Breathe through it

Have you ever tried to breathe through a straw? Next time you have one in your drink, give it a try. You'll try to suck in air as hard as you can, but you can't seem to get enough oxygen. Take a few breaths like this, and see how you feel. Your chest and throat muscles will begin to tighten, and soon enough your entire body will begin to tense and feel the threat of not taking in enough breath.

Breath is life. In yoga breath is also called "prana" or life force energy. Without breath, there is no life. Breath moves oxygen and energy through the body, and when it is constricted, the entire body feels this lack.

I know all about this tightness of breath, because it is one of the awesome symptoms of anxiety. Feeling anxious means feeling like someone is standing on your chest, and no amount of sighing or belly breathing can release that pressure. A few days of breathing like this and the entire body starts to feel it.

I was about eleven years old the first time I experienced this breathing frustration. For an active kid with no asthma in my family, feeling like I couldn't breathe deeply enough was scary. Little did I know I would spend another decade before I understood it was chemicals in my brain causing me to struggle for air.

I am once again caught in a bout of anxiety. This time, I'm a yoga teacher. This time I know the tools. I know the breathing routine, I know the chakras to open, I know the poses, but nothing is working. Not a single thing. And part of me has to accept that no amount of knowledge will liberate me from something as powerful as a malady of the brain.

Talking through it with friends, everyone offers the same advice: get to the root of the problem.

Ah, why yes! How simple?! Right?

No.

Look, sometimes it's just not that simple. It's not always about uncovering some latent issue. Sometimes anxiety or depression do stem from a specific issue one is not ready or willing to confront, but other times it's just because you were born that way. Some of us got screwed in the genetic lottery. If a friend had asthma, would you recommend they find the root of the problem and get past it? I understand that there is a lack of understanding or awareness of how the brain functions and how inherited brain chemistry can be a factor one's suffering, but it is time that both I and others stop assuming it is all in my head. Some things in life just can't be rationalized that easily.

Holidaze.

my break turned me all kinds of upside down. how was yours?

Holiday break! Always a roller coaster of emotions as I take that lovely nostalgic trip down memory lane. Drudging up all the crap from the past that I thought I had left in my wake, those events that shaped and also hardened me, make their way back to haunt me, taking multiple forms for a less-than-stellar mindfuck. 

My holiday break felt slightly off with both of my sisters absent and tending to their new families. My singledom thus became the forefront of nearly every conversation. As a single 28-year-old female, especially in the south, I had to answer a lot of questions regarding my wanderlust lifestyle. 

Holding my friend's newborn, I was forced to confront the question of whether or not I made the right decision in following my passions and remaining a self-reliant and adventurous woman, or if I would be happier settling down, or just settling. 

To add a layer of confusion to my augmenting anxiety, my emotional blasts-from-the-past seemed to be centered on the theme of my cheating ex-boyfriend who ripped my heart out in my mid-twenties. Being older and wiser, I like to think I have let go of the pain and anguish I suffered for nearly 5 years as I was held captive by my love for a guy who would never love me the way I deserved, and never love only me.  

Even at a New Year's Eve party, a random friend-of-a-friend I met looked at me with the kind of recognition that a girl only gives when she knows she's done something behind your back with your man. As we reviewed how she seemed to know me and I not her, it became clear to me that she had probably been among the many "other women." And once again the emotions of being duped by someone I loved came rushing back. I felt my breath shorten, as if someone were standing on my chest. 

. . . 

I'm a scorpio. By nature, when I love, I love hard. I am the kind of person who you want on your side, not only for my unwavering loyalty, but also because the vengeful nature of scorpios means you do not want us as an enemy. 

With hard loving comes a very selective entourage, and most of my friends remain friends for life. For the same reason I hate small talk and parties, I love an intense friendship where I can sense your needs before you even know what you need. 

But I can't love again yet, and it makes me sick. I want nothing more than to do away with the hurt that a stupid boy caused me. I want nothing more than to NEVER think about that hurt ever again, and more importantly, to never blog about a boy hurting me. That's just gross and so not my style. But here we are.