THE POWER OF BREATHING

“Take a deep breath”. Oh the cliché that we hear from others and from ourselves when facing difficult situations and emotions. The amazing thing is that it is a cliché because it works. It is not something that we do to placate and/or ignore to our emotions, but rather it is a vehicle of gaining awareness and insight into our inner world.

I was always an anxious and energetic person, to the point that my mother taught me how to do a body scan  as a young child to help me fall asleep. Later on, I came to realize what an incredible gift this was. When we breathe deeply and focus on our bodily sensations it activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is like hitting the breaks in a car. It slows everything down. Allowing us to rest, engage with life, and think a little bit more clearly.

There can also be a spiritual and/or metaphysical component to connecting with our breathing. I will always remember being introduced to this via a Rob Bell video (any other evangelically raised Millennials know what I’m talking about?) In the video he discusses that one of the Hebrew names of God is to be spoken by breathing. I remember trying this one day and feeling so connected to something greater than myself. Whether or not you consider yourself a religious or spiritual person, there is something so powerful in connecting with something bigger than you as you seek to ground and learn more about yourself.

So take a moment right now. Take a deep breath in and a slow breath out. Do it again. And again. Imagine the worry, fear, anger, sadness leaving your body with each breath. Decide on what you need to do next and set an intention, a way of being, with how you want to approach the next thing.

Maybe it gives you a moment of pause in a busy day. Maybe in changes the direction of the day.

If nothing else, you took a moment of yourself to simply breathe.