The first time I heard this concept was at a conference in which Brene Brown was speaking. She had me laughing so hard because I could relate to every word she was saying. She relayed an experience in which a yoga instructor taught her about the box breathing method. The instructor raised her finger and drew a box in the air. With each side of the box there was a breathing que attached "Breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four." With one eye brow raised, Brene wanted to punch her in the face!
Can you relate? When you're all fired up about something do you really want a yoga instructor to talk to you in a calm voice and tell you to breathe in box format? Yeah, not so much!
She went on to talk about meeting soldiers in the US military and she asked them how on earth they make the very hard decisions they have to make, namely, to shoot or not to shoot. Can you guess what they said? Breathing!
Now this had my attention. If this one of the techniques that the military is using to traine our soldiers as a way to zone in and focus on what really matters then I could probably use to incorporate this into my life as well.
While I am not making decisions like should-I-pull-this-trigger, I am a mother with two kids who are approaching teenage years and I have an emotional trigger that I am trying hard to keep in check.
So breathing, how does this work? You can do like the yoga instructor said and breathe in four 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4 and hold for 4. If you chose to do this, make sure you breather in through your nose slowly and exhale through your mouth slowly.
If I'm being totally honest, I find that a little too much for me to focus on when I'm all riled up. My thoughts are on other things and so I stick with deep breath breathing. In slowly, out slowly. That's it. Over and over again until all the glitter has settled!
This fun little toy I got on Amazon helps visualize the breathing, which for my 10 year old, has been especially helpful.
Has there ever been a time when you found taking a time out and doing some deep breathing of your own has helped? I'd love to hear about it!
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