Take a full inhale. Make it slow and steady, so that you first fill the bottom part of your lungs, the middle part, then the upper part all the way to your collarbones. Then pause, even if it’s just for a second, before you exhale.
Did you exhale through your nose or mouth? There are no rules here, but just notice how you release that fullness. I think of fullness whenever we come around to the full moon. Some say we respond to the moon as large bodies of water too, because we are mostly water. Unless you look closer, at an atomic level, and find that we are mostly empty space.
But I’m not here to give a science lesson (thank goodness, because I’m not a scientist!). It’s just fun to think about things on a microlevel sometimes because I love to think of things in life as metaphors. I love the moon most of all because it is a piece of nature that you can see even when you’re in a city. And I love it because it can be a symbol that reminds us of fullness.
In yoga, we can experience that fullness with deep inhales and big, sweeping moves that let us take up space and expand. In the middle of my second pregnancy, I get a constant reminder of fullness as each day becomes an experiment in holding a full belly that just keeps expanding each day. And, as my baby grows, it becomes a little harder to ‘breathe into my belly,’ but I still can a little bit as you can see in the video below.
So take a slow, steady inhale and fill your lungs from top to bottom. Let that full breath soak up all your attention, pause for a second at the top of that inhale, then release it through your nose or mouth, whichever comes more easily. Then, in that pause you just created with a deep breath, experience the fullness of the present moment and ask yourself how you can expand beyond the mundane things in life: beyond the trivial frustrations, the never-ending to-do lists, and the constant worries that come with motherhood.
When you don’t feel like you have enough time in the day, take one slow breath...or two, or three. And feel time slow down through those breaths as you open up a little space of peace in your day.