Just Breathe

My friend Amanda, whenever she teaches a workshop on the brain-body connection, will (kinda!) joke, "breathing's a good hobby--we should all take it up." We always giggle, then go back to our individual crazy breathing habits. Even sitting here right now I can tell that I'm not breathing properly. Wait for it...man, it's hard to do. Anyway, so I broke out my new yoga DVD this morning (technically, I got up at 4 to work but just felt like I needed to do something else first...). It felt good, even just for 30 minutes, to get reacquainted with my body. Sounds silly, unless you've been there. As I stretched and breathed, I thought, man...how easy is this? It felt good, when I wasn't beating myself up over tight muscles that didn't quite make the poses look as easy as the instructor's. I won't focus on that part...it'll come back. Crap, it's been over 6 years (yup) since I practiced regularly. Crazy, isn't it? It's hard to remember the days when I could truly write "yoga" down as one of my hobbies. Who knows if I'll get back there again--maybe this is just a bridge to a new and different type of workout. Whatever's coming, it felt good today to spend half an hour just breathing...and being.

In my Bible Study group, one of the women said that one of her biggest roadblocks to spending quiet time with God was her own inability to bend and accept that the stars don't have to align perfectly every morning at your designated time so that everything is perfect and in place for spending time with God. He'll come--even if the floor is dirty, or the coffee isn't quite up to your standards. God's waiting for us to spend time with Him, and He looks forward to it. That helped me more than you can imagine...I was that guy, so to speak. You guys know me--when I have a project to do, rather than sitting down to work I'll clean and organize the house. Get everything "perfect" so I can "focus" on my task. Well, I'm thinking, as I sit here surrounded by cheerios and who knows what on the floor that those days are over for me, so I'm grateful to be released from that need, so to speak. The house isn't perfect, I'm not wearing "yoga clothes," and nope, I haven't had my coffee, yet. But I exercised ANYWAY. And it felt just as good--and I was able to clear my mind. Pretty cool, when the laptop was sitting right here the whole time, waiting to remind me that I've got a big job to finish this morning. I'll get to it...after I drink my coffee and just savor the quiet, get back in touch with ME again after a few days away from home. I've got list upon list of things I need to accomplish this week, but the me who's growing up a little more each day realizes that if I don't take care of "me" a little bit, too, then I'll be good for nothing.

Mom & Dad come home today, and it'll be a sprint from here to surgery. Ready, set...you know what, not today. Today I'm going to enjoy being home. I'm going to get my work done. I'm going to be a good Mom. By the way, guess who's learned to CLIMB? Ahh, forget yoga, I'll be moving PLENTY today. Anyway, today's a good day. Let it begin...