Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe. When I inhale, it catches halfway, and my eyes well with tears. Most of the time, I don't exhale all the way, because I can sense that if I do, I'll cry.
Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe.
Breathing has become such a delicacy to me that I actually focus on it. I actually concentrate on making sure I'm doing it right. This futher hinders my ability to breathe.
Yogic practice dictates that I should breathe in such a way that I can feel it in the back of my throat, Darth Vader-esque; that I should breathe so deep that it fills my belly. This is where peaceful breathing happens.
I rarely feel peaceful.
My yogic breathing happens only when I'm concentrating in the car while driving, after having realized I've been holding my breath and I tell myself "...inhale2, 3, 4...exhale2, 3, 4...". Or while I'm following an instructor during a yoga or pilates class. Unfortunately, driving in the car and exercising are two necessities that are obligatorily squeezed into the vise that has become my daily existence, and therefore provide neither the escape nor relief intended. As a result, I often experience a lack of quality sleep.
Sometimes, when I can't sleep at night, I realize I'm again holding my breath, at which point I revert to the aforementioned car methodology.
Oftentimes, when I catch myself holding my breath, I wonder how long I've been doing it. I wonder, "How long can I actually hold my breath?" But when I concentrate and actually try to hold it, I feel like I'm falling short of the time I might have achieved when just forgetting to breathe, and it frustrates me.
Do I just forget to breathe?
Or is it just that sometimes it seems like holding my breath will put life on hold for even the briefest of seconds? That maybe then, I could catch up.
I blame my genetic makeup. It makes me feel better to think that my inability to breathe is the result of a genetic flaw, rather than to believe that I have created an oxygen-consuming, smothering existence for myself.
Sometimes I feel like I can't breathe.
