My thoughts drift in a lovely way while I drive. There is nothing pressing to do except the task at hand. Sometimes beautiful thoughts appear and become well developed in that time. I had one of these driving thoughts the other day, so I quickly spoke into a note taker before my phone died. Days later sitting quietly at home I remembered to look at my phone “Deepen on the exhale”.

I am no yoga expert, I took a couple classes years ago, but the breath is a main point of practice that has stayed with me. Inhale and exhale have completely different functions, on the inhale I fill my body up and on the exhale I slowly release all the tension and sink into the pose I am in. My body falls and I reach a level of the pose that would have been unattainable before that breath out.

Normal breathing is the same, I am taking oxygen that my body needs to function into myself and then releasing the unneeded carbon dioxide. Filling up with good, releasing the bad.

Many meditations involve envisioning good feelings entering into the body on the inhale, filling it up with life and positivity. Then you imagine all the bad things in your body, emotions, negativity as a ball in your throat and on exhale you breath them all away.

Life also flows in and out like the breath. High times fill my life with energy and wellness, lifting up everything around me. But the low times bring me to the depths of my fears, sickness and pessimistic emotions. Low times also, on the other hand, deepen me immensely. They teach me compassion, humility, understanding and courage. They are not just times to feel like I’m being made a victim, or that I should run away. They are an opportunity to deepen myself, to grow stronger than I was before. So when it’s time to exhale, it’s time to relax, release tension and let go of negativity.

Inhale and exhale are not, however, so alienated from each other. They follow each other eternally, just like the seasons.

I took a class about archetypes in collage and I learned about sacred geometry and numbers. My main take away from this class is that everything is interconnected and woven together. Archetypes found on the biological or minute level are ever expanded outwards into the universe. For example, the shape of our eye, is the shape of a hurricane, is the shape of the galaxy. In this way, the rhythm of your breath, is the ebb and flow of your life, is the flow of the world.

Also, taking a note from the stoics, I’m beginning to truly understand that the exhale, low times in life, are to be as expected as the rain. That there is no need to angered or upset about them. They are natural. Hoping that these times will never come only increases the pain when they do. When I have thought “how could this happen to me?”. Then I feel like I am being slighted by a cruel universe instead of humbled and then strengthened by my life experiences. I’m not being lifted up to be dashed on the rocks. I’m facing what I fear the most so that I won’t be afraid of it anymore. I am being given a chance to deepen on the exhale.

Sound a little like I’ve been smoking something in a commune? Nope, these are just thoughts I had while driving to work. Every day spirituality at play.