Hi and welcome to episode 7 of The Breath.
We have been doing an amazing journey and adventure on the breath and how important it is for our mind,
Body,
Relationships and the wider world.
And we've talked a little bit about the science behind it.
And now I want to talk about the difficult moments in life I guess.
Because I'm feeling like life is a little bit difficult,
So this one is directed by my experience at the moment.
And this episode is about those moments when life just feels a little bit heavy.
It doesn't need to be massively dramatic,
But like sustained disappointments and lots of different events happening one after another.
Not one particularly crazily dramatic and not a crisis point,
But it's just a lot,
One after another,
Like you're in rapid fire.
And when disappointment has been building,
And when situations or people feel really difficult,
And when you've tried having to be the one,
You're tired,
Sorry,
Of being the one that is coping all the time,
It can be like this feeling of,
I've just had enough.
I just had enough.
I just don't want to do it anymore.
The computer says,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
I've had enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I want to name that because it is real.
It is real and it's far more common than we tend to admit in our everyday lives,
Because we're always trying to hold it all together and have a stiff upper lip.
And often in these moments,
Nothing is technically really,
Really wrong,
But something inside us feels so tender and raw and overloaded.
And the body knows before the mind does that this is kind of,
Oh,
This is getting a bit much.
When we're carrying disappointment,
The mind often starts to move through time.
Yeah.
So what do I mean by this?
Like when we have disappointments and things that haven't gone right,
We end up replaying the past conversations that may have gone differently or things we didn't say right or things that hadn't quite turned out how we hoped.
I definitely know that one.
And that can cause a cyclical thinking looping in the mind and it can be relentless.
You know,
You might even be doing something completely different and you can hear this conversation going round and round and round in your head.
But if the mind has to try and solve the problem and actually,
You know,
That's in the past,
So that situation from the past can't actually be solved right here in the now.
Or we could be doing something like swinging the other way and begin to project everything into the future,
Anticipating,
Worrying,
Bracing yourself for what might happen.
I don't know if that sounds familiar to any of you,
But generally it kind of goes past,
Future,
Oh gosh,
Discombobulation in the present.
And I just want to reassure you here that neither of these are mistakes.
They're natural responses.
And when something has hurt us and when we feel unsettled,
You know,
Sort of,
It's like,
Yeah,
It has to be named.
And the mind is always trying to protect us by reviewing,
Reviewing,
Preparing and staying alert.
And it's kind of filtered into this filing cabinet,
Like,
That is constantly trying to scan for anything else that might potentially be another bullet coming our way.
Ah,
So this movement between the past and the future can,
In the present,
Give us this stuck feeling,
Disconnected and exhausted.
That's me.
Yeah.
So it doesn't matter how long you've been doing all of this work on breathing and meditation.
It still happens,
Right?
Because I'm still human.
Where was I?
Forgetting.
Yeah.
Because while the mind travels,
You know,
Sort of,
From this forward and backwards malarkey of trying to protect us,
You have to use this superpower of the breath.
And that's why the breath is so important.
And our beautiful,
Incredible life force energy of the breath does not live in the past and it does not rush to the future.
It can't do that.
It comes,
It has to come in our very experience of the moment.
And when we bring our attention back to the breathing,
We're not really dismissing our experience or telling ourselves to move on because,
You know,
There are things that hurt in life that wound us and are painful.
But what we are doing is giving the nervous system a way out of the loop.
A way back to the present moment where we can actually be supported and come back to the ground,
Feel our beingness,
Our oneness,
Our,
Oh,
Who we are.
Most of the time,
You know,
When life feels heavy,
The breath changes.
It gets shallower and higher up in the chest.
We've spoken about this a number of times.
And sometimes we do not even realise that we're holding it.
You know,
It's so sad.
Our beautiful breath,
The thing that keeps us alive.
And we hold it as if we're in survival mode.
And again,
This reassurance that this isn't a failure of not being resilient.
It's the nervous system doing its job,
Staying alert,
Staying ready.
And again,
Trying to protect us,
The mind's protecting us,
The body's protecting us,
The nervous system's protecting us.
And this doesn't erase what has happened.
That's not what we're trying to do.
We're not trying to kind of go put a plaster on it and erase the disappointment,
Go,
Oh,
No,
No,
No,
That's not there.
And,
You know,
It doesn't make it difficult people just like poof.
I wish it would sometimes.
Difficult people poof and disappear into the ether.
Sorry.
And it's not about pushing away what you feel or belittling your experience or telling you you should cope better.
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
It simply creates a little more space around the feeling.
And that space matters.
It just gives you that pause.
When the body feels even slightly safer,
We think more clearly.
Right?
I think more clearly anyway.
Um,
Yeah.
What else?
We respond rather than react.
And we stop bracing so hard.
This is why the breath can feel grounding when the world feels tender.
Ding.
Sorry.
Um,
Yeah,
It anchors us back to this present moment,
Back to something steady and when everything else might be feeling uncertain.
So when we connect to the breath,
Deeper breathing,
Deeper breathing,
Um,
There's no requirement to force yourself to be calm,
Positive or resolved.
All we're saying is stay present in this moment.
Maybe give yourself an inner hug.
Put one hand on your heart and one on your belly.
Um,
Be a supporting,
In a supporting posture and a supporting breath for you.
You know,
We're so quick to need to get over stuff in this modern hectic world.
You know,
Even when someone passes away or a pet passes away or something really dramatic happens,
We're required to get over it,
Hurry up and get over it.
So it doesn't need to be rushed.
No,
It doesn't need to be rushed.
It just needs to be met with breath and tender loving care.
And by meeting it with breath and tender loving care,
You begin to grow that capacity to feel safer,
More grounded.
And you begin to become more connected to your inner wisdom and inner intuition so that you can walk your path with more clarity and direction.
And,
Uh,
Yeah,
This happens in your own time,
One breath at a time,
Breath by breath.
Mm hmm.
Okay.
So a real massive thank you for,
For listening to this one and being with me in this moment.
All right.
Namaste.
Bye for now.
