Decompress, Let It Breathe

 

It starts with a breath, as all of these posts do.

A cleansing breath, not forceful, not hurried. A breath into the very centre of your soul.

But your breath is but a visitor, here to energise but not to stay. Do not hold on to your breath too long. But four long, languid seconds, long enough for your breath to make acquaintance with your flesh, your blood, before it's time to move on.

And release it, and hold with your chest empty for another few seconds. But four long, quiet beats, as your physical and mental tension goes out of your mouth and nose.

And by the time you are ready to begin the next breath, you will  have felt some of your body's and mind's tensions gone.

Have you been holding your breath all this time? Don't wait for me. Breathe, for goodness' sake.

Beat of four,
Hold for more
Show your breath
The exit door.

Outward breath
Shed your pain
Time to draw
Your breath again.

And breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Just like that. Exactly like that.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

The easy repetition gives you a framework to play on, to hang your conscious thoughts on and leave them there as you explore.

Reach the edge, and leave a worry draped about a pole. Your self-consciousness goes there, atop the monkey bars.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

And yes, it does feel good to keep up a rhythm like that.

Got more worries and woes to leave behind? Peel them off of you, and stick them anywhere. You don't have much left to wrap round a pole, but that's good. The framework's starting to look like a butcher bird's larder, and by now you should feel free enough to leave the last of your conscious thoughts hanging up in that one last corner.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Breathe for four, hold for another four, release for four, hold for four.

Now play with this file while you perfect your box breathing. This gives you the perfect rhythm, right up to the abrupt ending.

The fun continues. This page will keep you feeling good.

Calm and Stillness - A Meditation

 

Life is all too often stressful, with little time to catch your breath.

Here is an oasis of calm among the turmoil and noise. A place for you to hold space for calm, to settle and centre yourself in defiance of a world of stimuli aimed at knocking you off-balance.

You can begin with a deep breath, to begin the process of letting go of your body's stresses and tensions. These are like symptoms of a cumulative poison, one you have been ingesting this whole time, and it's time you begin to let that poison out.

And what is that poison?

All the fears, all the anger, all the toxic artificial desires which have been foisted on you by your screens, your media, your press, all the gossip you've been overhearing, even sharing with others - spreading the poison around.

Advertisements. Stuff inserted into your social media feeds. The nonsense you see on your TV screens, your laptops and tablets and phones, on billboards. Stuff you repeat to others practically verbatim, doing the work of the poisoners for them.

Take a deep breath in, and let it go out, and as you breathe out, you're going to let some of that awful stress and tension out too. Let it pour out of you, like a black, angry cloud.

Let go of the fears the news has been pushing into your head. Big, dark, angry cloud of all that pent-up pain from clueless, evil sociopathic talking heads in fancy suits. You don't need to carry that darkness. Stuff them. Let them take all that hell home with them.

Now another breath in, and let out the fear of missing out, of being uninformed. That trash you've been letting into you is not information. It's myth. It's storytime. It's fiction. TV and social media do not hold the keys to what is true and what is not. Let go of the fear of losing out, because the treasure you have been holding space for is crap. Garbage. Waste.

And toxic waste, too.

Tearing out huge chunks of fear and anger have already begun to lighten the load on your shoulders. With your eyes open, you can straighten your back now, and draw in a breath, and let out the next big chunk of misery that ha been weighing you down.

Your social media is full of slop. Drivel, marketed, curated, polished, drivel. Its only effect is to clog up your dopamine receptors. Dopamine stimulated by outrage is still dopamine, and your receptors are blocked by a layer of blak sludge from all you social media feeds. Let your mind flood your pleasure centres with light, washing out all the hate-borne dopamine, and replacing it with healthier dopamine, mixed with a healthy dose of serotonin joy.

Oh, the innocent sweet rush of serotonin, and fresh dopamine, joy washing across you as your mind begins to lift.

Where you were once anchored by a sense of crushing darkness, now you let light in and blow all of that darkness away and out of you, emerging from your mouth with the very next deep inhale and exhale. Ready? Now.

You're almost ready. Your mind is floating free, no forward momentum, no anchors holding it down, and you need one more inhale and exhale to let that mind go.

You can feel it, holding your mind anchored where it really needs to be free and released. What is that? Is it your ego, an artificial need to be seen to be right and everybody else wrong, a curse bestowed on you by the media you have just been rejecting?

Or is it the last vestige of a perspective inserted into you by well-meaning, but grossly-uninformed people who thought they had your best iterests at heart but were really only tying you down with some sort of las bit of a fear of what the neighbours will think?

Here. There's a knot. Even as you untie it, pull that end of the thread, feel the knot come untied, you can feel the tension, and taste it. It's bitter. It tastes of envy, and jealousy, and even maybe hate. And if you untie that last thread, feeling the knot come apart, feeling that strand pass through your fingers, you finally feel complete.

Release. Draw in one beautiful, light, warm inward breath.Hold it, let that light fill you, dissolving all that remains of your darkness, until no darkness remains, only light.

Light, and warmth, and serotonin joy, and dopamine reward, and oxytocin trust. And your mind, finally released to float and drift.

And your thoughts slow, as your onscious mind drifts away, and come gently to a halt as you let yourself release everything, no more pain, no anger, no fear, no urgency, nothing to catch up to, just being here, with the last of your thoughts slowing, stopping, stopped.

And when you're still at last, all the turbulence gone, calm and still, click this link here and go to the next page to explore this joy and stillness, and see where it leads.