Whatashrinkthinks.com

Really good blog I read on occasion. Always thoughtful, though tends to get out there a bit with references to various religions etc. Doesn’t matter, since the heart of the blog is authentic and heartfelt. I can’t even count the times when I think to myself, gee I should probably breathe, but the emotions are so overpowering I am fighting hard to stay still. Thinking for sure if I even blink, or breathe I won’t be able to control the overwhelming current that has me in its riptide. Racing hard away from the couch and the voice across the room. So much is tethered to our breath. Whether is are exploring our depths or racing across the ground. It enables us to remain upright and conscious. Its absence ends our life within just a few moments. To say it is critical is an understatement. Beyond the ability to sustain us, it allows us to control pain. To breathe thru pain and to allow us to cope with the most overwhelming sensations that accompany it. Pain affects our breath almost immediately after our body registers the injury, or emotion. That sudden catch in your chest as the body fights to deal with it and assess the insult. The most common painful injury most of us have dealt with is a broken bone. The link between pain and suffering in humans is well documented. We suffer, and our minds tend to lock into pain. It forms this intense state where it can sometimes convince us it might never end. In that moment suffering becomes immense and immeasurable. To control pain we must catch it before it becomes so overwhelming to our minds. pain control doesn’t work as well as time and suffering continue. So, back to that broken bone. I think we all have experienced that place our mind goes. The complete and utter conviction that enables us to buy the minds argument that it will last forever, despite knowing that it will actually be okay once stabilized and immobilized. Within a week we will remember little about that extreme discomfort our mind was convincing us would be unending. It is no different with emotional pain. In that moment when the riptide pulls us hard away from our therapy, it convinces us that to breathe and accept it will cause it to last forever. Our mind convinces us, and so we freeze, hold our breath or breathe shallowly without embracing the pain. If only we pushed away that instinct. To breathe deeply would let us ride out the current and even bring ourselves to a place of diminished pain. To sit with the most horrible of emotions and come through the other side, intact. But it never gets any easier. I still cannot control that. In that moment I sit still, completely convinced the pain lapping at my heels will demolish me. Bury me within its current and I will surely drown beneath its enormity. and as I always do, I stop breathing and stop accepting. The cycle repeats. I push back the pain and it only comes back later. I so long to just that once breathe and not absorb it. To breathe and let it go. I wish more than anything to find a way. To breathe is to live. To breathe is to release all that tears us apart inside. I need to learn to breathe.

and yeah I probably swapped breathe and breath more than a few times…never was any good as paying attention in grammar 😉