Take a breath.
The advice is as ancient as inhalation itself. Yet it gets blown over in the whorling pace that taunts us to hurry, to chase, to achieve.
Having a pause when your relationship accelerates is prudent. Rapid breathing brings with it a thumping heart, and together they manage to cut off cogent thought.
One of the
lies that pokes me like a cattle prod is “This is urgent! We need a solution. Yesterday.”
It’s a tactic often wielded by car salesmen and time share reps. The intention is to steam past your frontal cortex and act rashly. One time I took my kids to the state fair to enjoy the animals and homemade jam. There was a man peddling knives and I began to listen. I was pulled in gradually and for a moment in time believed that I MUST sign on the dotted line for a grand worth
of cutlery.
What was I thinking?
It turns out I wasn’t.
When things heat up with someone you adore you can take a step back. Exhale deeply and what is just as crucial, inhale. Tell your partner you need a few minutes. An hour even. Not to bail but to regain balance. Tell him or her when you will reconvene, after giving your combined pulse rates a chance to slide below one eighty. Allow the adrenaline time to
dissipate.
Simply stepping into the open air can release the tension in your shoulders. Observe the birds who have chosen this afternoon to serenade you. Look upwards toward the expanse of clouds drifting by. Anxiety loses its vice grip with these simple interruptions and the sky itself seems poised to absorb your angst.
Maybe that is where thunderstorms really come from.
