“As long as you are breathing there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
2017
24″x24″ acrylic painting on wood cradle board. The image is a generalized depiction of a human heart and lungs. The image has streaks, circles, drips, and other marks. The colors are bold with black, turquoise, pink, red and white most dominant.
It was almost six years ago that I finally made my way through reading Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. And this quote in the first part of the book shook me.
It shook me of course, because it was true. And I had taken to seeing my body as incredibly broken.
There are all sorts of ways that my body doesn’t work “correctly.” Some of which cause extreme impact on my life. It can be hard, frustrating, physically uncomfortable. And I spend a lot of time and energy managing the bits I have any control over in order to have the best quality of life I am able to access as a person who spends almost all their time in bed.
People ask me why I’m not depressed (luck of biology), or more angry, how I managed to have a well-adjusted attitude. I don’t know the full answer. But it’s surely in part encountering statements like this and letting them fully in that creates a path forward with more ease.
Yessss same on thst last para. And yes to that kuote. I would add that when we stop breathing for good snd enter the unknown there’s still or perhaps even more right with us. Breath is life.
We tap our minds back into it to remind us we’re alive.
Kept alive by knowable still mysterious processes.
T that esch breath is its own unique moment.
Our being alchemizing air into life.
Or collectively converting tree exhaust into cell fuel so we breathe with the trees.
Sometimes seeing my cats bellies heaving contentedly as they slumber or meander in snd out of half slumber reminds me better than my own capitalist conditioned body can that
Just this breath is plenty.