Grief
Man, this is a peculiar subject that doesn’t need to be.
Grieving is a human emotion resulting from loss.
The tools we’ve learned to muffle grief are further fueled by our collective unknowing of how to acknowledge it within ourselves and those expressing it in our presence.
Think of the last time you shed a tear in public. Did you wipe away your tears and apologize with a “sorry, not sure what’s come of me. I don’t usually cry in public”?
Men especially have learned to “never let them see you cry.”
I hope we can change this and allow a supported space for people to express their grief.
Crying
In my workshops I’ve witnessed a recent increase in the number of participants finding themselves crying often without realizing it. We joke that at least one person will cry in our practices. It’s a sad joke as I witness dear friends, new acquaintances, and warriors in the martial arts practice I love ooze grief as I aim to offer a comforting space for their emotions to catch up to the physiological release of their emotions.
The undertone of social anxiety with the pandemic has a cumulative effect on our personal sense of stress and anxiety. This level of anxiety expresses itself during breathing exercises as we shut down our physical awareness and make room for our emotional expressions. Simply put, the body becomes unaware and moves to the side so that our emotions can occupy front-of-existence and expressions of grief manifest often in the form of tears.
Panic Attacks
Unexplored and unrecognized grief often manifests itself as anxiety, which in turn often turns into panic as it accumulates and builds pressure much like a balloon or a volcano.
To help manage stress, anxiety, and resulting panic attacks, the root cause of grief must be addressed.
Breathing exercises help to unearth grief by offering you a physiological and emotional platform upon which grief can be fully expressed, if you allow it by surrendering into it.
Surrendering into it comes from feeling safe with those with whom you choose to practice with…your community. If you choose to practice by yourself and not within group settings, know that the added level of vulnerability in community practice is one that can be much more freeing when compared to isolated practice. The challenge is to not give a fuck what anyone thinks if your emotions choose its time to express themselves. Either way, whether you practice solo or amongst others, what matters is that you practice and surrender to allow your emotions to express themselves as they will.
In my workshops I aim to offer an environment that is supportive, safe, and exploratory for practitioners to feel free and let their emotions to be expressed without judgement.
Find a community. Practice breathing exercises. It’s simple and hugely effective. Give yourself this gift. You won’t regret it. You can always stop if it’s not your thing.
For Sunday September 13th we’ll follow the following sequence:
Yogic 4-7-8 breath x 5 rounds
Yogic 4-10-10 breath x 5 rounds
EPO Breath 10min
3 rounds Wim Hof Method Fundamentals
Bharamari 4-8 x 5 rounds
Bharamari 5-10 x 5 rounds
root down. ground. retool. reorient. reinforce. resonate. invigorate. rise up. gear up. or, gear down.
come breathe