Holding the breath

As she held her breath, she thought of all the many ways she could get back at that guy for cutting her off at the intersection.  “I can’t believe he did this to me…I’m gonna show him I’m not someone he can just walk all over.  Jerk!” Still holding her breath… she swerved into the fast lane to get ahead of the guy who caused the problem. 

This illustration depicts a common problem in those who bully themselves…holding the breath.  Our bodies are constantly working to maintain homeostasis, but this cannot happen when we react to the environment with habits such as this.  This starts a chain reaction of events in which the heart rhythm becomes stressed and leads to stress hormones being released to the body.  So when you engage in road rage, who suffers?  That guy who cut you off probably has no clue that he did anything to aggravate you.  You win the prize of a stressful life! 

Notice in our illustration the key component of holding the breath followed by thoughts that finally lead to body reactions.  Biofeedback has taught us the integral role of breath work in calming body and emotional reactions.  The average rate of finding recuperation from breathing is obtaining 6 breaths per minute.  This is not done on a normal basis, but a couple of times a day to restore your energy and heart balance.  This youtube video paces your breath at this rate:

Ruminate, worry, & dwell…

“I am such a loser!  How could I misplace money?  This is just another example of how irresponsible I am.  How will I ever get a raise if I can’t even be trusted?  This just proves what everyone has ever told me…I’m no good.”

One negative thought creates a stream of emotions, secondary thoughts, and memories.   If you are one of the many people who can’t turn off the running dialogue in the mind, you are not alone.  Many people will go as far as treating this running commentary as fact.  In the statement, “I feel like such a loser” we see this vividly.   The word “loser” is not a feeling at all, but when you accept this thought as a tangible fact you will generate feelings that make it feel very real.  A more accurate way to express this sentiment is “I feel disappointed in myself for losing the money.”  In this statement we identify the feeling regarding a concrete situation.  It does not define us, but it is a real situation where disappointment is reasonable.  In the end…who loses anything 100% of the time?  You will inevitable win at something some of the time, making it impossible to be a loser!  What a relief! 

Mindfulness training is a technique promoted to access more information without making this constant evaluation.  In our example about losing money, we may be able to learn through nonjudgmental awareness that it was not really lost at all.  Through more focus on the moment we may find that it fell out of a pocket in the car!  So is it really worthwhile having all of that stress and anxiety over something that was never really lost?  Not if we can cope in a highly effective way.    This way of coping takes focus on the very second we are in and see the environment without making critique.  This is how we move from suffering to freedom and stop the inner bully.