The Breath of Life

I'm excited to talk with you today, and I hope that you will open your mind and heart.

Here's what I want you to do: Take three deep breaths right now. 

Let's do it together. Be ready. Breathe in and let it out three times—that's a true exhale.

Then, let's do it again, all the way in. 

What we're doing is opening your heart. 

When was the last time you took a deep breath? 

Sometimes, life just gets us up around the neck. 

We get our shoulders up by our ears and, whew, breathe into truth, nothing missing. 

It's one of the most important things we'll ever do because sifting and sorting inside us is what's guiding us home. We're coming back to ourselves.

This particular episode was inspired by a DM from a very special lady. 

You know who you are. You'll know as soon as I start talking. 

She sent me a beautiful DM about her son. 

The backstory is that she has been looking for answers. 

She wants to find healing, light, and connection with her source. She wants to know the truth about what happened in her life, not just what her fearful, childlike mind thought happened. 

As she's been seeking healing, she can help her son. That is the point.

The only point of healing, of doing the healing work, is that you know the truth. 

Then, you can be the way-shower for those also seeking the truth. 

Nothing else excites me more. 

Her son has been going through a rough time.

If you've been listening to my other podcast, Finding Me with LaRay Nelson, you know that she and I started our podcast together because she was flat in bed crying and saying her life was over.

I was like, I think we need to talk. She was willing to have that conversation.

She's like, my life is over. I'm in bed. My health has crashed. I lost my job. I can't even face the day. 

I said this is the best thing that's ever happened to you. 

There was dead silence on the other end. 

She's like, what? What are you talking about?

I'm like because the contrast of our lives will teach us more about who we are and what we want. 

It will clarify our values, help us define our character, show us how to live according to our higher self and stop self-abandoning so we can get to the point of our lives. 

Back to this DM that I received. 

This amazing lady was doing the work for herself and decided that she would figure it out, and her son went through this emotional crisis. 

He had been dating someone for a year, and she decided to adopt a lifestyle he was not interested in. So he didn't. 

It felt like death because she was sort of his safe space. 

Don't get me wrong, having the comfort of another is great, but when it becomes a dependency because you're not doing the work within yourself, you haven't done the work within yourself. 

You didn't know you needed to do the work within yourself—to find your safe space with yourself and your maker. 

That is the most important work you'll ever do. 

Now, we're not relying on other people's choices for themselves. 

It feels less like death if we have to part ways with someone who is choosing a darker path, a path that does not have a better outcome than what you're hoping for yourself, right? 

He chose not to go with her and let her go on her path. 

What she's about to do, her choices, who she wants to hang out with, and the activities she's participating in are for her benefit, too. That's the thing. 

We're like, oh, they're going down a dark path. It's like maybe, maybe for a little bit until they figure out that there's a better way. Let's hope they figure out there's a better way. 

That's the point of anything we've chosen that could have worked better for us. 

It was the only way we would know what we didn't want so we could do what we wanted, right? 

Did I use all the tenses correctly? Probably not. But you hear my point. 

We will know more about what we don't want by going down a path that's not good for us. Then, we will never know without the contrast. 

We have to have contrast. It must be opposition in all things. There must be. Even when it's good, better, and best, there's opposition between good and best. 

As this amazing lady was describing the struggle of her son, she even said, using the words, the last two days have been scary for him. 

It is so scary to stand on our own two feet—but only as adults. 

Let me take you back to your childhood. 

You stood up on two feet, smiling and clapping, and everybody else was smiling and clapping, too. 

It wasn't scary to stand on your own two feet. 

It's only when we think it's scary to stand on our own two feet because we've been leaning on other people for our happiness for so long. 

My response, once again, was like, yeah, death can be scary, but 99% of the time, it's rebirth. It's not death. It's not the end. 

If we think it's the end, it will be much more painful unless we look to the future. 

It's like, whoa, then if that's not the path, that's not my destiny; I thought it was; I had a plan for it, but if it's not, gosh, what else?

There's a great something out in front of me that will be better than what I thought was good for me. 

We can only conjure up this much in our imagination. It's just a little bit. 

