Learning to Breathe

From the moment we’re born we are learning to breathe. One big gulp of air into those new lungs and then it begins. We are air breathers until that last breath. But just as we need air to breathe in our lungs, we also need air to breathe in our souls. Too many of us have let the air out. As children we had no worries, no responsibilities, to agenda, we just existed in the moment. And the world was a fascinating place. Our little big brains just soaking it all up, not yet programmed to the “adult” ways of the world. As children we really live in the spirit of just being. So, we take that first breath naturally because nature does what nature does. We breathe, we watch, we learn and for a short time life is simple and yet full of awe and wonder. We learn to move, to roll over, to crawl, to walk, to eat, to speak but we never had to learn how to breathe. We do it automatically. As we get older, depending on where we live, what religion, what monetary means supports the situation, dictates to a large extent how we become. We change. We’re still breathing, but our minds change. Many of us lose sight of what was simple and we make life very complicated. We’re supposed work, supposed to pay bills, supposed to get married, supposed to have more children; we all know the cycle. That’s what we are brought up, grown up into; a belief pattern and system that in my opinion steals the breath right out of our soul. Oh, we still breathe but we forget WHY we are breathing.

Every person has a self-will, a conscience. Some are more apt to use it than others. Most quickly meld right into the melting pot of existence. Round and round the wheel we go, where it stops nobody knows. I do. Death and regret. Sounds a tad bit negative you say. I say, it sounds like the unfortunate truth. Honestly ask yourself, how many people do you see living in their passions? How many people are living life on their terms, not societies? How many people are breathing in the toxins of everyday life? The depression, the overwork, the sickness and decay of living a walking dead life. The drudgery of walking in the exact footstep that one just made and doing it over and over and over again. For what? A half million-dollar home, a Mercedes, 2.5 kids, a dog and a cat with a white picket fence. Sounds like the American dream. But to some, to me, it sounds like a nightmare. It’s sooooo easy to get caught up in the race. To get gobbled up in the process of living as we are trained and programmed to be and do, that, we forget what it means to truly live, to truly breathe. People take cruises, vacations and get away from life as they know it. They take a break, a time out to refresh themselves. Why? Because, quote, “normal” life really isn’t normal. It’s a lie and it’s holding people in bondage. Those people that take cruises, go on a camping trip, hike to a back country lake, take vacations to the ocean, scuba dive, sky dive – breathe, just for a moment. That is what breathing in the soul looks like. But sadly, we all give it all away and go back to the same thing that is making us sick in our bodies and souls.

Breathe. Do it again. Inhale, exhale. Focus. Breathe again. Shake it out. What is it that you truly want? Where do you want to be, what do you want to do that makes your soul smile, that enlightens you from the burdens of the world and its drudgery, so that you may soar to the highest peaks, swim in the bluest ocean, eat from every continent. It’s not just a job that creates that. It may pay for things but unless one lives it then we go right back to existing on the same old treadmill. Now I’m not saying that a person’s job can’t be their passion. Maybe someone is passionate about writing, and they work for a newspaper or magazine or they write books. What I’m saying is, don’t be a construction worker if your passion is to be in theater. Don’t be a factory worker because you don’t have a degree and the insurance is so good and yet you want to fly airplanes. Live your dreams, live your passions. Make your passions exist within your work, and your work be your passion. Breathe life into yourself and into others. Find balance, not chaos. Find exuberance, find excitement, find your breath. You can do it, I believe in you. Learn to breathe again and again and again just like you do naturally. But this time it’s going to be like a child, with wide eyes and wonder. With no fear. Trust in the process of the breathing both for your body and for your soul. You can do it, I assure you. Breathe in, breathe out. Here we go.