Make a necklace of conscious moments

by Diana Lang, relaxation expert

I like to think of life's momentous experiences like beads on a string. Those moments that are important, valuable, or rare are like beautiful colored beads that we lovingly thread onto this string of beads. Each bead symbolically represents a moment, an experience, a special person. As life goes on, a gorgeous necklace of our lives is created, full of these moments that have meant something to us.

This little metaphor is a way to imagine making our lives more conscious. By recognizing these moments more often, we become more fully alive to our experience. It is easy to see how a marriage or a birth of a child would be a bead on our string, but what about today? What about right now?

One of the ways I make my moments conscious is by using my breath. When I awake in the morning or go to sleep at night, I take a conscious breath. In between daily rituals like my morning tea or meditation, or taking a walk or going to the grocery store, I take a breath to establish myself in the place where I am.

This is one of the most valuable tools I have. I use it all day long. Between every client and every class, between every activity in my day, I take a conscious breath. These aware moments then are indelibly written in my consciousness. They become part of me. They are beads on my string.

A conscious breath is a physical/spiritual acknowledgement of the moment. My inhalation and exhalation establish me in the new moment I am in. When we use the breath like this, life becomes a living meditation, seamlessly connecting the dots of our experience, one to another, like beads on a string, and soon we have a collection of moments that is an acknowledgment that this life, and everything in it, is sacred.

Breathe your life in deeply. Live your life completely. Recognize that this moment, right now, is special and add it to your life's string of magical moments.

For more information on Diana, visit her Web site at www.DianaLang.com.