Buddy Breathing 4-1-26

Yesterday after Prayer Dock, Nicole and I were talking and it sparked the recollection of a term I hadn’t heard in years. During our conversation, Nicole referred back to the pre-flight airline warning to make sure you “apply your own oxygen mask first before helping someone else” in reference to making sure we are in a good place with something before we help someone else. We were saying that sometimes, we can actually help others while we are still healing from a situation ourselves. A phrase came to mind and I blurted out: “It’s like Buddy Breathing”.

She hadn’t heard the term before and I gave a halting explanation from faded recollections from my teen years when I had an interest in learning to scuba dive. (Not having a job yet for such an expensive hobby, that interest was set aside, but the brief “training” I’d received came out of hiding.) I told her when a diver is in trouble, having run out of air in their tank, they signal to their “diving buddy” and the other person shares their regulator (the mouthpiece at the end of the hose connected to the air tank), so both have air to breathe. Afterward, when I looked it up for greater detail, I saw it described as “the diver with air provides their back up regulator to the other diver” and “once breathing, both divers ascend to the surface in a controlled manner”. In another source, it’s described as “two divers share one demand valve, alternately breathing from it.”

How amazing is God that He can and does use the different meanings of words to bring deeper understanding! Of course He does – He is called “The Word” for a reason! These descriptions this morning have me jumping out of bed to grab my laptop as the pre-dawn thoughts swirl around in the joy of geeking out on this relational parable!

Scuba divers are taught to use the “buddy system” when diving for safety reasons, echoing Ecclesiates 4:9-10 (which “just happened” to come up during youth group readings last night! Of course it did!) “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.” Add to that God’s declaration from Genesis 2:18 – “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make a helper comparable to him.” It’s not just scuba diving that requires the buddy system – Life itself does!

The next part that jumped out at me is the terminology: “the other person uses their regulator…” or “provides their back up regulator”… Talk about double meaning! When our emotions get elevated in anxiety, anger, fear, etc., we feel “out of control”. This state of emotional unrest is referred to as feeling overwhelmed or “under water”. When this happens, we can rely on good friends to help us “regulate” our emotions to regain self-control. In essence, we are “sharing the same regulator” or taking advantage of a “back up regulator” until we can “return to the surface in a controlled manner”! How cool is that!?

The back up definition offers an even greater depth of “word smithing”! “Two divers share one demand valve, alternately breathing from it”. When we are feeling disregulated, our emotions seem to get louder in our head, “demanding” attention. When we take advantage of the buddy system in life, we can “alternately breathe” using the same “demand valve” as each of us goes through various trials and challenges at different times, until we are above water and can breathe more freely. Then, above water, we take the time to refill our tanks before the next dive.

When I feel like I’m running out of air, so to speak, in a certain area, I can rely on a friend who’s been in that situation to talk me through it. And when one of my friends is going through something, I can “share my regulator” with her in an area I’ve been through.

The amazing thing about this is, the wider your circle, the greater the opportunity to have friends who can “share their back up regulator” on a greater variety of challenges! So instead of relying on only a single other person, we all have multiple relationships where we can both signal for help and be the help needed at any given time!

This again goes back to the point I made at our recent women’s conference that we need to be part of a “wider net”, networking and having relationships with others who are not necessarily in our own “four walls”, whether those four walls are our increasingly insulated and isolated families as people live farther from relatives and extended family, or our own churches. It’s not uncommon for our churches, family and friend circles to be relatively small, especially during the early years when we have young children. We see one another less frequently when laundry, nap times, and school schedules have us at a dizzying pace trying to keep up with every day needs. Add in all the extras like school sports, youth group, and trying to find time with your own spouse between work schedules and the disregulation line seems thinner all the time!

So building and maintaining buddy systems has to be intentional... and creative! Play dates, date nights, home groups, and other intentional gatherings can seem out of reach and need to incorporate some creative problem solving – and the wider your circle the better opportunity for sharing a regulator!

We need to ask for help, become willing to share connections and resources with one another, and realize that we’re not alone fighting for our own hit off a limited air tank! We’re all part of an enormous tank refueling station! And when we work together, we have a better “return for our labor”! Solomon wasn’t called the wisest man ever to have lived for nothing! So be a buddy breather! Help someone who’s running out of air by sharing your regulator so you can both return to the surface in a controlled manner – then refill your tanks, and explore some more beneath the waves with a buddy. Who knows the treasures we can find together?