The Low Road

Do you occasionally find yourself going down the sorry and sorrowful ‘low-road’ in life? This is when you become so angry or scared in the face of challenge, disagreement or other difficulties that you can’t work out a solution. Of course you can’t work out a solution at the time! You’ve become either too shut down or too reactive to do so. It can be such a quick and slippery slope. You may find yourself on it before you even realize it!

How to get off the track and have more resources at hand to bring to bear to the problem? The answer is remarkably simple!! Breathe. Through Mindful Breathing, you can regain your ability to soothe yourself. To soothe your limbic system which may be on high alert. You aren’t able to think your best if your brain is not on your team, right? You lose your ability to know what you are feeling beneath the anger or the fear (anxiety) because biologically, you are ready to fight or flee to safety. Mindful Breathing helps you to remember that the ‘other’ is not the ‘enemy’ but someone who you might actually love. Or at least someone you like enough to work out the issue with.  When we practice Mindful Breathing, we can gain the ability to see the activity of our mind with a sense of detachment. This observing perspective is thought to enable us to grow integrative fibers in our middle prefrontal cortex. This is good because then we have an increased ability to regulate ourselves. Here is the list of the scientifically proven outcomes of mindfulness practice. I believe it is a list of what defines ‘health’:

Bodily Regulation, Attuned Communication, Emotional Regulation, Response Flexibility, Fear Modulation, Insight, Empathy and Morality!

Wow. So how about you take one minute. ONE MINUTE! to follow your breath….on the in and the out…and pay attention to the places in between….just bring yourself back to your breath when your mind provides sensations, images, thoughts, feelings, to distract you. The mind is very, very busy!! That is what it does. Just bring yourself back without judgment. With gentle loving kindness towards yourself for doing this.

Give it a go now. Let me know what it’s like for you.