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