Template: Wonky Box Breathing
Try it yourself! And learn about weird British children's songs
Hi good people!
Firstly, apologies to those of you who tried to get a subscription for the discounted price before it goes up (originally planned for tomorrow, but I’m extending to give people the chance to upgrade) and thanks to those of you who brought to my attention that the discount wasn’t working.
Unbeknownst to me, Substack had decided I was not allowed to make it that cheap and so didn’t save my settings 🤷♀️. Apparently there is now a 5 EUR minimum price for substack subscriptions.
But I refuse to be outwitted and have got around that with a discount code!
https://smallandscrappy.substack.com/marchdiscount
If you use this link - you’ll get a 60% discount on the 5 EUR price - bringing you to the promised 2 EUR / month, which is the price you’ll keep forever. The link is valid until April 6th, then the price will rise to 5 EUR / month.
Thanks Substack. We learn something new every day…
OK… back to business!
When we last spoke, I was talking about “wonky box breathing” as a metaphor for sustainable business.
This is a practice of working out whether your energy is:
pushing something out into the world - e.g. business development
drawing something in - e.g. learning and consuming information or
holding still (e.g. delivering on existing commitments or reflecting on how things are going)
Part of me is kicking myself for not calling it the Hokey Cokey metaphor, which is a British children’s party song which I think is worth a brief detour…
The gist? In - out - in - out and shake it all about, repeated again and again and again.
That’s our rhythm.
You’ll never unhear that (sorry not sorry) - and I’m hoping it sets a helpful little earworm into play to help you remember to both breathe in and out.
I chose not to rename the model in the end because the song doesn’t include the helpful holds… and because box breathing is a lot more calming than this guy who is going to give all of us nightmares. I did however borrow the phrase “shake it all about” as an homage to this song in today’s template because it makes me chuckle!
Before we get to the goodies from today’s post (I made my first Canva template for y’all!), let’s just take a moment to reset and get into the calm headspace we’re striving for in our business:
One breath in.
Hold.
One longer breath out.
Hold.
Let’s go.
