Learning to breathe my own breath again
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Learning to breathe my own breath again
I just finished my MBA degree and started my new job at an American investment bank in the City of London when I consciously noticed for the first time that I don’t know how to breathe.
I did not know how to breathe!? It is something that one does automatically without thinking. But when you are out of rhythm and breathing does not happen automatically, when you catch yourself repeatedly either holding your breath or breathing very flatly, what do you do?
I started reading books about breathing and health in general and consulted many professionals from Chinese Medicine, Reiki, different meditation and massage techniques to Ayurveda, Kinesiology, and Buddhism.
Not feeling and breathing my fullness came along with many symptoms such as having this undercurrent of anxiousness, feeling stressed, having difficulties winding down, not being able to truly relax and sleep uninterrupted, not knowing who I am or what I really want in life, looking outwards for confirmation and appreciation, having little self-confidence, going into ‘doing’ as opposed to ‘being’, being extremely efficient and driven at any cost, only having the goal in sight, making it right for everybody without ever considering me and my own needs, always putting others first, giving my power away to whatever and whomever I thought would make sense, being over-sensitive and taking the suffering of the whole world on my shoulders. More physical symptoms were TMJ/clenched jaw, an overactive bladder, Hashimoto, and lower back pain.
While this behaviour led me to great success professionally, it left me restless, longing for something that I did not know what it was, and looking for the real meaning of life.
This all changed when I came across Universal Medicine. My therapist used several different healing techniques on me and introduced me to the Gentle Breath Meditation®. I could breathe deeply, but I did not breathe gently before. The first few times I was breathing so loud and hard that my therapist just stopped me and we started all over again at the next appointment.
I have to admit I also completely underestimated the importance of breathing gently. It sounds so simple and easy that the mind likes to dismiss it.
It took me a long time to regain my gentle breath and even longer to introduce it beyond the sessions into my daily life. It is incredible what momentum of disregard and hardness I built up. I now know that holding my breath was my way of preventing my feeling what was going on – I was just overwhelmed by life from a very young age and held my breath in response.
I also started to attend Universal Medicine courses with Serge Benhayon. His teachings come from the Ageless Wisdom and just make so much sense. Life all of a sudden could be explained on so many levels. What struck me most is that everything is energy and that we are all vessels of energy. There are two and only two sources of energy, the divine and the non-divine (pranic) energy. It’s the choice of every single one of us which energy we align to and allow to flow through us. We choose with every in-breath the energy which runs through our bodies.
Most of us don’t have the level of awareness to be with every breath we take. We can thus end up breathing in what we don’t want to have in our bodies which can result in illness and disease.
I also got to love Esoteric Yoga. I tried different styles of Yoga before and came to the conclusion that Yoga is not for me.
The movements hurt my body more than they helped. But Esoteric Yoga is completely different. There is very little movement – it’s all about conscious presence. Feeling my body, listening to my body, feeling how I meet myself with every breath I take, and thus breathing very consciously, deliberately and deeply. That also hugely contributed in the process of getting myself out of ‘existing’ and into living – living a full life, a life full of purpose and joy.
Today, at 53 years, I feel absolutely fantastic, much better than ever before in my life.
I learned to breathe my own breath again. I know who I am and what I want from life. I feel empowered like never before and know that there is an unending depth inside all of us for each of us to explore and evolve to. I made many loving supportive lifestyle changes.
Today I have none of the above symptoms anymore. I know that without self-love there is no love and I understand that the quality in which I do things matters, the how. I even walk and talk differently, much more me, and it feels so natural.
And this is only the beginning!
Filed under
Meditation, Yoga, Universal Medicine, Stress, Breath
