Choosing to Breathe

A few weeks ago, I banned someone from one of my social media pages.

Usually, it’s the Tinder-pick-up wanna-bees. (I kid you not, this happens, and if you have been on the other end of receiving an attempted romantic pick-up reply to a comment you’ve left on my page, my apologies! I can promise you that as soon as I become aware of these stalkers, I ban them faster than you can say “Strawberry Custard”!)

But this time, it was different.

I banned a woman who left a completely unwarranted judgmental, self-righteous and actually arrogant comment on one of my posts.

Here’s why:

Boundaries.

Boundaries.

Boundaries.

And more than that.

The fierce fight for uncontaminated air in the midst of a world heavy with pain, sadness and toxicity.

I’m going to level with you. We’re under ten weeks in, but this year has been HARD.

I have seen an unbelievable amount of pain in the lives of my incredible patients, and I have felt it through the heartbreaking devastation in life events of some of the people closest to my soul… my “forever friends”.

With so much darkness, I choose, as far as I can and am enabled, to surround myself with kind, good-hearted and empathetic people who understand that there is no room for any degree of judgement in a hurting world.

Judgement is destructive.

We will not heal personally or collectively while it remains in our environment in any form.

When the world out there is heavy with heartbreak, the need to fight for clean air, the need to rid the venomous, the need to breathe, becomes that much more critical… that much more of an essential for living.

We can’t control the heaviness of the world.

We can’t undo its pain.

But in order to show up for those we love, and for ourselves, we need to clean out the toxicity within our inner spaces.

Boundaries are the oxygen mask in a contaminated world. They allow us to see through the smog regardless, and find the strength to help others along the way.

We are going to be exposed to the noxious as we venture through life, but there are occasions we have a choice to rid ourselves:

• of all that holds us back
• of all that weighs us down
• of all that keeps us gasping for breath

Over the past few years, I have made that healthy choice often. Today I made it again.

I am soon to be passing my mid-forties, and here’s what I know without a doubt:

People who have a healthy respect for themselves will respect the boundaries we put in place.

Those are the people we can have deeply connected and authentic relationships with.

Those are the people who fill our souls and enable us to love our rawest humanity by loving us completely- exactly as we are.

Those are the people I want to submerge myself alongside for however many days I have remaining on this earth.

Whatever part of your life needs cleaning out, fight fiercely for room to breathe.

Sweep the floor.

Toss out whatever contaminates your space.

Do a complete overhaul.

Life is too short to try to accommodate the toxic.

Don’t corrupt the precious moments and relationships that you have been gifted by allowing anything or anyone who contradicts your values to stay in your circle.

Let go. Set yourself free.

Move beyond all that contaminates your time, your mind, and your emotional well-being. Your happiness, actually, your survival, is dependent on it.

We can’t control the smoke, but we get to choose how much of it we inhale.

There’s freedom on the other side of toxicity.

Fight fiercely for it.

Fight for that air.

Choose your circle, and choose to breathe.

With love (and boundaries),

Naomi

PS: I will also keep fighting to ensure that this space, on this page, remains one of kindness and support for every person here as we venture on the healing journey of life together.