plaster on top of a deep, seeping wound. TV commercials and ads everywhere pound into our heads that we are to take an antacid tablet for our heartburn, a pill for our headache, medicated gel for muscle tension and medicinal lozenges for our sore throats or head colds. They ease the symptoms for a while and we go back to feeling normal – until the symptoms return either in the same or a different variation. This is because, even though the symptoms have been momentarily relieved, the underlying issues remain. The wound keeps on weeping and gradually getting worse; it needs to be cleaned from the inside out. Much more often than we realise the
physical illness we experience has its roots deep in our emotional body – in the unexpressed and unprocessed emotions we have accumulated over the course of our lifetime. In fact, an interesting Harvard medical study by Lloyd Lalande* revealed that a majority of people who experienced no back pain at all had the same physical ‘abnormalities’ as people
who do experience back pain – herniated discs, vertebral degeneration and so on – only they occurred without the physical pain. This supports the claim that ‘all pain is emotional pain’ (perhaps we should assume that ‘most pain’ would be even more accurate). This does not mean that the pain, if its core is emotional, is any less real. It just suggests that we might have more success treating it if we approach it differently. The same over-medicalisation also
applies to our emotional life. When we feel unhappy for a long time, have lost our mojo, are stressed, sad, or riddled with fear for no apparent reason, we can be prescribed an anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication – or we self-medicate with our drug of choice including alcohol and recreational drugs to feel better or, more accurately, to feel less. Unfortunately their use doesn’t often work in our favour. These drugs, in fact, work to further suppress the body’s own natural healing and release mechanisms and inhibit their functions.
STRESS – OUR ARCHENEMY? Stress is a normal and natural part of life. All humans and animals experience mental, physical, or emotional stress from time to time. Natural levels of stress actually enhance our mental and physical performance. Prolonged, chronic stress, however, is not our friend. The question is: how do we process and release it, or do we hold on to it and store it in our body? Animals and young children
naturally release stress and emotional charge through automatic mechanisms of the body: different spontaneous breathing patterns, sounds, shaking, crying, and so on. As we grow up we learn to suppress these release mechanisms. Instead of allowing ourselves to fully feel and express all of our emotions, we tense up our body and restrict our breathing as an unconscious defence not to feel our painful emotions, or show them to others. Outside we may even seem cool, calm, and collected but inside we hold on to the fear, emotional
Breathe Australia Conference Loving the Breath
Immerse
Australian Breathwork Association 2–5 November 2017 Govinda Valley Retreat, Otford, NSW
www.australianbreathworkassociation.org.au
You are invited to join us for our annual breathwork conference and retreat: program includes a range of experiential workshops and informative presentations
a choice of morning meditation practices daily group breathe lots of opportunity for inner work, healing and personal transformation open to all lovers of breathwork; practitioners of other allied health services; anyone who’d like to connect with the power of their own breath set in a beautiful retreat, fully catered with delicious vegetarian food
“My experience of breathwork has changed my life enormously. Due to its profound influence and the new understandings that I have about myself I have been able to change my life for the better.”
Special offer for LivingNow readers: Save $120 Quote LN2017 on reg. form – registrations close 30 September – Spaces filling fast!
www.australianbreathworkassociation.org/ Questions? Contact:
secretary@australianbreathworkassociation.org.au
127839i206 JULY | AUGUST 2017 43
yourself in the healing energy of this annual breathwork retreat
conference hosted by the leaders of breathwork in Australia
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