Closer Than Breath

The silence that holds the music of life

Friends,

In the ebb and flow of this beautiful experience we call life, it's so easy to get swept up in the fats flowing stream of thoughts, identities, and stories that we’ve come to believe about who we are. We perform many roles (often in one day), child, parent, friend, professional, and sometimes, without even noticing, we begin to mistake those roles for the whole of ourselves. We cling to our narratives, our struggles, our triumphs, and everything in between, hoping they’ll give us a sense of solid ground.

But if we pause for just a moment, softly, and without force, we might sense something quieter beneath it all. Something that doesn't come and go with changing moods, or shifting circumstances. It's not dramatic or loud. It's still, present, always here and available to each and everyone of us…if we choose to entertain it’s existence.

This deeper presence isn’t far away or reserved for the spiritually advanced. It’s not something you need to earn or chase as some goal or mystical trophy. In fact, it’s closer than your breath, so close, it's often overlooked. It’s the gentle, spacious awareness in which all thoughts, feelings, and roles arise and dissolve. And it’s not separate from you. It is you, in the truest sense possible.

Recognising this doesn't require effort, only a softening, a turning inward with kindness and curiosity. And as this recognition deepens, not in theory but in the living intimacy of your own experience, life begins to feel lighter. Not because the world changes, but because we’re no longer holding on so tightly to what was never meant to define us.

There’s something beautifully ordinary about this. It doesn’t need to be dramatic or mystical. It’s just you, as you’ve always quietly been, beneath the noise. That stillness, that peace, it’s here now. And it never left.

This presence, this awareness, is not something we need to aspire to. Awareness is already here, within you, always. It is the stillness that witnesses the fluctuations of your thoughts, emotions, and experiences without being affected by them. It is the essence of your being, untouched by the comings and goings of life.

So, I invite you to take a moment to pause, to drop below the surface, and remember the awareness that is always present in you. Let’s explore together what this awareness means, how it holds us, and how to return to it when life feels overwhelming.

With love and presence,

Ben

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Core Truth: You Are Not What Comes and Goes

So much of our lives is spent entangled in rampant thoughts, turbulent emotions, and the shifting stories we consistently tell ourselves. We wake up each day and, almost automatically, step into the roles and identities we've cultivated and worn for years. We think:

This is who I am. This is what I feel. This is my story. This is how it is for me.

And in doing so, we forget something deeply profound and vitally important:

You are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions. You are not your body. You are the awareness that lovingly holds all of these experiences with a tenderness you have long forgotten.

When life is seen only through the lens of thoughts and feelings, things can feel fragmented and overwhelming. The ups and downs of the mind become the measure of our wellbeing. But the moment we pause, even briefly, and recognise that we are the awareness in which all of this unfolds, something softens. Something opens. We come home to a peace that isn’t dependent upon circumstances. A stillness that has always been here, waiting patiently.

This awareness is not distant or mysterious. It is not hidden behind layers of effort or achievement. It’s what is noticing these words right now. It’s what sees, feels, senses, and knows. Quiet, open, always here. Unchanging, even as everything else changes around you.

Lasting freedom will never come from controlling thoughts or trying to fix emotions. It will come from realising and embracing:

I am not the storm, I am the sky in which the storm appears.

Thoughts will rise, and then pass. Emotions will come, like unstoppable waves, before receding back to wherever it is they came from. But awareness, this…presence that you are, that we all are, is timeless. It watches without grasping. It allows everything, resists nothing, and yet quietly remains. It will always remain.

And when you feel caught in something intense, grief, anger, anxiety, try this simple question:

Who is aware of this?

You don’t need to answer it with words. Just feel into it. Let the question bring you back to the calm openness behind the experience. You might notice a natural spaciousness emerge, one that doesn’t need to push anything away to be at peace.