Talk about beating a dead horse…this prompt geez. I’m hard pressed WordPress, to come up with something original as this question has been asked several times before, this time it’s just wearing a disguise. And a cheap disguise at that.

Okay I’ll try to be nice and play along.

Deep breathing. It’s very handy. It’s right there inside of me. Always at the ready. There’s no pose required, no equipment needed. And it works.

There was a time in my life where deep breathing got me through the day. A span of about two-ish years, when my marriage was ending. The hill to climb to get out of my thirteen year marriage was a steep one. I was out of breath a lot of the time. I had to resort to deep breathing just to keep going.

It really does curb stress, that acute type of stress where you start to panic. Or at least for me it does/did. It gets me through to the next moment, and the next and the next. Like a frog jumping from lily pad to lily pad. If frogs jump on lily pads.

The realization that I had married the wrong person and that I actually was not able to say the L word about him, left me feeling fragile. I did my best to not act fragile however and for my kids I put on airs. I was purposeful and driven, to ensure as little disruption to their lives as was possible.

But in those moments when they weren’t present, in my car, at my desk at work, I was taking deep breaths to get me through. It mostly worked.

Okay well actually there was this one time where it let me down. I was working for a surgeon at the time in a clinic and he was known for being a little hot tempered and demanding, I know, not a surgeon with a temper right?! Anyway, he had just come from seeing a patient in one of the exam rooms and I had neglected to ensure there was a box of tissue in the room, or gloves or something trivial like that.

He started in on me for not stocking the room properly and with me being on the verge of losing my mind trying to keep my life together while my marriage was falling apart, I broke down crying right there at my desk. My back was to him and I was taking deep breaths, and was trying to muffle the sounds of my tears.

Unfortunately he noticed, (why are we so embarrassed to cry in front of other people?), and he did feel bad. I remember his voice, in his British accent apologizing and saying “Carla, have I made you cry?” Like no buddy, you wish, it takes a lot more than your temper tantrums to make me cry. But I told him what was happening in my personal life and he was very supportive, having been divorced recently himself.

I think besides that one time, deep breathing has always come through for me and I highly recommend it.