The average person at rest takes about 16 breaths per minute. This means we breathe about 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a day, 8,409,600 a year. Unless we get a lot of exercise. The person who lives to 80 will take about 672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime.
But… how many of these breaths do we appreciate, consciously enjoy and be still enough to absorb its healing effects. Breathing is regenerative and restorative. It can cleanse us of toxins that have built up in the body and the mind.
Sometimes life can feel suffocating, whether it be the demand for your efforts at work, school from friendships, relationships, from children or even from yourself. Moments of daily investment overwhelmed by the multitude of things on your todo list. Discouraged when you fail to achieve everything that you wanted to because you wanted to keep everyone around you happy while still juggling your responsibilities. Sometimes for the best of swimmers in this sea of life, it gets hard to breathe.
The weight that comes with being a caring and giving person is oftentimes under appreciated because it’s misunderstood. The constant busy feeling and stress that follows you everywhere pressing in on your from all angles is causing you to slowly suffocate into a dark inception within your own world, one where you are unaware of your own breath. Have we become so busy that we are unaware of the very air that keeps us conscious?
Layers of unaddressed pain and unresolved issues affects your present day, but somehow you’re still afloat gasping for a breath of air to sustain you one more day.
We often become so focused on finishing the race that we forget to rest, pause, recharge, take a break, and breathe. Sometimes you’ll have to say no, sometimes you’ll have to turn off your phone, sometimes you’ll have to cancel a commitment. Between each new day and moments within, you’re faced with precious opportunities to refuel, rejuvenate, refocus and gasp for new air. There is new air awaiting you. With the right mindset, information and direction you can better navigate your way through the storms, maintaining your breath and live a much better and fulfilled life filled with faith and miraculous moments and memories.
… And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Gen 2:7
Live but don’t forget to breathe.
Be of good courage this is not how your story ends;
Written by Steve Whyte
Originally published at medium.com