Breathe in, breathe out

How often are we not conscious of our own breath or our own breathing rythm. Too often I suspect and too often is not a good thing.

We breathe in when we stand in front of the ocean to get that fresh salt air into our bodies and soul. We breathe in from feeling a huge relief has been lifted from our shoulders. We breathe in regularly if we practice meditation, yoga, or mindfulness. We breathe in from lack of air, from feeling phsically suffocated and from fright, but in any of these there's a chance we never breathe out again, or at least not immediately. We breathe in to hold things in: our anger, our frustration, our feelings, our fear and our discomfort. A lot of times we are fully aware of our breath in, but we get lost somewhere in between when we inhale and then again with the exhale. Of course we all phsically do it, it's natural but what I'm talking about is the consciousness of it and how that can get lost so easily it's kind of scary.

Lately I haven't felt like I can breathe because I have too much going on in my head and because I have an overwhelming feeling of feeling stifled- stifled from lack of air. It's not physical air I speak of, it's space from my routine, my partner, my stale mind and in a strange way from myself. One reason I love this hot weather is because it allows my mind to expand; in the winter it constricts. For basically seven months out of the year it's either freezing outside because of the elements or inside because of the forced cold air and my body as well as my mind tighten up. I can't think when I'm freezing, my mind literally goes numb. Weather aside, my mind is frozen these days because I think my soul needs to run free. When your mind is not aligned with your soul watch out. Crazy things begin to happen like getting frustrated easily, angered for no reason, speaking things you really don't feel and basically feeling like you are gasping for breath.

In three days we go on vacation to one of my favorite places in the entire world- Cape Cod. I'm hoping that my stress, frustration, anxiety, fear, and anger gets realeased with every breath out that I take. I'll have other challenges next week to deal with like someone kicking my seat on the airplane, fighting with the guy at the rental car place or struggling with my family and our 'dynamics' but they all seem so easy to deal with. I need a change of scenery, a different bed to sleep in, my mom's comforting voice, a break from life and a chance to breath out- the exhale is the powerful part. The air smells so clean out there it should be easy to breathe in and out mindfully, but I have a feeling the reason I will be doing it so easily isn't because I'll feel relaxed and happy but because my body and soul will feel like they are home. It'll feel right, hopefull all week long.