On Taking a Knee - Trust, Breath, and the Pace of Living
Journal Entry: April 8, 2026
On Taking a Knee - Trust, Breath, and the Pace of Living
At a certain point, a person has to decide to trust life.
It is not a small decision.
It is not even a single decision, made once and for all. It is something that is chosen again and again, often quietly, often without ceremony, sometimes in moments when there is no clear evidence that trust will be rewarded.
Strangely, we are already doing it.
Every breath is an act of trust.
We release the breath without knowing, in any absolute sense, that another will come. We let go, and something in us allows the body to receive again. This exchange happens continuously, beneath thought, beneath strategy, beneath belief. It is a rhythm that carries us whether we think about it or not.
Yet when our inner condition shifts, the breath changes.
In grief, one may exhale and hesitate at the threshold of the next inhale, as if unsure about re-entering the world. In fear, the breath is often drawn in and held, as though letting go would mean losing control. At times of strain, we grasp for air and release it in a long, labored exhale, trying to empty out what has accumulated within us.
The breath becomes a quiet register of our relationship with life.
It shows where we are holding.
It shows where we are resisting.
It shows where we are allowing.
In this way, trust is not an abstract idea. It is something lived in the body, moment by moment.
To slow down, then, is not simply a lifestyle adjustment. It is an act of trust.
To pause in the middle of movement, to stop pressing forward, to resist the urge to immediately intervene, requires a willingness to let life continue unfolding without constant supervision. It asks a person to believe, at least provisionally, that something meaningful can emerge without being forced into existence.
This is where the gesture of taking a knee becomes useful.
In its original setting, it is simple and practical. An athlete pauses. A soldier steadies. The body lowers. The field remains active, but one steps out of immediate motion to gather oneself. There is no drama in it. It is not surrender. It is not retreat. It is a moment of orientation.
A moment to breathe.
A moment to observe.
A moment to receive what is actually happening.
That gesture translates directly into the inner life.
There are times when continuing to push only compounds confusion. There are times when clarity does not come from further effort, but from a brief, deliberate stillness. To take a knee in one’s own life is to create a small clearing in the momentum, a place where one can re-enter the rhythm of things rather than continue moving out of sync with it.
It is a way of restoring relationship.
The person who never pauses begins to lose contact with what is real. Action becomes habitual rather than responsive. Decisions are made from accumulated pressure rather than from present understanding. Life starts to feel like something being managed rather than something being lived.
Taking a knee interrupts that drift.
It returns a person to the body, to the breath, to the actual conditions of the moment. It allows one to notice what has been missed, what has changed, what is opening, what is closing. It provides a chance to realign intention with circumstance.
This is not inactivity.
It is preparation for right action.
In a culture that values constant motion, this kind of pause can feel uncomfortable. It may even feel irresponsible at first. There is often a subtle fear that if one stops, everything will fall apart or pass by. But this fear is part of the same pattern that creates unnecessary urgency in the first place.
Life does not require continuous interference to continue.
Much of what is essential is already underway.
To take a knee is to acknowledge that.
It is to step, even briefly, out of the compulsion to control and into a more attentive mode of participation. It is to allow oneself to feel the rhythm again, to sense whether one is moving with it or against it.
The breath can guide this.
One does not need to control it. One only needs to notice it. To observe how it moves when one is calm, when one is tense, when one is uncertain. Over time, this simple attention begins to restore a more natural pattern. The breath settles, and with it, perception settles. When perception settles, action tends to become more precise, more economical, more in tune with the moment.
In this way, trust is not forced.
It is cultivated.
Not by convincing oneself of something abstract, but by repeatedly returning to a lived experience of continuity. The breath leaves and returns. The body stabilizes. The situation clarifies. The next step becomes visible.
Then one stands up again and continues.
To live at a slower tempo does not mean withdrawing from life. It means moving at a speed where these moments of orientation are possible. It means allowing space for adjustment, for listening, for realignment.
It means learning when to move, and when to take a knee.
And perhaps, over time, it means recognizing that life itself has been carrying part of the weight all along.
Ah yes.......surrendering and trust.........Is it about surrendering to me, my intuition, my basic needs or does it involve something outside or bigger than me? Perhaps some of both......When I feel the need to step away from the studio I don't stop to think whether it's because of something that happened to me in there with a piece (like losing a crucial item that I've worked long on so I gave up for a while as I had to order a similar item) or does it happen (the losing of the original item) because some outside force wants me to step away. Whichever..........I step away, I surrender, and I trust that eventually I'll re-enter and continue.........meanwhile......I'll do something else and trust that happening. Sometimes I take the knee and just trust it'll all work out somehow and not question the why of it all.