BREATHING, FEELING, AND THINKING—NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER
In honor of the fact that each breath is thought to have two basic parts—the inhale and the exhale there were going to be two parts to this “breather” portion of the show. Then many sources included a third part to the breath—the “hold” part. So..now in honor of my changed perception there will be three parts and this is the second of those. since most of us can’t hold our breath all that long I’ll try to make this middle portion a bit short, however, if it leaves you gasping for air...well..sometimes it happens.
So what’s the big deal about breathing?
Here’s some perspective...
We make (these days ) probably a dozen or two career/job changes in a lifetime. We enter into about that many romantic relationships some of which result in marriages or long-term partnerships. Some of these. Are “till death us do part” although it is somewhat worth mentioning. That when this concept was introduced the average human being lived to the ripe old age of about 24 years old. Now before I get nasty comments...I have nothing against marriage at all I’m just offering some context. Some other things that happen repeatedly...
Well we eat on an average 3 to 5 meals a day... We go to the bathroom lots of times..I’ll have a post about that in September..... Although suffice it to say after about age 50 it seems like the “view from the throne” is far more frequent.
If you add all those numbers up... the number of things we do in a day... wow!!!
Yet, you can go a couple days without water and a couple weeks without food however. Drumroll....
Breathing and Thinking/feeling are mountains compared to the molehills of other things we do.
Breathing
We use our tennis-court sized lungs to bring in somewhere around 23,000 breathes a day. In an 80 year lifetime we are talking over 672 million times. So... maybe, just maybe, we should give this breathing thing a little attention right?
given this number of breaths we are taking maybe exploring clean fuels and things like. Wind and solar energy aren’t such a bad notion. Maybe electric and self-driving efficient transportation could be a plus? Okay commercial over...
However, as long as you are going to be breathing anyway why not make it something gun and interesting? In yesterday’s post there was a brief breathing technique—and there are almost countless others like. It available in books and online. After all, I didn’t invent breathing and neither did your yoga instructor or Buddha.
Now let’s set that aside for a second and add a little something called
Thinking
Science has had a difficult time. Nailing down just how many thoughts we have in a day. Most folks agree that it’s somewhere between 12 and 60 thousand thoughts a day. Well tha’t like saying the weather is going to be partly cloudy. If you see a cloud any time in the day then it was partly cloudy right? Okay back to thinking....
Not only do we think a lot —-but not too much I have argued—most folks have more negative thoughts than positive ones. In fact the Cleavland Clinic estimates that 80% of our thoughts might be negative. Oh and for extra measure science has started to show us that. 95% of these negative thoughts are repeated .
So how are we supposed to feel good if the stories we are telling ourselves Over and over are not the night. Before Christmas” they are the Nightmare” before Christmas on Elm Street?
So in seeking peace and joy and being armed with these notions... I suggest that we become a bit more aware of breathing and thinking as a combo.
Breath in..imagining a healing or joyful thought...Hold. In the breath and the. “Happy thought” for a few seconds —WARNING IF YOU ARE PETER PAN YOU MAY TAKE OFF FLYING— and the breath out a negative. Thought... No really actually imagine the3 last negative thought you have and let it exit your body with the breath you have held for a second or two.
does this sound a lot like yesterday? We’re you breathing yesterday?—and are you still breathing today? ,sorry about the sarcasm).
In seeking peace and joy (for me) it is usually a productive activity to breath in positive thoughts. If I do. This with awareness about 10 minutes a day life seems a bit more cerntered—
It’s an experiment I’m sharing and saying I’m just wondering how it might work for you?
Short of Breath?
Well I promised I would try to keep this. A bit short—sohere’s the wrap...
We breath and think a lot... We hold the breath in us for a bit.... this provides an opportunity to explore changing some negative thoughts to positive or creative ones.
If I’m still breathing tomorrow or Saturday...then there will be one last gasp at this subject matter for now...
Until then. Know that there’s something in the air go ahead and instigate...
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