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By Andrea Lynn Cianflone
Goodbye 2024 and hello 2025! Last year was filled with lots of travel, new friendships, blossoming business opportunities, and a myriad of singing performances. Singing and giving remarks at the Oxford International Breathing Conference was the highlight of my year in addition to meeting so many talented researchers and being introduced to many concepts within the science of breathing. These insights were instrumental to my work as an opera singer and certainly the work at Be Delighted.
One area of interest for me regarding the breathing process was reflecting on residual volume (the amount of air that stays in the lungs after exhalation is achieved). It seems that achieving longer exhalations can be a lifelong pursuit for the singer artist. I have witnessed favorable results in myself when utilizing certain exercises and practicing with a focused intentionality. I have often wondered about what disorders, disease, or ailments, if any, may present itself due to limited breath or distorted exhalations. What are the factors that would influence such distortions? I tend to be a visual learner, so I had a date with curiosity and envisioned the diaphragm moving up and down in the body, falling short in its journey to the top. I began to ponder how residual waste could get trapped inside my lungs and potentially impact my overall immunity and/or ability to breathe. It was an interesting thought journey to say the least.
There is another kind of “residual waste” that certainly impacts my breathing. It arrives in my email inbox every 16th of the month. I gasp for air as I click on the message. Staring boldly into my eyes, it reads: monthly credit card payment reminder! It is not too often I get excited about a bill notice, but this time, I was elated that I would be paying off the full balance of the card…
…or so I thought!
When the credit card statement arrived the next month, I was baffled by a minimal amount remaining to be paid. What was this? I already paid my full balance. As my skepticism and concern grew, I could feel my jaw tighten and breath shorten as I invented the idea that a worldwide credit card scheme was taking place and I was being duped in real time. I picked up the phone. The customer service representative empathized with my frustration as it seemed “many customers have been confused” and assured me that this payment was ‘residual interest.’ How can a company make interest off $0 balance? I was truly disturbed by this widely accepted practice in the world of banking and felt that I was forced to forgive this wrongful way of doing business.
Forgiveness is a tricky business! By its nature, forgiveness requires giving up something. The offended party may need to give up anything from emotional to physical debts owed: the opportunity to grieve, expectations of say family and friends, perhaps a childhood lost, maybe money and resources that were stolen. The adage “cut your losses” rings all too loud. It seems the quicker one decides to forgive, the lighter the emotional load to carry. Forgiveness seems to be liberating as the heart is protected from anger and resentment. There is freedom in forgiveness but let us not forget the losses that come from the act of forgiving. I think it important to realize that for some people in the world, their secret sorrows and debts may be larger than others and more challenging to overcome. It seems in many ways that the act of forgiveness places a large responsibility on the offended party, as tragically, there remain debts that may never be ‘repaid.’ The constant giving up of debt (forgiving) can also be fatiguing and carry short and/or long-term consequences due to depleting physical, emotional, psychological resources, like money, mind, or health.
“The world doesn’t owe you anything.” Have you heard this before?
Though I understand what is meant by this phrase and I certainly am no fan of entitlement, I often wonder why people exert such phrases in response to people who have felt a heavy weight or series of injustices. If injustice is defined as an act that violates some moral code or cultural ‘norm’ then it would seem to me that a counter response could be, “yes, XYZ person actually does owe you something.” Each person has a story, a voice to be heard, and some stories are colored with unthinkable traumas: the child is owed his/her childhood from a familial trauma. The woman is owed her dignity from sexual harassment. The employee is owed for unjust wages. It seems to me that the recognition and identification of what is owed is the impetus in forging forgiveness. If forgiveness is removing the debt that is owed to the offended party, then it seems a necessary step is to observe, then ask: what is the debt owed? I find that once I have identified that, I am then able to grieve the loss and finally to forgive (to say or understand interiorly “you no longer owe me”). At the intersection of realizing the debt and forgiving the debt is a moment that can be truly painful, and at the same time, healing.
I have been feeling an inkling as of late to confront the offending parties of the world to consider addressing the impact of their debts and ‘residual waste’ that has kept people holding their breaths. There is no shortage of painful stories in the world! I have held my breath through a long laundry list of infractions, including multiple sexual harassment situations, personal/professional bullying, abuse, and jealousy, or fighting against manipulative behavior by men with lust-addicted agendas. Just the other day a woman who I have probably shared three conversations in my lifetime said to my face, “I don’t like you,” for what I ultimately believe was an expression of her jealousy towards the love and care I had given one of her family members throughout the years. I was beyond shocked by this surprising exhortation!
