Find your breath. Heal.
You are breathing, but chances are you don’t even notice it.
Maybe your breath is shallow, high in your chest, and short.
Maybe your breath is deeper, low in your tummy, and settled.
Maybe your breath is labored, loud, calling for something.
Maybe your breath is a sigh, a bit of a cry of exasperation.
Pause right now and find your breath.
Yes, there it is.
Sometimes I forget I’m breathing, and sometimes I find myself forgetting to breathe. You know those times when you are really concentrating on something, or you’re really worried about something, or you’re fixating, or obsessing, or not feeling well, or just walking along all up in your head as if your body is not even attached to those thoughts and it’s just being dragged along behind you?
Those are some of the times that we lose our breath.
I’m not talking about losing our breath in a good way. I mean, I’m like everyone else who loves a great “take my breath away” moment of awe. I don’t even mind a little startle or surprise that makes my breath suddenly catch. And I’m a big believer in standing on the edge of the top of a massive hillside, looking out over treetops and pulling in the biggest breath I can negotiate just to hold it inside of me for as long as I can.
Or squatting down to watch the teeniest inchworm make its way across a leaf.
I mean, if you’re not letting your breath be taken away in a moment like that, what are you doing with your life anyway?
Those are the very moments that our breath makes itself known to us whether we go looking for it or not.
You need me, don’t you? It seems to say.
But you forgot about me, didn’t you? It teases.
We humans forget so easily. At least those of us who are rushing around trying to stuff as many tasks and activities and to-do lists into our lives as we can.
Our breath gets us through those, it keeps moving in and out. In and out. In and out. In and out.
In. And. Out.
It’s very patient, our breath.
We wash our hair, shower our body, tend to cuts, rest a rolled ankle, feed our stomach, brush our teeth, clean out our ears, tweeze our eyebrows, moisturize our face, clip our nails, and the breath is there the whole time, keeping us filled with a life force energy that we cannot survive without.
Our breath, for many of us, is the hero waiting in the wings that we don’t even know is there.
It’s the friend we didn’t know we had.
It’s the lover who never leaves.
It’s the healer already within us.
All we have to do is call upon it.
That’s right, just call upon it: Hello, breath? Where are you right now? Can you come here please?
And there it is.
Sometimes I call upon my breath when I’m in my head too much and have forgotten to notice her. In those moments I inhale very, very slowly through my nose, imagining a beautiful golden light filling my body all the way down through my hips and legs and then I hold.
Try that now: A nice…slow…in…hale…down through your throat, to your tummy, through your hips, legs, and then making its way up to fill your chest and the back of your neck.
Then hold.
And then I blow out a small, steady, stream of breath through my lips, like I’m blowing bubbles through that small plastic bubble wand I used to love so much.
Try that now: shape your lips just-so, and push that beautiful golden light right out into the air around you.
There it is in all its glory, ready to pull in the golden-light-life-force-energy that will almost instantly make you feel better.
Sometimes I call upon my breath when I’m feeling sad, worried, or upset about something. Those feelings are usually more intense when I forget my breath, but when I find it they will start to soften.
When I need my emotions to release, to give me a bit of a rest from the intensity, I call upon my breath and bring it ever-so-gently into my tummy. It’s just a little sweet breath, barely making my tummy rise and then easing it down again. In these moments I don’t need a big, deep, whole-body-filling breath to help heal but instead a kind, easy, small-but-loving breath.
This compassionate breath knows exactly what I need, it knows that I need to be cared for, to be coddled a bit, to be forgiven, to be relieved.
Try that now: a sweet, little tiny breath in that fills your tummy with a beautiful pink or white light and gently releases again through your nose. In. Out…In. Out.
In.
Out.
One time I was hiking in the woods with my seven-year-old niece when a tree branch scratched her neck. She stopped and looked at me, not quite ready to cry but certainly startled and definitely feeling the ouch-y sensation of a scratch and irritation all around it.
Her breath went missing.
Put your fingers – very gently – where it hurts.
She she put her fingers there right away and I did it with her, putting my fingers on my throat too and we closed our eyes.
Now find your breath and bring it in very carefully, right to that spot.
Children are amazing, she did this so easily and naturally.
This time when you breathe in, imagine your breath filling that spot where it hurts with the most beautiful white and golden light.
We stood there together, gently breathing in. Gently breathing out. Asking our breath to fill the spot where the pain was with bright light.
After just a couple of minutes we smiled at eachother.
It worked! She beamed.
That’s your breath, I told her, it’s always there for you, and it works almost every single time. If you can find your breath, it will help you heal.
If you can find your breath, it will help you heal.