Exhale

There is a reminder, almost a trick, really, when someone can't catch their breath and is starting to panic: get them to exhale. It doesn't have to be with blow-out-the-candles force, but it can automatically trigger proper inhaling.  It also works if someone is getting more and more anxious, so that they are taking many shallow breaths, unable to get very much new oxygen in any of them. It works for thinking as well.  When we are going to do some difficult physical thing we are likely to take in a deep breath and hold it. But when we want to look over a situation and consider what we've got in front of us, there is an instinct to purse our lips and blow air out slowly in a long exhale.

A post here set Grim to thinking about marriage and young men, which in turn prompted me to think of my current perspective versus what may have been my attitude when I was young myself.  The puzzle has stuck with me the last few days. All relationships are an opportunity to give, and none more than marrying and parenting. I know I long ago suspected that this might be at least partly a dodge, a Sunday School lesson to get everyone to be as nice as they should.  "It is better to give than to receive" sounds very noble, but I wondered if it were also a bit hollow.

Giving is exhaling. If you are feeling that not enough is coming in, it may be best to give more.  You may be in panic, or breathing shallowly, unable to take in what might be there.  The analogy won't hold forever of course. One cannot keep exhaling indefinitely. But even then that might be a result of humanity's fall.  The system was designed that both exhaling and inhaling will occur, and each supports the other. That is still the design and likely to work remarkably well even in difficult circumstances.