Simple, yet powerful. It’s a bodily function that we don’t have to think about doing. It is the function that is often overlooked during segments of our life’s that we go through. Think of a scenario that crushed you to your core. How was your breathing in the middle of it? Do you know if you were even breathing at all?
How you breathe, matters. Whether it be normal day to day or during difficult situations. Breathing helps us to think rationally, ground is when anxiety sneaks in and helps us identify real emotions. Knowing your breathing patterns can benefit your mental and emotional health; it is medicine for your soul, mind and heart.
To ground yourself during an anxiety attack means to check your senses. You can do this by simply walking away from the cause of the attack and using your 5 senses.
1 thing you can smell/taste.
2 things you can feel/touch.
3 things you can hear.
4 things you can see.
Checking your senses helps regulate breathing and helps us make rational decisions. Do these steps as many times as you need till you can revisit the issue or until you can come up with a solution; and a part time solution is better than none.
Just a single thought is capable of changing the breathing pattern.
-Isle Middendorf
AGlimpse:
Before I started my recovery journey, which I have stated about in previous blogs, trauma-based situations crippled me. I usually felt a lot like Hammy in Over the Hedge, when he drank that energy drink. Beep bopping to hypersensitivity and not seeing the end result to a lot of band aid decisions. I was a mess and I caused a lot of my own turmoil because I didn’t breathe. In turn to holding it in, I made irrational decisions I later had to revisit to make a new decision, that I was breathing better in making. Through recovery, I learned breathing techniques that I still use when I’m faced with a hard or troubled situation. It has changed the way I parent my kids, how I deal with coworkers and anyone else I may encounter. It is a process and you can trust that process. The work is WORTH IT.
Take a deep breath, get present in the moment and ask yourself what is important this very second.
Pain, before healing begins, causes a ton of grief. It is a strong, inevitable emotion and if left unidentified, thought and felt, it will control how we act, react, and think. Pain clouds our thoughts and decisions and is also triggered by something we previously haven’t dealt with. Pain can also be heavily masked by trauma, anger, manipulation or people pleasing.
You can’t go through life allowing pain to dictate how you behave. – Adam Braverman
There are two types of pain we each deal with; physical pain and emotional pain. Physical pain heals; is wounds to our flesh. Emotional pain are wounds to our heart and mind and needs the most attention. Emotional pain needs to be felt and thought, faced no matter the size it has become. Responding or reacting to the pain is a choice we make, and yes, there is a difference. Before healing, we unconsciously react to pain, in hopes to stop it from hurting us. This looks different for everyone, as we are each our own person, and have our own ways and habits. These ways and habits can be changed if they are toxic for us, the situations, our healing and the work we need to do. We can change, we can form new ways of thinking and we can set boundaries that help us identify what we will allow to hurt us, emotionally.
Sounds a bit like jargon; doesn’t it?
***Please note: this isn’t a self help blog. I am only sharing what I have learned through my own research, my steps towards healing and doing my own therapy from using self help books.***
Responding VS Reacting
Responding to pain gives our emotions time and space to breathe. It allows us to keep control of ourselves without hurting others.
Reacting to pain is impulsive and not thought out. We give the control of ourselves away to whatever or whomever is causing the pain.
Pain happens every day whether we want it to or not. Someone we love dies, is diagnosed with cancer, job loss, divorce, abuse or even unresolved childhood trauma can bleed onto our adult lives. From small to big, we have to be desensitized by what we feel and how we will allow our emotions to affect us. Wherever we are on our journey to dealing with emotional pain, acknowledge it, feel it, and think it; then move on.
Real power comes when we stop holding others responsible for our pain, and we take responsibility for all our feelings. -Melody Beattie
A Glimpse
Emotional pain in my life had been residual. I was a chaotic mess, creating chaotic disasters. It wasn’t till I was in my late 20s that I realized that I was part of the messes I helped create. It was then that I realized that I needed to do some inward identification for the pain I caused to other people; the people I proclaimed to love. The identification process was the messiest, hardest, vulnerable process I had ever went through, but it was worth it to sit here and write to you today and tell you that there is a way out from the pain. There is hope, be open to the process. My pain stemmed from my unresolved childhood trauma that I didn’t realize had an impact on me as an adult. I found self help books to help me identify the pain, unlock the chains they had on me, place them in my life and move on. It wasn’t easy, but transforming my thoughts and my responses, gave me power over my emotions. I was able to think and feel, and really identify how people talk to me and understand their own pain wasn’t based on me, but their inability to Identify the pain in their life. That’s what gave me freedom, and that’s what gives me freedom today.
Detachment; sounds like another jargon word, doesn’t it?? Think about this word for a few minutes and jot down what you think about it.
