A post submitted by CGI member Leathur.

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It’s just another day.

That’s what I’ll say about the ongoing fray: it’s just another day. Nothing shocking. Nothing new. Nothing newsworthy except the glue, the sticky headlines that grab the mind, and tell it what to do. Think this! No, think that! They battle back and forth, these pernicious headlines, whipping our attention this way and that.

Just breathe.

That’s the biggest lesson I learned while enduring a decade of chronic pain. While waiting for the VA to amputate my foot, every step of every day was marked by a deep, inescapable, nagging pain. Limping for a decade with a fused ankle had taken its toll on my body; my hips and back were all jacked up, my neck and shoulders were way out of whack, and for a period of time it seemed like there was little I could do to mitigate the misery, except medicate with heavy narcotics.

The VA gave me plenty of narcotics. Vicodin for regular pain. Morphine for breakthrough pain. Gabapentin for nerve pain. Methocarbomal for muscle pain. All of these drugs helped, some, but more than anything they just dulled the dreary days and muddled my mind. Mental acuity was impossible to muster. It was like I was going through life with a paper bag on my head—but then I learned to breathe.

It was amazing. I bought a small library of books on yoga and meditation, and in fairly short order, I was able to kick the narcotics and manage the pain holistically. I asked my doctor what would happen if I just stopped taking all of the medications—if I quit cold turkey would it kill me? He said it might feel like I was going to die, but ultimately I would live, though he highly recommended I come off the drugs gradually over the course of months. But that’s not really my style.

I was desperate to reclaim my life. Now I had a whole new tool box to help rebuild my body and my mind. Through thousands and thousands of hours of yoga and meditation, I learned just how intricate and inextricably linked the body-mind connection is. I learned how to access, activate, and explore this connection, and that allowed me to manage pain using little more than the almost magical power of the ancient breathing techniques I was learning to master.

Fast forward, and I ended up not having to amputate my foot. The doctors were stunned by the remarkable progress I was making. I’d lost 75 pounds. I’d regained range of motion that had been hindered for over a decade. I’d gained balance and strength in ways that I’d never imagined having, even in the days of my athletic youth and military service. Not only has learning how to properly breathe led me down this journey of healing and recovery, it was literally transforming me from the inside out.

One day the doctors asked if I would be willing to come in and share with others what I was doing. I was all over it. I created a presentation called Finding Focus—because where the focus goes, the energy flows, and this is key to pain management. Pain management, at its root, is mental management. Addressing the mental-emotional connection that is hyper agitated by chronic pain is the most direct way to lower pain levels, a fact that is born out by both science and personal experience.

Continue reading: https://www.thetorchreport.com/p/tr-356-breathing-through-the-bs#details