Several recent staffroom conversations have posed the question of Whatever happened to Term 3? In the momentum of the four-term year, Term 3 has historically been the term that was unofficially designated as the term that brought a breathing space to the intensity that typically characterises the other terms. Term 1 marks the beginning of the new school year; Term 2 is assessment, reporting and data analysis and entry; Term 4 replicates Term 2 with the addition of tying up the year and preparing for the ensuing one. So, Term 3 was always held as the term where teachers could focus on teaching and relationship building with their students. However, this has now changed with Term 3 having taken on extensive extracurricular activities that require significant extra planning, as well as the time taken away from primary curriculum delivery. The latter factor then places teachers and students back into a breathless motion where they struggle to keep up with where they are supposed to be in terms of delivering content, skills development, achieving outcomes and the completion and marking of assignments.
The consensus among teachers is that there is no longer the breathing space phenomenon associated with Term 3; that the relentless grind of curriculum delivery, assimilation, assessment and reporting is now consistent across the entire school year.
Listening to these conversations had me considering the concept of a breathing space per se. How did we ever come to accept and even normalise the mindset where there was only one quarter of a year that we felt we were allowed to ‘breathe’ and to move in a rhythm that feels more natural - socially, physically and mentally? Why do we now accept that breathlessness and moving at a manically driven pace are just part of what the job requires? Have we given our bodies over to external forces that demand an exclusively relentless grinding pace that is sustainable only through the extensive use of self-medicating strategies? These self medications include daily (if not hourly) consumption of caffeine and energy drinks, chocolate and wind down wines, alongside the judicious use of pharmaceuticals that support with the inevitable health compromising outcomes of such a lifestyle.
Would it not be wiser to consider questioning the source of this mindset and unpick it from its roots?
The Significance of the Breath
Our physical breath not only supports the essential and basic physiological functions in the physical body, it also naturally offers mental and emotional equilibrium as indicated in longstanding religious traditions across the world. A declining quality of breath, down to the definitive loss of its quality, thus also brings a decline in physiological functionality and the destabilising of the sense of one’s inner core or inner self – one’s inner worth, connection and true value.
The Medical / Scientific Picture
It is a given that our breath supports the sustaining of the entire physical body. There is no greater indicator of the significance of the breath than the obvious factor that when we cease breathing, we ‘die.’ The oxygenation of the blood with each in breath allows this great red river to nourish every cell; the removal of carbon dioxide with each out breath supports by removing potential toxicity, as well as providing the life supporting breath of the entire plant world. Our breath physically connects us with the plant kingdom who exchange our carbon dioxide for their oxygen, demonstrating the harmonious interdependence of Nature in which we have our part. Lung disorders from bronchitis through to cancerous growths severely inhibit our capacity to breathe in full and, if not healed, ultimately lead to severe, if not fatal, consequences. The medical model thus clearly shows that breath is key for life and for our interconnectedness within life.
The Subtle Aspect of the Breath
Many religious and quasi spiritual traditions across the world, as well as the esoteric lineage, all present that the breath has the capacity to connect us with the depths of ourselves. The esoteric lineage in particular brings focus to the manner in which our breath supports connection with our essence. Focussing on the breath, stilling one’s breath, brings a settlement to the entire body. In this, the breath serves as a gateway to composure – the quality of the breath is irrevocably associated with the quality one can access and hold in the physical body. Breathe deeply and the body slows down – an often-welcome deceleration of the intensity of a motion filled life; breathing gently allows the body to access its innate responsiveness to our essence. This allows us to breathe our own breath – a natural rhythm conferred by this inner connection. Conversely, stress, anxiety and ‘panic attacks’ are all characterised by rapid, shallow breathing where we experience such profound distress that we literally cannot ‘catch our breath.’
The pace and quality of our breath relates intimately to our rhythm with our own life and life in general – gentle and delicate by breath is reflected by gentle and delicate movement and expression from within us; shallow, rapid and laboured by breath is characterised by combat within ourselves and with life, where we drop into stress filled defensive and potentially aggressive forms of communication.
