One of the blessings life has brought to me in recent years is something called abdominal breathing.

I’m not an expert in this by any means, and it’s quite possible that you know more about it than I do. But the physical and mental calm and relaxation that abdominal breathing can bring is remarkable.

Children breathe naturally through their belly

The basic idea back of abdominal breathing, or belly breathing, is this. When we are children, we do it naturally. But as we grow up, and succumb to the pressures and tensions of modern life, we forget all about it. What a surprise.

We begin to breathe mainly through our chest, and it doesn’t work nearly as well. It is not nearly as relaxed or peaceful a process. In fact, in some ways it is a struggle — a struggle that mirrors a larger struggle as we do our best to stay sane and fulfill our purpose and find happiness in a violent, unpredictable, changing world.

83% of Swedish adults breathe with their chest

A recent study in Sweden discovered that 83% of the adult population uses chest breathing, that is to say, uses only the top part of the chest when it breathes. Of course, this has various side effects. For instance, we have to take more breaths per minute, while at the same time we receive less oxygen and get rid of less waste products.

I can say with absolute conviction that even a small amount of effort and time devoted to “re-learning” how we used to breathe as a child is well worth it.

It has helped improve my blood pressure, for example. And if I’m facing a situation that I know will make me anxious, breathing with my belly helps me stay calm.

Mind you, there is a price to pay – you may have to set aside the idea that a hard, flat belly is somehow desirable

Instructions for abdominal breathing

Perhaps you’d like to look into belly breathing, if you haven’t done so already? There is quite a good overview and set of instructions available online at eHow.com. Here are the basic instructions posted there by an eHow contributor:

1. Lie on your back in a comfortable setting. It’s easier to practice abdominal breathing in a quiet environment.

2. Place one hand on your abdomen, below the rib cage, and one on your chest. Placing your hands on the abdomen and chest helps you focus on using your diaphragm while breathing. The diaphragm is dome-shaped and assists with breathing. It moves downward and upward during inhalation and exhalation. Our lungs expand and deliver more oxygen when the diaphragm moves.

3. Breathe slowly through your nose. Hold the air for 7 seconds. Your stomach will rise, raising your hand. The hand on your chest should remain still.

4. Exhale all of the air slowly through your mouth while counting to 8. Let yourself go while exhaling, and imagine your entire body relaxing.

5. Repeat this cycle four more times. This allows your body to relax.

6. Practice abdominal breathing twice a day. If you practice abdominal breathing often, it becomes a normal process, and you’ll notice health benefits. Abdominal breathing increases energy and reduces stress and anxiety.

Yet another benefit of aging?

For me personally, becoming acquainted with belly breathing to the extent I have is yet another benefit and blessing of aging. Because I can assert with confidence that it helps me keep a buoyant spirit: “It’s never too late to learn to breathe like you did when you were a child.”

Wishing you happiness and good health. Please dive in here if you have any thoughts you’d like to share.

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It’s never too late to breathe like a child is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

It was Sunday evening, February 5, 2005. I had just started to watch the evening news with my wife JoAnn, and everything was as normal as could be.

Life was fine, as far as I was aware. I was quite happy, or at least I thought I was. Suddenly I started to feel a vague discomfort in my chest. It didn’t feel life threatening, but I felt a strange dread.

“Would you like to lie down and I’ll hold you?” said JoAnn. I remember climbing up the stairs, and lying down on our bed. I remember JoAnn’s hands on my head. But very quickly I entered a space I had never been in before.

It was like a night in hell

I was only half conscious as I began shaking uncontrollably, tossing and turning, and sometimes feeling very cold and sometimes very hot.

We wondered whether to call 911, but instead called a friend who stayed with us on the phone the whole time. The only way to describe the two hours that followed is that it was like a night in hell.

Was I reliving past experiences?

I believe I was actually reliving earlier experiences, such as when I was a 7-year-old child in London during the early days of the blitz. Dad was away in the war, and Mom and I lived on the fifth floor of an apartment block when German bombs fell all around us and the entire building swayed back and forth like a brnach in the wind as fires flared all around us.

Was the fear of that long-ago night with me still? Perhaps it had hidden itself in me — perhaps in my very flesh — for so many years and now it wanted to be free?

I believe that other painful events and memories also broke surface, so to speak, as I writhed in anguish in my wife’s arms.

A dam broke in me that night

It was like a dam broke in me at last. There was a lot to grieve, and come to terms with, for sure. For example, in 1988, my spiritual leader and mentor had died suddenly. And three years after his death my first wife, Joy, also died suddenly of a stroke.

