The night my life “collapsed” didn’t happen in a hospital or a courtroom.
It happened on the floor of my tiny bedroom, surrounded by bills, with my boss’ voice still echoing in my head.

My laptop was open in front of me, full of red emails.
My phone was lighting up with messages from my mom: “Have you thought about settling down yet?” and from my boyfriend: “You’re here, but you’re never really HERE.”

I was sitting in the middle of it all in an old white T-shirt and sweatpants, trying to figure out which fire to put out first: money, work, or love.

My heart was racing so fast it hurt.
The more I tried to “fix” things, the more everything blurred. I could still see my boss from earlier that day, leaning over my desk, hissing in front of everyone:

“Do you even know what you’re doing? I needed this YESTERDAY.”

I laughed it off at the office.
At home, it felt like those words had crawled under my skin and started living there.

Then came the fight with my boyfriend.
He said, “You’re always on your phone. Even when we’re together, it feels like I’m alone.”
I wanted to scream, “I’m trying to survive!” but the only thing that came out was silence and the sound of the door closing.

So there I was.
Alone.
Bills everywhere.
Parents disappointed.
Boss furious.
Boyfriend gone.

And for some stupid reason, the only sentence I could remember was from a random video I’d seen weeks before:
“If you feel like you’re drowning, come back to your breath.”

I didn’t know how to “come back to my breath.”
I just knew I didn’t want to cry anymore.

So I pushed the papers aside, crossed my legs like I’d seen in pictures, closed my eyes and… instantly regretted it.

My mind went louder.
I saw my boss’ face.
My boyfriend walking away.
My parents shaking their heads.
Every failure I’d ever tried to ignore lined up like ghosts around my bed.

I couldn’t breathe properly. My chest felt tight.
“Wow,” I thought, “I can’t even relax correctly. I even suck at meditating.”

I was about to give up when another thought slipped in, very small, very tired:
“Okay. Just five breaths. Not to fix anything. Just to stop running for one minute.”

So I tried.

One breath. My chest still tight.
Two breaths. Tears starting to fall.
Three breaths. The noise in my head… paused, just for a second.
Four breaths. The room didn’t change, but something inside softened.
Five breaths. For maybe three seconds, nobody was yelling at me. Not my boss, not my family, not even my own mind.

It wasn’t some spiritual explosion.
No angels, no light beams from the ceiling.
Just… a tiny pocket of silence in the middle of the mess.

I opened my eyes. The bills were still there. The phone was still buzzing. My life was still a disaster.
But I was breathing. And for the first time that day, I didn’t feel like I was about to break.

The next night, I tried again.
Not 30 minutes. Just 5.
Then 7. Then 10.
Some nights I cried through the whole thing. Some nights I felt nothing.
But I kept sitting in that same spot on the floor, letting the chaos swirl around me while I practiced not jumping up to fix it all.

Slowly, the change showed up in small, stupid ways.

When my boss snapped at me again, I felt that familiar fire in my chest… and took one quiet breath before replying, “I understand. I’ll fix it.”
When my mom called to pressure me about marriage, I listened, breathed, and said, “I know you worry. I’m still figuring things out.”
When my boyfriend and I finally sat down to talk, instead of defending myself, I actually heard the hurt in his voice.

Nothing outside really changed.
Same job. Same bills. Same family. Same city.
But inside, I stopped feeling like a victim of every emotion, every comment, every notification.

I always thought meditation was for monks in orange robes or pretty girls on Instagram with candles and perfect skin.
Turns out, it’s also for exhausted women sitting on bedroom floors at 1 a.m., trying not to fall apart.

I don’t meditate to be “spiritual” or “better” than anyone.
I meditate so that when life screams at me, I don’t automatically scream back.
So that my anger doesn’t answer every question.
So that my fear doesn’t drive every decision.

Some days I still lose it. I still cry, still scroll, still say things I regret.
But now I know there’s a place inside me I can return to.
Not a magical temple. Just a quiet breath where, for a moment, I am not my boss’s words, not my family’s expectations, not my mistakes.
I’m just… here.

If you were sitting on that floor with me, drowning in your own version of chaos, would you be willing to close your eyes for five breaths too?
And if you’ve ever tried to sit with yourself and wanted to run away—what did you find there? 🥲