It's been less than a month since I've been back on the Desteni Farm. I spent a little under three months here before I went back to Canada for the holidays. I have been fortunate to be able to come here, although a lot of that fortune had to do with myself planning my life accordingly to be able to come here.
When I got here originally, I had highly intense internal experiences which I had become used to over time, where it is only in retrospect that I can see the extent of what I had been carrying around for so many years. With the support of those around me, I was able to work through the intensity, and slowly but surely reduce it.
After that, I began working on other points that had also always been there, but more in the background. And through my self-investigation (as well as constantly seeking support, either directly or indirectly asking and learning from others here), I began to understand and work with those as well. Everything now being a work in progress, a balancing or juggling act of different issues, patterns, habits, personalities and of course, my fundamental human nature that I am working on re-aligning according to the principles I wish to live, sorting out the disease and uncomfortability within me, I reached a point that I hadn't even realized I was struggling with. I realize that for so many years now, I haven't been able to properly breathe.
I am finally looking at my physical body in depth. My posture, how I hold my arms, how I walk, when am I holding tension, am I relaxing ever part of me, my back, my jaw, and even my eyes? And within playing with this relaxed stance and letting go of tension, I realized that I have not been giving myself enough air.
I will almost feel out of breath in moments, and take a deep inhale, not realizing that I had been taking short, shallow breaths for a long while. It had gotten to the point where when I was back at my job, I would stand up from my desk and feel light-headed, and lose my vision for a moment and have to compose myself for a few seconds as I caught my breath. But when I would try to breathe, everything would feel so tight, like there was no space in my body for my lungs to fill with air. It would feel forced and like I couldn't get enough in.
Now, for the first time in a long time, I can take nice, deep, long inhales, filling my lungs completely. All I have to do now is get in to the habit of it and keep remembering, not only to catch my breath, but to breathe more deeply all the time. Breath awareness. - I had forgotten how to breathe.