Wise About Pain
July 19, 2019
Take some good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Get a sense of where you feel the breathing process in the body. Then, when it’s clear, the next question is: Is it comfortable? If it is, you can keep it up. If not, you can change. Try shorter breathing, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster, slower. Try to see what kind of breathing feels good for the body right now. Think of the breath as a whole-body process. It’s not just at your nose; it’s not just at your abdomen. The simple fact that the muscles in the body have to expand and contract to let the breath in, let it go out, creates different patterns of energy that flow throughout the whole body. The fact that you’re trying to maintain your balance as these muscles expand and contract means that the balancing muscles, say in the back, are going to get involved, too. They, in turn, are connected to the muscles down in the legs. Everything’s all connected inside.