In the same way, the pace and quality of our breath are symptomatic of the relationship we have with our own physical body. Our lungs are extraordinarily delicate with an exquisitely precise, intricate anatomical structure that reflects their capacity to rhythmically nurture our entire physiology. Are we breathing in a way that works in harmony with this extraordinary paired - organ or are we imposing a harshness, even an ignorant contempt, upon this aspect of our physicality and its true role in the human body? Often it is only an acute infection or illness that draws us to the awareness that even the slightest incapacity is painful to the lungs and to the awareness of how we ourselves breathe. However, do not such acute incidents indicate that we are suffering from a more chronic illness (?) characterised by a-rythmic breathing patterns, shallow and often harsh breathing patterns that stress the lungs daily and disbar us from connecting to our natural rhythm.
Are we collectively living and working in a constant, undiagnosed form of breath arrhythmia, an unspoken form of profound self-harm, the effects of which have been normalised to the extent that we can say that we have no space to breathe and that this is accepted as just how it is?
Claiming Our Own Space. Claiming Our Own Breath
Our bodies wisely counsel us that breath arrhythmia is unnatural to us. Heeding their communication allows us to claim with authority our own Stop Moment – a moment to pause, reflect and feel how we have been allowing external forces to commit daily assault on our very physiology, a daily assault that has harmful effects upon our physical well-being and the expression of our core. Each one of us was born with the capacity to breathe our own breath and to move and live in the rhythm that is uniquely our own. Observing a healthy sleeping infant is a readily available confirmation of this truth.
Accepting the normality of breath arrhythmia offers a perpetual licence to all to live in a manner that is deeply self-harming. When this is our foundation, we equally harm all others by endorsing an ill as normal human life. It is for each of us to reclaim our natural capacity to breathe in our own breath and our own life in full, and to grace each other in the fragrance of an exhale that is the manifest essence of who we are.
Building a True Rhythmic Breath Step by Step, Breath by Breath
Taking practical steps to reconnect with our true rhythmic breath are simply a matter of bringing a focus to, and connection with, our body. Mechanically, the typical ‘teacher walk’ and the ‘teacher posture’ are often inimical to breathing truly. In our rush to get things done, many of us walk with a steeply angled stoop with the head surging well ahead of the rest of the body. This stoop compresses the diaphragm and hence our capacity to breathe in full, as well as compromising the natural alignment of the spine and from there, our entire body. Similarly, desk and computer work are often approached with the body hinging forward from the waist and rounding the shoulders as we hunch over a computer screen. This also inhibits the capacity to breathe truly and compromises our spine and body.
How would our day be different if we were to allow ourselves to breathe gently through the tip of the nose and from there, be in the awareness of what is precisely occurring with our body? A deeply supportive process of observing how our walk and our breath interrelate and reflect each other arises. Without any self-critique, allowing this awareness of our breath and movements offers the choice to arrest ill momentums such as ‘the teacher stoop.’ Arresting these debilitating movements restores our natural rhythm from within our own body and its physiology.
From this observational posture with our own body, we develop an observational posture with life. As we observe life and the daily situations in which we find ourselves, we start to reconnect with an innate acuity to discern what is true, what has been accepted as normal (but not necessarily true or supportive), and whether or not we really do have space to breathe. We may find that this truer stance brings the capacity to be in situations that previously stressed us without absorbing their harmful effects, including their emotionality and imposition on our physical body. We start to respond to such situations, rather than being in their reaction. Doing so brings in space to every day as we claim our own inner space upon which our sense of external space has its foundation. We can let the world spin around us and be the eye of the cyclone in the ever still centre, as we breathe our own true breath from the gentleness and delicateness of our inner being, deep within the physical body. Any other quality of movement robs us of our birthright to breathe all that we are and to bring all that we are to the world outside of us, negating its former ill effects upon us. Everyday can be a part of this continuous unfolding from within to the outside world, rather than the constant reaching out to the external world, which rarely fails to disappoint. Without any perfection and very much a work in progress, every day and every term then become a potential space to breathe and to move in settlement within our own body.