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It’s wild to think that we might live 100+ years—and even with all that time, many of us still never fully conquer certain aspects of the mind. Why? The answer is complex, but I’ll sum it up like this: the mind is naturally chaotic. It gets scrambled, loses focus, worries, overthinks, feels anxious. That’s its nature.
The causes? A mix of things—our chemistry, our upbringing, our environment, how we breathe, how we eat… all of it plays a role. But here’s the good news: there is a simple way to experience more peace without doing any heavy lifting. In fact, it’s the opposite of heavy lifting. It’s teaching yourself how to relax.
How ironic that the hardest work of all… is doing nothing. Now, my dear reader, I have a small favor to ask: If you’ve enjoyed goodsugar, please take a moment to leave us a glowing review on Yelp and Google. It helps us grow the right way—by word of mouth—so we can spend our resources improving our product and opening more stores, instead of wasting money on marketing fluff. In exchange, I’ve created this page—packed with something real for you to think about. A fair trade, I hope you’ll agree.
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In the early stages of practice, it’s totally normal to feel skeptical. We’ve talked about that already—skepticism is part of the path. Don’t resist it. Write about it. Sit with it. Meditate anyway. It’s a doorway, not a wall. Eventually, something shifts. The breath gets a little deeper.
The focus holds just a second longer. You feel a flicker of peace—maybe even joy. You come back to the practice not out of obligation, but because it starts to feel good. That’s another stage. Then comes the next obvious one: distraction. We breathe, we focus, and—just like that—we drift. But here’s the thing: you notice.
You caught yourself drifting. That moment of awareness? That’s the breakthrough. That’s what we celebrate. Now we’re in new territory. You might start using a mantra like, “I drift, and I return.” You repeat it gently. Over and over. It works. Slowly, you learn to guide yourself back—not with force, but with kindness.
You find that quiet point in the mind again, and maybe—just maybe—you go a little deeper. For some, the next phase brings tears. Not from sadness, but from release. From a long-awaited exhale of something you didn’t even know you were holding. For others, it might be a subtle sensation—a warmth behind the eyes, a light at the center of the forehead, a strange sense of being home. What comes after that? Infinite possibilities.
Even with our finite minds, we begin to taste the infinite. We learn to redirect our thoughts, steer the ship, breathe our way into whatever state we’re ready for. That’s the gift of consciousness: we each see through our own lens.
Some of us will glimpse things others don’t. Some of us will start with the same images, the same teachings. But eventually, we drift into our own visions—guided by the breath, by sound, by the sacred words we chant or whisper, by the principle of non-harming. Maybe the breath carries us into something collective—something ancient.
Maybe our practice becomes an invocation that reaches all the way back to the beginning of time, calling forward our ancestors and their wisdom. That, too, is possible. And when we reach that stage—really reach it—we’ll need fewer words. Fewer books. Less guidance. Just the practice.
Just the devotion. After all the years of prayer, meditation, karma work, apologies, humor, service, accountability, and mind-training—we arrive. And when we do, we don’t need to define the breakthrough. It’s enough to feel it. We’ve earned it. The funny thing is, for all the deep talks and heavy books, real help starts with the simplest move: noticing your mind is spinning—and breathing.
Not in a mystical way. Just in a your-body-is-freaking-out kind of way. We forget the body talks. Through breath, tension, chemistry shifts. And breathing properly isn't some bonus feature of yoga class—it’s the manual we forgot came with us. Quick tip: on hot days, breathe deeper. Heat screws with your system. You breathe shallow, your chemistry shifts, your diaphragm tightens, and suddenly you’re anxious for no obvious reason.
You're not broken—you’re just overheated, thirsty, tired, and now your brain is making up drama. It goes like this: Hot → Tired → Thirsty → Irritated → Boom, “everything sucks.” And we don’t even realize we’re holding our breath half the day like we’re bracing for impact. That tension? It feeds the loop. Crappy thoughts, low moods, impulsive cravings. You know the drill. Here’s the deal: you don’t get to skip ahead to the “deep” stuff if you’re not breathing right.
You can resist that. Most people do. Until they hit 64 or 84 and finally admit, “Damn… that guy was right.” So breathe. Through your nose. Deeply. Yeah, it sounds cliché. But so does “drink water,” and we mess that up too.