Breathing Into The Right Fit
MUSING
As a pre-teen, I longed for store bought clothes. You know, the kind that looked cool and ‘everyone’ else was wearing. My dear mother was an excellent seamstress and sewed most of my clothes. It did not occur to me that this was unusual until 4th or 5th grade. Peer pressure set in, girls started wearing pants to school (imagine!) and I was left with tailored dresses, blouses and skirts artfully created by mom. This was yet one more point of dissension between a mother and her strong-willed daughter.
You see, my mom worked hard, very hard, both inside and outside the house. Maintaining a large garden, a lawn of a couple acres, preparing and serving two or more home cooked meals daily for the crews that might number eight or more during busy farming cycles, plus keeping an immaculate house were part of her daily routine. She handled it with seeming ease, and she meticulously sewed clothing for our family.
As I grew older, developing a strong predilection for colors and styles that conflicted with mom’s, tension between us increased. I was viewed an ungrateful, and she as out of touch and inflexible. With that as a divide, the gap widened until one day, as our family was getting ready to depart for ‘Sunday visiting’ I flat out refused to wear an orange and brown dress with an intricate insert that mom had spent late nights designing. My dad got involved and it went downhill from there.
To this day I can vividly recall the details of that dress. And for years felt pangs of regret for my lack of appreciation of mom’s talents. Now I see this from a different vantage; it was a necessary, albeit painful, beginning of standing more fully in the person I was becoming. And with that came the importance of having clothes that fit my ME – the unique person that was emerging and was also influenced by the culture and people around me. It resulted in a sort of truce between mother and daughter where subsequent fabric and pattern selections were explored together, with limited accommodation for purchased clothing.
This is one of those early memories that continued to come into my thoughts, like loose threads that needed tying or cutting. As I delved deeper into the significance of this memory, exploring it with breath work, the layers of meaning were gradually revealed. Yes, it was one of many turning points between my mom and I; it also showed me the power of using my voice to messily express my desire, and then standing firm despite consequences. There was also a letting go of the need for parental approval to stand in who I was becoming, and the choice of no longer being a display piece for mom’s talents. This investigation invited me to see beneath the surface memories of appearing unappreciative, to the richer aspects of the experience and to reframe what had been a painful memory into one with depth, meaning and understanding.
Breath work is a powerful modality, used alone or combined with other practices. Intrigued? Allow me to support you as you explore your memories and interior spaces.
MODALITY
Children receive signals about what is appropriate behavior based on what they see and feel. The unwritten and unspoken rules of family life become ingrained and unexamined. As adults, behaviors that have been engrained since childhood continue, usually unexamined. Without even knowing it, we create mistaken beliefs about how we are to show up in the world, what our role is, and what our role is not. These assumptions are so deeply embedded that the idea of questioning the fit of this behavior for our fabric of personality, does not come into our thinking center. We may feel something is off, especially when trying to fit into these ill-fitting societal constraints, and are unable to articulate the origins of this feeling. So, we continue to live life, unconsciously chafing at the metaphorical too tight collar of a shirt that restricts our voice or the invisible belt that redirects our willingness to act into submission.
We all have some type of ill-fitting belief system, tailored for us as a child, that has been worn for so long we no longer recognize the limitations that are now self-imposed.
One of the healing practices that helps reveal this is Integral Breath Therapy. Breath is a powerful mechanism; it is our source of life. In the yogic tradition breath is called prana. Prana represents our life force and is what fuels us and connects us to the Divine. We often take breathing for granted, and many people never give it a second thought. As adults, we typically use well under 50% of lung capacity to take in fresh and release the old.
Through the use of guided breathing practices, we can access an altered state that releases the limits placed on accessing our intuitive knowing, by our rational, often analytical thought patterns. The unwritten rules of our childhood that we unwittingly live by can be recognized, and then the choice made consciously if this ‘rule’ continues to support us.
This is but one way that Integral Breath Therapy helps reveal belief systems that may be holding us back, and not allowing us to experience our fullest expression of our true nature.
If you’d like to learn more, click here for a free consultation to see about releasing ill-fitting clothes.