Breathing is good...

Listening to the news lately has me wondering where does all the anger and hate come from? There seems to be so much anger between people. Those on the Left are angry with the Right. Those on the Right are angry with those on the Left. Both sides blame the other for the woes of the world.

I'm speaking in generalities, of course.

It's amazing that when I speak one-on-one with most of those I know who lean pretty far to the Left or the Right, we can generally have a civil discussion. But when the same individuals become part of a group - things change.

How does the above relate to the breath? Good question. Not even sure if it does.

I think anger is one of the main problems in the world today. Road rage. School shootings. Democrats vs. Republicans. The Left versus the Right. Countries at war. What's the difference between Driver B flipping off Driver A because Driver A cut them off (intentionally or otherwise) which then leads to Driver A retaliating by cutting off Driver B intentionally and Country B attacking County A because of something Country A did? (Careful - the above is a trick question).

But I digress. I was attempting to connect the world's problems to the breath. Which brings me to the following quote:

"If you look underneath your depression, you'll find anger. Look under your anger and you'll find sadness. And under the sadness is the root of it all, what's really masquerading all the while - fear." Carolyn Stearns, massage therapist, dancer, writer and poet, as quoted in Candace Pert's book, "The Molecules of Emotion."

So. Maybe the real source of the world's problems lies in fear, not anger. And the best way I have found to get past the anger and fear is through the breath.

To be continued...

Some breathing quotes to ponder...

I ran across these quotes and decided to share them...

"There is one way of breathing which is shameful and constricted. Then there's another way: a breath of love that takes you all the way to Infinity."
- Rumi

"The breath alone is well worth knowing, even if only in terms of health. If we know how to breathe properly, we will have good health."
- Buddhadasa Bhikku, author of Mindfulness with Breathing

"There are many reasons why I practice conscious breathing. Breathing has the power to enhance both the practical present moment and our mystical connection with infinity."
- Gay Hendricks, PH. D author of At the Speed of Life

"Breathing in I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment."
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Breathe well!

David

Back again

My commitment at this point is to post a least once a week. I would love to have feedback or specific questions to reply to, so feel free to respond.

I had a realization last night dealing with the issue of anger. In the past, I have found myself getting angry at others and not being able to figure out why. Even with the idea of anger being a way of avoiding sadness, I was at a loss. The situation that arose had to do with someone making a mistake (details are unimportant). They made a mistake and I got mad. It wasn't even a mistake that affected me, yet i found myself with some anger brewing.

So, last night when I was meditating, part of my focus was on this issue of getting mad at someone when they made a mistake. What dawned on me at some point was that the first sensation I was able to identify after the person made the mistake was shame. I got the impression the person was feeling shame (or something like that) at their mistake. Maybe it was embarrassment.

Doesn't matter.

What does matter is that when I was able to identify the sensation I was picking up from them, I got a clear image of all the times I felt embarrassed. All the times I felt foolish and then got angry in an attempt to avoid the embarrassment or shame I was feeling.

And that was the key for me. I wasn't mad at the other person. Well, not exactly. At best, I was mad at them because this situation brought up feelings I didn't want to deal with. The idea being, if they hadn't made the mistake, if they hadn't gotten embarrassed, then I wouldn't have to deal with my feelings of embarrassment.

I think this is what Jung was referring to when he wrote of our "shadow selves."

In the book, Meditation - the first and last freedom," Osho encourages us to consider that the source of all emotions is within us. That when something happens and we experience anger or sadness or joy, what we are experiencing are our emotions. Emotions that were already there, but when this "something happens" - the emotion that is already within us is released. The "something that happened" is not the cause of the emotion, just the key that unlocks the door to those emotions locked within us. (the analogy is mine)

But beyond identifying where the emotion comes from, Osho also has a suggestion of what to do with the emotion. Basically, he says, allow the feeling to happen. Don't focus on the person or event which seems to have "caused" the emotion. Focus on the emotion. Allow it to fill you (as a feeling - this doesn't mean that when anger arises one must lash out at others). With the so-called negative emotions, allowing it to fill you will cause the emotion to dissolve. With the so-called positive emotions, you will become the emotion.

Makes sense to me. In my opinion, the two things that gives anger strength are the attempt to hold it in or the attempt to get rid of it by lashing out. One builds pressure, the other builds momentum. But by just allowing the energy of anger (because that's all that emotions are, aren't they - energy?) to grow without trying to hold it in check or giving it momentum - it dissipates.

And speaking of Osho - I sign off with a quote from him:
"Breath is your life, and breath is also the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, between your body and your soul. This bridge has to be used. If you can use this bridge rightly, you can go to the other shore"

David

Breathing Exercise - In and Out or Out and In?

This exercise is adapted from an exercise Andrew Weil leads on his CD, "Breathing -The Master Key to Self Healing."

