How does your breathing change in a moment of crisis? Does it become fast and shallow? Is it difficult or painful? Do you hold it in as if it is the last bit of air to ever pass through your lungs? First tightening into a knot, my chest shifts to rapid, shallow breaths, leaving little room for oxygen to pass in or out. This exercise is an opportunity to evaluate changes in the patterns of depth and duration of breaths through mindfulness techniques. After experimenting with various strokes and lines/squiggles, a wave pattern felt most natural and comfortable to me, though awkward at first. Closing my eyes made it easier to focus on my breath, getting evermore shallow as the five minutes seemed to go on for ten. Upon opening my eyes, I saw on paper the result of heading towards an anxiety attack and my inhalations increasing in number, but decreasing in duration. While this exercise shows that not every tool works efficiently for every person, the second part of this gave me the key to working on mindfulness through breathing.
For the second step, I was supposed to count or use a mantra through the breaths, creating a longer inhale and exhale while decreasing the number of breaths, drawing the pattern of breaths for the same duration of time: Five minutes. The second photo shows the stark difference between the two. I felt my chest getting tighter the more I focused on my breath, however, a phenomena my therapist and I discussed in our next session. What I pulled away from this exercise, though, was a mantra to help calm me down. For three counts in, “I-can-breathe,” and four counts out, “I-am-safe-now.” When I cannot seem to focus my breathing by counting, this mantra now reminds me that I am safe and that there is room to breathe because the lack of air tends to send me into greater anxiety. So, while this exercise did not work the way it was intended in my case, it gave me an unexpected tool that has been invaluable.
*For more art therapy ideas from Managing Traumatic Stress through Art, check out the full list of exercises from the blog post: “Managing Traumatic Stress Through Art.”
