How could you get breathing wrong? Well, you could hyperventilate.
I kneel in my ritual space to count my breaths, and notice how I second-guess even my breathing. It is supposed to be natural, unconscious, autonomic, but when I observe it, it becomes self-conscious. It fits what I have been taught to think about breathing, what I have learned about it. A deep breath calms, relaxes and centres a person.
Though at the poetry slam, before starting to recite, I took my deep relaxing breath too close to the microphone, and it echoed round the room HOCHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
But here, I should be simply observing. Is that first deep breath then learned behaviour, or is it what my body does, assuming this position? How could I know?
My anxiety to get things right:
Ah. Positive self-management. How to think of this, to feel the right thing? My anxiety has spurred me to learn many things, but it has also been too much for me. I have given up, rather than fulfil my own demands. If I practice observing, before jumping to conclusions (oops, that is judgmental) If I practice observing, I will see everything is alright really. Deep breaths…
Jack has the theory that people breathe more 
shallowly as a method of social control. We are taught this in childhood, and it keeps us quiet- then and now. If we breathe more deeply, we can be raucous, or boisterous, or Stand in our Own Power.
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I have no mind’s eye, but I can think in pictures. It seems that some people, with their eyes closed, can visualise things, which seems to be similar to actually seeing them. So I read of an NLP technique: imagine a bad memory as a small monochrome photograph, and a good memory in as much detail and colour as you can.
Some people cannot: a trick to develop the skill is to imagine a sandy beach, sea, blue sky, three elements, two straight lines, the photo on the right is too complex. I have tried that.
How to explain my experience?
I have actually thought in pictures. I thought, I could drive home by [] or by [], and this was a total shock to me: I am thinking in pictures– and the shock of realisation remains in my memory, ten years later. If I close my eyes, what I see is blackness, or light through my eyelids, and if I imagine something, like that yellow parasol-
sometimes I can know what it’s like. As if there were a black veil, but I somehow perceived what was behind it. This may be worth practising.
Elgar’s mind’s ear was so good he could hear an orchestra in his head from looking at a score. I can hear an orchestra in my mind, remembering a piece of music. The fidelity gets better if I concentrate. I can hear the sound of a violin playing a tune I have not heard it play: that too needs concentration.
Clare Flourish 
When I was very stressed as a boy I stayed very still and held my breath- as if that would stop the world. Sometimes I still catch myself doing the same.
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That seems to me like a prey-response. I say this because I have been thinking of prey-responses in me. Indeed. Go completely still, so as not to be noticed. Don’t look directly, but use peripheral vision. I wonder whether I could consciously affect this, and make a conscious, effective choice to respond differently.
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Very interesting post, Clare. I have visual dreams in Technicolor and always thought that everyone could visualize – maybe it’s like learning visually vs. auditory vs. kinesthetic. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. But it sounds like one can learn to do it with practice.
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I have attempted it: either that exercise of visualising the sea, or something familiar to me, and it is still behind the veil. Then, I might just accept the veil, and practise doing what I can: but if I imagine a familiar ornament, I am still using words in constructing my image of it. Before I learn someone’s name I find it very hard to distinguish them from other people, yet often reading something I can hear the voice of the writer, reading it to me.
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