Client Journal: Breathing
What is coming up for me today is the way I breathe. How my sister breathes, how my mom breathes and how her mom breathed. The first thing that you, Lara and my acting teacher (when I’m able to take class) tell me when I don’t seem present or open to what is happening around me, is to take a breath. When I do, I am able to feel what’s going on inside of me. I am able to be open to receive what the other person is feeling, and almost always I am able to read their energy and see and feel what else is going on in their lives. My sister would do that when I was little. My mother used to be able to do that. And her mother. They were able to give psychic readings through feeling people’s energy. But at least for me, it’s only with a certain breath that I am able to feel, have intuition and read people’s energy. It’s a breath that comes from my lower body, my lower belly, sometimes from my groin. It is scary to breathe from my belly all the time. It’s even scarier to breathe from my groin. When I breathe from my belly, I immediately almost always feel sad. Exposed. When I breathe from my groin, I feel rage. Rage from being molested, rage from being told to hide my psychic impulses. I was told to not discuss my intuition with people from outside of my family, that other people wouldn’t understand. And to an extent, I agree, some people just aren’t open to that type of thing and that works for them. It has also made me feel isolated. Because sometimes when I listen to people talk, I get premonitions about whatever it is they’re saying. Then comes the choice, do I tell them what I’m seeing/feeling or do I keep it to myself? When I do say something, I understandably get asked, “How do you know that?” “I just do.” is my answer. “How?” “I don’t know. I just feel it. I just do. This is what I see and feel happening for you.” With a spiritual person, it turns into an interesting and lovely conversation. With 80% of the world, I get defense and anger thrown back at me. I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. Felt something I wasn’t supposed to feel, and then I feel scared, I take it personally, and change my breathing back.
The shallow in-my-chest-tight-in-the-shoulders breathing. The type of breathing that my sister does and did after she dreamed of my grandfather’s death, the type my mom starting doing in the last 10/15 years or so, maybe longer, I’m not sure. And the type of breathing I remember my grandmother doing in her mid seventies until she died. I can’t feel anything or anyone when I breathe this way. I don’t have my intuition from here. And it makes me sad. I try so hard to not get hurt. I breathe that way when I’m trying not to feel hurt. From little stupid things like getting a vaccination shot, to more intense sensations like feeling emotional pain, rejection, criticism and grief. What ends up getting lost in that is one of the best parts of me, my intuition.