All you’ve got to do is understand each others’ breathing.”
This came to me in a dream, in a time of conflict when all I wanted was to rest and gather myself. The person whom I was with would not stop talking. I asked them to stop when a voice said to me, “All you’ve got to do is understand each others’ breathing.” I immediately woke up with those words ingrained in my head.
This line has great advice for the practicing empathizer. During meditation, the Buddha instructs not to control ones breath but to notice your breath. Is it fast paced and shallow or is it slow and steady? The depth and rate of your breathing can give you insight into your own inner experiences. Up until last night, I hadn’t fully considered the fact that we can look at another persons breath to understand what they are going through.
You can take this a step further and try to mirror how they are breathing and really experience what they are feeling. As a teen, I wanted to look skinny. I would suck in my stomach, and I accidentally changed my breathing to shallow breathing. My shoulders would rise on the inhale and sink on the exhale. I was extremely lucky to have a physical therapist teach me how to breathe deeply with my diaphragm. This changed my life and decreased my stress level immensely. If you notice someone breathe in with their shoulders rising, and you notice their stomach getting smaller during the inhale, you can understand that this person is probably feeling a lot of stress, unaware (for the most part) about how to decrease it.
If they would like to work on stress management, they can be referred to a yoga teacher, or physical therapists, or you can take the initiative to learn ‘diaphragm breathing’ on your own in order to instruct others on how to breathe deeply.
We must understand that our breath keeps us alive, it is one of the only constants in our life, and it can tell us a lot about a persons inner-workings. Empathize with their breath and give yourself the opportunity to experience their inner states by mirroring their breath. If they talk about high stress, offer them the ability to speak to someone who has studied stress management. I hope this revelation will help someone better understand those close to them and maybe understand future clients!