A few days ago I was supporting a loved one through a physically painful experience. I was fully present in the moment, focused only on him. I was talking him through his pain, connecting with him on many levels, and keeping almost constant eye contact.
But then he began to slip into shock. His skin became gray and clammy. He started to perspire and a strange look came over his face. I could tell his body wasn’t tolerating the pain.
I coached him to take even deeper breaths, but he wasn’t able to respond. I attempted to get a verbal response to no avail.
Within seconds he completely lost consciousness.
After he was revived and communicating with me again, I took a deep breath and felt myself relax into the present moment. He was OK. He was back to normal, physically and consciously. I expressed sincere thanks to all the powers that be for helping him recover.
Later that day I realized that he had been holding his breath as a way of dealing with the pain.
It wasn’t something he was consciously doing, it was just an almost automatic reaction he had to the intense sensations he was physically experiencing.
This struck me. I felt a deep resonance upon this realization. I immediately asked myself, “When do YOU forget to breathe?”
I immediately was met with impressions of different ways I hold my breath, literally and figuratively, throughout my daily life.
I paused, right then, at that moment, to take a nice long deep breath.
And then another.
And one more.
I immediately felt the space that I was able to create, by breathing–really breathing–and I felt an incredible sense of gratitude for the simple life giving process of breathing.
When do you forget to write?
It may sound funny, but I’ve just consciously realized, that for me, over the recent past, not writing has been a form of holding my breath.
Perhaps you may find that not writing has been for you a method of holding your breath as well.
I am aware that I am in the process of making space for something bigger in my life. I am clearly connected to the process of becoming more than I am today. I am, on so many levels, wanting to offer my help to others.
And yet, in our physical world, things don’t always happen with ease and speed. And yet, even within the slowness that we sometimes feel, Grace is still available to us.
For me, I have almost always relied upon writing as a way of allowing myself to work through whatever is coming up.
I have written myself through periods of great grief. I have worded my way out of fears, smashed my fingers upon the keys to work through horrible memories, and jotted prose upon notebook pages as a way to see the beauty within a moment that upon first glance appeared commonplace and for naught.
Writing has saved my life.
It has allowed me to be who I am.
It has given me the incredible gift of inner connection and understanding.
It has allowed me to show up fully in any moment with the truth of my feelings appearing silently upon my lips and simultaneously flowing through the tip of my pen.
Yet recently, and during different phases in my past, I now realize that when I stop writing, I’m holding my breath.
While my loved one sat in that chair this weekend, unable to respond, deep in a state of shock… I felt myself begin, for a split second, to panic.
One drastic thought started to consume my mind and then, I noticed it.
I made the choice to turn away from fear and embrace love.
I dropped more deeply into my heart and I asked G-d to assist him. I connected with the immeasurable amount of love that lives within my being and I resumed sending my loved one Reiki and light and love and all that comes from Source.
It was in that moment, as I consciously and actively rejected fear and chose instead the incredible life giving Source of Love, that I realized, once more, just how powerful love can be.
He came back to me. He started breathing again. His skin returned to a normal shade and temperature. He was laughing. He was talking.
He was fully alive once more.
In this moment, in this space, I too choose to breathe, to speak, to live.
I choose to embrace all the love that is within me and all the love that I’m able to access, which is endless in its measure, and I ask myself, how can I begin to breathe more deeply? How can I write again?
I recognize that a part of me is afraid.
It is unsure of saying some of the things I know I will soon say.
It wants me to stay small, separated, and hidden.
That part of me does not want to risk being seen.
Yet the parts of me that are swimming in The Love echo my dear friend and teacher Mark Silver’s words… “If you have the medicine, don’t withhold it.”
It’s not about getting a degree or another certification. Not at this point.
It’s not about proving myself or getting the approval of some outer authority.
It’s not even complicated.
It’s about following my heart, showing up fully, and helping those I’m most enabled to help.
It’s about using my gifts, all of them, because that is why I was created. It’s about fully stepping into who I am and allowing love to flow through me, so that others may grow and heal and become who they truly are as well.
In so many ways my brain wants me to believe that holding my breath and staying silent is easier. But how could that ever be true?
Holding your breath, literally, will send you into a state of being that is more like death than like life. Without an external physical stimulus or restriction, I’m almost certain that it would be impossible to voluntarily deny yourself breath.
Yet here I am, noticing, that by turning away from writing, I’m turning toward fear. And today, I choose to breathe deeply again. I choose to trust Love and start my next steps along this path.
It’s possible to make space for your fear and breathe through it. With love, all things are possible. With love, you can become who you are truly meant to be.
With love, you can heal.
With love, you can speak your truth.
With love, you are always held in the safe and compassionate arms of the Universe.
With love, you can breathe deeply in each and every moment.
With love, you can write your life.
With love, you can be who you are today and you can become who you will be tomorrow.
With love, fear fades away.
You just have to remember to breathe.