Zen and the art of breathing.

Ok, so it's not exactly Zen, but my therapist ROCKS. (and so do you, PK for suggesting this!)

My first visit with him was because I had been feeling absolutely overwhelmed with life. My Father passed away on Aug 22, and then my Uncle David, and then my Grandmothers sister. I was feeling as if I were the very pawn of grief. Literally I would be watching something that made me laugh and I would feel tears rolling down my face.

He told me that grief lives in one part of your brain, and when you feel overwhelmed with grief a trick that can break that tearful cycle is to imagine that air in being inhaled on one side of your nose, and then to exhale out the other side. Then you inhale again, only inhaling thru the side you just exhaled from. You repeat the cycle until you find yourself calm.

Because I was also not sleeping, he told me to imagine a large blackboard, and write on it the number 100. And then breathe in and exhale. Then to mentally erase the number, inhale, exhale, and write 99 on the board. Repeat that cycle until sleeping.

A week after I started counseling I fell. You can read previous posts about the whole gracefulness of the fall. I have been struggling with the medications that I'm taking in a big way. I think that I am actually depressed. He said to wake up and say to myself, "I am a child of the light, a golden shield surrounds me, only good can come in and only good can come out." When I start to jump on myself for certain flaws that only I see, I stop and say that small prayer. It helps.

Now, for the opportunity to actually either have the meds work, or to have the meds no longer be needed!