Experience

We are not what we experience.

If we stand in a hurricane, it doesn’t matter how violent or terrifying the hurricane is, we always know that the hurricane is not us. The weather outside and inside us is never permanent. People talk about dark clouds over them. But we are never the clouds; we are the sky. We just contain them. The clouds are just the present view. The sky stays the sky.

A bit about breathing

I want to tell you that breathing is deeply important.

I know, I know.

This makes me “that person.” The person who tells you to think about your breathing as if all the problems in the world are caused by an inability to exhale for a count of five. It makes me a millimeter away from being someone who will tell you that handling your trauma is something that can be done via a long bath and a couple of lavender-scented candles. And yet I have realized over the years that there is no quicker indicator of where my stress levels are at than checking where my breathing is at.

Breath is a kind of in-built mood barometer.

When I used to have full-blown panic attacks, breathing was hard. It was something that happened rapid-fire, right at the top of my lungs, as if I didn’t even have time for air. When I am stressed I can lie in bed and place my hand on my stomach and take a deep breath and then, toward the end, my stomach will quiver like a frightened animal, and I will know. I will know that now is the time to step back and allow myself to relax. It sounds like a paradox, but making the effort to relax can sometimes work. And the easiest and quickest way for me is through slow breathing. When I make myself breathe slowly it is as if the annoying voices in my mind—the ones that play on rotation like annoying YouTube rants—are suddenly quiet. It becomes almost instantly okay that I didn’t get back to that email, or that I messed up a Zoom meeting. I can feel myself stilling.

Breathing consciously seems to be a way to hack into your self-esteem. A way to say Give yourself a break. A way to just accept you as you and life as life. And all you need is a pair of lungs.

You can do it lying down or sitting or standing. If I am lying down, I place my arms by my side, palms facing the sky or ceiling, and have my feet a little way apart. If I am sitting, I rest my arms on the chair and have my feet hip-width apart. Then I breathe gently but deeply into my stomach. And yes, I count to five, silently, because the trance-like focus of the counting itself seems to have an added relaxing effect. And ideally I do this for over a minute. If you have five minutes, seriously, try and do it for five minutes. Hell, even longer. It can feel boring at first—because a busy brain wants nothing less and needs nothing more than to slow down—but it is worth it.

You are here. You exist. You are in this moment.

To breathe is to live, I suppose, and to be aware of breathing is to be aware of living, to be aware of the very simplest truth of yourself, and transcend the world of doing and—for a few sweet, comforting moments—inhabit the world of being.

What your breath tells you

You are enough.

You need no more than you. You are more than how you are seen. You are who you are in the dark. You are who you are in the silence. You do not need to buy or train or earn your acceptance.

You are enough.

You are a cosmic miracle. You are the earth witnessing itself. You inhale the air and accept yourself as you accept that air, as a part of the natural order of things. You are the mind that exists in the act of changing. You are possibility in motion. You belong here. You are where you need to be.

You are enough.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.

Live in the raw

The true challenge we face is to look at ourselves and the world honestly. To see what wounds there are, so we can help heal them. Not to flinch. Not to spend our life wrapped in denial and trying to avoid pain. Not to avoid the feelings. As Buddhist writer Pema Chödrön put it, “the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” Healing means to live in the raw.

Honest seeing

Ignorance shrinks us. The true challenge we face is to look at ourselves and the world honestly. One of the challenges Marcus Aurelius set himself was “to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”

Wait

You are okay. You may feel like you are in a nightmare. Your mind might be beating you up. You may think you aren’t going to make it. But remember a time you felt bad before. And think of something good that happened since, in the interim. That specific goodness may or may not happen again, but some goodness will. Just wait.

The cure for loneliness

Loneliness isn’t an absence of company. Loneliness is felt when we are lost. But we can be lost right in the middle of a crowd. There is nothing lonelier than being with people who aren’t on your wavelength. The cure for loneliness isn’t more people. The cure for loneliness is understanding who we are.

Patterns

It is easy to get stuck in a pattern of behavior. Think of the people you know. Do they do some of the same things over and over? Do they like the same kind of food and drink? Watch the same kind of TV? Read the same genre of books? Do they get up and go to bed at roughly the same time? Do they say the same kinds of things? Have the same kinds of thoughts? Do you? Do I? Yes. To be human—to be alive—is to fall into patterns of behavior. Some of these patterns are good. We are drawn to the comfort of routine, and we settle in, but there can also be a discomfort in going through the same motions. Just as slumping for hours in the same position can be bad for ours backs, it is also true that taking the familiar and repetitive path of least resistance can cause our lives to become a bit stuck in place. We become outdated algorithms needing a new and bigger sequence.