Breathe
I know you know this already, but life can be hard sometimes.
A mother loses her teenage son to violence. A wife tries to say goodbye to her soulmate of 60 years. A husband finds out his condition is terminal, before his hair has a chance to turn gray. Someone identifies heroin as the main problem in their life for the last ten years, yet that substance is all they want. A college student grapples with being cut off from their family. A mom and dad are trying everything they can to help their son navigate some rough waters.
The hard parts of life come and go, don’t they? The hard parts vary in intensity as well.
From my personal and professional experience, when life’s challenges are at their peak, the feeling of despair is never far away. Sometimes the waves are so high there doesn’t seem to be any point in continuing. Futility is in the air.
I watched Emily floating in the pool the other day. The only time I ever see her still is when I catch her sleeping. I never see her surrounded by quiet. There’s always movement and noise. Just like most of us. But she was floating in the pool on her back. No music. No TV. No noise. For five minutes I watched her. It was the most peaceful part of my whole week. Probably for her too.
In that moment of stillness a phrase came to life. I’ve added the phrase to my daily meditations and it seems to provide me with a certain measure of peace and relief. So I thought I’d share it with you.
If you’re like me at all, when you wake up you’re reminded of what has to be done. Is your list long? Never ending? At times seemingly impossible? Same here. I’ve got a couple of channels going most days. The first channel has the to do list on it. The second channel is a little harder to pin down. On my second channel: How do I process being on the earth without my mother? How can I continue to say goodbye to my dad a little more each day? I think about regrets and I’m reminded of relationships that are not what I had drawn up. I think a lot about my last hour on this earth before I get to see behind the curtain of mystery.
Here’s the phrase, ready?
All you have to do is breathe.
It’s our first job in this life. It’s our last job in this life. And in-between those moments, when things are overwhelming, to the point of futility, when we are out of gas and the mountain summit is out of sight, we can distill any moment down to that one sentence: All you have to do is breathe.
That is within reach. Until its not, and when its not your worries are over anyway.
For now, all you have to do is breathe. We’ll figure the rest out later. The grief, the pain, the loss, the loneliness, the heartbreak; it’ll all be there waiting for us.
All you have to do is breathe.
