The year 2020 lies at the intersection of a triad of pandemics that could shape societies for decades to come. The overwhelming one is the coronavirus, which, in its most aggressive form, causes respiratory difficulty and has already claimed more than a million lives. As Covid19 became a part of everyday life, a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement took place when after a black man was murdered in Minneapolis by asphyxiation at the hands of a white police officer, and all that happened while campaigns against gender-based violence swept through social media as women cleared their lungs and screamed “enough.” These three subjects have one overarching commonality: they show that the ability to breathe, is the ability to be. In this offering, we will look at the historical significance of breath and its connection to the self through the ancient Indian texts, including the Upaniṣads, before moving to contemporary understandings of how breathwork is used for self-regulation. In this part-theory, part-practice presentation, we will consider the breath as mechanical, spiritual and conscientising and examine how our connections to it have changed as we enter the new normal.