And breathe....

How my body forgot how to breathe - and braced against the world

In these monthly reflective blogs I take a look at life through a Jungian lens. Carl Jung studied many cultures through their stories and myths to see if any archetypes (characters) transcended through them; he found that across them all we share very similar archetypes, their traits and their journeys. We have a collective ancient wisdom that has guided us for generations - this is our shared inheritance. I explore how we can use these to help us navigate our contemporary world.

Breath is our first, our last and our most fundamental exchange with the world. Every moment the hushed trade of oxygen for carbon dioxide is undertaken. The exchange in our lungs is mirrored in the exchange with trees and quietly, constantly, between us; breath sustains life.?

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I have had moments in the military where death felt close. Rocket fire in Iraq stands out. But much more mundane than that was the training cycle before I deployed to Afghanistan, when I developed pneumonia. Quite simply, I couldn’t breathe. And every cell of my body communicated to me that we were dying. No breath is death. Modern medicine outmatched my pneumonia and I recovered. But although the fluid left my lungs, the memory lingered on. Breath is everything.?

And of course I forgot that again. Until recently, when a back injury from the military sent me once more into the world of specialists, pilates instructors and physios. Each one of them observed that I hold my breath and brace against the world. For my back to move freely, my breath needs to move freely.?

Our bodies know this. Our ancestors knew this. The Jewish name for God is ‘Yahweh’ which is the sound of the inhale and exhale. Countless creation myths have us moulded from earth, from clay, only alive once inspired by divine breath.??

But our minds can forget. Our bodies will breathe without us, holding the sacred switch while we are lost in screens, in thought. Disembodied and disconnected. But our bodies will also breathe with us. Breath is a marvellous in-between thing, both controlled by our autonomic nervous systems, but also able to be controlled by us consciously. You can choose to pay attention, to anchor into more than just your mind.?

Our relationship with our body can mimic the choice we have about our relationship with the breath. We can choose to leave it to our autonomous nervous system, think of it as a machine that needs a little attention here and there. Or we can choose to engage with it, to access its knowledge and wisdom and to acknowledge that we aren’t a brain in a vat, we cannot upload our consciousness to a server that can replicate our brain. The breath is a powerful reminder that life is relational and reciprocal. It could be a blueprint for how we bring our body mind and spirit together, in balance, in exchange, each taking what it needs from the commons and returning what it can to support the others.

In a coaching conversation, we explore why you are stuck - avoiding discomfort is often a key element. I had to have many tough conversations, in warzones as well as in business steering groups. Under pressure, our bodies can respond similarly - I even used to hold my breath when I was running. Recognising our somatic responses can aid our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to return us to a regulated state. My coaching approach is integrative, we consider your whole system response.

Hello! I’m Katie, the author of the blogs and an executive and leadership coach. I specialise in psychodynamic coaching using a Jungian approach, as well as person-centred coaching. You can find out more at https://yellowrattle-coaching.com/

Thanks for reading Yellowrattle’s Monthly Blog! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.