Sunday was a good day to breathe,
the step back, chill out, don’t do anything drastic and take a larger perspective kind of breaths.
Being honest though, breathing was not my first reaction after being shut down for the third time in as many days and feeling deflated.
Stewing followed by a bit of ranting was necessary to clear the air for breathing to happen.
But I did get there and started to see differently.
I first learned about the importance of breath from an optometrist.
Hard to imagine, yet true.
As part of using natural methods to reduce my eyeglasses prescription, one of the exercises was to relax and breath deeply.
With each deep breath, those blurring letters on the chart came more into focus.
While instinct would be to squint and close in, the exact opposite was needed.
(Try breathing instead of squinting the next time you’re trying to read a street sign.)
A few years later I happened to be describing how tired I get in the water.
Not from a rigorous swim mind you, just standing in the water is draining.
His response took me off guard – the reason I felt tired was I was breathing too shallow and needed to relax my body and breathe more deeply.
Can you believe the person I’m talking with is world renowned paleoartist (how cool is that!) and happened to be a breath coach in his “other life”.
There it is again – release the tension and breathe more deeply.
Makes sense really.
We’re a body of opposites all wrapped up into one.
Breathing can give us short spurt of energy and narrowed focus needed to protect ourselves.
Or breathing can open us up to the clarity we seek.
Our bodies – and minds – can be closed in or open.
We have the power to shift how we respond, even within the same situation, and change the direction of what happens.
Wednesdays are your personal invitation to look into the everyday, as well as the philosophical, in order to see where we’re already Living Bliss. As the Life we seek becomes part of our normal day-to-day, we can easily forget we’ve found ourselves as we work, live and play.
Blissed by cats, potatoes and clouds, Lorraine is a “curious left-brained creative big picture idea” type who never stops questioning or connecting the dots to make possibilities come true. She uses her knack for combining intuitive abilities and logic to help you hear the inner whispers “there’s something more” and re-ignite what Lights you up. Lorraine’s deepest wish is for you to be full of yourself in everything you do – a life truly lived in bliss. You can also join her weekly look into the everyday with Letters From Home.