breathe out..

got up at 5:30 this morning and dragged myself to yoga.

all the way there i kept thinking about the huge mistake i was making...waking up this early just to stretch and find my "chi"..

and, well, it probably was a mistake, becuase my chi's nowhere to be found, and I probably could have stretched at a normal time.. like 11:30.. but hey, whaddaya do?

anyway, we were wrapping up our session and the leader... craig, or chris, or charlie...(bad with names...awful actually) was leading some group breathing..which sounds creepy if you don't do yoga.. but he basically just counts, while we breathe... (I'm sure he breathes too..but that's beside the point..) anyway, he was having us breathe out for 2 seconds longer than we breathed in... and he said "most people don't breathe out enough"
the first thing I thought was..'that's ridiculous. everyone breathes out.'
the second thing I thought was.. 'i could breathe a lot easier if I wasn't in this awkward position'
then I thought... 'wait... he's right'

what are we holding our breath for?
you know how good it feels to take that enormous sigh of relief? to let all of that spent oxygen out as carbon dioxide? why don't we do it more often?
we're all holding our breath.. and I'm not quite sure why. it's like we're hoarding all this air, afraid that if we let it out we won't be able to take it in again... news: we will..
not literal air, of course.
but everything.. we're just holding on.. waiting.. 'till we turn blue in the face..and then what?

if you're holding your breath you can't laugh..you can't cry.. and you sure can't live very long

so maybe we should breathe out longer than we breathe in... give back more than we take.. let go more than we hold onto..