Approximate reading time: 5 min

The house search continues.

It’s still tough.

The scary part is not knowing at what stage we should give up the search and just start looking for accommodation by ourselves. God knows it’s a lot easier finding a room in a pre-existing house than it is finding an empty home that will take 3 sharers.

My flatmate Richard has a friend that is keen to join us so hopefully with 4 people, a bigger house will be more likely to have an HMO licence….so we are going to focus on that for the next two weeks and then regroup.

Watch this space:-)

(All positive prayers, thoughts and transcontinental manifestations are welcome!)

One of the interesting things about being a supply teacher is that you never quite know what your day is going to be like. It’s hard to imagine, but after doing this job for 5 years I still very rarely go back to the same school twice. I probably have about 3 or 4 great schools that I go back to quite regularly, but on the whole, most days involve going to completely new schools.

Some days are amazing

Some days are awful…

This week was predominantly a pretty ‘bleh’ week.

Nothing drastically horrible but 2 of the schools got a very big ‘NO’ written next to their name in my

I am very conscious of the fact that most mornings, when I am going to a new school, I usually feel a bit anxious….

It’s like having a lucky packet job…you just never quite know what you are going to get.

I have grown to appreciate how this daily upload of nervousness is actually quite good for me.

I wrote a post once about how supply teaching provides me with my much-needed, repetitive resilience training.

Random – totally connected information.

Years ago a not-so-nice flatmate

(who shall remain nameless)

pointed out

(rather unceremoniously)

how much I sigh.

I was a little put out by this because

a) I wasn’t aware that I was doing it

b) My mother used to sigh a lot.

It used to feel, for me, like her constant sighing was a silent declaration of how hard her life was….

and frankly, I hated it.

(I NEVER wanted to be one of those ‘wow-is-me’ people.)

But there you had it, apparently, I was.

A couple of years later I started working with a neuro biofeedback therapist who also commented on my incessant sighing.

Except, thank goodness, he was a little kinder and was able to actually explain it to me.

He noted how I was simply not breathing properly….at times I would sit for longish periods without breathing and then suddenly take a big gasp of air when I realised that I needed it.

Like HOW is it that NO ONE TAUGHT me how to breathe properly????

I have to say it was a big relief to know that I wasn’t totally a dramatic drama queen and it gave me a lot more compassion for myself and for my mother as well

Clearly, neither of us received the memo.

So it was for this reason that the neurobio feedback therapist annoyed me for almost a year, continually telling me that I needed to start meditation to help me with my breathing.

I am so glad that I eventually listened to him….

(Even if it was only 4 years later)

Sadly I am a stubborn student.

The more I have begun to understand about my own anxiety, the more I can appreciate how much of it is simply my body feeling stuck. I feel like I spent years thinking that my ‘anxiety’ was a mental state, and if I could just fix my mind,

(If only I could banish the ruminating)

then the rest would follow.

My journey of healing my anxiety has very much been a whole-body process and I feel like a huge part of that journey involved fixing how I breathed.

This last week it has dawned on me just how much of my anxiety I am now able to alleviate simply by remembering to breathe properly. I probably shouldn’t even use the word ‘remember’ because this has not been a conscious decision I have been able to make. It has been a slow process of practising my breath work through yoga and meditation and as a result, it has become an unconscious way of regulating myself whenever I feel stressed.

More and more these days I catch myself taking deep, calming breaths at random intervals throughout the day…so much so that I had to chuckle to myself this week as I walked to the bus stop, on the way to a new school, and I suddenly realised I was doing it.

Random thought:

“I must look like some crazed, non-pregnant, Lamaze-breathing human….“

It felt a little empowering and very reassuring to know that while my head is spinning with all that is going on at the moment…my body now knows what to do when the anxiety starts.

How cool is it that my ‘Lamaze-breathing’ often kicks in before I am even conscious that I am feeling anxious?

So this post is just to say:

I OFFICIALLY now know how to breathe properly.

While this might feel largely insignificant to the majority of mankind…..

(Who got the memo)

I needed this monumental achievement documented.