As I cannot breathe through my nose, thanks to allergies, it is even easier to hear me exhale loudly and fully release the dark energies that can easily enter my body and mind.
I’m not a shy person, and I have no aversion to speaking my mind. However, what I have realized (again) is that it doesn’t always serve a meaningful purpose to open my mouth or do anything other than smile and listen.
Since I have arrived in France, and we have settled in with our friends, I have found myself getting caught up in their personal lives. Some are more dramatic than others. Some are more negative than others. Some are more “normal” than others. No matter the situation, the reality is that I do not need to spend time or energy on judging or speculating on their lives. Obviously, if I were asked to be involved, that would be a different kind of conversation, but that is not what I speak of in this case.
I am reminded of Mrs. Rachel Lynde from one of my all-time favorite stories, Anne of Green Gables, who was constantly all up in other people’s business whether or not anyone wanted her to be. While outwardly everyone dislikes her character, we know that she represents a side of every one of us – unless we choose to deny the admittance of this truth. Still, I find that the constancy of being involved in that which is not ours to be so is exhausting and rather depressing, if I’m honest. The frustrating aspect of Mrs. Lynde is that she never stops to consider that perhaps her nose is too regularly plugged up to realize that her breath is never full and so the exhale is never truly cleansing of the dark energies that can fill the body and mind.
Thankfully, I am not that character. Being able to recognize that certain behaviors and thought patterns are not beneficial is a gift that I cherish and am thankful to have been given awareness of. Still, it is easy to get caught up in the whirl of chaos that gets spun.
It is often a point of ponder as to how people manage to maintain an even keel when so much of the world is a swirling dirt cloud like Pig-Pen. It’s easier to see how we can get sucked into the vortex of despair and dismay when social media perpetuates like-mindedness without an off-button, or opportunity, to change the lens filter to realize that there are differing (and acceptable) points of views that are just as legitimate and logical as those we may think, for the moment, are the right ones.
I recently re-listened to the audiobook version of The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman. Like most of the world, I am in awe of her words and presence. She feels like a gift and that whiff of air that forces us to breathe deeply because we want to take in more of the scent of hope and inspiration that she has put out into the universe.
This is the kind of inhalation I want to have that breaks past the blockages of my nose so that the light and hope can enter my body and mind. I’m more than happy to push pause on the words that I may be unnecessarily spewing out and reset so that the energy shades I release are ones that further spread the light, joy, and hope into the world in which I am blessed to exist in.
~T π