Remembering to Breathe

It has been my great honor and privilege to spend the first 25 years of my life as an allopathic physician. In this role and with these responsibilities, we are permitted a front seat position in an individual’s life. We are present when a mother hears her child’s heartbeat for the first time. We bear witness when a woman hears a cancer diagnosis. Sometimes, we hear the final exhale.

For this is how it begins, and how it ends. The first and the last. In a rational world, the presence of breath is how we define alive: are you breathing? Am I breathing? It is the first two assessments in a medical emergency: A is for Airway and B is for breathing.

And yet somehow, between this first and last breath, breath disconnects from body. Not in a real sense, of course. We still breathe, or we would not be alive. But breath becomes shallow or frantic, forced or heavy. We still breathe, yet we lose a connection to our breath. We lose awareness of breath, and in this loss of consciousness, we lose connection to the very energy which can make us feel fully alive and present in the moments we are living.

Anasa Soma brings breath back into the body. Anasa means breath in Greek, and Soma means body. Through the daily practices of walking, meditation, pranayama and yoga, we consciously bring breath back into the body. Not only the physical body (annamaya kosha in yogic tradition), but energy body (pranamaya kosha), mind or emotional body (manomaya kosha), wisdom body (vijnanamaya kosha) and bliss body (anandamaya kosha).

We notice we are breathing, and how we are breathing. We direct the breath into difficult emotions or tangled knots in our bodies, and with this conscious movement of breath, we discover a surprising spaciousness. Thoughts and feelings which previously left us twisted, uncomfortable and contracted find a new softness, an unfamiliar gentleness. In this balmy space, a feeling arises that no matter what, all is well. We connect to a greater sense of well-being and equanimity. We wake up.

Pause. Take a breath. Catch your breath. Alive fully, in this and all moments.