Five-Minute Friday: Exhale

I love Five Minute Friday and have participated once in awhile. I keep telling myself that I want to do it more often. It is simply an opportunity to free write for five minutes with no editing or revising. Hundreds of people do this and link up on Lisa-Jo Baker's site.

Writing friends, this makes for a good exercise.

Today's prompt: EXHALE

...

Exhale.

Remember to breathe.

That's something I tell people sometimes. People who seem so busy that I might be concerned about their well-being.

I sometimes feel like I don't need that reminder - because my life is relatively free from stress. However, once in awhile, I do need the reminder - simply to force myself to breathe more deeply. To calm down and relax.

My stress does not often come in the form of busyness these days - partly because of the season of life I'm in, but also because I have worked hard to back off from busyness as much as possible. That has been a long slow process. It involves not only slowing down my schedule, but also involves a deliberate acceptance on my part that the idea of a simpler life is indeed okay. For so very long, I connected busyness with my sense of worth. If I'm busy, I must be important; right?  What a crock! I'm a little embarrassed now to remember how important that was to me. Then again it is a very prevalent belief in our society.

I guess I'm still learning. And I will continue to remind myself. Inhale and breathe in simplicity and beauty. Exhale and breathe out those remnants of that false worldview that equates activity with value.

Inhale and enjoy.
Exhale and let go.