Some days are doomed to suck.

Or it feels like it.

We all have those days…you wake up feeling like you hadn’t slept. Your eyelids are heavy with exhaustion because you tossed and turned all night and only had nightmares when you did finally fall asleep.

You drag your feet, skip your shower because you don’t have time, and get stuck in traffic on your way to the office where you bicker with everyone you meet. You eat a bunch of crappy food because it’s all you have available because you don’t feel like cooking and then you get in a fight with you best friend. You might even know you’re being irrational. You might even see that the fight was pointless, but you’re too far lost in the gloom and doom to back down.

You are consumed with grumpiness to apologize or stop yourself from saying something you’ll regret.

It was a doomed day from the start, right?

I mean, you woke up feeling horrible. There was no time to make a choice. There was nothing to react to. It just simply sucked from the start.

Right?

Well…there’s always a choice, even when it doesn’t seem like there is. There’s always a choice, especially when it doesn’t seem like there is.

Did you know that when you’re stressed you actually start breathing wrong? Your tummy contracts when it should expand and vice versa. Your inhales and exhales don’t match the movement and your body will start to feel like it’s suffocating, which makes anxiety break out…making everything much much worse.

So, take a pause.

Take a second before you turn on your car. Take a moment when you’re parked. Take a deep breath between phone calls at work. You always have the time to breathe.

Breathing should actually be the simplest thing to do in the world, because we don’t have to think about it in order to do it. Right?

Maybe that’s the problem.

Especially in the west, we are a speedy society. Everything we order is to-go. We live off coffee so we can run around more. We like things to be done quickly. We like instant success.

We are living in the future, reaching for more instead of appreciating what we already have.

So, take a pause.

Take a moment to breathe.

Take a moment for yourself. Take a breath for your health. Take the time to care about yourself.

Conscious breathing is the connection between the body and mind.

The past is over. It can no longer control you, because it’s gone. There is only now and that is where the choice lies. Forget what’s already happened. Forget the bickering and the gloom. Take a deep breath, release it all, and just start over.

That is a choice. That is what can turn everything around.

Choose to come back to this moment. Choose to see reality. Choose to live here and now, so you can look past the bullshit and actually see what’s happening.

Every breath is an opportunity to be reborn.

Don’t waste it.

Relephant Read: 

Just Breathe. You are Beautiful.

Author: Stacy Porter

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: via the author