I’m sitting in a tech rehearsal for "How To End Poverty In 90 Minutes (With 99 People You May or May Not Know)," and I’m watching. We’ve reached a point where a scene is happening between two actors–an emotional scene about a sick mother. As I watch, one of the actors chooses to take a short inhale of air instead of continuing through a line outright. Normally, this line seems a smidge mean (or maybe defiant or protesting are better words to describe it) but with the inclusion of breath, the line becomes melancholy.
I, like the rest of humanity, didn’t normally acknowledge breathing patterns until this year. This process that everyone does (pardon me, everyone who’s alive does) mostly goes unnoticed unless your "authentic" yoga teacher, Chad, tells you to “feel your spirit move with your breath.” Normally, I envy Chad’s ability to put his legs over his head, but this isn’t the time nor the place.
During this year, I was challenged to understand breathing in a deeper way by an acting professor of mine. The goal was to see how breathing could change emotion, character, or just a moment in a scene. Think about this: When you cry, your breaths change from regular, longer progressions to ones that can only be characterized by the words “punctuative, short, and altogether a bad time.” This hyperventilation allows you to still complete a process of life while crying over the fact that you’ll never be able to put your legs above your head like Chad. Repressing this switch is nearly impossible (I would know, I’ve spent a lot of time watering the ol’ cheek gardens with my salty dogs) yet is thoroughly satisfying when you’ve finished crying.
I, the smartest person in the room (I’m writing this in an empty room), declare that breathing is in fact what controls our emotions. Not in the weird, New Age, “feel your spirit move” way (sorry, Chad), but in a more literal way. Breath is how we emote. Think of a time you laughed really loudly. That laugh had to be interspersed with breaths, whether they be at either end or in the middle of the burst of noise. Are you not convinced? Let me convince you, then!
Once upon a time, I was breathing. (What a riveting beginning!) The day was nice, the sun was out and the air was crisp. I could feel a newness in the air that signified spring. I, wanting to experience this all, took several deep breaths. There were no breaks between the breaths–they were fast and deep inhalations. I felt myself get giddy. But as I breathed, I felt that giddiness turn sour, like a metaphor about something turning sour. I suddenly was lightheaded and blacking out. It all became clear to me: I breathe the same way when I am scared as when I am happy. The long, deep breaths categorize two different emotions in just the way my body decides to take in air.
Truly, this information might change nothing for you. Breathing is just breathing after all. But, if you’re one of those few, few, few people who glean things from my musings, I hope you focus on breathing and see how it affects you. And if not (it’s your life, you don’t have to listen to me), then I hope you have a great time doing whatever the heck you do.
