Taking my power back
I wanted to take my power back. I was tired of the illness being in charge of every aspect of my life, and I was kind of tired of doing what I was told.
Antidepressants. That’s all anyone could really suggest. I presume so that I would effectively be too stoned to dwell upon the fact that my body was failing and mind following closely behind. I refused. I felt there had to be something else. Something more akin to living than masking and succumbing.
Something more holistic. True.
By sheer chance, just when I thought I couldn’t go on, or that I might focus the little energy I had on murdering doctors, my dad mentioned breath control, in relation to his passion for diving, not to help, just as a passing aside. It struck a chord. I could breathe, could I manipulate my breath? Would that help? A friend simultaneously gave me an old worn and fairly ridiculous 1970’s book with various yoga poses in it (leotards featured heavily), that I couldn’t do, and my journey into yoga began as a desperate muddled haze of ill health seeking hope.
At the back of the book, there was a section on Pranayama. The control of life force through breath. The control of the LIFE FORCE. I thought Star wars, that’ll do.
A transformative, healing power
A transformative, healing power. Its ability to resolve trauma, illness, pain and just about everything else, if all the ancient yogi’s are to be believed. I believe them. I didn’t then, I was pretty much convinced they were nutters, but I had nothing to lose, so I joined the nutters.
As my life had consisted of one traumatic event after another, and I would have removed limbs to just feel incrementally better, I pounced on that last page.
And I wondered if I could potentially release some of the trauma I had been informed I was holding by various psychologists without ever having to see another absolutely well-meaning and absolutely annoying psychologist.
The ever lurking trauma, it transpired had been unconsciously housed, not only in my addled mind, but in the depths of the fascia (tautening and tightening it to breaking point), in my muscles (bunching them, shortening them), and in my organs (slowing and contracting them until they couldn’t perform their allotted tasks adequately).
At this point, I couldn’t even sit up, so it was all a long shot.
The rejections, the awful living conditions, the extreme poverty, the hateful words of those who don’t believe in chronic ill health, the dismals, the anger, the judgements, the taunting, the abuse of power, and most of all, the overwhelming sense of loss, all seemed insurmountable. I was told that what I really needed to do was quietly give up.
I chose not to.