Our imaginations are small and narrow, but what we can conjure up, what life has in store for us, is so much bigger than our little imaginations. 

It's amazing what life will be like. Nope, you don't want that. 

You definitely aren't going to like that. 

You're going to know how much you don't want that. 

Through this sifting and sorting of not this, not that, not this, not that, and maybe some of this, but not with that. 

When all that's coming at us, we're just sifting and sorting and saying, yes, I love that my future is opening up. 

I have options because I am no longer stuck in my small imagination of what happiness was at a very young age. 

My biggest congratulations to this young man is that you didn't abandon yourself. 

You chose you. 

You let her do her thing and didn't make it any of your business. You chose you. 

It might have felt like death; it might have felt like your life just fell completely apart. 

But I am telling you, it's the beginning of a bright future. 

Now, it doesn't feel like let's just talk about those emotions. 

Sometimes, when we have grief and loss, those emotions feel like they're going to crush us, wash over us, and drown us. It's never the case because we do pop back up. 

We pop up for air, and those great big tidal waves end up smoothing out. 

Sometimes, it happens sooner than later; other times, it's a storm, and the waves will take a little longer to settle down. 

But when they do, peace, peace, and then just look up. Look up because better things are coming. 

When you shift your mind, you're like, oh, I thought it was that, but it's not that. 

The thing I felt I chose for myself forever or for a very long time, it's not that. That's not the plan. 

The plan is bigger and better than I ever could have imagined. 

As I wrote back to this lady, the mom who has every intention of helping her son, which she could do because she was helping herself, isn't that amazing alone? It's impressive all by itself. See? 

She wants to help her son as she's holding space for his emotions. She's praying for the best in him. She's even teaching him how to pray. 

I thought that was remarkable because he's had difficulty understanding and believing in God. 

She asked him to pray, and they talked about what praying looks like, and he tried it. 

He even said it felt weird but peaceful. I'm like, wow! Just a mustard seed of faith is all it takes—a mustard seed, a microgram of faith—to test it out and see what else God has in mind for you. 

It's the hardest thing to do when you're hurting because you can be mad and shake your finger at God. 

Believe me, I have been there—I have been there, and it was not easy. 

But you know what? 

God doesn't care if you're mad. He doesn't care if you shake your fist at Him. He doesn't care if you blame Him for all your problems. He does not care. He doesn't care. 

Because God is steadfast and immovable, he's not offended by your anger, sadness, or blame. He's not worried about that. 

He's just sending more light and love, more light and love, more light and love, and you'll feel it when you're open to receiving that period—end of story. 

Test me out. Test out these words. Test out my theory. It's been my experience. It's not really a theory. It's an absolute truth in my mind because I've tested it.

I've been on the floor. I've done the crying. I've done the blaming. I've done the dying for a redo—crying, grief, loss. I've been there. 

It was me moving further from him. It was never him moving further from me. 

I digress again, back to my response. 

I told her that when you come into this world, what does it take for a human to be born into it? It takes a complete transformation of your environment. 

A complete transformation of your environment. 

You go from not having oxygen in a warm space where gravity is not really a thing to them bobbing around and floating. 

The temperature is perfect, and you don't need to remember to eat. 

You're not going to fall on the floor. There's no gravity. Time is not part of your world. 

You're just growing, and there's no effort to become a human. 

But when you enter the human environment, first of all, you have to squeeze through a canal that was hard to imagine. 

It can get big enough to let your little, your great big little head through. 

Let alone all the shoulders and the body. It's a miracle every time. 

Sometimes, being squeezed into a new environment, reality, or opportunity feels like birth. 

There's some pain. There's a lot of discomfort. 

Suddenly, you pop out into the world. 

You're wet and naked and cold. You start crying. You need comfort. You need warmth. You need food. You need air. Everything. 

Your needs become more higher, and that's okay. That's called survival. 

Eventually, it becomes thriving, you know? Babies are. 

They adjust to their environment rather quickly, and then they're smiling, happy, and progressing. 

