PERMISSION

There once was a woman who thought she needed permission to breathe.

She would feel the urge to take big, gloriously deep mouthfuls of air.

To hold it there while it stretched her lungs
and then let it go, along with all that held her back.

But when the urge arrived, again and again, she always stopped.
She held her breath instead and questioned.
She looked around for someone to give her permission.

She wasn’t sure that air and breath and that sweet release was hers to enjoy.

No one had said so, and so who was she to think she could just take it?
What if there wasn’t enough?
What if she squandered it?
What if, in taking, she would leave less for others?

But the holding was becoming too painful.

Her extremities were turning deeper shades of blue,
and there was an ache for oxygen in her burning lungs.

It grew so intense, that she stopped looking around one day and just did it.
She took in all she could hold and then let it go and dared to do it again
|and then again and then gloriously again.

And with each breath, there was not less, but more.
And the air around her kept regenerating, and there wasn’t just enough for her,
it was enough for everyone and everything.

And with all of that delicious breathing, the colors started to return to the world,
and a tingle came back to her fingers and toes.

That’s when she knew that breathing was her birthright.
t was the very thing that would bring her fully into the beauty and abundance
of a life that contained more than enough.