Detachment is a very hard concept to grasp when we think about what needs to be done in order to fully detach from the object or person of our obsession. Yes, I said obsession. Think about it, it’s the whole reason we are so crazy about something or someone. We literally can not breathe without the need for control over the obsessions’ influence in our lives. This obsession can literally hinder the very nature of who we are and change us into someone we don’t even recognize in the mirror. It makes us be someone we promised ourselves we would never ever be. But how will we know if we have an obsession to detach from? Well, let’s do some work 1st before we move on to how to know the and the steps we can take.
Detachment doesn’t mean not caring it’s taking care of yourself first and letting others take responsibility for their actions without trying to save or punish them. -Unknown
Work:
Grab a journal or notebook and jot a few ideas down, this will help later in other blogs as you reflect or even come back to when time has passed and you want to look back at the changes life brings, because let’s face it, time changes things.
Think of someone or something you literally think you can not live without. What does your life look like with said someone or something?? Jot these ideas down. What would your life look like WITHOUT these things? Jot those ideas down as well.
Listed below are the typical “symptoms” of detachment. Everyone is different so each “symptom” will be different and vary in how much it affects each person.
Fear
Ridgid thinking/Worrying
Anxiety
Depression
Loss of control
Hopelessness
But arent these things we deal with anyway because of the control we think we have on our obsession?
Detachment is hard because we let go of our control, let things happen and allow our obsession to have a life of its own. It feels a lot like giving up, but it’s actually healthy in so many ways. It is more emotional and mental work than it is physical, so I will relate the best advice I can.
****Remember, this isn’t a self-help blog, these are shared personal experiences that I went through. Each person has their own ways, and my ways may not be what helps you. I encourage you to take some time to think and feel your obsession and find your way to healthily detach.****
Steps to Emotional Detachment:
Acknowledge the attachment
Think and feel the emotions as they come when learning to detach
Take your time
Restart or Recycle when needed
Detachment is a healthy tool to learn when we are wanting to let go of an attachment we have. There is no timeline to tell how long it will take to detach, but taking your time and setting boundaries will help ground you on your journey. It’s okay to breathe, to take some time away to paise, and to not be the best you sometimes, just don’t get stuck there. We do not have to have all the answers tomorrow, but we can know that it’s okay to not be okay on the hard days. Think and feel those emotions and then move on, keep going. This is also where you learn that mistakes aren’t life sentences and that you are human. It’s okay to mess up, it’s okay to make the wrong call, life doesn’t come with a handbook, so give yourself some grace!
True detachment isn’t the separation from life but the absolute freedom within your mind to explore living. -Ron Rathbun
When I started to detach, I was a chaotic disaster. I didn’t know where to start, but I knew I had to change. Some days I felt like a fish out of water or a flailing lunatic on other days. The emotional pain that I was feeling, was deafening to me. How in the world did I end up here? When does the roller coaster end?
i started the long journey walking laps around my home during the “COVID year.” What a perfect timing to set things straight. Some days it was 3 miles, other days it was 18 miles. I placed my emotions in specific areas of my life, from childhood to adulthood, and came to terms with things I couldn’t change, and there were A LOT of terms. Terms included were an unloved child, a people pleaser, trauma in many forms, narcissist abuse both mental and emotional, and 2 failed marriages. Yes, I tried controlling all these areas and had very unhealthy attachments to every one, because a need wasn’t met and I needed healing. Each area competed for 1st place in my mind because I hadn’t placed any of them to rest, which caused me to be the chaotic disaster I had become the entirety of my adult life; until I found a healthy way out. I would work on whichever one weighed the heaviest, and for about 6 months I would walk, think, and feel. When I felt better, I put away my book, WRONG MISTAKE. Healing is a way of and needs to be used often so that we aren’t caught up in the snares and thinking a red flag is something we can change in someone, or worse, get attached and thinking we can change them.
2 years into codependent recovery and I can tell you, detaching it gets better, it’s freeing, and it’s absolutely beautiful to love life and let it happen versus trying to control it and let it consume you! There is so much more to life than the mundane. Progress is progress no matter how miniscule it may seem. Take notes, record your feelings and emotions, write down goals and relish in the small victories because better days are coming! There is power in knowing you can heal! Know your limits and know your worth.
****I have added a photo of the 4 basic attachment styles to help identify yours and how it stems from our childhood into our adulthood***
Welcome to Healing-Advice. I’m excited to share with you what I have learned through my life and the emotional damage pain does. There is breakthrough, there is Hope! I’m also going to be sharing what freedom feels like when you start caring for yourself and stop controlling the areas of your life that are uncontrollable. Let’s take the journey!
Healing-Advice 