A suggestion for overcoming a gloomy mood

Just breathe. 

 

Deeply. 

 

Close your eyes. Draw the air in through your nose and pull it all the way down inside you. 

 

Feel your lungs expanding. Sense the extra oxygen reaching your brain, pushing its way in and somehow making it feel as if you are awakening–almost like fresh water reaching a parched landscape.

 

Keep breathing deeply. Recognize you are completely surrounded by a medium which not only delivers your most fundamental need, but stands ready to lift you up and strengthen your connection to all it touches. If you just breathe it in.

 

Back in April, I attended a session for regional social workers led by nationally acknowledged consultant Bryan Post. I produced an article which described Post’s suggestions for working with children who have undergone trauma, and because of it react to situations in unexpected ways.

 

The information shared there was valuable and thought-provoking, but it did not include a profound, separate subject that Post addressed.

 

He said the first–and perhaps even most important–response when we encounter a stressful or difficult situation is to take a deep breath–probably eight or ten of them, actually, to ground ourselves.

 

Yet what is our instinct when we begin to be frustrated? We breathe shallowly, or even hold our breaths.

 

After telling the group that holding your breath is one of the worst things you can do when uncertain or emotional, he introduced an unexpected string of ideas.

 

He pointed out that holding our breath is separating ourselves from consciousness–from an immediate connection with where we are, the people we are with, and even our own life experience.

 

Consciousness, he said, is life.

 

Life, he went on, is love.

 

And love is God.

 

By holding our breaths–something we often do automatically and without realizing it–Bryan suggested we are unconsciously initiating a chain reaction that leads in the opposite direction from where we want to be going.

 

It was a set of associations I would not have arrived at on my own: I was grateful not only for the profound thoughts, but also the energy and sincerity with which they were delivered. And I was reminded of them when I looked out at the gloomy fog and wetness that was Monday morning’s weather.

 

I went to the trouble of digging out my notes from April because I wanted to be sure to get Bryan’s list of associations right. You see, the details had escaped me, leaving me with the much shorter thought that my memory has retained: Breathing is connecting myself to God.

 

Try it and see whether you agree. Go back to the first paragraphs of this column and follow the instructions; consider having someone read them to you so you can actually follow the steps with your eyes closed.

 

Perhaps most importantly, though, every now and then remove breathing from the list of “autonomic” functions of your metabolism. Draw in strength. Be conscious of the life-giving medium around you. Fill yourself with love. Strengthen your connection to God.