I was drowning in anxiety.

I was shocked when I discovered I had a breathing problem, and equally surprised when I learned just how simple the solution was.

Before we created Komuso Design and the Shift, I was unaware that I had forgotten how to breathe. I was drowning in anxiety.

It was every night, lying there in bed. It was so hard to get to the end of the day, and just want to get to sleep because I wanted the day to end. 

You want to be strong. You want to be strong for yourself and everyone around you, but it’s just an internal battle I kept having at the end of each day. 

In the morning I would wake up, I would take that first breath and feel that everything was ok. And then reality would hit, and I would realize the thoughts I went to bed thinking are still there, the anxiety is still there. And it’s not going to go away.

The soft sounds of morning as my family would wake up, the excitement that would build as dinner and conversation hit the table, the slowing breath of my family as they would fall asleep, the quiet house at night: beautiful moments like this would end up being almost nothing because I wasn’t there.

Anxiety had become a norm. I believed this was really just the way it was supposed to be.

We got to a point where we couldn’t speak. We were forced to sit and breathe, it’s all we could do. After we came down, we realized the storm had cleared a path, and that path eventually led to this question: why do we feel better right now?

It’s so important to have something to hold onto. Trying to regulate breathing during fight-or-flight mode is difficult because of the adrenaline, cortisol, and extra oxygen. Having a tool to physically ground you is game changing. Like an anchor to a boat, the Shift grounds your mind when waves of anxiety throw you off course.

Yes you learn how to breathe the right way, but you need that reminder. To not only remind yourself to breathe, but to remind yourself that you’re going to be ok.