It may be that
When we no longer
Know what to do,
We have come
To our real work
And when we no
Longer know
Which way to go
We have begun
Our real journey.
-
Wendell Berry
The Breath of Hope.
Black clouds carried me to the starting line, reluctantly
with me dragging my feet and gazing out the window depleted, exhausted, without
hope. It was a grey spring and I was running on empty. The pain, the fury, the
sadness had stopped crashing like a storm and settled into my boots like lead
weights instead, present with every step that heavy weight of dread. This
spring did not bring for me the joy of the warm sun; I was stuck in winter and
just couldn’t see a way out.
Pain had bought me here. Years of daily, grinding
physical pain and I was heartbroken at the thought that the long remaining
years ahead of me would be like this - painful, every day. I was lost and furious, tired and sitting at the bottom
of a deep well of sadness refusing to budge.
Doom seeps in like damp, I think. Slowly, quietly I was absorbing
this deep feeling of hopeless. I felt hopeless in my bones.
Following a back injury at work, I had been left with
chronic pain that was eventually diagnosed as Fibromyalgia. Coupled with
Depression and Anxiety Disorder and struggling with a concoction of very strong
medications, things had become overwhelming and they didn’t seem to be getting
better. How do you get yourself out of a hole like this? I had no idea and no
energy to try. I’d day dream of dying in a plethora of catastrophic accidents
just to give me an ‘out’, I became fixated on the potential for catastrophe all
around me. I saw every tree quivering in the wind careering down on top of me,
every passer by shoving me into traffic, every mouthful of food getting stuck
in my throat. I craved these disasters because they felt like the only way this
would stop. I remember saying to my mum at the time “if this is going to be my
life, I don’t want it.”
And then.
And then, Breathwork came in to my life entirely by
accident and everything started to change.
Now. Let me say two things to you before I continue.
One,
there are many more elements to this story, many things that bought about
positive change. Months and years of work and effort and choices that have
bought me from where I was then to where I am now; and the process never stops.
Breathwork was an earthquake. A massive, beautiful shake up that became the
first step on an arduous journey of healing.
Two, I am exceptionally lucky to
have the support of a wonderful loving family, empathetic and patient friends,
a partner who ‘gets it’ and fights my corner endlessly, access to
free/affordable services where I can get professional help and a socioeconomic status
in my life (especially thanks to the kindness of those around me) that meant
this time in my life didn’t render me totally unemployable, homeless or worse.
I am so aware of the sheer privilege of this and I know that this is certainly
not everyone’s experience, particularly when it comes to mental health.
In the lead up to my birthday that year, my family kept
asking what I wanted and how I wanted to celebrate. I didn’t know, I didn’t
feel like celebrating and I felt worthless. My partner was away in Nepal and I’d
dreamed of being able to go out and join him for a healing hike in the Himalayas,
but I was just too sick. They knew this and I eventually admitted it to myself.
My parents suggested a yoga retreat and we searched through a few until I found
one that was nearby and had the words ‘chill out’ in the title. That suited me
fine. I didn’t really register the word ‘breathwork’ in the ad to be honest. I
just wanted somewhere nourishing, restful and gentle to hide away in for a few
days and regenerate a little. Well folks, as you’ve probably gathered by now, Breathwork
blew the roof off of that!
In short, it saved me. Bought me back from the pit of the
well, shook me out of numbness into feeling; threw me from despair into the chaos
of those first steps towards healing. Breathwork gave me a mind-blowing and powerful
therapy that allowed me to feel it all. The fury, the hopelessness, the fear,
the grief, the desperation and made me face it all and let it out. I finally
raged against the dying of the light.
My teacher always says ‘its called breathWORK for a
reason.’ And, folks, he isn’t lying. I’ve since discovered, as I’ve continued
with this practice, that it can be beautiful, joyous and euphoric. It can
connect you to nature, majesty, love and the whole universe in an ecstatic,
phenomenal way that I’ve not experienced so deeply through any other means. But,
flippin’ heck, those first breathes were HARD.
Confronting all the ways I felt and all the things that
had bought me to that place was terrifying. Those 4 days in a converted barn on
Dartmoor, breathing with a group of strangers bought me back to myself. Made me
peel back the protective layer of numbness and deep depression I’d stuck over
the top of all I was experiencing and forced me to face it, head on. It allowed
me to be with it, really feel it, express it and through this, start to take
those first baby steps towards getting past it.
I roared. I wept. I banged the floor with my fists and
screamed and shouted until my throat was sore and my eyes stung. But, I laughed
too. I connected with other people who were experiencing pain and hardship. I
felt held and heard, I felt understood and for the first time in a very long
time I could see a tiny, flickering light of hope burning in the dark.
All because I was blessed enough to accidentally end up
in front of a man who believes with his whole heart in the magic of this
breath. I am here now, learning how to bring this out into the world, in my own
way, because it saved me and now I understand how he feels.
I am nervous and excited. I am grateful beyond words that
I collided with Breathwork when I did and I cannot wait to share it with you.
There’s gold in them there hills.
Thank you for reading this today. I sat with much
trepidation before beginning to type this post. Every word has been considered.
This is the one I knew I’d be most frightened to share with you all, but I
wanted to share it anyway. I wanted to
give you a glimpse into how life changing this practice has been for me and
start to try and describe the power of the magic it can bring.
Now I am going to press ‘post’ and go and sit in the garden,
dig my toes into the earth, drink my tea and smile at the sky and be happy in
my heart that I’m alive.
