THE PRACTICE: Don't rush the exhale
Final issue of The Practice 🦋
Beautiful friends, this is the final issue of THE PRACTICE.
📞 CALLS: Please register below for the calls you would like to attend.
🌀 EVOLVE (Tuesday, 12/26 @ 6pm PST // 9pm EST): Register here. 🌀 EXPAND** (Wednesday, 12/27 @ 9am PST // 12pm EST): Register here.
📣 No calls this week - I am resting until January 2!
**This call (EXPAND) features structured breakout groups of 3-4 people.
This week’s inspiration:
The span between Christmas and New Years was already a time of nothing-time—of not doing, of not knowing what to do with not doing—of sitting around; of eating one too many of all the things we wouldn’t usually eat; of sleeping in and trying to let ourselves off the hook for sleeping in; of nostalgia and grief and sadness; of loneliness; of loneliness made more acute by being surrounded; of bad moods and feeling guilty for them; of crankiness and trepidation but also joy, if only small sparks of it; of a can’t-help-ourselves-but-look-forward turning, of orienting by no more than a few-fifths of a degree back toward the sun, which, chaos be damned, is where we’re heading now. And I’m talking about a literal sun, about the next-up solstice that blessedly comes no matter how awful we are to each other, but also, of a metaphorical one, the one you feel as a star in your gut upon reading the last two lines of that poem up above when it hits you that, yes, dammit, I would miss this. I don’t want this to end.
“We will miss this when it ends” is what remains underneath all the confusion of living inside this neverending, time as a spiral, full-of-uncertainty year. It’s the banal chatter with shopkeepers and grocery store cashiers and the man ringing up the half-rotisserie-chicken-dinner-meal. It’s holding babies and sniffing the crowns of their soft skulls. It’s that last choking sip of dregged up chai after a whole cupful of smooth sweetness. It’s offering some muscle when a neighbor struggles to carry an unwieldy box to their car, springing to help without having to think twice. It’s winking like a nerd anytime anyone makes eye contact in deference to so much time bereft of smiles. It’s the staggering grief of losing a loved one and then staring in wonder at the soft shoots of baby blades of grass emerging on surrounding hills and at the planets aligning in rare formations in the sky and the hummingbirds that chase each other around and through the plum tree outside the window every single morning like clockwork.
Part of what it means to be human is to mostly careen through life without noticing the mundane holiness of the every day. “We will miss this when it ends” is a pause. It’s that weird thing that happens when a small, or messy, or routine life moment we’re mostly just trying to get through is suddenly and without warning elevated to the realm of the sacred. It’s the overwhelm that hits when our bones recall the fleeting nature of life. It’s visceral, tangible, but so slippery: we can’t live there long, and this is another part of what makes us human, another thing we’ll have to figure out how to forgive ourselves for.
// my god, may I never try to get through anything ever again //
The thing about solstice and poems about solstice is to acknowledge the passing of time. It’s a humbling down, a remembering that as much as we crave the light, as desperate as we are to bask in a patch of it on the kitchen floor, it won’t be long before we’re back hunkered down under blankets and in front of space heaters, ubiquitous chai in hand. It’s embracing contraction as kindly—and lightly—as we do expansion. It’s remembering our animal bodies, it’s owning that whether we notice or care or not, we are in conversation with the world around us: with the tides, and the planets, the presence or absence of the sun. With each other. With the dogs and the cats and the squirrels and the rats and the crows and spiders and snakes. The light is coming, but so is the dark, and there’s nothing we can do about it, no real way to prepare (we’ll try anyway).
There are so many things I wish would hurry up and end. But this? I’m moving slow. I’m spreading all the way out. I’m here for it all, every last heart-cracking moment.
The span between Christmas and New Years is the pause after an exhale. It’s still and empty, expectant and full of potential. It’s a let-go, an ending. It’s a hollowing out, a making space before filling back up and carrying on. It’s humble, and less showy than it’s chest-puffing-spine-straightening-shoulders-back-eliciting counterpart. It’s a hugging in, it’s a midline squeeze. It’s a priority revealer. If the inhale is a drawing in of life, the exhale is a death, which is why hanging out in the pause afterward is so uncomfortable. It provokes a quiet chaos, it signals the system to attention, it slows time all the way down.
In my yoga trainings, we were taught that each human has a set number of breaths they are given over their lifespan. As such, the longer the breath, the longer the life. We can extend our lives by expanding our capacity to breathe deep. And my mind turns toward lungs, and how the breath tightens and constricts exactly in those moments where some depth and space and slowness are needed most; how, after a year of so much loss, so much strangeness and grief, I am sick of this pause, I am aching for more life.
One of the themes that has emerged and stayed close as we learn to operate inside of relentlessly uncertain times is the persistent, over-and-over-and-over erasure of horizons. And here we are again, at a time typically defined by horizon scanning, by projecting forward, by dreaming up the future or scheduling it down onto a calendar or some sweet spot combination of both, on into January. Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t “do” resolutions, it’s impossible not to imagine how this year, we’ll be different. This time, we’ll do better: we’ll forgive our fathers and love our children in a way that will have them never question our devotion and we’ll floss on the regular for real this time and we’ll start writing or quilting or singing again, and yeah, maybe we’ll take up running or lifting weights or hiking and guess what, by doing so, we’ll expand our capacity to breathe, the latter of which maybe isn’t at the forefront of our consciousness but is an incidental perk which maybe isn’t incidental at all, maybe it’s absolutely essential that we all learn how to breathe more deeply, we all do whatever it takes to stay right here, full of as much life as possible.
A few weeks ago I was at home over a weekend, and the weather was nasty, and there wasn’t much to do, so I hunkered down and made my way through some projects, films, books; I cuddled with Tater and watered the plants; I made coffee, coffee, chai. And it was Saturday afternoon and the sun was going down and suddenly this feeling of contentment swept over me and I cried a little realizing, my god, this is what it’s like to enjoy your own company.
So we stay home with the dog a little longer.
I’m still thinking forward into 2024. I picked a word for the year, and I’ve already set up my budget for January and filled out my calendar down to my lunch breaks like a nerd. And, if this year has taught me anything, it’s to not rush through the exhale. The exhale is a chance to ground into our bodies the physical sensation of letting go. So the next time something disappears from the horizon (and I know it will), I can quiet down instead of constrict. I can partner, instead of push. I can slow time down; I can face life with my eyes open.
I’m sitting here cold, staring out the window at rainy winter scene, and I’m fantasizing about warm, sandy beaches, and minimal clothing, and fresh coconuts, and then I’m back in the pause after the exhale, and yes, it’s uncomfortable. I am hollowed out, and what is pressing its way in are not goals and intentions and trips and milestones and celebrations, but the tenderness of gratitude, for our smallness and flaws, for all it took to get us here, yes, through this year, but through all the years before, too, that have us looking together at a future that is not written, that has us scared and uncomfortable but also earnest and reaching, despite our best efforts, despite knowing better. We can’t help ourselves; the inhale is on its way.
SELF MADE is a rebellious community that empowers you to liberate yourself from societal programming and step boldly into a life of your design. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Certified Integral Coach, and Holistic Recovery Guide, based in San Francisco, CA.
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Thank you.
This is so beautiful it makes my heart ache. Thank you dear Dani 🦋
This is so beautiful, Dani, thank you.
🤍