19/10/2024
From Chapter One: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐆𝐚𝐬𝐩
...by your first birthday, you’d performed the miracle of respiration some 26 million times and change.
Each inhalation nourishing your body's ecosystems like Spring rain on a fallow field.
As you grew, your body adapted to take in more oxygen with less effort.
By your 18th birthday, you were taking around 18-25 breaths a minute—25,000 a day—without pause, appreciation, or reflection.
In fact, through all the days of your life—from childhood to adolescence into adulthood, middle age, and beyond,....
...through the heartbreaks and disappointments, through every victory lap and overnight success—your breath has been right there with you, keeping you alive.
Nine million breaths a year.
108 million breaths for every decade of your adult life.
You do the math.
As many inhalations as there are stars in the night sky.
More exhalations than there are grains of sand on a stretch of Florida beach.
Now, you may pause to consider that the vast, vast, vast majority of your breaths occurred without your deliberate consent—a persistent refrigerator hum beneath the surface of your awareness.
What you may not have noticed is that in those moments when
your attention is turned inward, your perceptions dull.....
....and your inner voice, loud, compulsive, repetitive and so
commonly negative—perhaps you failed to meet the moment head-on.
When you press the pause button, transcend your busy mind, and inhabit your body fully in the here and now—where the real action is—those are the moments of your life you cherish most of all.
Wide awake.
Perfectly okay.
Aware of your soul's essence, beingness, and this precious life's temporary nature.
That, my dear friend, is the driving force behind the book you’re holding in your hands.
A book that explores the breath is a book that discovers the profound power of Presence along the way.
And the present moment is where your beautiful life is happening.
Right Now.
