If you’d rather watch than read, the YouTube video is linked at the bottom of this page.
If you do the math, most of us will take something like 600 to 700 million breaths over a lifetime. But the number isn’t what gets me. What gets me is this: every single one of those breaths is uniquely different.
There’s no such thing as the exact same breath twice. If you could measure it down to the millisecond, you’d see it. The breath is always changing. The inhale is a little different, the pause is a little different, the exhale is a little different, and even the bottom of the breath changes. Every breath is a one-time moment.
And even if the timing could somehow be identical, what we breathe in is never the same. Different air. Different particles. A different mix of everything moving through this exact moment.
That matters to me because my mind has a habit of leaving the present.
A counselor once called it future tripping. It’s when my mind starts living ahead of me. I’m not in the moment I’m actually in. I’m in the one that’s coming. I’m predicting the conversation, the tone, the outcome, and what it will mean.
This usually shows up right before I act. Before I send the text, make the call, walk into the meeting, or have a conversation I’m not looking forward to.
I can usually tell pretty quickly. My chest tightens, my breathing gets shallow, and my mind starts racing. I’m still sitting here, but inside I’m already in the scene.
So here’s what I practice when I catch it.
I take two or three breaths, on purpose. Not perfect breaths. Just real ones. Each one a little different. Each one happening right now.
I feel the inhale.
I notice the exhale.
I let my attention land back in my body.
Those two or three breaths don’t solve the situation. They don’t guarantee the conversation will go well. They just bring me back to what’s true.
Right now, I’m not in that future scene. Right now, I’m here.
And maybe that’s the quiet point of those 600 to 700 million breaths. Not that I’m supposed to notice all of them, but that I can notice this one. This one breath. This one unrepeatable moment.
And from here, I can take the next right step without dragging an imaginary story into the room with me.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U0NmHTyVKcU
