Breath

I’ve noticed that a way I measure my mood is by the tightness in my chest and how deeply I can inhale. My breath-in can feel like it gets stuck at the top, which stops me from taking a full breath. Before taking my Yoga Teacher Training (YTT), I had a constant feeling of butterflies, sometimes lighter than others. It was definitely worse when I was feeling rocky in life, but it was there even when I felt more centred and present. The best way to describe it was as a distant sense of dread. Like something wasn’t quite right.

When I first started wondering why that tightness was there, I went to see a therapist. I was wondering what I was doing wrong that meant I had started feeling that way. I couldn’t pinpoint a day that it started but I became conscious of it in my late twenties. I went to therapy for answers but the feeling didn’t go and I didn’t get to know it better.

I was in bed one early morning when I felt it change. It was last September 2020, after the YTT and I had just listened to a guided meditation. I breathed in slowly and my breath went past the point it had always got stuck. I had this blissful feeling of taking a full breath for the first time in ages. My skin tingled in my chest and arms. I felt at ease. I did it again and again.

Then slowly it faded. I tried to hold on to it, keeping up with journaling practices, yoga every day, taking care of myself, writing affirmations. I felt at ease and content in life, but the light, free feeling in my breath had gone. 

Gone, until I started with daily breath work. I was given a book as a gift called ‘Draw Breath: The Art of Breathing’ By Tom Granger. It gives pictures and ideas, guiding me to use a pencil to draw smooth lines as I breathe. It’s incredible and I’ve learnt a lot. I have also been enjoying Kapalabhati, which is rapid breathing with a passive inhale and an active push of the breath out. I tend to do 3 rounds of 40. Afterwards, the deep breath can feel like being told a piece of really good news. I get the tingles again. And if that feels too energising, I choose either; 3 part breath: breathing in for 3 counts, filling the lungs from the bottom to the top; or square breathing: counting to 4 for the inhale, hold, exhale and pause.

The best thing about it for me is that breathing is always there. Sometimes when I forget to meditate in the morning I find it difficult to find a quiet space later on in the day. But I can always come back to my breath, allowing it to slow down and listening to it as I do.