Are You Breathing?

It’s the very last day of April as I type these words. When you read them, April will have ended, and May will have begun. I love the month of May. In Montana, it is when nature really begins to bloom in full force. There is light in the sky until at least 8:30. I am awakened by birds chirping before 6 a.m. Little green buds remind me that no matter what, the world keeps on turning, and God is continuously making things new, even in those dark moments when we’re full of doubt. I feel like the immediate beauty of May makes it easier to pay attention to the moment at hand, so this week on the blog, I thought I’d write a few thoughts about the power of presence, and how I’ve been learning this year about what a simple deep breath can actually do.

The Question

I have two questions this week, as we transition from one month to another:

Question #1: When you look back over the past 30 days, what images stand out to you? If you can, I suggest taking a couple minutes to close your eyes and see what mental pictures come to mind. This isn’t about searching for any deep meaning; instead, this is an exercise in noticing small moments. When I do this, here’s what I see:

Snow falling.

A single robin sitting high up in a tree outside my house, refusing to stop singing.

My computer screen. The clack of keys.

The cool interior of a museum.

Florescent lights in a classroom that needs sweeping.

A hot cup of coffee. A good pen. Blank pages. A candle burning.

My husband’s handsome face. Sometimes happy. Sometimes sad. Sleepy in the morning. His call hello when he comes in the back door from work.

There are many more, of course, and you can make your list as long as you want. Why do this? Well, because it has been striking me lately that I am living too much of my life waiting for the next moment. As if this moment, the one I’m living right now, isn’t as important as the one over there, past that hill I’ve got to climb. Then, this morning, I came across this quote from Eckhart Tolle:

“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.”

The first question for this week might seem counterintuitive to the advice inherent in this quote, which is so much about focusing on the now, but I think it’s worth doing anyway. I wonder if we spend a bit of time each month or each week or even at the end of each day remembering the small, seemingly insignificant moments that punctuate our daily lives, we might begin to see how these small moments can actually be incredibly valuable, even beautiful.

Question #2: As you go about this day, can you challenge yourself to slow down and pay attention to the present moment at least 3 different times? I want to make this second question—a challenge, really—as specific and practical as possible. When I say to myself: I want to focus more on the present moment, I quickly forget that this is my desire for the day. When I make the goal more specific—I want to slow down and breathe or pray for 1 minute, three times this day—I’m much more likely to actually accomplish it.

The Joyful Note

This week’s Joyful Note is a recommendation that might help you accomplish Question #2 from above. My suggestion is this: Find a free app that sends you a reminder each day to breathe, pause, or pray.

I recently splurged and bought myself an Apple Watch, and one of the things this fancy little device does is send me a reminder, a couple times each day, to stop and breath for one minute. One minute. That’s it. Now, I’ll admit that there have been a couple times when this little chime has gone off on my wrist, and my first thought is, “I don’t have time to breathe for one minute right now!”

The truth is, of course, that I absolutely had time to slow down and focus on my breathe, even if I was in the middle of doing something else. Because what apps like these are actually asking us to do is to pay attention to the moment that is right in front of us—whether that moment is boring or joyful or full of pain—and our breath connects us to that moment. And, our breath carries us through it.

Here are a few app recommendations that might help you feel more present and mindful throughout the day (you could also simply set a timer on your phone to go off a few times each day):

The Breathing App.

Echo Prayer

Awesome Breathing: Pacer Timer

The Brave Soul

This week, instead of highlighting someone well-known in The Brave Soul section of the blog, I thought I would invite you to do one more thing this coming week: Acknowledge and honor someone you know who is doing a brave thing. (It could be yourself!)

I want to honor my longtime friend, Jenn. Jenn has suffered through a great deal of loss in the past few months, and she’s doing the incredibly brave work of saying goodbye and carrying on—two of the hardest things life ever asks us to do. I think she is very brave.

Thanks for reading.

Beth