Learning to Breathe Better

It hasn’t exactly been a year since I started learning to breathe. I started learning to breathe on the 12th of January, 2011 and I’ve been sharing m breathing techniques on my WordPress since then. I believe that you can never stop learning to breathe, you can only get better at it. So yes, I’m still learning. 2012 has been a pretty eventful year for me…somethings I’d like to forget quickly, somethings I’ll cherish all the days of my life. I met new friends and I lost some. I’ve been the insecure girl at work and I’ve been the picture of security. I’ve had emotional roller-coaster rides that have been anything but enjoyable. Been tossed here and there by emotional tides. Now that I look back on all of it, I can smile. I can smile because I tasted a wealth of emotions this year.

Spiritually, I’ve become wiser, maybe even stronger. And I find it amazing how God calls my kind to be “the light of the world” and “a city on a hill” when all I want to do is crawl back into the pit that He picked me from. The pit is comfortable. The pit is all I’ve known. The pit is was home. Time and time again, He comes for me, picks me up again and sets me on a hill for all to see. I’m not sure I love the attention all the time, I would rather go back down to the pit sometimes and feel sorry for myself. Often He tells me that my flaws, imperfections, insecurities, brokenness is exactly what He needs. If I was flawless, perfect, secure, sturdy…I’m afraid He would have no need of me. And I would have no need for Him. If there’s nothing I know about myself, I know that I am needy and I love to feel needed. I think of that and I get out of my pit willingly.

At home, I won’t say that everything has been dandy. That would be a lie. If there is a perfect home in this world, it definitely isn’t mine. I love my father with every fibre of my being. I know that he has made mistakes, I acknowledge the fact that he has many flaws and has made decisions he will regret all his life. I just want to make regretting easier for him. It’s the least that I could do. My siblings and I share a name and a home but I can’t say that we live for each other. We are so used to giving each other left over loving, I’m not sure what it would feel like to give them the main dish. What if they don’t even want the main dish? My stepmother on the other hand is an enigma to me. Sometimes, I think it’s possible for me to love her and other times, I wake up to the cold reality that it will be difficult and it will take flesh out of me. I’m pretty selfish. I don’t want anything taken out of me. I want it dropped in my lap. I lie to myself that I don’t have much of me to give to anybody and I know deep inside that there’s so much to give, so much to pour out and I’m afraid that is what keeps me up at night. I don’t know how to give and through 2012, I wasn’t ready to learn. I just wanted to breathe.

As for school, I’ve had moments when I just sit down and cry. I ask myself more often than I really want to: “What are you doing here?”

What are you doing here?!

I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing handling violins, pianos and a lazy soprano voice. I don’t know what I’m doing writing MUSON theory exams. I don’t know what I’m doing reading sheet music. I don’t know if I want to go to Royal College of Music when I finish university. So I’ll just focus on breathing for now. I’ll breathe deeply when the music notes become blurry and the tears threaten to spill, I’ll breathe confidently when my mouth opens and timid soprano pours. I’ll breathe, surely, when I bow my violin in front of an unfriendly looking panel. I’ll breathe.

As for relationships, I’ll take a break. I can’t make wise decisions when I keep hopping from one relationship to the other. I’ll  lose my breath and some of my sanity, some of myself. I’ll lose. I lose because I don’t know what to give and I don’t know what to keep. That way, I end up giving what I should keep and keeping what I should give. So I’ll just stop and breathe.

Breathe.

This is my last post on this blog. Still unsure if I should delete it or just leave it dormant. Don’t ask why, I don’t have the answer. I can tell you confidently though, that breathing is the best thing that could happen to us humans. Just breathe. Breathe deeply, thoughtfully, reverently. Breathe as you are.

And let your heart find rest in Him…

A Heart That Can Break

Melting, flaring, weeping, dying
One of the best things in life is feeling
Feeling the loss of a friendship
Feeling the loss of a relationship
And the beginning of one
Feeling sympathy for the old man repairing shoes down the street
In the heat of the sun
In the light of day
Feeling my heart swell for the newborn fingers that grip my thumb ever so gently
Feeling, and possibly smelling,
But most likely feeling the fragrance of body wash
As it mingles with steam in my nose
Feeling the hurt that flies out of your mouth when you’re angry
Feeling my heart swell with assurance of unfailing love, protection and attention

Simply feeling

I want a heart that can break
I want tears that I can make
I want laughter that I don’t have to fake
I want to feel everything and anything
I want all the emotions there are to take
For I fear that if I cannot feel
I’ll start dying slowly and surely
Pain, pleasure, awe, love, ate, courage, fear

I want it
And I embrace it with the near blindness of the old man down the street with cataracts

My Biggest Fear

Everybody is afraid of something, or afraid something will happen, or afraid something wont happen. Most of the time, that ‘something’ isn’t even singular. It’s plural. I won’t call it a phobia because the fear has varying degrees in each and everyone of us. It makes a substantial amount of people neurotic and pulls on the seams of sanity for others (which is pretty much the same thing). For a handful, it bothers them once in awhile.
But no one can deny it’s there. Like a fly that won’t go away.

So, my biggest fear is…becoming a hypocrite.

Nah, it’s not that I will get unceremoniously dumped or that I won’t find anymore Fanta in the fridge or that Jon Foreman will die not knowing I exist. No. That’s no it.
That one word, ‘hypocrite’ has the power to cut through my heart and send it to the pits of depression.
That fear has driven me to wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning to jog and communicate with God. It has driven me to bow my violin even when all I wanted to do was smash it. It has driven me to church every Sunday morning and Thursday evening even and especially when I felt I was sticking out like a sore thumb.

It. Has. Driven. Me.

Not to say that the things it has driven me to do are bad. Quite the opposite. But it has such a hold on me I can’t breathe.

It gave me a headache just thinking about it but I’m determined not to stay in this cage that I’m in.

So when my biggest fear comes to pass and the word “hypocrite” is spat in my face. I can smile knowing that I have kept my mouth in check and practised only what I preached.

What are your biggest fears?