The Cadences of Life
I was recently shown how life is like a piece of music, with phrases and cadences; with places for in breath and lots of moments where we feel we have to keep exhaling. Life itself was the teacher, as it so often is.
As with singing, what happens if we don’t optimise those in breaths? What happens at the end of the phrase if we haven’t breathed fully enough? We run out of breath… or we just make it, but feel the extent of the emptiness, so ready to breathe in again!
Recently, life has felt like lots of notes, blocks of melodies and sections of music. It helps to remember that there are points in which to breathe… to inhale ready for the next section. If we do so we don’t run out of breath!
Inhaling at the end of the phrase
It’s intriguing though, I think I was seeing these moments as the exhale, as the rest and relax - which they absolutely are. But this perspective has shown me quite clearly the need to inhale at that moment. That the days, busyness and commitments are actually an outpouring and can be an emptying. That the need to rest and relax is in order to soften and open ready to receive and be fulfilled, to be filled up again. I knew this on one level, but this has made it all the more clear and accessible. It is changing my relationship to pausing, to resting and to receiving within the rest.
Running on empty?
I have had periods of time when the filling happens as I go, when I feel more connected and re-sourced, where, as I give I also receive. This phrase, this recent phase has felt more depleting. I’ve approached it differently it seems, and now I need to make the most of the pause between phrases; the end of the cadence before the start of the next paragraph and section of music to really breathe!
To inhale by first fully exhaling and making space to be filled again.
Do you empty and exhale fully enough? Do you let go and release, rather than holding on and carrying on with shallow breathing? Is there a genuine sigh and the outward flow that makes real space to be filled up from within?
What fills you up?
What fills you up? A song? Movement? Nature… friends… the ocean? Silence? Play? If you are feeling a little wrung out and depleted which of these can become more conscious and replenish you? I am choosing breathing and music/song. Nature I am doing but I definitely need to more consciously breathe until I am back in the flow of natural and efficient breathing. This echos the ebb and flow of life, the giving and receiving and getting back in tune with the music, the phrasing of the beautiful melody and song that is life itself.
An invitation
So… the invitation is to keep breathing! Remember to breathe out and notice the moments to fill, and be filled, and come back into flow with your own life, your own beautiful melody, your own song.
To let life guide the phrasing and the melodies rather than imposing with our mind and its linear goals onto the life we are living.
To listen to our hearts and our bodies and to notice our breathing and let this be a signal, a sign… feedback to restore our sacred breath and our connection to the resonance and song of life. Breathe and be breathed, from within, as the precious soul and human being that you are. Contributing your music to the symphony of the whole of creation.