Learning to Breathe

The view from the diver center in Fort Kochi, Kerala

I read Eat, Pray, Love at the beginning of this year. My evaluation of that book is outside of the scope of this blog post (I have been reading too much scholarly literature jargon, yikes), but I refer to portions of that book a lot when I think about my experience this year. I have always liked finding running themes during periods of my life. In college, I found threads in my classes that ran transcended my personal life, but this year, I’ve had to find them on my own.

My current chapter, or maybe the one that I am just leaving behind is called learning how to breathe.

It seems like an oxymoron because everyone knows how to breathe. What I realized only recently, is how formative the breath is for my mind, body, and soul. I’ll try to tell you exactly what I mean.

I’ve never been able to meditate because my body and mind are constantly in motion. During my third yoga class, Seema (my yoga teacher in Delhi) told us that we were to lie down, motionless for 10 minutes. My internal alarm bells sounded and I felt panicked at the thought of laying still.

In those moments I thought of Eat, Pray, Love. At the end of her time in India, Elizabeth went to meditate. She found a spot overlooking a lake and began her practice. A few moments later, mosquitoes surrounded her. Instead of moving to another location, Elizabeth decided to notice the mosquitos and then simply return to her breath. When I first read that part of the book, I was appalled at how masochistic she seemed. That was six months ago. Looking back, I admire her ability to notice discomfort, sit with it, and let her breath guide her back to the present.

In the 10 minutes of meditation in the climate-controlled studio, thinking of the alternative of being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I sat still. After weeks of yoga and hour-long stints of shavasana, I left the studio and let my feet carry me through the streets slowly and gave my mind permission to relax.

A few weeks later, I decided to get my Open Water Scuba Certification. It’s something I have always wanted to try; I figured, if not now, then when?

I thought scuba diving would be easy. What’s so hard about breathing underwater?

My first few breaths underwater were panic-inducing. I don’t like to feel out of control, and for as long as I can remember, water has made me feel that way. I didn’t like jumping into water, I didn’t like going underwater, and I was never the strongest swimmer.

I forgot how it felt to put my head underwater––I hadn’t been swimming in almost 7 months. We started yesterday with snorkelling. I held onto the railing, with my face in the water and kicked and breathed. I know, easy. But for me, the panic that sometimes accompanies putting my head underwater sets in. As I was kicking in the pool, internally, I was freaking out. I hated the sounds underwater. I hated the way my ears felt and how I couldn’t see through the murky pool water. I remembered why I’ve avoided water for so long. It’s funny, really. I love it; I feel more drawn to the ocean than any other part of nature, but it also involves a unique sense of fear.

I didn’t want to be underwater anymore. It brought me so much fear and anxiety and when we left the pool and started diving, I felt the pressure in my ears change and the lack of oxygen and sometimes a bit of water if I tried to breathe in through my nose.

To become a PADI certified Open Water Diver, students must demonstrate their ability to breathe underwater, without a mask on, for a minute, put their mask back on, and clear the water out.

The first time I took my mask off and tried to breathe through my second stage (the part of your scuba equipment that you breathe through), I choked relentlessly. I felt embarrassed and anxious because it seemed as though every time I tried, water would enter my nose and cause uncontrollable choking. I had no idea how I was going to do it without choking, and much less how I would do it in a place where I didn’t have the open air as a safety net if I choked.

My instructor told me that it was okay to take it slow. He told me that he didn’t even know how to swim when he started diving. He empathized with my panic in the water and reassured me that it was okay to take time to learn how to breathe without my mask.

He simply told me to keep practicing. I began by holding my nose as I breathed in, then let go to exhale. Once I felt comfortable, I unblocked my nose. If I was very calm, and only thought about breathing I didn’t choke, but when the time came to put my mast back on, I felt a flurry of fear rush over me followed by water going straight up my nose. I frantically stood up, choking away, and doubting that I would end the week with a certification.

I forgot that you can learn though. Before going to yoga I thought that I was always going to have trouble with my flexibility or balancing positions. The notion of progress wasn’t one I could conceptualize because it’s been a long time since I’ve learned to do anything that I was once very bad at.

When we leave childhood, I think we forget that we can learn new skills. I was never bad at anything, and the things that I was bad at, I don’t really remember learning. Trying something new and being bad at it, has caused me to completely give up on things without giving them another try. Internally I say, well, I guess I just wasn’t meant for this and that has to be fine.

On the last day of my scuba class, I took off my mask at 10 meters underwater. I relaxed and channelled myself in shavasana, completely focused on my breath, using it to calm down my panic response and breathe in through my mouth and out through my nose for one minute. Before I knew it, my instructor tapped me to put my mask back on. I waited, breathed, and then slowly and methodically (two words I never thought I would use to describe anything I have or will ever do) put my mask back on, cleared it, and gave my instructor a high five.

Learning how to breathe––to follow your breath and focus on how the air feels as it moves in and out of your body. I learned the power of breath at first in yoga when I learned to sit still and resist the urge to move. I learned it again when I learned to scuba dive when I learned to breathe in through my mouth and out through my nose. But these lessons in breath revealed a more prominent thread that I will carry with me––learning how to breathe taught me that I am capable of learning. It taught me to be patient with myself, and it gave me the confidence to continually challenge my perception of my capabilities.