They're rolling over, they're crawling, they're standing up, and they're walking and running and going to school and tying their shoes, and suddenly we forget. 

We just forget all that we went through in the first three years. 

Sometimes, it takes three years. I went from lying on my back crying, lost, and wanting a do-over to a massive rebirth—ten years. 

Sorry, it wasn't quick. It's not always quick. 

It doesn't mean I was crying for ten years. 

It just means that there was grief and loss for quite a while. 

Six of those years. A little less year seven and eight and a complete reparation. Nine and ten. 

But still, at nine and ten, it was two years of repairing where I thought I should be in life.

My ideas of my life and what I was here to do were so firmly in place in my brain that my heart couldn't overcome them. Does that make sense? 

My thoughts were intense about where I should be, what I should be doing in life, how life should be, and how it shouldn't be. 

With such financial struggles, marital struggles, and parenting struggles, I just didn't plan for that. It wasn't part of my idea for my life. 

It went so different, so different than I ever thought it would. But that's an energetic thing. We can talk about that another time. 

Until I got my mind right about where I am in life, what my rebirth looks like, what I'm here to do, and that it brings me strength, the strength that I feel is just ten times who I thought I was—ten times or more. 

I thought I was here to remove my footprints from the earth, pretend I didn't exist, and raise a family. 

Those were my goals. Just get out of everyone's way. Don't ever make a wave. 

Definitely, don't let anyone know I was here, which was all conditioning for my childhood. 

I did have a great sense that I wanted to have fun with my kids. 

Maybe there was some of that, but it's hard to assess yourself. 

Ask my children if they could tell you if there was any fun or not, but when we have a rebirth. 

If it contains loss, guilt, shame, anger, sadness. 

Take those three breaths again because you're just starting a new version of yourself. 

It's no different than when you were born. 

If we thought it was painful to learn to smile, roll over, dress, tie our shoes, crawl, and walk if we thought that was going to be painful, can you imagine we would be like, oh, I can't get out of bed today; it's going to be so much?

It's just that we think that as an adult, we believe life's supposed to go a certain way because there's a social norm about how you go to school, get a job, find the love of your life, make a family, and set your riches aside for retirement. 

There seems to be a pattern of expectation. 

When your life doesn't meet expectations, what are you doing? 

You're comparing yourself. You're grieving the loss of what you think you should have had. 

When your life can't go wrong, you have your free agency; you can choose at the fork in the road. 

When there are a billion of them, the fork in the road, right or left, which one will we choose?

One will teach us what not to do, and the other will expand what we knew was possible.

That's a good one. That just came through. 

When you're learning all over again what it means to be you, when there is a reinvention, a recreation, a rebirth, breathe. 

This is another part of the answer that I gave this sweet lady.

Is God putting the breath of life in demand? Woman, he breathed life into us. And so we breathe, which is life. 

If we weren't breathing, there would be no life. Breathe. 

That's the most straightforward answer to a challenging situation you might find yourself in or are trying to help a loved one. 

You're trying to help them see the possibilities of this new reality. 

When you're trying to do that for yourself, breathe. Breathe. 

I love that I don't ever title these episodes. I just turn on the microphone and see what happens. That is the answer. 

That is what this episode is all about: breathing.

That's all you did when learning to crawl, walk, and run. You were just breathing, smiling, you know? 

I think I need a nap. I think I'm hungry. You're just feeling your way through life. 

Those emotions that roll through you fall down when you're trying to walk, maybe you cried, maybe you fell and hit your head, maybe you did, maybe something besides just falling on your bum came with the process of learning how to stand up and walk. 

The whole time, you didn't stop breathing, you weren't holding your breath, you weren't, right? 

When waves of grief are crashing over you, you're holding your breath. 

If you go underwater, literally, you have to hold your breath. 

We do that when we're grieving, too, when there's a rebirth at hand. Sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, and we can hardly breathe; we're crying so hard. 

Breathe. Stop. 

Take that full and complete replenishing breath, and if you can't reset, put your hand behind your head, close your eyes, and move your eyes all the way to the right until you can take a deep breath, a sigh, which is two breaths and an exhale, or a swallow. 