Then of course there was the utter betrayal by people I thought I trusted (more times than I can count on my hands and toes). How can I forget the “friend” whom I had helped during a time of her unemployment, or the “friend” whom I advocated for bedside as she vomited in a cup while getting emergency room treatment, or the “friend” whom I treated to a nearly all-expense paid vacation, or the “friend” who consistently thought that telling jokes about me during conversation with others was funny? How wonderful it was for these “friends” to relish in the confidence of knowing someone was present to them in their time of need, only for me to be dismissed during my time of need.
Oh, it gets better!
Years ago I had opened my home to woman in need, and later I entered an arrangement with this “friend” for a temporary transfer of lease that would allow me to return to the apartment after doing a professional program, only to have a major curveball thrown my way; this woman signed the lease and within a twenty-four-hour period told me to move all my stuff out. Did I mention this woman had constant career jealousy towards me? I digress. Since the lease was now legally in her name, and due to the timing of the move, I was forced to put all my hard-earned belongings like furniture (and items terribly wrecked by her use) out on the street. Lesson learned? Be careful who you choose as friends...and really, is it possible for person “A” to truly be in a meaningful friendship with person “B” who is jealous of person “A”? The jealous person seems to wait in the wings for an opportunity of failure or collapse in some sort of sick twisted enjoyment of another person’s demise. I can only speak for myself, but I want people who are 100% in my corner!
Oh, it gets really better!
The icing on the moldy cake was the following: as I settled into my new place with little belongings, I put my computer down and began writing an email to my new employer asking about the work tasks to be done. This remote work position allowed me the ability to take part in the professional program. Two days went by. No response. Three. No Response. Four. Five. Six. No response. After two weeks I had not heard anything. To keep a lengthy story short, I was now jobless with a program cut short and stranded in a city with little to no immediate public transportation. I relied on the little savings I had to carry me through more than a couple months. I almost nearly went homeless at the hands of this entrepreneur who never paid me for work, a truly unforgettable, traumatic year that left me sleeping on ten different beds as I fought the injustice before me. Thousands of dollars in money/time/resources were stolen from me in addition to my health deteriorating as a result of the compounded stress. I will spare the details for a future bestselling book!
Of course, I have had less severe situations that were damaging in their own way. Earlier in my career, I once hired a group of professional musicians for a live performance engagement that was to be professionally filmed for a commercial sales product. The music was given well in advance of the engagement. When it came time for the rehearsal, I was dismayed by the lack of preparedness of some of the musicians. With only one day away until the concert, I put on my executive producer hat and began giving a little tough leadership-love. I told the musicians to get into a practice room and make sure the notes were pristine. When concert day arrived, there was definite improvement, but in the post-production, there were so many errors coming from that one unprepared musician that I never ended up using any of the footage. Eventually I forgave the unprepared musician in my heart, but the remaining consequence was thousands of dollars lost from the botched film shoot as no product was ever produced.
Be it personal to professional forgiving, I know I am not alone in stories like this! I unite these sorrows with the many stories whispered into my ear over the holidays in 2024 from strangers who never had a voice to be heard, including: multiple stories of burned-out caretakers, family members silenced over differences in political beliefs, domestic abuse survivors struggling to survive and/or provide safety for the children, and the many children left behind to pick up the pieces of familial hardship. How can anyone hear such a diversity of stories and not share in the grief of tears shed by these warriors!
Dear humanity, as we progress through the 2025 year, is it possible for all of us to take a moment and take stock of the ways our actions (or non-actions) have depleted the hearts of those hurt by our hands? Perhaps we could all (I’m preaching this to myself here) use a little more time in the ‘practice room,’ perfecting our human instruments, reflecting on the actions in our lives that have created dissonance? Is there someone in your life to whom you owe something? Perhaps it is time to consider repaying debts that are owed? Though I realize this request may not fall within the ‘parameters’ common to the act of forgiving, it can be a vital element in an offender’s act of apologizing and restoring what has been broken. I believe actions like these would be the greatest residual interest invested so people can breathe a little more easily.
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