Leeana Tankersley - Breathing Room: Letting Go So You Can Fully Live

breathing

But me he caughtreached all the way

from sky to sea; he pulled me out

Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,

the void in which I was drowning.

They hit me when I was down,

but God stuck by me.

He stood me up on a wide-open field;

I stood there savedsurprised to be loved!

Psalm 18:1619 Message

The human bodys urge to breathe is irrepressible and essential. When we hold our breath, we begin to feel a pain inside our chest. This is called our critical line, a signal its time for another breath. Everyones critical line is different, but everyoneat some pointmust breathe.

Research shows we hit our critical line, not necessarily because our body needs oxygen, but because our body needs to release CO2. When we hold our breath, our body tells us its time to exhale. Only then can we take in the air we need.

As it turns out, a breathing researcher writes, the opposite of holding your breath isnt inhaling, its letting go.

Over the past four years of my lifewhich have included the birth of my first children (boy/girl twins), the challenges of learning to be a working writer, two moves within my hometown of San Diego, a miscarriage, another pregnancy, a move to the Middle East for my husbands job in the Navy, the birth of our third child in the Middle East, and a move back to San Diego with three small children in towI have been through a bit of a Come Apart. Or, to say it in breathing terms, I hit my critical line.

I had been holding my breath for yearsprobably more years than I realizedtrying to manage the pain in my chest. Trying to stave off surrender. Trying to keep it all together.

Until I couldnt anymore.

This is not to say the last four years have been horrible. They havent. In most every way, they have been the richest, most textured years weve lived.

Which is why things got so very confusing. If life was so beautiful (and it was) and I had so much to be grateful for (and I did), why was I struggling? Why did I feel like I was being squeezed relentlessly? Why did everything feel so urgent? So suffocating? All the time?

Sure, we had stress. No one would deny that. But our life wasnt coming apart, not in the ways you think of someones life crumbling. If anything, our life was arriving, precious dose after precious dose.

Still, I could not breathe.

My inability to suck it up and manage exposed and highlighted my growing suspicion that I was grossly inadequate for my own life. I begrudged my critical line and believed something was wrong with me because I couldnt just push past it like it seemed so many others were able to do, like I had always been able to do.

My refusal to exhale, to let go, just about drowned me.

I needed someone or something to release the valve on the blood pressure cuff that was squeezing my soul. I needed the anxious intensity to dissipate. I needed a place I could go where no one would try to convince me of how blessed I am or how I should simply pray harder. I needed people and words and spaces that were filled with grace, that honored my struggle. I needed someone to give me permission to exhale, because I could not offer it to myself.

So, I started reading literature from the 12-step program, Emotions Anonymous, because I knew 12-step helped you break down something that had become unmanageable. In the Emotions Anonymous materials, I read a sentence that changed everything for me. It said:

We do not deserve to keep hurting ourselves.

Like a film sequence I saw myself in a closed loop that I couldnt exit: struggle, self-contempt, swirling... struggle, self-contempt, swirling...

Why can t I just get it together? Why cant I just make it all look like she does over there? Why am I struggling when this is what Ive always wanted?

About a year ago, our church offices caught fire when a faulty copy machine shorted. The fire started around 4:00 a.m., so no one was injured, but the majority of the office space was a black crisp when the staff arrived to inspect the aftermath. One million dollars worth of damage.

One of the pastors brought in a therapist to facilitate a conversation around the staffs experience of the fire, an opportunity to debrief. The therapist explained that some staff members might register the fire as an inconvenience, even a loss, while other staff members would internalize the fire as a trauma.