Then there was the painful, devastating collapse of the spiritual community in British Columbia that had been my home for 36 years — and the fear I felt when at age 63 I had no choice but to return to the world I had forsaken in my youth.

My ordeal was really just beginning

At last my “night in hell” came to an end. I stopped shaking and shivering, and told JoAnn I’d like to try to sleep. When I woke up next morning everything seemed normal. But it wasn’t. Oh no, it wasn’t at all.

For about nine months I spiraled day by day into deep depression and despair. I’m a lean, tall English fellow weighing about 150 lbs — but at the lowest point of my depression I was down to 128 lbs in the doctor’s office.

Then a door opened in heaven

But then a door opened in heaven.  Perhaps it wasn’t really a “depression”  so much as a spiritual crisis. Perhaps my heart opened in a way it had never opened before. In any case as I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I  became aware of the most beautiful stillness and peace.

I realized that my past frailties and mistakes simply didn’t matter — because who I truly am and who you truly are is eternal love, and it is already whole and already free.

I believe that God — the truth at the core of our existence — wanted to do some major healing in me and decided the right time for that healing had come. It was time to balance the books, so to speak, so that I could move forward with new vigor and clarity and the door of true freedom could open wide before me.

Laughing more — one of the joys of aging

One of the offshoots of this healing – and surely one of the special joys of aging – is that I’ve learned to laugh more.

It’s kind of sad, but I don’t think I used to laugh much when I was young. I was so eager to know the truth, so serious about it. And when I entered the community in some ways I was in a kind of cocoon. Laughter? I hardly knew what it was.

But that has changed now. I find I love laughing. I really do. I wish Dad was here in the flesh (he is with me in spirit) because I would laugh twice as much at his jokes. Perhaps you can even hear me launghing if, as they say, we can’t blink an eye without affecting the entire world.

I’m laughing because I’m happy. And I’m happy not because things have changed so much in an external sense — I haven’t bought a wonderful new car, for example, though I would like to do that one day and in fact went to an auto show in Denver last week — but because laughter seems natural all of a sudden. God loves to laugh, I guess.

“Every day is a bonus”

“Every day is a bonus,” my dad used to say, as he neared the end of his life, as cheerful and full of jokes as he ever was. He died at 95, within a stone’s throw of his favorite pub in the little Sussex village of Pevensey Bay.

It’s a good attitude to take toward life, don’t you think? Be thankful for each day just as it is. And above all — don’t let despair hide the beautiful timeless truth at the core of your own being.

It’s the one thing that never ages — your own unconquerable spirit.

The second anniversary of this blog

As I near the second anniversary of this blog next month — in which I plan to launch my new course on the true potential and promise of aging — this is my simple message to you: We live in a loving universe. You are a Child of Light. You are a spiritual being, pure, timeless, and already whole. You are an ‘eternal soul’, as someone wrote to me so beautifully the other day.

I’d love to hear from you. How is your life going in these dangerous, troubled times? Though I’ve probably never met you in person, I am with you. Blessings to you — and please watch out for my course on happy aging coming soon.

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How God opened a door in heaven is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

It may be very true that at the core of our being is timeless peace and happiness. But even so, life in this human world can get exhausting in a hurry at times.

A move, for example, can have this effect. Especially if you become aware that your dream home is not without imperfections that need improving or upgrading — even as you are still struggling to unpack innumerable boxes…

What do we do if we realize we are becoming exhausted for some reason, and life is losing its savor? Here are some thoughts on this matter.

Just let everything come to rest

1. The most important response, I find, is to simply let everything come to rest for a moment.

Face the fact that there is nothing you can do in this particular moment to change or improve your outer situation in any way.

What you CAN do and what you need to do is to empty your mind of its busy thoughts and concerns — and receive whatever is present without judgment.

There is enormous power in this step. It opens a channel so that life can begin to flow through you more freely, and the victorious nature of your own spirit can renew itself through you.

Take time to “stand and stare”

2. Take to heart the words of the Welsh poet WH Davies: “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” Right now, I’m looking out the window of my little study at the beautiful, 30-foot high blue spruce that grows outside the window.

We have only been in our new home a week or two, but during this time this wonderful tree has been quite unmoved and unchanged. It has been itself — a source of strength and peace that reminds me of my own true strength, my own timeless presence.

Dare to bless your world

3. Dare to bless your world. Is there someone you have been judging or condemning in the last week or two? Perhaps a neighbor — perhaps someone on the world scene who has obviously behaved badly and irresponsibly, like one of the leaders of BP?

Take another look at whoever it is.

Remind yourself that even though they may have behaved badly, we are all part of the mixed up state we call human nature — even as at the core of our being we are all unchanged, untroubled, timeless being — already happy, and already free.

