Breathe

Around the time I turned 40, I thought my heart was in serious trouble. I experienced heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness… One night I got so anxious I called the doctor. He asked my if my arms were tingling (‘Yes, they are! That’s why I finally decided to call because I was so afraid…’).

His answer? ‘Well that’s good, because it means you’re not having a heart attack. It does mean that you are hyperventilating, however. And that means you need to take a close look at your life. Because 16-year old girls can start to hyperventilate for no reason, just because. But 40-year old girls… well… if they start hyperventilating, it usually means there is something seriously amiss in their life…’

I never forgot those words and the way that kind, kind doctor said them. Of course my life was in real trouble at the time, and it only got worse for a while. But it was the day I realised how I simply stop breathing when things become to hard, in an effort to hold in that deluge of pain, or sadness, or anxiety, for fear it will swallow me alive.

It was also the day I started to learn that you have to keep breathing. In… out… Deep, endless breaths that not only fill your body with oxygen but allow you to breathe in light, and breathe out darkness.

It was the day I started to take life back into my own hands. And breathe as if my life depended on it.

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