Sometimes, You Cannot Breathe

If your body has been bent and twisted by life, the effort to help you straighten your spine can cause pain. You might doubt that you were ever supposed to stand straight up, and if a twisted position has become your identity, those who try to help can seem that they are trying to hurt.

If you suffered stress and abuse, it changes the way you use your body. You can assume a chronic stoop, or clinched position. At the least your breathing is likely to be shallow, rapid, and high in the chest. The FIRST thing I do teaching Tai Chi is to adjust the posture and correct the breathing.

The sad thing is how often people are locked into such unresourceful breathing patterns that breathing correctly (as babies do) feels…alien. Triggers panic and discomfort. Once they integrate it (and that can take just minutes) they begin to understand the difference. In a convention workshop I can’t go more deeply, but in a weekend workshop I can ask When did you begin this unresourceful use of your body?

There is rarely conscious memory of such things, but it will relate to something that anchored stress to survival.

1. An abusive or neglectful home environment, where the very people who were supposed to protect them were the threat.
2. A social context that beat them down, with painful consequences for fighting back.
3. A career context in which an abusive or unresponsive boss controls your behavior, hammering you down until you see no option but trudging forward…