Breathing in, breathing out
It sounds strange to say it, but many of my reasons to be cheerful are the very worst parts of my life - the things that make me sad, stressed, or overwhelmed. One of my most potent discoveries since becoming a mother a little over a year ago, has been a powerful reframing of my every day, courtesy of the spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh. Stay with me here…
I’m sure many parents are familiar with the unpredictable snatches of rest that become our sleep substitutes during those first few months. If I found myself wired, or over-caffeinated, at a time when I was suddenly able to lie down on my own for half an hour, I found yoga nidra tapes and guided meditations a helpful way to switch off for a few minutes when I was unable to sleep, and an important reminder of the far-reaching nourishment and calm that can be found in a relatively short space of time.
One of my favourite recordings is a twenty-minute, sparsely-guided meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh. The sound of a gong, every four or five minutes, followed by a simple thought to carry in your head alongside your breath, until the next chime.
About half way through, the thought arrives as follows:
Breathing in, I smile to everything, to my sufferings, my difficulties. Nothing is as important as my peace and my joy. Breathing out, I release and let go: This is a practice of freedom.
The first time I heard this, I think I probably performed an inner eye-roll. It’s just so…Buddhist innit. Smiling with impassive detachment at all your shit. It’s a bit disconnected.
But as I returned to this meditation again and again, I saw this particular thought begin to blossom and open like a flower. It isn’t detachment at all; it is an offering of acceptance that, when fully embodied, leaves you free and untethered enough to dive completely, joyfully, and deeply into the waters of your life, murky and sparkling in equal measure: How lucky am I to be an exhausted new mum? How lucky am I to be stressed about work? How lucky am I to have a home to take care of, a family to keep up with, friends to miss, people to love and occasionally to lose and to grieve? And I began to hold my difficulties close like jewels, to wrap my arms around my worries like old friends, to gather my stresses and strains close and to say Thank You: I am here, breathing, living, crying, feeling my way through the difficult richness that is A Life.
Don’t get me wrong, there is much that comes our way that will loom too large and dark to be tackled by this statement. But for the everyday, for the constant, quiet, drip drip drip of the tiring and the irritating, I have found this way of seeing provides a wonderfully real cure.
I think its power lies in its dissolving of inner conflict. Sure, it is true that a cup of freshly-brewed coffee, a quiet walk by the sea, a conversation with an old friend, are all wonderful things. But identifying them as the positives implicitly identifies other stuff as the negatives, and bolsters this wearying push and pull between the things that make us happy (summer rain, a long hug, a nice meal) and things that make us sad (being overworked, falling ill, missing someone we love).
The realisation that all of these things are treasures, quietens that voice of conflict, the yearning to warmly embrace the good and doggedly survive the bad. And as that voice recedes, acceptance is found, like a calm sigh of relief. In that acceptance, is the ability to exist in comfortable, welcoming companionship alongside many of the worst aspects of life. It allows you to let go of reaching only for the good, and when things get difficult, to feel simple and uncomplicated gratitude for your own beating heart. That, as Thich Nhat Hanh rightly promises, is freedom.
Helen Richardson