Breath and forgiveness, two of the three most powerful blocks of a foundation for peaceful living. The first action you perform as you enter this world is inhaling and the last action you perform as you exit this world is exhaling. A simple action, yet so powerful and necessary for life. Your body naturally knows this and reacts to it immediately. It does not need to be taught how to respond to breath.
Take a couple of deep breaths and see how your body responds by relaxing. This is my “go to” for every challenge that presents itself to me. It helps me to pause, observe the situation and look at the options of how to respond. Sometimes not responding is my best option. Maybe a better perspective would be achieved later and sometimes later takes a long time. 😊 Taking those couple deep breaths and not immediately reacting takes practice. Just like starting a workout program or running, you have to start small and work your way up. Remembering to stop and breathe and not react, even if it happens only once a week at first, is still starting.
My day begins by being aware and focusing on taking deep breaths before getting out of bed. Throughout the day I go back to breath focus for my “break time”. It’s not a strict schedule, just when I become aware that I am holding my breath, which usually coincides with clenching my teeth or making a fist. I can be totally unaware that I am doing these things! Thankfully, I have committed to checking in with myself that it has become a habit and my body says, “Hey, it’s time to check in!” With commitment and practice it is now a solid block in my foundation of life.
Forgiveness. Immediately we think of forgiving someone else, but I am talking about forgiving the hardest person to forgive…yourself! To this day, those words cannot come across my lips without tears welling up in my eyes. I work on this every day. Some days feel like I am getting closer to complete forgiveness and others feel like I just started working on it, but I won’t quit trying because I am worth it. And so are you. We keep our shame hidden; locked away for so many reasons. Pulling those memories out is too painful or embarrassing. Looking in the mirror is the greatest thing you can do for you, but it can also be the hardest. I have had many of pep talks in the bathroom mirror. Some days I look myself square in the eye and others I struggle making any contact at all… but eventually the eyes meet and that is when the forgiveness starts. Acceptance. And then I breathe. There is no road map to forgiving yourself. No step -by- step process. It is your work to do and you create your own path. Everything in this life I view as a lesson and an experience. It helps me to move forward. I started this article with saying breath and forgiveness are two of the three most powerful blocks for a strong foundation for life. That third block, love, completes the trinity, but you already have that one. You were never separated from it… because all you are IS love.