Remembering to breathe

I am sure its not new advice that the antidote to pain and suffering, to stress, anger and other painful emotions is to slow down and breathe.  I am more and more aware how a large part of my once chronic PTSD condition has to do with holding my breath.  Its even an imprint for me as when I was ready to be born, Mum’s water’s broke and I gave her the signal ‘its all systems go”.  She held me back inside while she finished bottling the last bottles of plum jam she was making.

With my natal Mars Moon Saturn conjunction I know I carry within my system the imprints of a lot of frustrated energy.  I am beginning to believe that where Saturn is placed on personal planets we are dealing with ancestral issues of past blockages, restrictions and so forth.

The imprint of being crushed, held back, experiencing a stop on my desire energy became very obvious at around age 17 when I had my first real boyfriend. Things started to get sexually intimate and the fear (Saturn) I experienced was HUGE.  I put the stops on things due to my sense of shame and inadequacy and it was only a few months later that I had my first major motor vehicle crash where I was trapped in the car for an hour or more.

There was another frustrating incident around this crash.  Parents of my friend had asked me over to stay with their daughter while they went away overnight.  We planned a night out only to find on my arrival they had decided to stay and we were stuck at home.  On the following morning I had my crash.   I am not sure if all these things were related, but I know that the imprint of this time is still very strong for me when I awake from sleep.  And most especially after my recent breast cancer surgery and treatment I am finding it hard to breathe some days as I feel how restricted my life has been at times by the traumas of others surrounding me as well as my own traumas.

I do believe that breath is life. It is the sign our spirit is inhabiting our body. As we go through trauma and others shocks which scar our souls or send them into hiding the breath goes too.   At night when I awake on the knife edge of my PTSD trauma I focus on breathing in as it is the in breath that gets blocked. I start to reverse breath, sucking in and holding the breath, biting down instead of opening up my airways.  I also focus on elongating the outbreath, really letting go and expelling what is old, stale, painful, used up and dead.  It seems to be working to help me at the moment release many of the toxins of my radiation treatment.  I am sleeping more deeply.

Today in my daily meditation reader I came across the following reading it really spoke to me.  Maybe it will speak to some of you too.

My breath connects my body with my spirit so breath awareness is a time honoured way to elevate my mood. Today I will take moments throughout my day to consciously breathe out the negativity and anxiety that are in me, and breathe in peace and serenity.  Through breathing easily and deeply I invite spirit in.  This is a simple form of meditation I can do when I am sitting still, lying down, or walking.  I can let my mood lighten as I repeat this gentle process over and over again, until I experience a subtle shift.  Meditating in this way is accessible and easy.  It gives me a way of calming my mind and body and restoring good feeling…

Source : One Foot In Front Of The Other, Tian Dayton