Deliberately challenge the premise that the past and the future are more important than the present. – Timothy Miller
A few days ago when I wrote about the struggle I’m having with meditating, a fellow Joe wrote to me and suggested that I mix in a little slow breathing, pursing the lips on a long slow exhale. I’d actually read about this technique a few weeks ago but had forgotten about it. The lip pursing automatically encourages abdominal breathing.
I’ve been doing it this week while sitting quietly for 10 minutes in the morning, and it helped some, but today I decided to try it throughout the day by doing a little mental programming. Big difference.
“Whenever I take my vitamins in the morning, remember to do a slow ‘breathe easy’ exhale with pursed lips and just focus totally on what I’m doing. When thoughts intrude, notice them and let ’em go.”
“Whenever I get in the car and grab the seat belt…”
“Whenever I head for the bathroom to take piss….”
“Whenever I boot up a new application from the Windows Start Menu…”
I kept thinking of more and more little routines that I do repeatedly throughout the day that I could mentally hook up to one of these “breathe easy” reminder.
It was pretty enjoyable. And by the afternoon, I began to notice that a “breathe easy” break would make me aware that I had some muscle tension in my legs or stomach, so I’d do a little “let go” bit to relax those muscles. And it got more enjoyable. It sounds weird, but walking down the five flights of stairs to go to my car was a new experience.
The peak was playing doubles racquetball tonight. My concentration on the ball still sucked, but I played very relaxed because in between points I’d occasionally remember to “breathe easy” and “let go” of muscle tension and so I just played way better than usual. And I was doing more laughing and joking around than normal.
Cool beans.