BREATH —A LAZST GASP?
Well...I’m kidding... this WILL NOT BE THE LAST TIME we wander. Down the road of breathing... Unless you wish to stop breathing in which case read fast...
However...maybe take this three-part entry series as a beginning..like we are just in the delivery room and the doctor is holding us by our feet and. Slapping us on the rump to get us howling and sucking in that. Valuable air. Now... I don’t remember my kids getting slapped when they were born and as Rodney Dangerfield might remark... when. My kids were born the doctor slapped their father...
Okay moving back to a little more serious time and place—
Here and Now—-
Much of my current awareness of breathing comes from two sources. Peter Leidy and John Kabat-Zinn.
So assuming you all know who Peter is... I’ll start with JKZ..Now this person wrote tow books that helped me understand about meditation and breathing as a path to the meditation /mindful state. Not only did he write clear and very readable. Books they have great titles..
Full Catastrophe Living—-
Speaking of 2020 for so many people and my personal favorite title with the possible exception of Green Eggs and Ham—
Where ever You Go There You are.
In both these. Books JKZ illustrates how people can use breathing to help people become “mindful—-Now that’s a much-used trendy self-help word although I’d guess we all could find some people we would claim are mind-empty.
Anyway breathing or being aware of this thing called breathing that we do 20,000 times a day, helps us pay attention to what is happening right here and right now. It helps us focus on our current state—-not on what happened ye3sterday—so we become aware of the fact that our concept of yesterday is a present one and not tomorrow yet. JKZ makes it clear that today’s actions do create tomorrow’s possibilities to some extent. The point is that when we pay attention —full attention to now we don’t ‘mindlessly tumble forward or fall where we stand.
Let me put this another way...
Imagine your life is a walk down a hallway. At the end of the hallway there is a door you can see through and on the other side of that door there appears to be something you believe you want or need...a goal. The realization of a purpose so to speak. Now this hallway has doors Indented on either side... you can see that there are. Doors but can’t see into them.
So sometimes the hallway will appear scary and you won’t. Go down it... that’s a topic for another. Blog...however let’s say for today you have decided to move. On ahead—In reality life will move you down the hallway whether you like it or not....again a topic for a different day..
Okay if we stay focused on where the hallway came from we will likely wander down the.path looking. Back and maybe not see the places where the hallway has tacks on the floor rotten boards or even worse....
As we pass. The first door on the right moving down the hall there may be a key that just might unlock the door at the end of the. Hall...but if we are not paying attention we may miss it—-stop and breathe and notice the key or move forward automatically and miss it...I’d say BREATHE
Breathe again as we pass the second door on the left. Stop and really pay attention and you may smell the. Most delicious cinnamon rolls ever and looking in you may see the most beautiful garden and from the garden you hear sounds emerging like birds and what’s that? Some sweet combination of. Vivaldi, Mozart, and Blue Grass violin (although the bluegrass will come from a fiddle. Suddenly you realize that. This door has. Much more to offer than the one at the end of hall and you noticed it because you were paying real attention to the here and now which is rally all we have full access to.. You see the rest is only what our mind is imagining what was and what will be..... You see in that. First door there was a key....
Well Breathing is the Key to countless doors a if you let it be—I didn’t forget there’s a Beatles” Day coming before the end of September.
Okay... contact me directly if you want to hear more about JKN and his books.
Okay Peter Leidy
Keeping this to the point...he was the first “regular” Joe I knew who said “I’ve been getting into this “mindfulness” stuff. Notice I used the word. Regular instead of normal—Normal is a loaded word and Peter might be offended if I used it in describing him in the here and. Now.
anyway...we all benefit. From knowing people in our network who highlight their. Curiosity right out loud. I’m fortunate to know quite a few folks who have that kind of courage....
Time to Exhale...
I’ve spent about two hours trying to figure out how to finish up this thing on breathing and then it sort of hit me like a ton of featherrs—which weighs just as much as a ton of bricks by the way—
So...since breathing doesn’t stop —well until it’s over and it’s not over till it’s over...I’ll just say we’re going to take a step down our hallway of topics for now.... Instead of closing the topic it may be interesting to toss some info. About meditation (breathing with a purpose of paying attention)..
Now here’s a cautionary note...if you are reading this info to see how much you will be accepted or how much you are like others if you meditate stop reading HERE AND NOW
Otherwise here are some interesting facts...
As of about three years ago it was estimated. That 14% of all Americans claimed to have tried meditation. The. Number of children who currently meditate is nearing 5%. The. Number of adults has tripled in the past two decade as and the number of children has increased nearly tenfold . So maybe kids are not completely losing the capacity to pay attention in this attention economy—
Speaking of paying attention... I have asked for enough of your attention for one post...So thank you...close your eyes ...breathe. In hold think a positive thought. Breathe out—-
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