Change As Breath

Change keeps me on my toes. It keeps me aware of my surroundings, while being present with each moment. Change keeps my life living. Breathing.

I haven’t always had this relationship with change. When I was younger, I was always ready to wage a war against anything that caused the slightest tilt in my world. I lived with a chip on my shoulder, closed off and scared.

A new person in my life would be met by my stone mask, hoping they would tire of chipping away before the stone ever cracked. I wanted my circle, my space, tight and controlled.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed I was gasping for air. My own hands wrapped around my neck. The chokehold that I held on my reality was a delusion that only left me fighting. The harder I tried to hold my reality still, the more vigorously it shook me from within. 

The stronghold around my neck cutting off more and more breath, left me only with the raging voice in my head. There were days I soaked my bed sheets with tears, because of the fear that voice instilled in me. Days diving was an impossible task, because the voice was screaming to hit the tree.

But eventually I didn’t have enough air left in me to hold up my mask, and the people around me became witnesses to the war I was fighting alone.  These people held a mirror to this battle and forced me to see what I was truly doing: torturing and destroying only myself.

Slowly, these people helped me loosen the grip around my neck and they held my hands down as the breath rushed back into my lungs. Learning to allow my world to change and flow around and through me was not an easy lesson. But I have softened my energy against the ever changing breath filling my lungs and created space between myself and the constant echoing in my head. 

Soon I began searching for this change and I have found a sense of safety in the discomfort. This is the space in which I learn. The space in which I have begun to understand what I am capable of. And the space in which my life has felt the greatest love and excitement.

Overtime I have become accustomed to my life frequently breathing new air.  I have found a love in knowing that my reality can and will shift, because it reminds me each breath holds value as is, however deep or shallow it may be.