Being Present & Finding Connection — Steps You Can Take to Make a Change

Focusing on the health and wellness of those in the beauty industry has always been paramount for Sam Villa. From engineering shears for ergonomic comfort to offering business tips for a successful career, as we head into a new era we’re here to refocus attention to your wellness.

Whether you’re a hairdresser, an esthetician, a nail tech or a barber — the beauty industry is a high energy, fast-paced environment that allows you to express your creativity. However, in addition to being a creative space, the job usually requires long hours and a focus on your clients over everything — sometimes at the cost of your own wellbeing. 

Entering a new era of self awareness and wellness, now is the perfect time to shift your focus to being present. And with a few easy breathwork exercises, Andrew Carruthers is teaching you exactly how to find a connection with yourself and find a work-life balance. 

Signs You Need to Find a Work-Life Balance

Working in a salon, spa or barbershop, almost every second of your day is about focusing on your client. Ensuring they have the cut, color, and style they most desire and finding new ways to bring joy to their faces. 

Most of us also build meaningful relationships while behind the chair, often learning about their wants, needs, worries, daily stressors, and even accomplishments. And while it is beautiful to be able to build connections with your clients, this can sometimes lead to placing less focus on yourself, which in turn leads you to feeling disconnected. In addition to this, you might find yourself skipping activities or rituals that once brought you happiness to appease others. 

Whether it’s the long hours or the fact that you prioritize others' needs above yours all day, this is your sign that you should shift focus to yourself to build a better work-life balance. 

How To Make a Change

If this sounds like you — the good thing to note say’s Andrew is that you’re not disconnected, you’re simply distracted. However, he says that with only a few moments a day you can turn this around and find a better balance. It’s all about breath work. 

Breathwork 101: How To Find Your Work-Life Balance

“I’m not going to tell you to meditate,” says Andrew. But, the “easiest, fastest, and most readily available resource for reconnecting to ourselves is through breathing,” he adds. 

Breathwork is a powerful tool that is at everyone’s disposal. From calming the central nervous system to finding focus, what breathwork does is calm your body to move it out of flight-or-fight mode a.k.a de-escalate and de-stress your body. 

Andrew’s Tips for Breathwork

• First, bring your awareness to your breath by counting how many seconds your inhale and exhale are. Don’t try to change anything right now, just count what your natural rhythm is. Do this for 5 or 6 breaths.
• Next, make your inhale and exhale equal to whatever was longer. So, if your inhale was 3 seconds and the exhale was 4, make both last 4 seconds.
• Then, if you are able, breathe in and out through the nose and make the breath as easy and gentle as possible while counting an even pace in and out. Continue for 5 or 6 more breaths like this.

Next, Bring Awareness to your Gut & Heart Health

Based on scientific research of the head brain, the heart and the gut, we’ve seen a similar amount of structures exist in all three, showing their link to the mind and the importance of their health and when it comes to overall wellness. 

Therefore, focusing on these areas of our body while following through with breathwork is essential for a total mind-body transformation.

Breathwork with a Heart or Gut Focus

• Start by taking 5 or 6 breaths as you did above. Take gentle easy breaths with an even count on the inhale and exhale.
• Bring your awareness to the space in your chest that you feel is your “heart center.” For the next few breaths, just keep your focus here and notice any physical sensation that exists.
• Because the heart intelligence is around connection, compassion, love, empathy, and values (to name a few) see if you can generate that feeling in the heart space over the next few breaths.
• Be aware of anything that comes forward as you move through this without needing to make any sense of it. Sometimes people get words, phrases, emotions, or even colors and patterns as they focus on the heart brain.
• Next, bring awareness deep into your belly and do the same thing. Continue your breathing with an even pace in and out while simply taking notice of the physical sensations in this area.
• Gut intelligence is all about safety, sense of truth, sense of self, and motivation. Can you connect to your recognition of truth, authenticity, or motivation here?
• The gut can be quite subtle at first so if this one isn’t as easy to connect to, but with time and practice, you’ll find a connection
• Again, just notice anything that happens as you allow your awareness and curiosity to be directed towards the gut brain.

This is such a great start to breathwork and is a quick and simple intro into the practice that you can engage in almost anywhere. 

Be sure to follow along here and on social media @SamVillaHair for even more tips.