I’ve taken quite a few deep, slow, and full bellied breaths this week. This isn’t unusual for me, but my awareness of it has certainly heightened. With each inhale, I feel my chest
expand first, and then my belly, and then somehow, I feel my feet planted more firmly beneath me. It surprises me every single time. How does a deep breath help me to take
better stock of my appendages and step more fully into my three-dimensional self?
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a Black Feminist writer, scholar, and self-proclaimed love-evangelist, writes that “breath is a practice of presence”. When I pay attention to my breath and suddenly feel my feet, I get a clear sense of what she is trying to say. Our ability to stay attuned to our breath is a necessary step in recognizing not only our sense of agency and presence, but our fullness as human beings. Our attention and our ability to breathe deeply allows us access to parts of ourselves that might be cut off in periods of overwhelm. And my goodness, this is a period of overwhelm.
So, I’ve been breathing. And I’ve been feeling my feet. And I have been taking deep breaths with friends and loved ones. And we been feeling a host of new things together;
things that didn’t seem accessible before. In each tandem breath, we have created a tiny collective intent on showing us that another way is possible. And so, I hope that you take care friends, and breathe deeply when you can.