This is a quote from Fritz Perls. The father of Gestalt therapy.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. In the process, I stumbled across this quote which I love. And I’ve been experimenting with it – what happens when you breathe deeply when you’re feeling anxious or nervous?
I had a bit of a scare this week, I thought I’d been hacked. Instead of jumping into all the concern about how long it would take to resolve, I took several slow, deep breaths and as I started to investigate, and found out that I had not in fact been hacked (whew!).
I saved myself a lot of energy and stress by doing so.
Did you know that the very same mechanisms that produce excitement also produce fear, and any fear can be transformed into excitement by breathing fully with it?
On the other hand, excitement turns into fear quickly if you hold your breath.
Interesting that both excitement and fear have the same roots isn’t it? Yet think about waiting to get on that insane roller coaster (if you love them like I do), there is an excitement of anticipation, along with the fear of Oh Shit! look at the corkscrew turns and how high this goes! Wahoo!!!
Then the fear sets in when you’re hurling down the 210 foot drop on metal rails. Remember the feeling?
In that moment, you don’t have time to try and mask your fear or pretend it’s not there…it’s there baby…right in YOUR face.
In day-to-day life, it’s important to acknowledge and feel your fear vs. what most people do, pretend it’s not there.
By taking slow, deep breaths you’ll find you can free your brain and work through the feeling of fear and release it.
There is no reason to stay stuck in fear. Just breath!
