whenever someone suggest to me that I should “focus on my breathing” it has always had that same effect to me as the meme that goes along the lines of “you suddenly realize that your tongue has never truly had a comfortable place to rest in your mouth”-type of feeling to me during my conscious attempts to control the rate at which I am breathing. esp when there’s someone trying to be a narrator type persona delivering the suggestion, and even more so if I start to feel (for whatever reason) that there is some sort of hope/expectation mixed in with their instruction, that I will be able to safely demonstrate the execution of such a simple yet unfamiliar feat in the moment of suggestion.