Mindful breathing not only helped me sleep better but improved my relationship with my son.
May 05, 2025
It’s so simple when you say it out loud.
Just breath.
Even though I have been practicing yoga and mindfulness for over three decades, the obvious still takes me by surprise.
The scene, my son is living at home in his late teens. That in-between time of adult essence, that transient time where there is an essence of being a grown up, but all you want to do is have a great time.
This is normal for the teen, but exhausting for the parent. There is a return to the sleep deprivation first experienced with them as a new born, but now you’re 20 years older or there about and not running on the flush of new love. Instead its more like the end of a relationship or at least observing that times are changing.
Let’s call it a challenging time where your grown up child is one of many emotional states that you might be navigating.
His new time for arriving home was usually somewhere between 3-4am.
And of course as a parent you always have an ear for the sound of the door. Not really allowing full sleep until that click confirms that they are safe.
The door clicks shut.
Then I hear the sound of something breaking in the kitchen.
I go to enquire.
My man boy is horizontal on the kitchen floor which is a tight spot as he is 6 foot and its a small kitchen. A giant jar of mayonnaise has fallen out of the top cupboard and the contents are all over the brown walls.
The oven is also on, something that I have asked him not to do when he is under the influence.
FFS is my inner voice.
I can see that it wasn’t the broken jar that knocked him to the ground, which is both a surprise and a relief but his preferred choice of position.
Prone.
I wish that mine was the same, not up right and angry.
I looked at him and inhaled deeply.
Followed by a long and very extended out breath.
He said “thats all you do isn’t it”
What, to breathe I thought?
But replied “its better than the alternative”
And yes it is better just to breathe, a much better reaction to stress.
I asked him to turn off the cooker and clean up the mess.
And went back to bed, and to sleep.
Breathe out, let go, its a practice don’t you know.
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