The Importance of Breathing

          When I was in the midst of raising and homeschooling three children, there were many times I fell into bed exhausted. Some days I could barely remember what I’d done. I just knew that I’d been busy the entire day. Having a clear vision of what I wanted to accomplish for that day, week, term, even year helped me get the most important things done. I’ve talked about that in the past and I’m sure I’ll talk of it again. Today however, I want to talk about how I protected myself from over-extending myself and burning out. I still use the same principle, even though my life is less hectic. (Or was before the past two weeks. LOL)

          I’m a people-oriented person. I adjust my actions and sometimes even my desires for those I love. That is a good thing, but like all good things, can be executed to become a bad thing. I learned many years ago that if I did not monitor myself and learn when to not be so flexible and accommodating, I suffered.

          In the midst of family life, all I realized was that I needed to carve out some time for me. It could be an hour (or ten minutes!) with a good book, a date with my husband or a weekend with friends. I intuitively, and later consciously, realized a very important principle. If you expect to give anything to anyone, you have to have it in the first place. If a wanted to invest my time and energy in developing my children into thinking, loving adults (and I did!), I had to make sure I had the time and energy to invest. In essence, I had to fill up my tank.

         Years later, I came across a word picture that illustrates this principle perfectly. Breathing in, breathing out. In order for our bodies to stay alive, we must continually take in and expel air. This is not a one time activity that once we’ve accomplished it, we can move on to other things. This is something that must be done every minute, every hour, every second of every day. If we stop breathing, we stop living.

          Our personal, emotional, and creative lives are similar. We must be breathing in and breathing out to stay emotionally and creatively healthy. This looks different than our body taking air into our lungs, but it accomplishes the same thing.

          In the case of my busy life homeschooling my children, it meant I needed to intersperse times of fun with times of work, for both me and the children (they have to breathe in and out, too!). I needed to alternate intense times of learning new facts with using those facts in activities. For myself, that meant I needed to spend time reading about education as well as teaching. I needed to have time away from the family in order to be the best mom and wife I could be. That was not selfish, that was responsible.

          In my creative life, that reveals itself in my alternating times of reading about writing with actual writing, with playing with characters to buckling down and working out the plot. It also is important for me to leave my writing desk, really leave it, and interact with people. Too many times I have physically left the desk, but mentally kept obsessing about the work. Not in the good, this-story-is-so-exciting way, but in a guilt-ridden, why-aren’t-I-doing-more kind of way. This is not true breathing in-breathing out. This is attempting to only breathe out. It can’t be done. (Not usually, although I’m told scuba divers do that as they ascend to the surface. But that is an analogy I’ll save for another day. LOL)

          Lately I’ve been breathing in, but doing very little breathing out. At least in regards to my writing. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been busy. I’m reading some fiction, I’m reading how-to books, I’m spending time with my family, sometimes just watching tv, but doing it together, I’m volunteering for different jobs at my church and hosting various social get-togethers. All good things. All things I want to continue doing. But all things that take me away from writing.

         It is time to breath out writing. More than just the two blogs I maintain. I have several writing projects listed on my 9 by 99 list. Starting today, I will write on at least one of them for 30 minutes/500 words every weekday. At least one of those writing sessions will be a fiction project. I enjoy all writing, but I love fiction. I need to breath out some fiction . . . or because it is so fun, is it breathing in?

          What about you? What do you consider breathing in? breathing out? Are you breathing regularly? Getting good air, in sufficient quantities?