Flow, Breath, and Triadic Offerings
A few months ago my breathworker invoked the notion of the proposed three fundamental aspects of life (according to Hindu tradition, I think) of Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction. Upon hearing it, I immediately felt a sense of my historical relationship to each.
Creation, I knew immediately, had often been hindered in me by the harshness of perfectionism. While having felt oriented to creating sometimes, I knew the scathing internal demand of never messing up or making a mistake or doing something not the “right” way had held me back sometimes from even starting, much less finishing, something creatively. This aspect of the three struck me as the “medium” historical orientation in me.
I have been terrible—terrible—at destruction. That itself was not new to my recognizance, but this triadic context was, so it was an interesting new way to view it. Letting go, on multiple levels and in numerous ways, has tended to feel somewhere from foreign to panic-inducing to me. The idea of consciously allowing something to be destroyed or to destroy it as a part of natural flow has often seemed so unimaginable to me it felt funny to even type that.
It was instantaneously obvious to me that the aspect to which I have felt most heavily oriented is maintenance. Once I have felt familiar with something, known how to do it, and thus something in me has felt satisfied that it may perform as close to perfectly as possible, or at least make relatively fewer mistakes, it has seemed to feel most comfortable.
A few weeks ago I had the incredible opportunity to attend a personal gathering with Adyashanti. I first heard of Adyashanti last summer when the facilitators of the ongoing Inner Work group of which am a part recommended his book The End of Your World. I read The End of Your World last September, at which time it took its place as the second most important book I feel I have experienced in my adult lifetime.
At the event, prior to Adya’s appearance, I was sitting and waiting in silence, as we had been requested to hold upon entering the meeting room. I didn’t feel consciously nervous about anything, but I noticed a tense feeling in my chest. I wondered what I felt tense about.
I kept breathing consciously, focusing only vaguely on the question, and suddenly an awareness flashed through me. It was immediate, lasting only a second, and it was not a suspicion, or a thought, or a figuring something out. It was a seeing—an instantaneous, embodied realization.
My lungs automatically tense upon exhale.
Automatically. Not when I feel a certain way. Not when I feel nervous. Not when I’m experiencing anxiety, or focused on something particular. Simply upon exhale. My lungs tense automatically in the very face of exhale.
And there it is. The most fundamental of letting go.
This feels like a very intimate realization about my body. While in a way it does not surprise me at all, seeing on what a core level this pattern has been ingrained and manifested in me was(/is) stunning. Somehow my lungs/body learned that the fundamental act of exhale, of release, was scary and threatening and that I needed to “protect” myself from it and tense against it. So much so that this physical pattern developed that has likely been in action for decades.
The metaphorical reflections and extrapolations I see of this in my life are innumerable, so much so that it almost seems it would be easier to look at times when this has not been evident. Recently my acupuncturist and I were talking about the element in traditional Five-Element Acupuncture that seems most prominent in me (the main corresponding organ of which happens to be the lungs), and she described this element’s tendency to “hoard,” to hold on to things—which in turn makes it difficult for new things to come in. There simply isn’t room. To recall the triadic aspect of “destruction,” this, as I understand it, would be its basic purpose: to clear out/destroy what no longer serves. To never destroy or release anything interrupts the flow of life and the Universe. Destruction allows room for creation, offering the opportunity for maintenance…and so on.
Ultimately, I feel enormous, deep gratitude for the exquisite opportunity to have seen something so profound and intimate about myself/my body. So much so that really it feels indescribable.
I am scheduled to appear at F-Stop: Expose the Naked I (the blog founded by Neve Black, Shanna Germain, and Donna George Storey) this coming Sunday. I know what I plan to write about (or at least what has come forth so far), and I have attributed the nervousness I have been feeling about it to the feeling of wanting to impart what I’m saying exactly right…to do it justice, perhaps? I have felt some resistance to working on it for the reasons described around “creation” above. And, of course, when it comes time to finish it, which does seem to me a form of letting go, I may see challenge in that as well. I suspect the unconscious in me has most often felt most comfortable at the “maintenance” stage of writing, this middle/”working on it” phase allowing some relaxation of the vicious standard of perfection—if there is no finished product, there is nothing that has to be “perfect.”
