The trouble with breathing is that we think we need to be in control!
A pretty bold statement, now I’ll explain.
Breathing is an activity we can choose to do or not. When we don’t choose, that’s most of the day and when asleep, breathing just happens!
The problem with breathing is when there is a thought that breathing needs to be controlled. That’s fine if you are in real danger and you need to be really quiet so not to be noticed.
You may be swimming under water, managing your breathe would be helpful.
Other than these, please tell me if there are any more cases, there’s no need to hold your breath.
So way do so many of us do it? I do it but not as much as a while ago. Asthmatics do it, that was me. People who panic do it, that was me. Some people don’t even know they do it, that was me!
My understanding is that we hold our breath naturally when in the fright mode, when something unexpected happens, We gasp and hold, then check out what’s going then either keep holding our breath or breathe and carry on with our life.
Unfortunately over time some people stay longer and longer in the fright mode until it become asthmatic, that was me.
My breathing slowly became shallower and shallower, then a traumatic event happened I was crippled with asthma. I wasn’t nice, a horrible scary period of my life.
I had two choices, carry on and develop my shallow breathing and have a life with stronger and stronger inhalers or discover something else.
In fact something else found me; it was outside a supermarket, a story for another day, if fact I wrote a blog about that moment a few years ago. There was something magical about that moment and I followed my heart and discovered that in fact it was me doing things that was the cause of my asthmatic breathing, more importantly I could do something about my breathing,
In this world, as I was, we are conditioned that we need to do something to survive. I was in a state of shock, my breathing was frozen and I knew I had to breathe, I needed to breathe in to get some oxygen. If your breathing is like mine then, then you may be thinking like me, “I need to get some air in” when in fact the opposite is true, “I need to empty my lungs of stale gases and refresh my lungs with fresh air”. This is a truly daunting thought and massive trust in that if I breathe out air will flow back into my lungs. I had had months, really years of freezing my ribs in fright and only breathing from my diaphragm and my shoulders. By the way, shrugging shoulders to breathe has little effect, I didn’t know this at the time. This shrugging, forcing my diaphram and freezing my ribs was my attempt to breathe consciously through fright. I needed to do something to breathe and this was it!
You may have noticed I’ve mentioned “do, doing’ a few times. this was my problem I was doing things. I was doing too many things. I was doing fright whilst doing breathing. I was stuck in doing things that don’t need doing.
I was worrying about things in the future, I was being fantastic at this, I was ready for it as I was already in fright waiting for something that may not happen. I was getting as much air in as possible without breathing out. I fact I was a complete wreck struggling to survive, worrying about the future and unable to breathe naturally.
What I can teach you is, by overcoming these two things your life will change massively, that’s to stop worrying about your future and learning to breathe naturally.
It works for me and it will work for you. I’ve used these techniques for several years, I can notice when the old habits rise, apply what I’ve learnt and carry on with my life, being present and a regular supply of air to my lungs.
If you want to know my then please contact me.
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In the mean time there are some photos of puppies