Connections, synchronicities, metaphors are so much fun when we spot them. Do you think so too? They’re like jigsaw puzzle pieces coming together before we’ve unsealed the box. A few weeks ago, my brain made a cool analagous connection. I’ll share what happened, but first…
Are you up for a quick experiment? I promise it’'ll be easy. On the count of 3, just breathe. Nestle your tongue on the roof of your mouth, then inhale sweet, O2 rich air into every molecule of your being. Imagine it as a gentle wave flowing up from your toes and expanding through your body as it makes it way to your head. Then repeat it one more time. Feel free to close your eyes with each breath if it helps, and open them when you finish. Are you ready? 1-2-3 breathe.
What did you notice? Maybe you’re more relaxed or perhaps you experienced a sense of invigoration. Either is groovy. But here’s what I’m looking for, the other side of the equation. Did you notice the exhale? Is exhaling important? Is that a rhetorical question? In this case, it’s metaphorical, here’s why. A weeks ago I attended an online event. During the Round Robin intros, a participant introduced herself and shared her saving grace. That was the THING that helped to get her navigate successfully during 2020. By successfully, I mean survived. That something is critically vital to our well-being. Do we pay attention to it? Not so much. That THING is exhaling.
Give my brain something to work with then the thoughts start flooding. I rarely focus on my breathing unless instructed to do so in a class like yoga or Tai Chi or on my walks up and down the hills in my neighborhood. My attention to breathing can definitely use an adjustment. But wait, while my body was digging the inhales and exhales as she described this oft overlooked autonomic mechanism, my little organizer brain, busy noticing connections, started shrieking for attention like a ravenous toddler. I’ll get to that in a sec.
Exhaling allows us to let go what isn't serving us
This is where the organizing metaphor struck me like clutter tumbling off a shelf. We need to breathe. We require oxygen to nourish and heal our bodies. We also need to take in food, clothing, creature comforts to live a healthy, productive, enjoyable life. Now think about exhaling the carbon dioxide and other toxins in the air that enter our bodies. All that doesn’t nourish us, heal us, support us needs to go. Too much of anything weighs us down. Too much of the wrong thing can make us ill.
The symbiotic relationship of breathing in and out is a metaphor for the way we live our ways. Money comes in, money goes out. Children are born to us, then they grown up and leave. Bushes and flowers bloom, and then they wither away. And from an organizer’s view of living a tidy, less encumbered life what enters our homes needs to be offset with the outflow of the extraneous and excess.
When items no longer serve us, it’s time to exhale them. Release them too so that you have room for all that is good.
