Just Breathe
Breath is life. It sustains us, it nourishes us, and it is the thread of life running through all of us—connecting us. Our breath can also be our greatest tool for transformation. As a yoga instructor I'm constantly emphasizing focus on the breath. At times I feel like a broken record, repeating instructions to “connect with the breath” and “move with the breath”. And yet it is not something I can stop talking about because it is so incredibly essential to our practice, and beyond that, essential to our navigation of everyday life challenges. However, despite knowing this, I wasn’t truly practicing it in my own life. I paid attention to my breath periodically and intermittently, either during mediation, or occasionally when I needed to focus. It wasn’t until I bumped up against some major discomfort and anxiety that I began to really practice breathing as a tool for transformation. I’m not even talking about specific breath exercises here; I’m talking about simply brea...