Reset your eyes to the center and look left. 

Do it again because your nervous system is on fire when you think your life is ending. 

I can't talk enough about the nervous system, so I won't say too much now. 

Just reset. Reset, reset, reset until the breath of life comes back into you, which is funny because it never left you. 

If God weren't in you, if he wasn't with you, supporting you, loving you, shining his light on you during a very difficult time, you would stop breathing. 

Breathe and then reset your nervous system because your body needs more oxygen. 

It needs complete resetting.

Let me just say that this young man who let this girl go just goes down her path so she can learn what she needs to know. 

I know he didn't let her go under those pretenses, but that's actually what he's doing. 

He stayed true to his value system, to what he knew was right and good for him. 

His mother says this young man has social anxieties and is an introvert. Thank heavens! Because it was what kept him from going down that road with her. 

He's like, I can't go in those social situations. I don't want to be around crowds. 

What's that going to do? That's gonna put him in a situation or an environment in the future that's going to be more conducive to who he is. 

I used to think that I needed to be with people all the time, that I was the fun and happy girl. 

That's not true because I have two switches. 

I'm an introvert, so I have to recharge my batteries. 

Being around other people causes me to pick up other energies, and I tend to tether myself to their pain.

This can be exhausting, so I do have to recharge. 

But when I'm on and with people, I'm on. It feels good. 

We're shucking and jiving for the three or four hours that we're together, and then I have to go recharge, maybe even for a day, for an entire day, before I jump back into the fray. It's just how we're built. 

We have to listen to how we're built and who we are. 

But those emotions that run through us are not wrong. 

If you think it's the end, you'll feel the intensity of the emotions that match; this is the end for me. 

When you realize that what you're choosing for yourself is to embrace your character, values, and discernment, thoughts about that create an environment where those big, scary, intense emotions will calm down—they'll come back to almost a high neutral. 

This still got scary because it's really unfamiliar, but there's more of a neutral piece about Okay, I am safe; all is well. 

Resetting your nervous system is all about being with yourself. 

I am safe; all is well.

Round yourself, walk around in nature, get that alone time, and be with yourself. 

You're not as scary as you might think you are. 

It is being alone with you. 

Walk with God, talk with God. He can hear you. He can hear you, let me just say.

In the spirit world, everything happens at the speed of thought. 

You can call in a loved one, talk to your spirit guides, pray to your God, or call in the light of Christ. 

Don't have to say a word out loud.

You don't have to translate it into mortal words. 

You just think it right here. God help me. You have me do? What would you have me do right now? 

I bet you a thousand bucks! 

In the beginning, the only thing you'll hear is this little, bitty quiet voice, and you're like, I don't even know where that came from. Did I hear it? Did I think it? Did I feel it? 

It is going to say, just breathe. Because your life is not ending, it is not off crack. It is not a mistake. It's perfect. 

Everything you need to know at the moment is happening. 

If you just back up three or four steps from the pain, the emotional, the great big scary emotions that are threatening to swallow you in your mind. 

Step back and think, okay, if not that, then what? If that door is closing, which one will open next? 

My curiosity is peaked. I want to know what's next. Be patient. Be patient because it will unfold. 

It's not in a day. It's not in an hour. It's not the minute you demand it with all your tears and crying. 

It doesn't happen that way. It doesn't happen that way, but it does happen. You can be sure of that. 

In the meantime, just breathe—nothing less than three deep breaths. 

Let it out three times. 

Breathe in deep. Three times. Breathe in deep. Let it out three times. 

There is magic in the three—God the Father, His Son, and the Holy Ghost. There's magic in threes on earth; I didn't make that up. 

I should do the next episode on the magic of threes because, in fitness, your body responds to threes. 

I'll do that one next because that feels good. All right. 

If there's anything I can do for you, please reach out at teresafordcoaching@gmail.com. I'm here for you.  I'm not kidding about that.

You can DM me, too. I always respond. Your happiness is one of my favorite things. 

Note: You can access the full blog content in audio versions on Spotify and YouTube. Happy listening! 🎧 

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