My New Years Resolution: BE ATTENTIVE

At the dawn of every New Year, the mania to be a better person takes over, and I start theorizing all the ways I will improve myself in the next year. I stock pile my resolutions list with so many “to do’s” and omissions that eventually nothing takes priority and nothing becomes habit.

This year, it all boils down to one “foundational” resolution for me:

BE ATTENTIVE.

In this attention deficit world we live in…I can’t help but fall victim to the many distractions that keep me from listening to my intuition, or my body’s needs, or frankly, just listening well to others.

I recently learned about “Screen Apnea.” As it turns out, the average person spends 8+ hours in front of a screen per day, and during that time, their breathing becomes very shallow and near absent. Without going into a long scientific explanation of how bad that is…believe me, it’s bad. Shallow breathing WILL shave years off your life.

Breathing Detoxifies and Releases Toxins Your body is designed to release 70% of its toxins through breathing. If you are not breathing effectively, you are not properly ridding your body of its toxins i.e. other systems in your body must work overtime which could eventually lead to illness.

After this discovery, I decided I needed to improve my awareness of my breath and make a conscientious effort to breathe deeper throughout the day.

At the core, the challenge to breathe deeper is hopefully going to set the foundation for a more conscious, ATTENTIVE lifestyle…one where social media takes a low priority; where I don’t multi-task all the time; where I listen to my body (and take that cat-nap over sending that extra email); and where I devote my full attention to my son, Fin when I am home.

I’ll end with this quote from Edward Abbey:

“Do not burn yourself out. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the bastards.”

So instead of building a resolution list centered around desired outcomes (i.e. be a better listener, or do Yoga more) that are very topical in nature…I am just going to start at the root of it all:

Inhaaaaale, 1,2,3

Exhaaaaale, 1,2,3

Will you join me?

P.S. Keep a look out for an update on my family’s challenge to #liveincolor It’s our attempt to be attentive and assign themed “rituals” to every day of the week. Yesterday was “Minus-media Monday” and tonight we’re stoked for “Tubbing Tuesday” - bath time can’t come soon enough! @iconartus