Space to Breathe

Coming Soon

Better Breathing for Trauma Webinar this Thursday, January 30, 3–5pm ET

Pranayama 101 Weekly Meetings and Daily Live Pranayama Practices begin again Monday, February 10

Reading the Breath Wednesdays 1 – 2:15pm ET, Mar 12, 19, 26, April 2, Jennifer Snowdon and Declan Clark

It’s sometimes difficult, as a Canadian, to comment on the political moment, as so much of it is coming from south of the border. But Canadians sleep with an elephant (as PM Pierre Trudeau said in 1969) and we are affected by everything that happens in the US. And although the new president is signing executive orders that don’t directly impact me, my friends and loved ones, they do shift the social climate and conversations.

I’m not worried that my trans child will lose their rights to be recognised in the way that reflects who they are. I’m not concerned that immigrants will be rounded up in the night. Or that violent criminals will be released from prison because of their political beliefs.

At least, not yet.

This past week I “unfriended” a Facebook acquaintance from my teen years. I’m sure this isn’t surprising to many people. Maybe it’s me being too Canadian, too polite, too nice. There are different ways of being in the world that can be good, and disagreements between people who live good lives. I’ve tried not to shut out those disagreements and silo myself.

However, the escalation that moves from, “I disagree with you,” to, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” is shocking. The shift from, “That’s a different perspective,” to, “You idiot.” We have, as Bishop Budde said in an NPR interview this week a “tendency to jump to outrage and not speak to one another with respect.” And it happens too often, and too quickly on social media.

(If you’ve been under a rock this week [no judgement] and missed it, you can watch Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan 22 where she implored the new president to have mercy on the vulnerable.)

I can imagine the conversation I could have had with this “friend”, had we been in the same room. Language is made up of so much more than just words — tone of voice and inflection, body posture, facial expressions and micro-expressions. I’d like to think it wouldn’t have included phrases like, “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” and, “Do your homework.”

My internal responses to these conversation are tightness, feeling short of breath, anxiety. More and more, this is my physiological response to social media, and accompanying it is a frenetic feeling of having to be present to see it all unfold. I open up the app, panic, close it, and immediately open it again.

So, I deleted the last comment from this person, and unfriended them. Then I put up a post that says I’m taking a break from social media. App was deleted from my phone. Website unpinned from my browser. Next up, I went to Instagram and declared I’m not spending time there anymore either. That app and website pin are now gone as well.

And guess what? My breathing is already feeling easier.

But I still feel the tug to just check these platforms — just a quick glance. The hypervigilance remains. It will take time to dissipate, I’m sure. I haven’t closed my accounts — there are many good people I’m connected to through social media, and I would miss that. But Meta has stolen a lot from me already, so who knows what will happen.

We have our own election coming later this year, and first a race for the Liberal leadership to fill the gap that Justin Trudeau is leaving. I’m optimistic that most Canadians won’t follow our American neighbours into a conversation that is rooted in fear, anger, greed. (There is certainly time and space for righteous anger, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.)

Can we, instead, ground ourselves in empathy and compassion?

Can we find space to breathe gently?

I’m turning my attention to ideas of natural time and the world around me, belonging, movement, and of course breathing.

I find the most helpful things for settling the breathing in these moments arrive with movement. Gentle stretches; dynamic movement, incorporating spirals and spinning and jumping; moving my eyes so that they aren’t just looking at the screen at most 1 metre from my face and directly ahead.

If you’d like to learn more, consider joining me on Thursday for a webinar where we’ll do all of these things and more in Better Breathing for Trauma.

Thanks for joining me here.