entry forty-one

 Monday, May 12, 2025

    I teach different deep breathing exercises to my students to help them self-regulate. We practice them during morning meetings and anytime emotions run high. These tools have become our go-to when words fail or feelings overflow. Today, we focused on “bunny breaths”—quick, light inhales through the nose, followed by a long, steady exhale.

    Until today, I hadn’t truly considered using them for myself. Why not me? Why don’t I deserve the same calm I offer my students? I usually teach this to younger children, but today, I turned it inward. It felt a little awkward given the chaos around me, but to my surprise… it helped. My body softened. My irritation didn’t vanish, but it dulled. For a moment, I felt grounded—like I had reclaimed a small piece of calm in the middle of the storm.

    In yet another frustrating stretch with my loud, off-task, and disrespectful 8th grade social studies class—right after one student talked back and another made a sarcastic comment while others laughed—I did something unexpected. Instead of raising my voice or demanding silence, I paused and took some bunny breaths. Simple, but grounding. It didn’t fix everything, but it gave me a pause, a buffer between reaction and response. It reminded me that I matter in the room, too—not just as the one who holds space for others, but as someone worthy of gentleness myself. That’s what I forget too often. I spend so much time pouring into others—offering patience, modeling regulation, showing grace—but I rarely offer it to myself. I carry the weight of the classroom, the IEPs, the paperwork, the behaviors, the parent emails, and the growing list of expectations without consistent support. Deep breathing won’t erase these systemic pressures—but maybe it can help me survive them.

It strikes me that I always emphasize practice with my students: that regulating emotions isn’t a one-time skill, but a repeated act of noticing and responding. Why would I think it should be any different for me? I’ve been conditioned to push through, to tolerate, to give endlessly. But what if, instead of gritting my teeth and charging forward, I simply stopped and breathed?

What might change if I made this a daily practice? Could this small act of care ripple outward, just like it does for them? Maybe bunny breaths can be a quiet resistance—a way of saying that I, too, deserve compassion. Maybe it’s not just a strategy. Maybe it’s an invitation to return to myself, one breath at a time. Maybe, just maybe, these small breaths are how I begin to reclaim the parts of me that teaching has worn down.

"Bunny Breaths"
by a burned-out teacher trying to breathe again

Each morning, I suit up with patience,
but by noon, I’m frayed
and fading.

I remember the thing

I have taught them

but forget to do myself.

I teach them to breathe—
bunny breaths, I call them.
like a rabbit sniffing spring,

then a long, slow exhale

to remind my heart

that it doesn’t have to race.
A soft rhythm
when the world feels loud.
It works for them,
sometimes.
They giggle,
but they follow.
They feel it.
They find their center.

There’s no magic in it—

just air.

But air is everything

when the room is on edge

and I’m running on fumes.

Today,
when sarcasm flew like spitballs
and the room tipped
just off the edge of control,
I tried it, too.
Sniff-sniff-sniff… exhale.
It felt silly—
a grown woman
breathing like a rabbit
amidst eye rolls and desk slams.
it gave me

three seconds of grace,

a pause

where I chose myself

in a job that asks me not to.

My jaw unclenched.
My shoulders dropped.
I didn’t break—I breathed.
And in that breath,
I found a scrap of calm
tucked inside the storm.

Bunny breaths won’t fix broken systems,
won’t erase the burnout
or summon real support.
they’re a whisper
that I still matter—
not just as teacher,
but as human.
Still here.
Still breathing.