exhale: a reflection

Enemy.

Tormentor.

Traitor.

These are all things my breath has been.

How can it take so long to get to know your own breath? It’s the first gift we’re given on this earth and the last to be taken from us. I’m mystified by the fact that I’ve spent 32 years on this planet and haven’t been given a user manual for the main thing responsible for keeping me here. The most intrinsic act of humanity.

My breath was never something I questioned. Most people don’t, really. The good thing about breathing is it just happens- no thought or action required. The part that I've come to realize over these past ten months is just how poorly I was doing at it. I was constantly fighting with my breath- why? And why did it take me so long to notice?

Ten months later, and I've spent countless hours learning about the breath, observing the breath, practicing the breath, and finally- getting to know the breath. And in doing so, getting to know a new part of myself.

I’ve always been a self-help junkie. Podcasts, books, different types of therapy, hell- I even did a yoga teacher training as a sort of personal retreat. But nothing, nothing, has caused the sort of shift as the breath has. Going into this training I remember hearing about how transformed we’d all be at the end, and thinking I couldn’t imagine changing or transforming any more than I already had. Proud to say how wrong I was on that one.

These days I’m happy to call my breath:

Companion.

Teacher.

Friend.

To lean into the knowledge it's given me. A better understanding of myself, and of the world around me. The beauty of the breath is that it's universal- it is a constant presence & guide, literal Source energy right at the tip of our nose. And that’s pretty damn magical.