Breathe Through Difficult Emotions
We all know what it’s like to feel stressed, scared, worried, anxious, anger. When difficult emotions take over it quickly drains us and we become exhausted, reactive and, to be honest, not the best versions of ourselves.
If we stay in a stressful state for too long, it can become a chronic state and our breath begins to adapt and create a habit of over breathing, chest breathing or a frozen breathing - meaning we hold our breath by tightening the belly whenever we feel triggered. With these breathing habits we severely worsen our state even more.
Short term consequence? We add to the suffering.
Long term consequence? We weaken our immune system, worsen our mental state and sleep bad. And the list goes on…
Can you relate to this?
So how can we use our breath to calm down our system, to get out of these patterns?
1) The first step is to become AWARE of your own breathing patterns. How do you breathe in certain situations? Notice without judging and see if you can spot a pattern that your body has adopted.
2) The next step is to actively relax your belly and breathe slow and deep in and out through the nose whenever you feel triggered, stressed or worried. By simply relaxing the belly we allow the breathe to come down and calm down.
Tip: Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly to feel the breath if that helps.
3) Reflect on why the situation triggered that response in you. What is your sub-conscious protecting you from? What is the benefit of this defence mechanism?
4) Now, investigate with curiosity how you would like to express your uniqueness when you are free from your default programs, habits and behaviors that are holding you back from connecting to your Essence.
It’s important that we don’t run away from our triggers or behaviors we don’t like, to dare to look at what’s holding us back from being the human we are longing to be, where we can be responsive to life rather than reactive.
The breath gives us a tool that enables us to look at our shadows.
I invite you to try my breathwork session out below, it’s intention is to allow you to release and let go of the past.
Much love and have a blessed day,
Emil
instagram: emil.justbreathe