The Lost Art of Breathing

Today I want to talk about reclaiming the lost art of breathing. I’m not crazy (or if I am, this isn’t the reason): humans have been breathing, are currently breathing, and will keep on breathing to infinitude (or at least until they die). Oxygen, as everyone knows, is one of our most fundamental needs. How could it ever be possible to “lose” such a necessity, one that is literally woven into the fabric of survival? Breathing is not something that we need to learn or be taught in order to do it “properly.” As newborn infants enter the world, they draw their first breath; it happens naturally; it is a part of their very nature, which must be why we have the expression “as easy as breathing.” How then is it conceivable to label breathing as an art?

I am not using “art” in a literal or restrictive sense of the word (then again, I rarely do). In my conception of it, art can be anything that opens us up to the beauty of the world. Art is not just some external thing; it must possess transcendent power, the power to become a part of ourselves and to lift us above the strict and basest reality of everyday life. I realize this is a broad and rather loose definition of art (can it even be called a definition?), but I think it is an entirely valid (and indeed, necessary) way of looking at art. There are also specific categories of art that can be better defined, shared, and studied (think of literature, music and visual art), but another vital aspect of art is experience. All humans are by nature creative beings. Because we are created by God in His image, we are able to participate in His creativity through our thoughts, our words, our actions, and simply by being. In light of this, we can all be called artists, art can be called life, and the art of living creation. We create because we were created first, and we experience art in our daily life.

Unfortunately, I think we often fail to notice or respond to our divine calling towards artistry. The first step to claiming our innate creative power consists of being, not doing. Put simply, we must experience beauty and the transcendence of peace, joy and love in our lives and in our selves before we can truly harness our creativity. Yet this does not take place in grandiose ways or in the biggest, brightest and most visible things. We often discover our inner artist and experience transcendence on the smallest of scales and in the unlikeliest of places. These places are not rare or hard to find; they are merely overlooked.

With that, I turn to breathing. What does it mean to breathe? To breathe does not simply mean to be human, though I have restricted my discussion so far to human nature. To breathe means to be alive. I would push this further and say that to breathe means to be a living creature, a creature of God and thus an integral part of creation. Breathing obviously matters; I doubt this proposition would be of much dispute. It matters, because it keeps us alive. It matters, because we need to do it to live; it matters, because it is a reality of life and everyone does it. All of these are true. But I wonder if we could find something more in this simple necessity. I wonder if shrouded in its simplicity is art.

Although it may sound foolish, I often forget to breathe. Perhaps not everyone recognizes themselves having this problem (it does sound rather bizarre to say aloud), but as an anxious individual, I know it to be true. Evidently, I never forget to breathe for very long (as I am still here writing to you), not long enough that the absence of oxygen causes any serious issues. And yet I do forget. When I am anxious about something, stressed as I complete a task, fearful or worrying about the future, consciousness of breathing slips away and I cling to the voice of fear instead. So I suppose what is happening is not that I am not breathing, but that I am not breathing regularly. This is an important distinction to make. All of us breathe and all of us do it “right,” so to speak. However, maybe we are capable of doing it better.

Most of the time I engage in shallow breathing, which is to say I am not really “engaging” in breathing at all. Without thinking about it, I breathe in a haphazard manner: I breathe in quickly, irregularly and hold my breathe for brief moments. What’s more, when I inhale, I only take in a minimal amount of air, I only skim the surface, scrape the necessity of what I need to get by. The key here is that I am not thinking about it; I don’t even realize I am doing this. In the moment, I don’t feel the effects of my practice of breathing, but these effects seem to build up and burden my body as more time passes. For one, my anxiety increases and peace is a distant impossibility. As well, I feel myself more tired, less confident, and there comes a time even when my chest tightens, making me feel as though I simply don’t have enough air to breathe.

As evidenced above I have a rather complicated relationship with breathing. But this is not because that is simply the way it has to be. Since breathing, as a natural act, has become something so taken for granted, assumed to be always taking place in the background, we often lose consciousness of breathing as a gift. Specifically, it is a gift of life, but it is also a gift that can give us peace, strength and can help us become more in tune with our Creator. When I actually stop what I am doing and transfer breathing from the background to the foreground, when I pay attention to and focus on my breathing, I open this gift. I begin to take deep breaths, to take breaths that reach down to the very depths of my being and resonate there within my soul. The pace of my breathing slows, and as a result, all around me slows and becomes more still, laced with peace and beauty. As a result, I myself am able to partake in this peace and beauty, and open myself up to the world around me.

For this is another benefit of deep breathing, of breathing as an art: it connects us to our surroundings. By concentrating our energy on something so small and ordinary as breathing, we give ourselves permission to simply be, and this being is in harmony with the rest of creation, which we notice when we take this time from doing to be. I also suggested that breathing can connect us to God. When looked at this way, breathing can be like a prayer: it is the simplest, most natural and yet purest prayer there is; it is built into our very nature, a prayer of thanksgiving, a prayer of the presence of God, a prayer of life. As we breathe, we can breathe in the presence and love of God and breathe out the fear and anxiety that oppress rather than liberate us. Perhaps this mindful cycle of breathing could be accompanied with these words: Jesus, fill me with Your peace.

Of course, we cannot always be breathing in this deep and focused way. Much of the time we have to be doing things, and breathing, of necessity, must fade into the background without our expending too much mental or physical energy. Yet I think all of our lives would be enriched if we spent even a small amount of time each day breathing in this meaningful way. Ultimately I see breathing as something with the potential to be art, because it does give us the opportunity for an experience of transcendence uniting us with our Creator, and the creation we share. It enables us to see ourselves, our circumstances and our surroundings in a new way, instilled with peace, love and beauty, and this- the seeking of beauty- is the true essence of art.