m i n d f u l b r e a t h

If you wanted to find peace of mind, you can find it anytime. Travis: Afterglow

I woke up this morning having fallen asleep on the couch in some sort of half-slump of exhaustion while watching television. With what seems like a disgusting frequency this winter, I am sick again. Not badly enough to stay home, but enough to be reminded constantly as my oxygen-deprived brain tries desperately to piece together the bits of my day into something meaningful and productive.

And yet. I woke up feeling a surge of release, a swell of newfound joy, and a thrum within of eager energy. I am not sure I could point my finger to exactly what is being let go, or what feels better. But really, who cares? Why explain miracles? It will only rip the magic from your heart.

Last night I wrote a letter to a new friend about cooperatively important things. It felt refreshing. I like to be in that space of knowing that the words flowing from my fingers or my lips are the truth. Maybe not everyone’s truth, but my truth. There was a peaceful, appreciative vibrational response from her in her reply that I think left us both feeling a sense of delicious afterglow that we had shared a beautiful moment of understanding between us. More of this, please, Universe.

I’m a new soul. I came to this strange world, hoping I could learn a bit ’bout how to give and take.  Yael Naïm: New Soul

Hey there, 2009.  How’s it goin’?  I know you’re kinda new to this world, so let me tell you how this is all gonna go down.

It’s gonna go down smooth, like warm whiskey on a really cold night.  It’s gonna go down straight, like the center line on a desert road.  It’s gonna go down magical, like Frodo destroying that One Ring To Rule Them All.  It’s gonna go down joyful, like when you bought your very first cassette tape with your own money.  Most of all, it’s gonna go down just a little bit better than it’s ever gone down before.  Maybe even a lot better.

So get ready, little 2009, you and me gotta lot o’ shit to do.  It’s ok, though, all the cool peeps are on our side.

Sadness so real that it populates the city and leaves you homeless again. Steam from a cup and snow on the path. The seasons have changed from the present to past.  Feist: The Park

I don’t love him anymore, but still, he knows me well.  He knows that my weakness is unresolved issues - I can’t stand them.  I do everything I can to understand, to sympathize, to give space, to be patient, and then to repair.  I thought…I thought we were there.  He chose Christmas day to let me know how wrong I was.  From his fingertips came a cascade of searing, shredding phrases that caught me off guard and left me choking, wounded, shocked.

At first, I got it right.  Shook my head, even laughed a bit.  Deleted, sought the fortification of friends, knew he was just in pain and let it go.  Strangely, it was his apology that set me back.  It was the push-me-pull-you dance of it.  It was the game he was playing, without even trying to be playing a game.  It was the fact that, no matter how much I know who he really is, he is very far away from letting that version of himself out into the world.  And this time…this time I have to walk away while it’s still broken.  No conclusion to come to, no talking to find relief, no agreements to be respected.

Just. Walk. Away.

Full speed ahead. Rock ‘n’ Roll is dead. The girls and boys from the mickey mouse club clocked it in the head. TV makes people so tired, bored like a bird on a wire. I check the pulse and I light a match then I set the tele on … fire.  Alice Smith: Fake Is the New Real

Weekend conversation spun around some things I hadn’t talked about in a couple of years.  I used to be heavily involved in politics, up on all the issues, a believer in most conspiracies, a champion of the underprivileged, an oppressor-hater… I had an opinion about everything, and my goal was to have lots of opportunities to tell someone about it.  Sometimes they agreed, sometimes they didn’t.  That wasn’t the point anyway.  The point was I knew what I was talking about.  And I was doing something about it.  Or was I…?

One day while watching a movie about the current atrocities of the “War on Terror,” I realized I was laying half-comatose on my couch, sobbing, trembling, filled with sadness and anger.  I wanted to fight back.  I wanted to make the powerful powerless.  I wanted to make the terrorists terrified.  I wanted the haters to be hated.  I wanted to make the world be something other than what it was, because what it was was not good enough for me.

Then I looked around me.  The house was a mess, the bills weren’t paid, I was in a relationship where my looks were paramount but my ideas were of questionable value, I couldn’t sleep….  I had been fighting the very same world that I desperately needed to embrace if I expected to survive, let alone thrive.

So I let it go. I let it all go.  I turned off the television.  I stopped scouring web sites.  I resigned from my official position in the local political party.  I got a job.  I cleaned the house.  I dumped the guy.  And suddenly, there was no reason to fight.  There was time to walk.  Time to write.  Time to listen to music.  Suddenly I had no reason to be mad at the institutions and the corporations and the persecutors and the politicians and all the things that were fucking up the world.  Because the world I saw wasn’t fucked up at all, it was full of natural beauty and interesting people and creativity and so much love.  None of those horrible things even existed anymore.

For a little while I felt guilty.  I felt guilt because somehow I thought I was turning my back on all of those people in need.  However, as my own life became more productive, more wholesome, as I became less of a hypocrite, I realized I was finally living the life I so desperately wanted to be able to live.  For so long I bought into the belief that I couldn’t feel happy unless everyone in the world was happy first.  So wrong.  So impossible.  So tragically wasteful.

Step 1) be happy, love yourself.  Step 2) share happiness, share love.  In every moment ask: “Do I feel good?”  If you do, appreciate it.  And if you do not, turn your attention to something that does feel good.

…and I rise like a bird in the haze, and the first rays touch the sky, and the night winds die.  Pink Floyd: A Pillow of Winds

The last week and a half has been a molting. I scratched the surface of myself and discovered something new beneath, desperate for exposure. Every day I shed more, until, stuck in the snow, itching and wild, I tore free of the last of it.  Now, as I catch the occasional glimpse of myself in the shine of a building window, or the metal flash of a car, I cannot help but look into my own eyes for a moment as I learn the image of the person looking back. She is shockingly wise. And she mouths the same words to me every time I see her: “You are beautiful.” I’m starting to believe her.

So here I am, new, exposed but not vulnerable, soft but not fragile, eager but not obsessive. If you should meet me in the street, I will mouth to you: “You are beautiful.” And maybe you’ll start to believe me.