Breathe Easy, Live Large!

How does one put words to the experience of joy?

How do we compress into a selection from the alphabet the intense and immense sensations that flood the body and wash over the tissue from top to toe?

And perhaps, even more importantly, how do we find the pathway to creating those experiences for ourselves more frequently?

The experience of joy is as unique to each of us as the quantum biological system that activates, processes and calibrates for its presence. Sometimes accompanied by laugher and sometimes by tears, the cells of the body open to facilitate a flow of information that lets us know we're just so glad to be alive! That tells us that life is good and rich and filled with opportunity and potential - to love, to know, to connect.

We discover that far more than our intellects, our bodies open, expand and fall back into the wave of exhilaration that allows us to be carried forward, into the next expression of who we are in a physical world. As we trust the wave and allow ourselves to be carried by it, we become aware of something much greater - something that keeps us safe and invites us to become even more in this journey of personal evolution we call ' life' .

Perhaps we work at it too hard. Perhaps our pathway to joy is not to seek it but to allow ourselves to be found. If we were not so busy looking to find it, we might more easily notice the invitations for us to discover it, from one task to the next. Simple pleasures that come unwrapped and without the trappings of the gift alerting us to its potential.

Consider the power of your own breathing and what might come of it. Hard to believe? Not if you recognize that your body is a quantum biological device, designed to receive and transmit a continuous flow of information. As you move through your day, begin to notice how frequently you hold your breath; how frequently your breathing becomes shallow and rapid; and how easy it is to forget that breathing is what allows us to stay alive!

Feeling bummed because of a problem? Try this on for size...

Think of your problem and as you do, begin to allow yourself to take a long, slow deep breath and without stopping, slowly exhale until the lungs are empty (not enough to cause discomfort or pain) - and then hold your breath. Counting slowly 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004 - then again, long, slow deep inhale and without stopping, slowly exhale until the lungs are empty - and then hold your breath. Counting 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004. Repeat this five to 10 times as you think about your problem. When done, consider your problem and notice what has happened inside. Magic! And all you did was breathe and let your body do what it is designed to do.

Joy is an expression of the body, not a process of the intellect or of language. Joy fills every cell and makes our feet tap to the music, hips sway to the beat and hands clap gleefully to the rhythm of our own lives. Joy brings a flush to our cheeks and a gleam to the eye. And more than all of that - joy is contagious! When we allow ourselves to relax and release the death-grip on our own need for perfection, we discover what it takes to allow ourselves to see in others what we have for far too long covered up in ourselves - and that is, the magnificence of our imperfection! Without it, how else would we be guided to find our way home?

Copyright 2005 Louise LeBrun

The ideas for this and other columns reflect the themes of the four programs levels of Portals Passages ( www.PortalsPassages.com ), the WEL-Systems Institute Mystery School. "Shape or Be Shaped by the World" is the theme of the fourth level intensive, called "Catalyst for Change."

By Louise LeBrun