Breathe
Today I learned to breathe. I’m not just talking about breathing for the sake of breathing. I am speaking about breathing for the sake of life. I have always been one to hold my breath. It’s unintentional yet I wasn’t even aware that I would do this. What happens when you hold your breath? Well lets think about it on a physical level. Your brains need oxygen, when you don’t get it your sympathetic system overrides everything and then you are left in a state of panic, anxiety. So when you hold your breath you turn into fight or flight and on a deeper level your emotions get trapped in a cycle and stays stuck.
So how did I learn to breathe? Well today and for the past few days anxiety has been my best friend. Between the move coming up, school, and my doggo feeling injured, along with me on this treadmill of life always striving for more. Then I started to focus on my breathing because I was desperate to let go and not feel sad or anxious or any of it. I started to feel better. As I was breathing I was reminded of a class I am going to be taking soon. That then sparked me buying the book and beginning to read it. Breath was huge in this type of healing. Breath is part of life yet we seem to allow it to become this automatic thing, and for me I was holding my breath.
Do you hold your breath a lot? Are you like me in the anxiety department? Try doing some deep breathing exercises. See if that allows you to connect to the present. I never realized how crucial breath was to our mentality, to our health, to our lives. I know it seems like such a simple thing to realize, but the awareness of breathing, the presence in it. It’s powerful. It changed my whole demeanor. I had been struggling and then bam I was no longer stuck in the muck of distress. So if you are struggling, I want you to start focusing on your breathing. Just allow yourself to focus on it, even if you are working. Bring that attention to your lungs inflating and deflating. Do it for 10 minutes, especially if you have some high anxiety come up during it. Let me know how it helps change your day!
Today was a 8 after the breathing. Before was a 3.