Live in the moment. Be here now. Take a deep breath.
I will be the first to tell you that for much of my life, I have seriously called bullsh*t on ALL of that nonsense. Everyone makes “the now” seem way too simple/easy/effortless. And when I’m super emotionally charged and can’t seem to get a grip, the last thing I want to do is to take a friggin’ deep breath—I want to bask in this glorious meltdown! Obvi.
But after basking in my glorious meltdowns for a couple of decades, I began to peek outside of my own little homemade shit cave to see what else is out there. And guess what I found?
This moment.
I am a major future tripper. (The past? Meh.) Fear is my “worst best friend,” as my life coach says. The unknown often makes me want to crawl out of my skin. Yet I often spend my time obsessing over what hasn’t happened/might happen/might not happen. And while I am slowly but surely learning to embrace the unknown (embrace is likely an overstatement), I still struggle sometimes getting to that place of acceptance, faith and wide-eyed curiosity about what’s next. I can still be a little too uncomfortable in that “hallway." When one door closes, another door opens…but it’s hell in the hallway. So freaking true, and another rad nugget from the LC! (New acronym for life coach! Boom.)
So if I have no interest in worrying about the past, and the future often scares the crap out of me, I am pretty much left with one point in time. THE NOW. But how do I stay there? Or at least get back there when I get a little lost?
Now I don’t know about you, but my mind is like a toddler on crack…on a rollercoaster. Terrifying, right? I will literally think, Hmmm…grapes sound really good right now; I’m gonna go get some from the fridge. And then 60 seconds later I will be frantically worrying about my finances. Because after all, Grapes are so expensive these days. Geez, I really shouldn’t have bought those grapes. I should probably go check my bank account. OH MY GOD, I’M BROKE—WHY DID I BUY THOSE GRAPES?! I’m so f*cked. ***Googles “how to make money fast”***
I’m clearly exaggerating a little, but really, not alllll that much. So how do I stop that little mind toddler from taking crack and hopping on a rollercoaster? Breathe. Now before you get pissed off at me for offering the simplest, most boring solution ever, stay with me for a second.
In the recent retreat I attended, I had a sort of “ah-ha” moment about breath. I learned that in sacred languages/traditions, the word for “spirit” or “soul” is the same as “breath.” That alone was nothing short of fascinating to me. I spend so much time connecting with Spirit, but so little time—outside of my meditation and yoga practices—connecting with my breath.
One of the teachers explained breath as “uniting Spirit and matter,” that your breath communicates what you want from your soul. Mind. Blown. If this is the case, and if I want to live the most spiritual life possible, it is my responsibility to honor this gift of breath, and to make it a part of my daily practice—like all day. Now this is clearly a stretch goal, but ever since I got back from this retreat and started making a conscious effort to bring awareness to my breath as much as possible throughout my day, my life has already begun to transform in a really big way.
The best part about it is that there are really no rules. Just breathe! Play around with it—deeper, wider, longer—and see how you feel. The LC says your body believes your breath, and that really hit home with me. We actually did an experiment at the retreat that proved this to be true right before my very lungs. When I imagined being in a state of fear, loneliness, anxiety—literally just imagined feeling that way—my breath changed immediately and drastically. Short. Shallow. Non-existent. So if my body believes that, how is it going to best serve me? And vice versa?
If we practice mindful, conscious breath throughout the day every day, when these feelings and emotions arise we will have trained ourselves to come back to the breath, asking our soul for what we need.
Once I connect with my breath, I then start focusing on other sensations. I take another step out of my head and get into my physical body. Feeling my feet up to the top of my head. (If you know the chakra system, have at it!) Then I begin to explore my other senses and really bathe in the present moment. What do I hear, smell, taste, see? The deeper I go, the more alive I become. And fear of the future or the unknown—or the past, circumstances, pick your poison—gets further and further away. I immediately feel connected to something so much greater.
Now imagine if we could stay in this space for most of the day. Imagine what we would notice, who we would meet, how we would feel. Because after all, our life is just a series of present moments…so we may as well start living in them.
When we ask our soul for help, it answers. In. this. Moment.
So friends, do you have your own crackhead toddler trying to f*ck with you? (I mean the one in your head, of course.) If you can answer yes—and my guess is that there are very few who can say no—rather than brushing off “just breathe” as a useless, overused yoga expression like I did for so long, try it out. Like really try it out. Set some alarms and reminders on your phone if you have to—TO JUST BREATHE—and see what happens.
I dare ya.