Here are three approaches that have helped me deal with exhaustion and re-connect with the stillness and peace of my own being. Do you have any tips of your own you’d like to add?

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How to deal with exhaustion is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

I was wandering around the living room this morning — not long out of bed — probably looking a bit lost — when JoAnn sang out, “You look like a man looking for a hug.”

What a brilliant lady she is. Of course. That was exactly what I was looking for — I just hadn’t realized it yet.

We have a ritual in this matter. I stand at the bottom of the stairs and JoAnn stands one step up so as to compensate for our difference in height.

It was a good hug. We took a little time with it. It not only got me in the flow of life’s goodness and generosity, shall I say, but it also got me thinking about the importance of hugs to our lives and overall well-being. As the author and therapist Leo Buscaglia once said, “Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.”

I remember very well one of my first hugs with JoAnn. We weren’t married yet, heck we weren’t even dating yet. We had been corresponding for a few months though, and had agreed I would fly down from Vancouver to Denver for a visit so that we could get to know each other better.

JoAnn met me at DIA and we walked to the parking lot where she had parked her car. But before getting into the car I succumbed to an urge that was impossible to deny, and took her in my arms. It was a hug that went on and on and on, and I must say — speaking for myself — that it made me feel my visit was off to a very auspicious beginning indeed.

There is much more to hugs than “romance,” of course. A hug can fill a void in a way that nothing else can.

One of the most precious hugs of my life came in the extraordinarily tender and indescribable moment that followed the physical passing of my first wife, Joy.

Joy had suffered a stroke on an airplane as we were returning to Vancouver from a holiday in the Caribbean, and was rushed to hospital in a coma. The doctor said there was nothing they could do, and it was simply a matter of waiting for the end. Joy was moved to a private room — where for two or three hours I kept a lonely vigil as her life slowly ebbed away.

The fateful moment arrived. Joy breathed her last breath. The wonderful Australian nurse turned to me and said, “God’s got her.” Then, opening her arms wide — she gave me a hug of pure compassion and love.

I’d like to end this post with an excerpt from an article entitled ‘Importance of Hugs in a Marriage,’ at www.theprofessorshouse.com.

“When the man of the house — the breadwinner — gets downsized by his company, he comes home, looks at his wife and says, ‘I could use a hug right now.’ Or when the wife commits a serious flop during her piano recital and breaks down crying, the husband instinctively puts his arms around her, holds her close and says, everything’s okay. It’s only a piano recital. Your playing was brilliant.

“In his article, ‘Have you hugged anyone lately?’ Parveen Chopra quotes family therapist Virginia Satir: ‘We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.’”

What’s YOUR most memorable hug? is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

Prince William, second in line to the British throne, slept in a cold alley in central London recently to highlight the plight of homeless British teenagers.

“I cannot, after one night, even begin to imagine what it must be like to sleep rough on London streets night after night,” William said.

The story reminded me how in the winter of 1956, as a reporter on the Victoria Daily Colonist, I was assigned to live for a month like an old age pensioner. I wrote a series of articles on what it was like to subsist on approximately $50 a month. In an early column, for example, I wrote, “After getting advice from housewives, nutrition experts and pensioners I’m going to see if I can live for less than one dollar a day on food, eggs, cheese and cereal.”

The plight of the poor and homeless is sad indeed. But it is possible to be “homeless” even though we live in material comfort if we are unaware of the truth of our existence — unaware of the freedom and happiness and peace that already exists at the core of our being.

As long as we search for these things in the external world we are doomed to frustration and futility.

At a certain critical point in my life, when I was about 23 or 24, I had the great good fortune of finding a mentor who exemplified for me the truth that I had been seeking so earnestly ever since I was a teenager.

The name of my mentor was Martin. I trusted him from the moment I first met him. Words were not necessary, in a way. He carried a presence that was palpable and that I felt the moment he got out of his chair to greet me.

I loved what he represented so much that I gave up my life in the external world — including my job at the Daily Colonist – including my boat — to join the spiritual community he had founded some years earlier in the interior of B.C.

I was a member of the community for 35 years. I believed it was home — and would always be home.

But then the unthinkable happened. Martin died, and the community collapsed.

I embarked upon a painful and difficult transition, with no option but to prove for myself the truth Martin portrayed for so many years. (Didn’t he tell us many times not to depend on him, not to put him on a pedestal?)

I find it is a journey that never ends.

But I find it is also very simple. All I have to do is to be still. And in that moment of stillness – there it is. Freedom. Happiness. Wisdom. The awareness of the unchanging, timeless presence that is the true home and destiny of us all.

Have you found a true “home” yet? is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age