthful with myself and others, and straightforward in all my relationships. I trust that my love will soften but not screen my expression of truth.

So, there you have it, my "state of the soul" address! For the breath and breathing portion of this report, I invite you to visit the brand new Breath Mastery Channel on You Tube. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Breathmastery.

Look for the clips recorded in Vilnius in May. Andrius did such a magnificent job of filming and editing our interview. There are 4 parts to the series. Each one is 6 to 10 minutes long. You are in for a real treat. They are packed with information and insights. We've manage to begin to put 30 years of study and practice into clear short messages. The speaker turns out to be much better than I thought, and getting better all the time!

Today, I am on my way to Las Vegas for a weekend of fun. A small group of us are going to the Rush concert. Next week, I'm headed to Cancun to focus on the trading program with my dear friend and business partner Alex. 

I went live with the trading three weeks ago, after three months of intense study and practice, back-testing and simulation trading. I've been focusing a divergence trade in the ES Market (S&P mini futures). And to date, I have logged 28 trades: with 23 winners and 5 "give-backs" (We don't call them losses). 

Trading is such a powerful method of spiritual purification, psychological and emotional clearing, with the bonus of tremendous financial rewards. It reminds me of fire-walking. (Many of you may know that I led fire-walking seminars for 20 years.) When you walk on fire, the reality is you either get burned or you don't. There's no denying, hiding, pretending, philosophizing or rationalizing. It teaches us to take 100% responsibility for our results in life; and it offers us an opportunity to discover, explore and develop our natural abilities and amazing potential.  

Trading is like that: you get immediate feedback for every decision you make and every action you take. The results are obvious and unarguable. Trading requires us to be very Zen-like, to be very present and focused. We don't trade what we think, hope, believe, project, predict, imagine, or remember: we trade what we see. We align our will to market will. We test and prove our system, and then follow our rules of engagement to the letter. We also apply strict money management, risk control, and tax optimization policies. We're making history with the CAT Protocol. And I am loving it!

I'll be in Cancun from August 20 to September 10, and will be available for individual training and private coaching there. Then the plan is to head back to the Baja, where Andrew Jones and I will present a special weeklong program called "Water and Air." Details of the event are on the website schedule page. I'll be on the East Coast (Boston/Providence/New York) from September 28 to October 5.

On October 6, I leave for South Africa. I'll be there till November 3. Tamara Penn from Toronto will be joining me on the trip. (Visit: www.tamarapenn.com to learn about this seasoned Breathworker, and delightful being!) You are also invited to take part in this extraordinary adventure!

We start the tour with a presentation at the "Celebrate Life Festival" in Cape Town, followed by several week-long breathwork training intensives for personal development and professional certification. We will enjoy the majestic beaches of Cape Town, and we'll go on a safari near Johannesburg. We'll also visit Durban, and some other places.

More news...

We are creating a unique and powerful Month-Long Online Breathwork Course. We plan to launch it in December. It will consist of 21 daily lessons, with practice exercises, peer support and daily feedback. And it will include 4 weekly Q & A web conferences. 

After completing this Level 1 Program participants will be ready to take part in a week-long Breathwork Practicum. These 5-7 day Breathwork Training Intensives are being scheduled in cities and countries around the world throughout 2011. Let me know if you would like to take part in creating the program, or in forming the international schools, national associations, or regional and local breathing support groups.

Love and blessings to you all,

In the Joyous Spirit of the Breath,

Dan