By Kathleen Bell, RN, MSN, CNM (Ret), AHN-BC
~Gisele Theriault, artist, Buddhist, founder of Mindful Necessities
January 2025 has begun with daily crises all over the world, causing stress and distress for hundreds of thousands. Twenty-five years after the stressors of Y2K, five years after the Covid pandemic, and one year after an insurrection in Washington. D.C., I see people so stressed out that they forget to breathe. And without breathing, sometimes it can feel like we can no longer even think straight! In my fifty years of being a registered nurse, I have come to know the greatest tool we possess to destress our bodies, minds and, ultimately, our lives is to breathe deeply, intentionally and rhythmically until we feel as if our entire body, and our entire being, is ‘being breathed’ by a universal force that is more powerful than any of our singular selves.
Events the first month of 2025, in various locations in the US and around the world, are demonstrating the chaotic, frenetic and violent energy that abounds on our planet as the year begins. To maintain some sense of personal balance and inner alignment so that I can move forward into the New Year, I find it necessary to be reminded of the basic goodness of existence. Of peace within the heart that can be found internally and externally in Nature and of the impermanent beauty that remains available to us all. A long time ago, when I was training to be a nurse-midwife, a respected teacher of mine taught me to “expect the best but prepare for the worst”. Much later in my life, I adopted a modified version of that advice, and I now try to practice seeing the best in the best and the best in the worst.
Knowing how important it is to keep my inner alignment within the deep center of my soul and my true nature, I have gone on a New Year’s retreat for the past 25 years. Finding, re-setting and maintaining balance within our bodies, minds and spirits are critical components necessary for general health and well-being. And finding any sense of peace in unsettled times. Retreat can be like putting a computer into ‘sleep’ mode. Every program/window/tab that is usually open and working is shut down completely, even those running in the background. Not counting travel time, I take two whole days and nights to step out of the patterns of daily life to assess, reflect and re-align what has transpired in the past year. And create a vision of what the year ahead might be. Of course, I know that when I return home, I will fire up the computer again and reopen all the tabs I have been working on, and the uncertainty of life will continue. But my perception of it will be changed, because my internal alignment has been changed – and this is a crucial point. My journals will contain detailed evaluations and reflections on the year just past, hopefully informing a new list of goals, intentions, motivations, mottos and mantras to influence and guide the one which stretches before me. The end of each retreat fills me with gratitude – an emotion that carries the highest vibrational energies for healing and resilience and creation – for having something tangible to hang onto which helps me focus and feel centered as the world continues to spin.
I have practiced focused awareness meditation for nearly 20 years. Whether at home or traveling, I always find a space to sit and BREATHE. The breathing discipline helps clear my (healthy) busy mind, and I can reflect on what it is that I need to see and hear and learn that day when I wake up, listen and pay attention to what arises. What continues to be clear is that we all desperately need to embrace each other’s humanness by accepting the profound truth that each beating heart is a testimony to life itself. LIFE: the life force that is breathed in and out with each and every breath. It continues to amaze me that the worldwide COVID pandemic did not more greatly impact our thinking about the universal connections we share. The truth is, we all breathe one another’s breath. All the time. Not only our lover’s, or our housemates’ or our immediate family’s – but the exhalations of our neighbors are incorporated into the atmosphere of our surroundings. Soon the ashes from the fires in LA will be seen and breathed by people who live far away from the present disaster. Our entire human race and every living thing on this planet must perform the essential function of respiration to live. The late great Buddhist teacher and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh said: ” We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness”. He coined the word ‘interbeing’ to describe the interconnectedness of all things in the Universe.
This new year of 2025, I invite you to consider adopting a breathing practice for meditation. There are a plethora of teachers, programs and online tools to help you begin, but formal instruction is not required to adopt a simple practice that includes these actions:
To read more from Kathleen on Breathing, Meditation and Mindfulness
By Tammera J. Karr, PhD
Local, State and National events of late seem to once more be a buffet line of restrictions, inconsistencies, prejudice, and fear. Twenty-four seven exposure to stories of hurricanes, forest fires, political unrest, riots, violence and just plain nonsense has a deep and for some deadly effect on their health. Heightened anxiety, sleep disturbance, depression, and fear can precipitate in heart attacks, increase the risk of cancer and more.
Life: making ends meet, looking after the family, building a business, dedication to work, travel; these all add some stress to our lives. Breathing, aging, environmental factors, genetics, and physical activity are also forms of stress – ones we do not always think about as they are factors we can do little to change. There is a trend however that has taken over our lives, very different from our parents and grandparents time, in particular, the last ten years with the advent of rapid access to news and social media. It is the twenty-four seven availability of opinion and information that has the effect of increasing fear, anxiety and anger in some individuals including children. In today’s world, we are in a constant fight or flight mode, driving up stress hormones, constricting blood vessels and increasing susceptibility to chronic pain and digestive issues.
Now I am not a believer in hiding one’s head in the sand. However, a growing number of people have lost the ability to step back, turn off or even take a deep breath. Deep breathing has solid research behind it for being effective in lowering stress hormones, improve sleep and cognition, concentration, reducing high blood pressure, and anxiety. Wait for it – you know it is coming – and improve digestion.
Many long-time readers of this column know I am Christian, the divine has been a genuine part of my life since I was a child, gifting me with a certainty of safety. Which is good because I am a bit of a clutz. Hahaha, Grace before meals and meditative prayer have a very very long history, and not just in Judaeo-Christian cultures. With the world being far more global today we have access to Eastern culture and beliefs, and they share aspects with Christianity on meditative or contemplative prayer, even rhythms of music found in worship services have similarities to breathing patterns. Modern research on yoga was the first investigation into supporting prayer and meditation as having a positive biochemical response on health.
I have witnessed personally, and clinically individuals with a personal faith are healthier, their hypothalamus and thymus glad’s and brain function with more elasticity and they are less prone to adrenal fatigue than persons with no belief system. For me, history and human nature demand a belief in something or one greater than ourselves, it has been part of human existence so long, it may even be coded into our DNA. Faith is and should be a deeply personal matter. Regardless of one’s belief system yes even non-Christians, who practice prayer, meditation and chants can stimulate a slow deep breathing response, calming brain chemistry and stress hormones allowing them to weather periods of disaster, strife, and upheaval with greater flexibility.
So my challenge to you in these stress-filled times: At mealtime turn off the TV, Ipad, or radio. Give a moment to quiet the mind; breathe deeply through the nose once, twice, and give thanks for the food before you, the hands that grew and made the meal and the gift of health it provides your body, and for those who make freedom possible. We are but feathers on the breath of God…
“Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.”
Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179
To Peace and Healthy Foods