Forgotten How to Breathe

Breathing – what is that?

When I went to bed last night, it was pouring rain.

Now, if you’re anything like me, the wonderful pitter-patter against the windows and the roof of the house creates such a wonderful symphony of sounds that it seems to rock me to sleep.

And sleep I did –  until I awoke in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and a very, very dry throat. No worries; I drank some water, lay my head back down on my pillow, and attempted to enjoy the sound of the beating rain. But then my head began to pound to the rhythm of the rain, so that was the end of trying to get back to sleep.

I tossed and turned for ages, hoping to get some kind of relief.

Nothing seemed to work.

I got more and more tense, and because my throat continued to feel dry, I kept drinking more water. I’d been awake for more than an hour and my feeling of restlessness just kept escalating.

My son, who sleeps in a bed beside me, must have felt my angst because he climbed into my bed with his pillow, snuggled his little self beside me and put his head against mine. I looked over at him and he was still fast asleep. How children have this intuitive sense is still a wonder to me. Immediately, I began to feel an incredible energy of peace spread through my body.

I became aware of his quick-paced child’s belly breath and realized that, because of all the tension that had been building up in my body, I wasn’t breathing fully myself. It was almost like I had forgotten to breathe.

How did I forget to breathe? Why did I not think of Shivasana? My forgetfulness baffled me because this was the one form of relaxation that I’d been keeping up even though I had not been going to classes. I realized that for some reason, having started my classes again, it was almost like I had forgotten the basics. Somewhere in my subconscious, I had blocked it all out.

Well, you can imagine how frustrated I was! However, I also recognized that I couldn’t do anything to change what had already taken place. So instead, I focused my breathing and began to relax each section of my body – and the next thing I knew my alarm was ringing.
[tags] shivasana, breathing, headache, sleep, peace, energy, relaxation[/tags]