The “maintenance” stage is where my piece for F-Stop is right now. This (somewhat rambling, I suppose) exposition may be serving as a precursor to the openness and clarity writing it feels like it is going to take from me.
“Take a deep breath” has been a mantra of mine for some time. No matter what I am doing, it is where I begin and to where I return.
And so, breathing consciously, I go.
Love,
Emerald
“There’s no one else to make the moves that you can do…your every breath becomes another world…take a breath, take a deep breath now…”
-David Gilmour “Take a Breath”
9 Responses “Flow, Breath, and Triadic Offerings”
hey emerald,
you know i love those diarylike posts of yours about your spiritual growing and expieriences the most and i m always in awe about your insights and also very lucky that you alwaysinspire me with it…especially this year where i am myself on some spiritual search….
so..thank you for sharing:-)
Very interesting observations, Em.
The act of writing, like an exhale, is an act of letting go.
Exhaling is elemental; you cannot live with out it.
To breathe in is to gather, as you do the experiences of your life. The oxygen mixes and transforms. Carbon Dioxide, in too high a concentration, is lethal, but the byproduct of the life sustaining process of the full act of breathing. So while you tense when you do it, you must do it.
Keep breathing. Keep writing.
I look forward to you entry at “Naked I.”
Em. As always this was a thought-provoking post.
And I understand about this being a precursor. i wrote two whole posts before I wrote the one that ultimately ended up on F-Stop. I had to write those in order to write the one I did. I had in mind what I wanted to say from the time I told Neve, Donna, and Shanna that I wanted to do it. But in order to write what I did, I had to let go of that.
There’s a “rule” in poetry (and maybe other writing?) – get rid of your darlings – those lines that you just HAVE to have. Maybe save them for something else, but for the poem to say what it wants to say, you have to let go of what you’re wanting it to say. (And I’m sure the non-poet types are shaking there heads saying “yup, all poets are crazy”).
I look forward to reading what eventually comes forth, though I will be without a computer until evening. But I’ll be there.
Hugs. Enjoy the writing.
Danielle, thank you so, so much. I really appreciate that.
Thanks for coming by and for commenting! :)
Indeed, Craig, it makes so much sense now how sometimes I’ve had to actually “work” to exhale—it’s not just a matter of relaxing and the lungs emptying. I have actually had to push the air out of my lungs to perform a complete exhale.
It also seems interesting to me in the context of the suggestion to take a deep breath. Sometimes people have said to me, “I did—it doesn’t work” (whatever that means). I wonder now if sometimes the focus has been on the inhale in that context—the taking of a deep breath while forgetting about the conscious release of it as well.
Thanks for coming by! Xoxo
Hi Robin,
I actually know exactly what you’re talking about — that “rule” was mentioned when I was pursuing an MFA. (I seem to recall it being referred to as “killing your babies.”)
And yes, I had a brilliant poetry professor there who once said that the quickest way to ruin a poem was to set out to write it about something.
Thanks for your input. Big hugs.
I have noticed, far more often than not, when you are on the receiving end of a warm embrace you have often let loose a heavy breath (exhale).
Rick—huh. Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that sometimes as well. Interesting. I wonder why…maybe I’ve felt consciously relaxed and focused on it more in that situation. Something to ponder. Thanks for mentioning it! :)
Xoxo
Wow, I found myself paying close attention to my own breathing as I read this literally moving post. For me exhalation makes me feel lighter, but also sad, as if a weight is gone from my chest, but I’m both sorry and glad to feel it go away. This isn’t every breath, just conscious breath. Our first exhalation usually is a cry, isn’t it? So much to think about!
I’ve pondered Hemingway’s “kill your darlings” (or is it murder your loved ones, lol?) and some have suggested it means you MUST take out your favorite lines or whatever. BUT, I believe sometimes a favorite line does belong there and an experienced writer, or a writer in touch with her message in the editing phase, knows–or rather feels–whether a fine turn of phrase belongs or not. Usually this means the cleverness serves the story and does not call attention to itself unnecessarily. So I guess I want to say “kill the kill your darlings and follow your own truth.”
Thanks so much for this!