Words may ultimately fail me in honoring what I’m receiving in this new-old breathwork practice. I know I want to name some things ‘aloud,’ to honor the openings, to mark some of the changes, and yet I’m also aware that whatever I begin to write feels lacking, insufficient. Tough for a writer to admit, but there you have it.
As with most new spiritual practices that ‘find me,’ that I begin to learn, the upswing of them is impressive within me, my emotional weather. No different here. Day Intro and Day 1 had their own newness, intensities, which I was able to name in some detail. Day 2 was also physically intense, though I did not journal immediately afterward. I had to hold a coffee-club with some circle friends shortly after practice. Way opened to talk about it a little with the friend who introduced me to this practice, but I didn’t journal about the insight(s) that arrived. These musings can now include Days 3&4.
In general, I’m deeply appreciating the rebalancing of my over-weighted mind and my underheard body in this practice. Fascinating for me what my mind does as I enter into the practice, as it’s been different each time. Always is, I suppose, given the flighty-weather of my mind, period.
Day 3, with the journal-prompt focused on action, meant my mind focused on my irritation and feeling swindled by an intermittent-fasting-app I had thought to try. It literally took up most of the practice, with my inability to let it go. My action became writing a review on the App Store stream for that app, simply so I could drop into my body, feeling, curiosity. Day 4’s practice, my mind let go relatively quickly, allowing a becoming-familiar-feeling of being in the practice to be whatever it was going to be. The guide-presence seemed to be both my heart-dog Nala and a spirit-friend out in California, Susan.
I’m intrigued by the physical sensations post-practice as well. Day 2, about which I didn’t really journal, was the most notable impact. The tingling was body-wide, and there was some slowness or weightedness in all of my limbs, arms and legs, hands and feet. It didn’t scare me, as I knew it was simply more oxygen in my bloodstream than I’m usually accustomed to…but it was notable, curious.
Staying with the genre of prompts offered, then…Day Four? When I relax my mind, open my heart, and invite my guide in, they share with me… I’m reminded we rarely perceive how deeply the heart can open, how widely we can become aware of [focus your attention here]. Energy flows to attention, and our minds are conditioned narrowly, with external focus. This practice rebalances, if just for a moment.
I become aware that I really do have what I need within me, waiting for me. There is a way to be more present, more often, with my deep belly hunger, yearning. When I am present there more often, I feel less and less abandonment, fear, anxiety. [Long history/herstory here of reclaiming the feminine, healing the abandonment wound lodged so very early into my body’s cells…]. I become aware of a lightness, a being-with that calms my mind. Or I become aware of a sadness, a grief unknown, but then have access to the tears to really feel it, release some of it.
I also have access to a stream of images that feel archetypal or dream-like, seeds of my future self, future (possible) actions. This is a gifting I’ve long known about, if only relatively recently have the words come for it. At significant moments in my awakenings, I’ve received a flash image that I simply knew I needed to embody somehow. In each case, the image was only a seed of the action, the ritual, but it crafted my actions. And each instance was a significant turning point for me. I trust this felt-sense of these images.
In the same genre, if less precise or intense, are these dream-scape images that come in deep practice. I’ve experienced lucid-dream-images in ritual-circle practice, in breathwork, in deep meditation. The images waft in, enough for me to feel them. They often recede from awareness when I come back to more conscious reflective spaces like this. For instance, I know I received several such images in this morning’s practice. I only really remember the strong urge to reach out to Susan about this practice. Throat chakra. Throat discomfort. I was so very aware of her during the first practice as well. So I will do that today…
In the framing of the Breathwork Challenge, I honor my heard-intention to enter into the Bigger Story…bigger and bigger stories. I felt freedom in the second day of practice, simply hearing “Quanita is not always right” as a bit of a mantra. An obvious statement, but something in me had been bound in a sense of loyalty to her, fidelity to her journey, that required my silence, only my witnessing. A requirement that remains, as it is not my place or calling in friendship to offer any feedback or mirroring she has not invited. But I am freed to listen to my own belly first in this practice. To trust my own intuition, wisdom, letting our paths (hers and mine, potentially) to diverge as we both grow, mature, all while staying connected, belonging to one another too. I no longer sense loyalty to Fire&Water requires my silence(s), even as I will discern what it means to be connected in this community in the months and years to come.
I don’t have a business-interest, per se, so the third day practice/prompt for an action to take for the business didn’t really fit. Maybe that’s why my mind made it useful for me in my larger story of asserting/naming what I need, even with those who disregard me. (Simple’s care-support team has not responded nor refunded the money that was incorrectly charged me. No biggy, really, but it got under my skin. I felt betrayed…which connected me somewhat to the larger Quanita-Tenneson story, rooted in a sense of betrayal in one of their stories. All intertwines…)
Today’s practice–Day Four–welcomed me into a sense of companionship, presence, in the practice. Felt joyous, easy, curious. The guidance that I received? Not sure… A yearning to reach out, to share the practice. Recognition that I wanted to come to words here, however inadequate they might feel. Simple presence. Connection. Abundance. Receiving. Practicing receiving…
I meet with my spiritual director tomorrow, a relatively new relationship anyway, and I wonder about shifting into some focused breathwork coaching instead. For this season of listening in… I’ll let that idea soak in me today…
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