Our breath can tell us a lot about how we live our lives. It is very metaphoric. Here is a little story about how and what Air Hunger  informed me.

I was dropping into a deep meditative “Self -Breathe”.  My intention was to reach new levels of trust in myself , others, and the world at large.

Basically, I wanted to grow my capacity to experience and feel that I’m okay… You’re okay…It’s all okay exactly as it is. I wanted to embody more deeply the idea that there are no problems in this world. I wanted to integrate my belief that there are limitless perspectives on any given situation and based on how I choose to view a situation will impact the quality of my experience.

Air hunger or shortness of breath is something that I have had an ongoing relationship with over the years. It has subsided tremendously but I do still experience it from time to time. It is a message from my unconscious coming through my physical, emotional or mental bodies that I am bumping up against something that I perceive as an edge. You could call it a stressor or resistance. It is signaling me to pay attention, pause and relax more.

Here is what happened: I started to feel the uncomfortable air hunger. You know, when your breath feels unsatisfying. I watched what my customary reaction would be without succumbing to it. Typically, I would want to reach, strive, stretch,  yawn, open my mouth, sit up and doing whatever prevailing biological remedies I could to satisfy the discomfort.

Instead, I noticed  my willingness to take a different approach to my breath.  I reminded myself that there was plenty of oxygen available. I softened my torso and kept breathing in a calm, circular connected fashion to see what would unfold. I was snuggling up to the discomfort, trusting it would teach or inform me of something. I was allowing the air hunger to be exactly ” As it was” for as long as it needed to be “What it was” until it shifted and transformed itself naturally in its own time.

It was an amazing message. The air hunger showed me how I might exercise my trust muscle by surrendering into “What Is” exactly how it is without having to change, manipulate or twist anything. I didn’t have to label it or make it good (comfort/familiar) or bad (discomfort). I could celebrate being with a part of me that felt a bit of anxiety or stress and let it be perfectly okay without succumbing to the mind’s need to create a story around it. Just letting the energy be and transform in its own time.

My breath was teaching me a metaphor for my life because directly after what followed was an exhilarated sense of flow. Life has ebbs and flows. It’s inevitable. It’s how we perceive these happenings that makes all the difference in our lives.

MINDFULNESS PRACTICE

Notice anything unusual, unfamiliar or uncomfortable in your life.

Look at it with love in your heart.

Pause and Breathe into it with curiosity and fascination. Be a scientist!