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Day 21 of #31DaysOfCF: How Will You Use Your Breath In This Life?
Katie Osborn is an actor and cystic fibrosis warrior living out her dreams in NYC.
Just like cystic fibrosis is in her DNA, being an actor was written on her soul, and accepting her body and breath with CF allows Katie to freely give as an actor. She has fully integrated the lessons of CF with professional theater training. This has given her a deep understanding on how to use breath.
“My life’s mission is to use my own breath, artistry, and passion to help every person value the gift of their own breath and embrace their authentic identity.”
Katie, we can’t wait to see your creativity soar and enjoy what it produces!
Now back to our CF Community: Has CF allowed you to embrace your own identity? Or do you completely separate the disease from who you are?
To read the rest of Katie’s story, and learn more about how CF influeces her creative drive, click here.
Our #31DaysOfCF initiative is running for the entire month of May. Each day, we are featuring a different story, and a different view of life with CF. To read all of the stories, visit our website.
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1 Reply
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Breath is the force of life. Literally and figuratively. It is even felt to be the origin of creation in almost all of the stories that are the core of the religions of mankind. The universal principle (God, Dao, Brahman, Atman, Allah, the One, Teotl, Atum) is often intuited and pictured as breathing the air of aliveness into the universe, and into the human body. In some languages these words still mean Breath, like in German “Atem”, with the verb “Atmen” and in Dutch “Adem” and “Ademen” respectively. In the Bible the first human is called Adam.
So integrating the art of breathing in how you live your life, as Katie does, is wise and important. It is what in Hinduism and Buddhism is called Pranayama, which is observing our breathing in silence, without the intention of control. It can make us aware of the silence between two consecutive thoughts. This calms down our running mind and points us to who we really are. It is one of the best forms of meditation and we can do this 24/7 without effort.
Answering Jessie’s great and fundamental questions: yes and no.
Having CF allowed me, amongst other circumstances, to go beyond my personality and embrace the impersonal identity of being One with all. This did not separate the disease from who I am, on the contrary. It created the realization that I am not only the body but that the body is in me, including all the particularities of that body without the need to conceptualize it as “my body” or even “diseased”. The body and its functions are simply what is, they are a feature of Oneness that we all are. I am in that Oneness and this Oneness is in me, like a glove that is it’s own inside and outside simultaneously. It is what is happening undisturbed by the separating mind all the time by itself. To every one and no one. This is liberation. We are all this freedom. If we focus on breathing in stead of thoughts about the person, this freedom will embrace us timelessly.
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