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Breathe, Queen

Carrie-Ann Barrow     May 27, 2022
Breathe, Queen

Hey Queen,

I got an email from a colleague of mine for whom I have the deepest level of personal and professional respect. She’s also a coach, and one of her innate gifts is helping clients create a sacred space within – a space that holds you, and hugs you, with the kind of warm, compassionate love that always feels safe. She is a gift.

While it’s always a joy to hear from her, this email was one filled with heaviness.


When Responsibilities and Reality Collide

She’s in her sixties and finding that many of her loved ones are starting to struggle through the ailments, illnesses, and hardships that arise as we age. She is also experiencing the impact of aging personally – her aches and pains are more frequent, and her health is becoming harder to maintain.

This is the human condition, and I am convinced that no matter how much we’re told that it will come, it surprises us, nonetheless.

I read through her email. While she was navigating physical challenges, I noticed through her word choice that she was putting a tremendous amount of additional weight on her own back.

“I have to do this. I have to do that….”

There were six “I have-to’s” in just two short paragraphs.

I’ve been there. You may have been there, too. And if my colleague, an incredible Queen in her own right, mentioned that she has gotten to that place – I am convinced that we all have, or all will, at some point be overwhelmed by the burden of what we “should” accomplish at a time when it seems impossible to add anything else to our plate.

When I feel that heaviness coming on, I remember that really, all you or I, or any of us, have to do in any given moment is breathe.


When Overwhelm Takes Hold, Simply Breathe

Breathe in. Breathe out.

That is our only “have to” for living in the moment. Another way of saying this is to simply “be,” if only for a second.

The rest of what we “have to” do are all choices, some intentional, some not. If you’re not breathing first and foremost, the non-intentional choices – that guilt, that heaviness – takes hold of your inner Kingdom. And for a brief time, that’s okay. That’s human. Let that be, too. And then, take a step back and remember, all you really have to do is breathe.

Take in that beautiful, life-affirming air and hold it for a second or two, deep in your lungs. Embrace simplicity – and embrace how such a small action can make such a massive change. Simply, breathe.

Take long, slow breaths and let it flow through you. Feel it flow through you. Allow simplicity to clear space in your Kingdom for intentional choice, and I anticipate, you’ll find freedom.

 

Breathe.

Carrie-Ann Barrow

I support women in transforming the way Queens like you think about yourselves, empowering you to reimagine what’s possible – in work and in life – and make their boldest visions real. I do this both in my writing and coaching.

As a successful entrepreneur who founded and sold a multi-million-dollar company in my thirties, I bring energy and insight from my lived experience to coach everyone from aspiring entrepreneurs to executives.

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