First, Take a Deep Breath: Breathing Lessons in Addiction Recovery
Feeling Like You Can’t Breathe
Have you ever had your air cut off?
Having the wind knocked out of us. Maybe an asthma attack. Being strangled. Drowning. Covid. Even for a moment, it’s a deeply terrifying, out-of-control feeling.
To belabor the obvious, breath is life. Breathing is our most immediate basic, primal need. If it’s cut off, we die in a matter of minutes. It can also function completely automatically, while still being subject to our conscious control (to a degree), unlike most of our autonomous functions.
By learning to exercise that little bit of control, we can start to better influence all kinds of things -- both internal and those around us. Everything else stems from this seed of self-determination and focus.