As a yogi, there is nothing more soothing than the sound of my own breathe. I feel it stretch to my toes and open up the smallest of areas. My muscles, joints, tendons, even my cells.
As a human, I am always looking for what is next. Anticipating when the light will turn green so I can race to the next bullet on my check list. Once my alarm clock goes off in the morning it is off to the races. Same basic morning routine, different day. Coffee, make the bed, brush teeth, write, teach. Most of the time I am on auto-pilot until about 3-pm each day. It is completely normal and I know I am not the only one. However, I start to miss me. I am taking care of everyone else and I miss myself.
I closed my eyes for a split moment. Dead silent in my kitchen sitting at the end of the island. It was so silent. SO silent. Middle of the day, it was the first conscious breath I took. Feeling as if I hold my breath for about twenty-three out of the available twenty-four hours. I heard absolutely nothing as I felt my body rise and fall with my inhale and exhale. There was expansion in the front of my chest horizontally, freeing up tightness, unknown tension. I tried to open my eyes and I couldn’t. The backs of eyes were fixated on the darkness, the internal cleanse from my daily checklist. My shoulders naturally loosed from my ears, all four sides of throat were open. I could feel the grip released in my jaw, my cheek bones, up to my temples. My trachea was fully dilated, and I took, what felt like a five-minute inhale, and stretched it down to imaginary lungs in my toes. Spreading each toe away from its neighbor, exhaling as my ankles softened. My feet skimming the surface of my hardwood floors. I never wanted this moment to end. I started to isolate breathe into my hips feeling them widen and I started to cry. My eyes were still closed but the tears were pouring. I wasn’t sad, it was an emotional reaction as the felt freedom wash over my pelvic bone. A place were tension and stress are held. Isolating the breath into my core, abdominal wall, my ribs. Spreading out the fascia, sticky fibrous tissue built up from unaware emotion and self-disconnection. Lastly, I soft bowed my chin towards my chest and took the biggest breath into the back of my neck, send all my breath into one spot feeling for fullness and richness. I could see the synovial fluid slowly replenish the center of each inter-verbal disc of my cervical spine into my brain. Ballooning open this area I didn’t even know exists. I rode this one breath all the way to the top and held it a split moment letting the oxygen fill up every nook and cranny, then let it all out feeling my head sink a little lower fully relaxing into my chest. Slowly like I was swimming through Jell-O I rolled up through my upper spine feeling the detox of my brain and my skull bones as all the blood drained back down. It was intoxicating.
I am too busy for myself. I love when I hear “I don’t have enough time.” Lie. It’s wanting to make the time. It is making time that is an issue. Historically, I am internally driven to please everyone else and forget about me. Too willingly I set aside my feelings, emotions, desires so I can be there for others. When I took my first breath I started to isolate myself this time. I closed my eyes and everything magically disappeared. It was dark, feeling all four chamber of my heart pumping, and internal freedom and internal bliss. This took no more than two minutes to intimately connect to body parts that became cold and neglected. Thinking rather than feeling. It was me. It was a connection physically and mentally that was long past due. Isolating myself from anything else, people, computers, work, family, social media, etc., for a small moment opened a big space for more clarity, fluidity, freedom than I didn’t even know my body craved.
There is always time to take a moment to breathe. To visually connect and isolate where I send my energy. A balance, a consistent flow, an uninterrupted moment in silence. Car, shower, closet, to take a giant step back and reconnect with a body, a machine, that requires nourishment and attention to reset. To replenish. To free. I give myself the gift of momentary isolation. Away from the world to breath find the power of connection of breath to body part. It will be the most connected and open you will be all day.
And then back to fighting traffic and checking off the rest of your day 😛