Day 10: Om . . . Umm . . . Yum

“Mindful breathing is an indigenous praxis.”

What fresh hell is this? Who writes a plodding incomprehensible sentence like that one?

You can bet it’s someone with a thesaurus in hand, hunting for fancy words to make himself sound important. It’s someone trying to sound much older and wiser than she actually is.

I’m reading a self-help article on relieving stress. It’s stressing me out.

Indigenous is misleading, since its first meaning is native. Native plants? Native Americans? What are we talking, here? Vague uncertainty is vexing.

I have to look up praxis; it means practice. I feel stupid when I have to look up words. My cortisol levels shoot up higher.

So we’re dealing with indigenous peoples and plants and rituals. Mindful breathing apparently involves drug-induced tribal rites of enlightenment. I’ve nothing against those, mind you, but get anxious thinking about descending into a smoky dark kiva.

Indigenous praxis, my ass. Say instead that mindful breathing comes naturally to humans. That we inherently understand it. That it’s an innate skill.

For the sake of peace, I decide not to read the rest of the piece.

Yet I do. It’s supposed to help  me trade my soothing glass of wine (OK, two) for a few deep cleansing breaths.

“Feel your essence dissolving out to the infinity of Pachamama.”

Here, unexplained woo-woo concepts are paired with undefined foreign terms in an effort to intimidate the uninitiated. We’ve got another winner!

I stuff the pamphlet into the trash and open a nice bottle of Cabernet. I take one mindful mouthful, and then another. I breathe deeply. And, bingo – I’ve hit upon my own rite of enlightenment.