Resolve to Breathe

As the new year approaches, we start to make resolutions of all kinds. We gain a sense of accomplishment for resolutions kept and live with a pesky feeling of failure for the ones we couldn’t achieve. And so, it goes, year after year, the race for self-improvement begins. In the last few years it seems a new resolution has made its way onto many people’s lists: to be more present. However, when asked how one becomes present, vague answers are followed by a lot of umms and uhhs. I myself had difficulty putting it into one concise thought until, I examined the most important part of yoga through both, a terrifying and enlightening event in my life.

In 2006 I became a mom to a beautiful baby who literally cried all day due to symptoms of GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) which she would outgrow in a year. Until then, I would live the life of a scared mother as I used siren loud, apnea monitors and other tools and techniques to keep my child out of the danger zone. Needless, to say I was holding my breath for her to grow out of the choking episodes and constant crying. I wanted nothing more than for her to grow up, so she and I could finally exhale.

After 7 long months she and I were starting to resemble the other happy moms and their children at the park. The next month, I was diagnosed with Lymphoma. As I sat at my doctor’s office getting surgery instructions to take place a few days from then, I went into mom mode and took mental inventory of the baby food in the pantry and organized the diaper bag. I didn’t have time to stop for my health, I was a mom!

Surgery day came in spite, of my denial of the big C. On the operating table I drifted off under anesthesia. I should have been asleep when the incision on the side of my neck was being made but I awoke just then. I lay there in intense pain, paralyzed and unable to tell the nurse and surgeon to stop the surgery because I was more awake then I had ever been. Screaming thoughts of, was this really happening raced through my mind. After failed attempts to move any part of my body and signal for help, I surrendered and decided to just breath through it. Except, I noticed the rising and falling of my belly through the barely open slivers of my eyes. I intensified my breathing; inhaling and exhaling, deep belly breaths that visibly inflated and deflated my body which caught the attention of the surgeon. After hearing the panic from him, the anesthesiologist and other undiscernible medical sounds, I was asleep again.

I don’t think I’d ever taken a breath with intention before that moment.

After the surgery in the recovery room, the stern voice of a nurse scolded me, “Breath! You’re not breathing!” She pointed at the monitor showing my oxygen levels dropping. Even more than in the operating room, I felt if I didn’t breathe properly I would never see my daughter again. I began to inhale and exhale with great resolve. I don’t think I’d ever taken a breath with intention before that moment.

Weeks later, I saw my oncologist and though I should have been concerned about what was to come with chemo, I was actually elated; just happy to be alive. My husband and I even cracked jokes in the waiting room. At that visit, my oncologist informed me that I was given a wrong diagnosis. After all that, I didn’t have Lymphoma but a relatively benign condition that mimics it, called Kikuchi Fujimoto Disease.

Through this terrifying yet enlightening event in my life, I no longer allow an arbitrary day on the calendar called a new year to create any major resolutions, except to simply breath and let life unfold. Every learned yogi will tell you that the most essential part of yoga is the breath. It’s not the asanas (postures) you practice but simply the breathing and the existing is yoga. This year, let’s resolve to bring our focus to the intentional filling and emptying of oxygen in our bodies. So, we can feel our presence and be present in every moment of our lives. Resolve to just breath. You are here and unbelievably alive.