Quite some time ago I taught both of my boys how to do breathing exercises.  I spent some time explaining the in and out breath.  IN through the nose… Out through the nose.  Inhale and Exhale.  You know, all the important points.  I did this in the hopes that they would excitedly use these new found breathing exercises to calm their frustrations and worries, thus leading to less broken items in my home, and peaceful grocery store trips!   (yes, my children are human too!)

However, just like many of my best laid plans; this plan of mine did not go the way I had in mind.  Instead my older son rolled his eyes as his “mother-who-is-not-like-all-the-other-moms” gave him another one of her “crazy” ideas.  And my younger son taking the cue from the older, huffed and puffed about how he didn’t want to try it.  Of course I was not dissuaded.  So on any occasion that I could, I reinforced the breathing exercises, modeling them, suggesting them sweetly, and basically bugging the heck out of them with them.  And then it dawned on me that I was forcing my idea and way of being on to them.  This is of course completely against my own philosophy of parenting.  So I stopped- I stopped suggesting.  I stopped bugging them with breathing ideas.  And I stopped “purposely” modeling them.  I didn’t stop doing them though, because breathing exercises are a part of my every day way of being at this point in my life.  I mean for goodness sake; I have been doing yoga breathing for over 13 years!

So basically I just went about my life.  In the meantime, things were still breaking, tears were still flowing, and generally I was at a loss on what to do about this situation.  Since I couldn’t come up with anything revolutionary, I didn’t do much of anything new- just enforced the making of amends each time something happened that could be construed as hurt to another, and doled out chores to “pay” for broken items.

Then one day when I was walking the boys home from school, my youngest blurted out with a matter-of-factness; “You know mom, that breathing stuff really works!”  Apparently he had finally decided to use it, and it worked!  Hallelujah!  Woohoo!  I thought I might do a dance!!! Actually I might have danced a bit.

I would love to tell you that now that he has discovered this new found technique he is completely joyous with nary an angry, frustrated, item throwing moment to his sweet little 7 year old life.  Alas, that is not the case.  He is still human, and he is still a little boy, and he still has emotions, and he still takes some time to remember that the breathing stuff might actually be useful sometimes.  But I can tell you that there is a shift.  The crying is shorter.  The flying items are less destructive (ie. socks instead of shoes).  The writhing on the grocery store floor is almost non-existent.  For me that is a beautiful thing!

And truly this concept is the same for all of us.  When we see something new, or we are given some new suggestion from someone who might have some wisdom;  sometimes we don’t try it right away. Instead we exhaust all of our old habits and methods with the same level of success, and then maybe after all of that we decide that  because I am desperate today I will try that new thing I heard about.  And lo and behold it works!  Instead of employing it completely though, we often keep with the old, and filter in the new; little bits at a time.  And that is perfectly OK.  There isn’t a right time to make a shift.  Each moment is another opportunity.  Each moment is the right time.  Here and there.  Maybe this time, maybe next.  And then we start to notice a shift, we start to notice improvement, more joy, less stress, more peace, less emptiness.  we notice and we notice, and it is all part of the journey.