Just Breathe....

Just Breathe.......
Of all the chemical elements, oxygen is the most vital to the human body. We would survive for only minutes without oxygen. Oxygen is the life-giving, life-sustaining element. Approximately 90% of the body's energy is created by oxygen. Nearly all of the body's activities, from brain function to elimination, are regulated by oxygen. The ability to think, feel and act is derived from the energy supplied by oxygen.

I went for a massage a few days ago. My first in a long time. It wasn't for pure pleasure. I was in intense pain. Desperate for some relief, I scheduled the massage. Arriving at a new place I was shown around and treated like a Queen...all the things a woman loves. I am a terrible claustrophobic and HATE that I have to lay my face in this hole. But here we go. From the moment Megan touched me, I knew relief would come. Magic hands is what the girl has. So gifted was she that I almost fell asleep, in the beginning. Just as I was about to fall into the land of abyss she touched the area of my shoulder that was in so much pain and it literally took my breath away, LITERALLY!  So great was the pain that I couldn't breathe. I finally drew in a deep breath , it was that or pass out, and held my breath again. This was not my plan, it was almost in defense. Thinking that holding my breath would somehow ease the pain.....

And so as I lay in bed that night I begin to reflect on the massage and I begin to think about why I held my breath when she touched the painful area of my back? I also reflected on some of the more painful areas of my life and realized that I do this in my everyday life.....maybe not physically, but I do. There is a song by Mercy Me that says so beautifully how I feel sometimes, sadly most of the time.  " Breathe! Sometimes I feel it’s all that I can do. Pain so deep that I can hardly move. Just keep my eyes completely fixed on you.
Lord take hold and pull me through......so here i am, or whats left of me. Where glory meets my suffering. I'm alive. Even though a part of me has died. Please take my heart and bring it back to life. I'll fall into your arms open wide.....when the hurt and the healer collide. " I have no research to back me up here but I truly think, for many anyway, that it's just a natural instinct to hold your breath when something painful happens. When pain is inflicted I want to crawl in a hole and bury myself worlds away from the  world and the pain. Mental pain and anguish can literally make it impossible to breathe, move, let alone carry on with normal life. When one becomes consumed with emotional pain the will to go on, to breathe sometimes leaves. Where putting one foot in front of the other is next to impossible. When you go through your days in a daze...seeing but not existing. Not moving with life. I've been there, in great despair, not wanting to face another moment. Hoping for an end, "holding my breath" hoping the pain would go away.

My therapist, who has become the knot at the end of my rope has stopped me mid sentence on several occasions to say Karen, stop and take a deep breath. You're not breathing.....why? PAIN! One of my earliest childhood memories is of something so painful it can still move me to tears to this very day. There was a time in my life that I thought my pain was greater then anything anyone had ever experienced, when in fact the harsh reality is that I'm always able to look around and see others who have suffered as much or more then I. Is this a comforting fact? Not at all....but in truth I'm not the Lone Ranger of suffering. Over the years of my life I've experienced different levels of pain and thankfully the will to live has always been more powerful then the pain.

As I struggle through the current pains of life and how can I possible make it through I go back to the massage table. You see in the beginning of the massage when the pain was so great it took my breath away I asked myself, how will I make it through one hour of this? The answer? Just breathe....and that's exactly what I did. As Megan touched the tender area of my shoulder I took deep cleansing breathes until it passed, almost like labor! Hmmmm LABOR. That means perhaps that it takes effort on our part to push through the pain and eventually get past it. That's the will to live screaming out....I need air, BREATHE!! So what's my point in all this mumbo jumbo? Only the strong survive. Anybody can quite but a fighter never quits, even getting back up after being beat to the ground. I'm not a quitter....I never have been. From the moment I drew my first breath to this very day I've always been a fighter. So at moments when I feel I can't go on, I stop whatever I'm doing and I "Just Breathe"




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