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Best Therapist in Portland

my musings

the abundance of breath



This word has been on the tip of my tongue, in my thoughts, my meditations. It has infiltrated messages from the universe and from teachers in my life. I am gravitating towards being aware of how the idea of scarcity or abundance impacts my life, my relationship, my practice. We can look at this word from all sorts of angles.


In the bigger wide lens view of life, (the place of self help books that often drive me crazy) we can claim that what we believe we create. If I believe I have enough money then I will. If I believe I have all the love, then I do. It is this kind of claim, often from a privileged person or perspective, that I often roll my eyes at. I find it hard to think that all of the houseless, mentally ill people on our streets, or those suffering from war in Ukraine or starving in third world countries, simply didn't “believe” they had security and that their situation is a direct manifestation from their scarcity mindset. Nope, I can't start there.


So I zoom in. To this moment. This breath. Right here. Yes, here, in my body, in this breath, there is everything. I close my eyes and feel the air in my lungs. Enough. I feel the edges of my body, this body breathing. Enough. It’s everything. It’s all there is and it is endless and expansive and I find contentment and joy. And from that breath I can see I have choice of what is next. Not in what is next in the bigger picture. I can't control the war, or the weather or my paycheck or what the person I'm in relationship will do. But I can control how I feel and respond and act in this moment. Do I smile or frown. How does that feel? Do I let my breath move freely on it’s own, or tense up my body and hold my breath. It is here in our bodies, in this breath holding that we find the core of “scarcity” based mindset…there is not enough air so I must hold it in.


Like an infinite plinko board I move myself one direction or or the other with this minute shift. Right now, in this body, I am safe, I am enough, I can feel content in my breath, soft in my body. Right here in this micromont I can choose joy, love, light, abundance. And from that decision I drop down to my next plinko moment. The next interaction, the next decision. I arrive at it from a place of abundance or scarcity, soft or tight, light or dark, yes or no.

And so my plinko ball moves through my life. And my experience creates itself, within the plinko board I have no control over.


Some people’s plinko boards seem to have invisible fishing line set up as guides, some peopl'es differential outcomes are stacked in favor of positive outcomes. Some peopl'es boards get smashed by bad weather, or bad luck, or racism and no matter how much they believe in abundance the outside world is cruel and limited. And that is in fact, reality. On the flip side, some peoples plinko boards ends in millions of dollars no matter what choices they make and yet, they meet every peg with fear and scarcity.


In the end, no matter what our plinko board offers us, no matter what configuration of opportunities, disasters, outcomes, or challenges the world stacks up for our plinko board experiences, what is true for all of us is that we can meet each moment with a choice of how we feel in our own bodies and minds. How we feel the breath in our body, how we tell our stories, how we hold and interpret the incoming data and our outgoing interactions with that data. That is the place where abundance lives. And that defines our lived experience.


So can we choose, with intention and remembrance and agency over our own lives, to see our human lived experience through a lens of abundance and yes. In this way, every moment and every breath we create the life we want.


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