First and Last Breaths
(YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE AUDIO RECORDING WHICH ADDS MORE...)
I just completed an 8-month breathwork facilitator program through the international school, Alchemy of Breath. It was so much more than learning about breathing techniques. It was the most beautiful opening to the doorway of my soul. It became part of my healing protocol after more than a year of grueling, breast cancer recovery. The first year of recovery was mostly physical healing, and in the 2nd year, when the fog lifted, Alchemy of Breath led me home to my heart. Coming back into my body I had to meet a multitude of traumas. But I did it, and still am, one breath at a time.
We had inner journey classes to enquire into every aspect of our pre-birth, birth, childhood, and upbringing, leading to this present moment. Toward the end of the training, we even explored our own personal death; a topic many stay away from, including me, until I came face to face with it through this life-threatening diagnosis.
Now, I’m cultivating a new intimacy with the unknown on a daily basis.
We were asked to write a letter to ourselves from our dying, future self, breaths away from leaving this world. My first instinct was to resist it. But then I remembered the power of moving toward my resistance rather than away from it. I closed my eyes, leaned in, took a breath, and wrote this letter to the current me.
My Dearest Love, Tina,
I love you. I love ALL of you. It has taken me a lifetime and every single moment of it is Divine. Every thought, feeling, sensation, worry, doubt, emotion, and experience that you’re having right now is the most incredible blessing.
Please take a breath with me, drop into your body, and open your heart. Listen and feel my, (our), words as medicine to soothe your soul.
Please, my love, do not spend as much time and energy as you have to stress, feel lost, feel less than and not enough, and create a story that it is wrong. See it as your greatest treasure because it is! All of those feelings are leading you to become more of who you are. Allow them, breathe into them, honor them, welcome them, feel them, and know that when they arrive, especially the densest ones, you’re on the right track. When they surface you’re doing something SO right and keep going. Don’t let them deter you. Celebrate them. The more frightening, uncertain, confusing, and heavy, embrace more fully and open, leaning into, diving into, or both.
Remember sweet Tina, you’re also feeling the energy of your ancestors who came before you, your parents and family, and the collective. That’s how big this is. That’s how grand you are.
You are a lighthouse! You hold so much light, love, and compassion and you are helping humanity by transmuting this energy for the planet.
And you’re doing the most amazing work, I wish you could see it from where I am right now, breaths away from transitioning home. I am in awe of you, of us. I’m smiling, embracing, holding, and loving all of you cherishing this magical adventure, and beaming it inward for you to receive.
The external may seem to really matter, and at times shout the loudest, especially at first as you start to really awaken, and then again when you’re expanding into new dimensions within yourself. But know that you’re building resilience, your expanding your radiance, and strengthening your power on the inside.
The inside is all that’s important.
The external is just a mirror, to see what needs more love, and what needs refining and helps to aid in course correcting. The outer merely shows you where you are, giving you a beautiful opportunity to choose more love for yourself, not less. And It doesn’t matter where others are. Let me repeat, it doesn’t matter where others are.
So keep dropping in and loving. Remember that true wisdom is when you see, love, and accept all of you in this light and then dance in celebration of existence, of life Itself.
I love you, Tina, I’m so grateful for you, for all that you gave me, and all that you are. It’s not possible to fail. It’s not possible for you to make mistakes, it’s only possible for you to BE you every moment fully, and whatever that looks and feels like is absolute PERFECTION.
So let go, my dear love, accept, be, and trust. You’re already “there.” You’re already magic.
Now it’s time to embody it and live it.
Love and Deep Breaths,
Tina Marie