Notice your breath as it flows. Then check in with the question, "does the breath cycle start with the inhale or the exhale?" Most people tend to associate the beginning of the breath cycle with the inhale and the completion of the breath cycle with the exhale. Try imagining that the breath cycle starts with the exhale and is completed by the inhale.

Purpose of the exercise: To get you to break out of habitual ways of breathing. Also, the exercise is related to the Zen story, "Empty Your Cup," in which the Master over pours tea into his students cup. The students reacts and the Master points out that, like the cup, he can not help the student because he is too full. The student must first "empty his cup" if he wants to receive.

Likewise - we can only inhale to the degree that we exhale.

Love and Fear

There are two archetypal emotions - Love and Fear. This is not a new concept. I first ran across it reading Neal Donald Walsch's Conversations with God. As I read about this idea, I was struck by the similarity between this idea and the part of the Michael Chekhov Technique dealing with expansion and contraction. I saw clearly that Love was expansion and Fear was contraction. Since that time, I have seen the idea that Love and Fear are the only two true emotions in several places.

But where did emotions such as anger, grief, joy, resentment, sadness fit?

As I pondered this question, I saw that rather than being on the same level as Love and Fear - the other "emotions" were more like subsets. Love and Fear were the archetypes from which all other emotions came. To discover which archetype an emotion fell under, all one had to do was check in with themselves with the question, "does this make me feel expansive or contractive?" If the emotional state created a sense of expansion, it fell under the archetype of Love. If the emotional state created a sense of contraction, it fell under the archetype of Fear.

The one "emotion" I couldn't reconcile with this theory was anger.

Was anger a subset of fear? When I felt angry, there was a certain sense of drawing within. But when I expressed my anger there was more of an outward movement. But could anger really be a subset of Love? that didn't seem to make sense. Then I had the thought: What if anger isn't really an emotion? I mean, the only reason I assumed it was an emotion was because everyone said it was. But what if it wasn't?

Then I remembered when I was getting counseling for ADHD (and depression, although I wasn't willing to admit that I was depressed at the time). During one of my counseling sessions I saw that when I got angry at something, there was a split second that something else was there - intense sadness. Anger seemed to be my way of avoiding the sadness I was feeling.

So maybe anger wasn't an emotion, but a physical or energetic means of avoiding whatever feeling is really there.

A recent example:
Sunday morning my wife and I had a fight. The details are unimportant, but the basic gist was that I said something and she thought I was saying something negative about her. She got angry. And then I got angry. She was angry that I would think something negative about her. I got angry because I think it's clear that I hold her in high regard and so why would she think that I would say anything negative about her.

Breaking it down later, I could see that before she got angry, she got hurt. And before I got angry, I got hurt. And rather than experience those hurt feelings, we used anger to deflect and avoid.

I have tried out this theory over and over with people and have never found a case where anger didn't come as a response to a feeling of hurt or loss or sadness. All subsets of the archetypal emotion - Fear. I invite you to try it out yourself.

To be continued....

Some thoughts on breathing...

Couple of thoughts...

First is on exhaling. We learn at an early age that when we inhale and don't release our breath - we cut off our feelings. I came across this early on in my exploration of the breath. It was refreshing to see the idea in Dennis Lewis' book, The Tao of natural Breathing as well. This happens somewhere between 2 years and 4 years old. When we're young and don't know how to handle feelings that are uncomfortable, this can be helpful. The problem is that by the time we are adults, we have forgotten that we "learned" this and we start thinking that this is "normal." As adults, (hopefully) we have the ability to process our emotions more effectively and so don't need to restrict our exhale, but as they say - old habits die hard.

What to do? One way that I've found to "jump start" our exhalations is doing an exercise that I got from Nancy Zi's book, The Art of Breathing. Imagine that there is a large, inverted eye dropper inside of you. The bulb part is in your stomach and the other end is at your head. Take a breath in and then imagine your are squeezing the bulb as you let your air out. Then “let go” of the bulb and allow the air to come back in. Sometimes just doing this once gets me back into exhaling.

Second thought regards tension. We are taught that tension is bad. I like to think of tension as neither good or bad, but just one way our body communicates with us. When we stop making tension "wrong" (which only encourages/creates more tension) - we have a better chance of dealing with it. This relates to one of Chekhov's "Four Brothers" - the Feeling of Ease. He was bothered by Stanislavki telling actors "to relax." How does one "relax"? Relaxing is a non-action and it is impossible to do a non-action. Instead, Chekhov encouraged actors to do things with a Feeling of Ease - focusing on how we do a thing rather than "trying" to relax.

Also, if we know what we're tensing up against, then the goal would be to deal with what is causing the tension rather than focusing on the symptom.

Sleepy on a Wednesday Morning

Was up late the other night with a sick child. Still trying to get back up to speed. Rehearsals are going well for my current project, "Of Mice and Men," at the Phipps Center in Hudson, WI. There are some really touching moments as well as some very funny moments. I think they're going to rock on opening night (Friday).

More later...