There is a challenging duality that you face when you decide to be vulnerable.

Whether it’s on your yoga mat, on the floor at home when you choose to meditate, when you’re opening up to someone, when you’re in a situation that requires you to strip it down and reveal your truth.

With vulnerability comes the opportunity to confront yourself. And with that, you must step into a space where you can maintain control over the breath so that you can observe and let go of the mental chatter.

Control to let go.

But it’s a different kind of control. 

It’s a moment when you get to find your inner strength and capabilities.

You go from the natural breath, the involuntary expansion and contraction, to intentional breath- controlled breath in and controlled breath out. 

This taps you into the present moment. The now. 

This allows you to listen before reacting and confront without running.

Our breath is the one true anchor that keeps us grounded in whatever moment we are in. 

You can watch how in an uncomfortable setting, your breath may become quiet and shallow and fast. As if your body is setting up in fight or flight, getting ready to jump and run. And how if in that moment you consciously decide to switch the rhythm, find a deeper breath and gain control, you can find comfort or at least a moment to process before you make your next decision. 

It’s hard to know when to give in.

And it’s hard to know when to step back.

It’s both control and release, strength and vulnerability.

Your breath gives you the opportunity to be present with sensation, experience, emotion, flow, and yourself. 

This is something I speak to my clients about.

When traveling through the birth labyrinth, a birthing person is normally pulled in multiple different directions. There is their inner voice guiding them through surges, their partner cheering them on, a baby communicating to their body, a doctor speaking about what’s going on, and all of these are pulling them away from the actuality of what’s taking place.

In that moment, the body is asking her to breathe in and breathe out to welcome the happenings of birth. The body is requiring extra oxygen for both her and the baby. The body is grasping for some sort of connection to the ground beneath her while the spirit travels into the birth realm to retrieve her baby.

That is the opportunity to control and let go.

Control the breath to let go of the control over the experience.

Vulnerability.

Rawness.

A complete surrender. 

---