The most revealing lesson for me in developing our moment practices came when I began to focus on my breathing. I had a lot to learn from this simple process. Breathing shows us how to experience our moments instead of just marking time. While breathing has been something I’ve done all my life, it wasn’t until trying to be present and be still that I attended to my breathing and learned this valuable lesson of the lungs.
Breathing has two simple steps: inhaling and exhaling, receiving and letting go. So basic, so natural, but you can still mess it up. Let me show you. Try this.
Inhale.
Without exhaling, suck in a little more air.
Now, still without exhaling, suck in some more.
Hold it.
Feel like your suffocating?
Notice, you have more air than you can possibly use, yet, you feel like your body is starting to ache from lack of oxygen. Hold the air inside until these words start to look blurry. If you pass out, fall down. When you regain consciousness, from this point forward, don’t do everything someone tells you to do, but do pay attention to your breathing.
Breathing is simple, inhale and exhale, receive and release. Life is also simple. It has the same process as breathing, receiving and letting go. As long as we relax, and unless there is an illness or injury to the lungs, breathing will take care of itself, taking in the exact amount the body needs, distributing it through the blood stream, and then releasing so that it can inhale again. Simple.
The part of the process the body does naturally that we seem to find difficult in other areas of life is the exhaling, the releasing, the letting go. We don’t like to let go. If we don’t release, we can’t receive. The body knows just how crucial letting go is, yet, we seldom notice.
