Breathe in, through the nose. You can feel the slow intake of air through your nose hairs. Nice and easy. Breathe out slowly, emptying your lungs. Your lungs? They are carwash sponges: wring them out until they are light as a feather, so Nerf-y, they practically float.
This is what is known as a guided meditation, and all you really have to do is follow along. If you get tripped up, just go back to carwash-sponge breathing, wringing out and filling up. Wringing out, filling up.
If it helps, imagine that you are washing a black Jaguar F Type Project 7 you just paid cash for and haven’t even driven yet. Wring out the sponge, then fill up your lungs. Remember the Mona Lisa’s smile? Put that on your face. It’s a unisex expression, in case you knew not, and you are a mystery man, relaxed, healthy, and effortlessly achieving without being driven. Your secret? You know how to relax. How to smile enigmatically at life. It’s all so easy, isn’t it? That’s your mantra, which is a phrase you repeat until you believe it to be true. It’s. All. So. Flippin’. Easy.
Deep breath in as you feel your lungs and chest stretch and expand. So good, right? Hold the breath in for four and exhale through the mouth without making a sound. All they see is a blob still in bed, but you know better. You know you are meditating, taking care of the delicate filament of life that lives within your strapping terrestrial existence.
Now, see yourself getting ready to walk down a flight of stairs, going deeper and deeper into calm, a kind of post-long-hot-shower calm. There is no judgment or competition here. Mysterious smile followed by two carwash-sponge breaths. Even calmer.
You are wearing your favorite sweats, by the way. Feeling the soft terry of your thousand-year-old hoodie against your head, breathe in. Yes, the hood is up. Feel the soft, worn-in leather of your imaginary flip-flops as you descend the staircase of your inner man cave. With each step down, you are deeper into your personal man mystery, the image of the Jag finding purchase in your third eye, located right between your eyebrows. Like a hood ornament!
Breathe out, and take a few more steps down to the bottom, where a dark but cozy mahogany-paneled room awaits you. There is an armchair in the room, one made of oiled and worn leather, a chair so inviting it begs the question of whether man was really meant to stand at all. You are one with the cavescape. You are one. But who, in fact, are you? It doesn’t matter. Really? Yes, really.
Do the Army breath — deep breath in through the nose, then hoooaaaahhhh, out. And repeat, deep breath in, then hoooaaahhh car-wash-sponge out, focusing on the third-eye jaguar, the leaping jaguar stilled for a perpetual moment in the middle of your face. Are you that jaguar?
No, you are the guy in the Maxell commercial, the guy sitting in the chair with the windy music blowing at you while nothing else exists except you and the music of life. Only there is no music and no wind. Sitting in the chair now, in your soft sweats, you are riveted by a screen in front of you, a $9,000 LG 55-inch curved HD screen, the one everyone wants. There is a remote in your hand and you finger it idly. You could probably use it blindfolded. But, for now, it is just residing in your hand as you stare at the blank screen. It is on, but silent, and the most beautiful night-sky black.
As you sit, quietly and peacefully staring, all you think of is your breath. Not your morning breath, of course, but the capital-B breath of energy. You continue doing the carwash-sponge respiration cycle for several minutes until you feel utterly refreshed. Then, at that place of utter mancalm, you take one last breath in, a long, slow breath with all the gratitude you can muster for your life. You note a faint smell in the air now, a faint smell of … bacon. Heavenly.
And returning to Earth — 5 bacon, 4 bacon, 3 bacon, 2 bacon, 1 — you feel the weight of your body in the trough of your bed. Peace be with you, brogi. You’ve earned your coffee.
TEA LEAVES 