Digging deeper than you ever thought you could when you need to learn to breathe again…
That moment when life as you know it stops. Time stands still with the loudest quietness you’ve ever known. You have a deep knowing, life will never be the same. Life as you breathe is forever changed.
Quiet nights that never seem to end. On those longest nights, you find it hard to breathe. Breath suddenly becomes your only goal to make it through the endless hours. The profound quiet makes you question everything you’ve ever known.
Endless nights that turn into vacant days- going through the motions because somehow you are still supposed to live and function like you did before. Before life changed you in a way you didn’t want, a way you didn’t ask for before life made you breathless. How does the world keep going on as if nothing has changed- but everything has changed for you?
When your soul aches with a loneliness and grief so palpable you can feel it taking over. You barter and plead with the universe for nothing more than yesterday, one more call, one more moment…could it have changed everything? Or would it have ended up the same?
Life is cruel that way- you will never get to know. Questions remain unanswered and the mind makes up stories to compensate for the missing pieces. Questions that haunt you to never be revealed.
When breath becomes hard to find you become desperate. Desperate for your old life, desperate for a reprieve, desperate to change what cannot be undone. Wishing for life to stop- but discovering it won’t slow down even for a day. Rather, life asks more from you than you ever thought you would be able to give.
Breath becomes everything. Long relenting nights force you to hold yourself, both physically and mentally. It teaches you that people are not yours to hold forever, but only for a time. Life teaches you that even the deepest of love will end when you are not ready. Journeys cut short, suddenly spotlight your own new path, full of detours you did not plan and may not want.
When breath becomes labored and your heart is filled with an ache you didn’t know possible. Not knowing what to do, how to go on alone, can leave you not even being able to manage the simplest of things. Dropping into your body at those times and learning to listen with full intention to what your heart needs next- will carry you through those most difficult of times.
Learn to hold your own heart, breathe deeply into your belly, while you let endless tears flow into rivers some nights sometimes is all you can do to make it through the quiet hours. Waking up to puffy eyes and looking into the mirror at a person you no longer recognize because the eyes no longer sparkle back at you- remind you you aren’t the same now. Life is not the same now.
While life is relentless at taking- it also reminds you that life gives back in new ways. Getting into your body and back to the simpleness of feeling and being present with your senses can calm your body, when nothing else does.
Waking slowly to the bird song outside your window. Getting into water- water reminds us to feel our bodies, it cleanses and flows and the temperature can shock or soothe. Dropping to the floor in a repeat meditation, just to help regulate your broken heart can regulate your breathing for the next hard moments of the day. Ignoring your phone and only listening to that song that calms you for today. Walking, the repetitive rhythm can help restore your natural body rhythm and calm your mind. Get into nature- silence has a way of opening you and reminding you life is bigger than this one you lead. Walk in the rain, sit in the wind, listen to the cricket song before you climb into bed. The earth’s elements on your body have a way of pulling you back inside yourself when the mind doesn’t know how to calm down.
Only do the simplest of things. Simple for today. Do the dishes, make a meal, and journal till you can’t write anymore. Your days may have consisted of many big projects before, but doing simple tasks when you can’t get out of bed most days, can give you a sense of accomplishment for today. A few simple things you can do, will slowly start to pull you out of darkness.
It’s funny how life gives you the people you can’t live without. Then just like an inhale, you breathe and they’re gone. Learning to breathe again shows you that you too, have your own soul journey that can’t be understood at times. Breath can be found easier through tapping into your own senses, learning to let things be. Simple. Temporary. Your senses, your body, remind you of something deeper that cannot be explained.
Your senses remember life is bigger than you- your breath will come back, ever too slowly at first, but does come back in pieces. Life does leave you breathless- but in the breath we also learn to come back to life.
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