Time to Breathe

* Archive Blog * Posted on August 10, 2010 by John Dessauer
2010 and 2011 are years of simplification for me. I thought with my new blog site, I would write about why. With the economy continuing to struggle, I feel that American’s are involved in a very cleansing time. I have decided to “get clean”. The first thing I am focusing on is Breathing. It’s one of the simplest things we can do to remove the clutter from our minds, and our lives. I have been collecting clutter for a long time.

After college, I jumped immediately into the corporate world.
I spent ten years there. The next ten years would be spent in
the world of the entrepreneur. I have spent twenty years
learning from both sides. I have learned major things from
both. Neither teaches us how to breathe. Stay with me here
for a moment.

I have been trying to understand breathing in life. The
pressures from the corporate world and entrepreneur world
are quite similar. Think of one as a Python and one as a Boa
Constrictor. They both have the potential to constrict your
airway. Sometimes the constriction happens over a number of
years and in other times it happens in an instant. Whether it
happens quickly or over a longer period of time, it will be
hazardous to your health and well being. Because breathing
is rhythmic, and expressed with time so much, I believe they
are related.

Were you ever asked as a kid, “how long can you hold your
breath?” Time for you starts and stops with your first and last breath on this planet. Elderly people sometimes say, “where did the time go?” People seem to always be catching their breath while chasing time. So what am I getting at here you ask? Obviously, breathing is a necessity of life. I believe it also provides some other very important benefits.

1) A Realization of Being; Focused breathing makes you aware of your presence in the Universe.
2) A Redistribution of What’s Important in Life; Our world and society being driven by consumerism and keeping up with “The Jones’”, pales in comparison to the valuableness of things like “time” and your “last breath”.
3) A New Understanding of Color and Clarity of Life; Take your time and breath! Taste your food, smell the flowers, see, hear and touch what our beautiful world has to offer.
4) A New Definition of Time; Focused breathing makes time slow down. Focused breathing is the gateway to making time our own instead of giving time up foolishly.

Try something for me. In the next 60 seconds try to focus on your breathing. Breath in and out at a comfortable pace. At this point just focus on your breathing and nothing else. (I wonder if you are finding this as hard as I did when I first tried this) Do you find it difficult because your mind is wondering? Do the distractions take over from the focus? Those distractions, or the ability to have a lack of focus, is what I am referring to when I say, “get clean”. When I first tried this experiment, I couldn’t do it. My mind was too busy! I have committed to practicing this on a daily basis.

Think about it, if we can’t take advantage of what focused breathing can give us, are we really experiencing life at its fullest? This is one of the reasons that I think things like yoga and athletics are so healthy for us. Both pattern our breathing so that we can develop the natural rhythms that deliver peak performance, both physically and mentally. That’s the good part.

The bad part is the fact that most people don’t even know that their breath is being constricted (until it’s too late). How do you know? Try the test that I gave you above. If you tried the exercise and found it as challenging as I did, you probably were being constricted just as I was. My mission is not over, this takes much practice. You will not perfect it for a number of years.

My advice in closing, is to make sure you learn (or relearn) to breath. You never know what you can accomplish when you remove the clutter in your mind by focused breathing. It very well may make room for you to be creative and productive beyond your wildest dreams!

Remember...”wealth has nothing to do with money, success has everything to do with failure, and life is as simple as you want to make it!” – John Dessauer