Yesterday there was a lot to express about breathing and being with the breath and allowing it through you to nourish you. About being with your senses and being with the sun.
Today as I sat and wrote in my morning pages, I realized I have not been breathing for a while.
Well I have been breathing, obviously, I am still writing this right now.
I have been struggling to take a deep breath, but I didn’t know it,
I did a yoga session (via Zoom) this past week and realized I had a really hard time with belly breath. I could not expand and and hold it and have it fill up in a connected way.
I even asked the instructor (who is also a friend of mine) what the deal could be. She suggested that with all that is going on right now that I am tighter and more constricted then I thought.
True.
And.
I was just sitting here, writing in my morning pages, listening to the birds and I was called to open up, stretch and take a deep breath and I did.
My whole body inhaled. Breahed filled my body, My chest rose, my belly expanded, my arm stretched to the sky, my legs expanded. It was like I was in free fall while I was sitting.
I wasn’t trying to control it.
The awareness came to me that for the last while, I have been taking belly breaths by sending air to my belly ONLY. That is impossible.
Breathing into my belly means going through my chest, down my arms and expanding my belly.
What I was doing was breathing like I was driving in an action movie, getting to the other side of a road by jumping over an empty chasm. By momentum and force.
When I let my body open to do its thing, I was filled with air, deep nourishing oxygen. It felt so good.
It is a reminder to not make things harder on myself. I have a message that I must suffer through for it to be worth it. I must EFFORT through it. There might be pain, yes, but there doesn’t have to be suffering.
There is enough breath for all of my body. It doesn’t have to bypass my chest to get to my belly.
Release into it. Release and be.
