A few weeks ago, I once again became convinced that only breathing connects me with the whole world.
Then, for the first time in a year, I tasted holotropic breathing again.
Although I have been friends with him for over 10 years.
But a year ago, I had panic attacks, and I stopped all practices related to altered states of consciousness. Nevertheless, at the end of November, I again lay down and breathed intensively in the hall of my familiar host of holotronic breathing. Here I decided to share the experience of holotropic, having a history of panic attacks.
My main fear of a panic attack is that I will disappear. As if the world exists, but I am not in it. And it does not help to focus either on the body or on the surrounding objects. I am no longer part of the world. I’m torn. And then the thought usually pops up that the whole world seems to me at all. It finally kills me. Maybe it doesn’t sound so scary, but it feels worse than anywhere else.
When I first started having panic attacks, I tried to save myself in different ways, including alcohol. It turned out that when I get drunk even a little, it becomes much worse, because the horror that fills me, firstly, sobers me up in a second, and, secondly, scares me with the thought that since I am drunk, then I am inadequate. And then I can’t control anything. I realized from the first time that happy drunkenness definitely does not shine for me. When I felt that I was losing my vigilance, all possible nightmares came upon me: that the world is just an illusion, that I could somehow kill myself, unknowingly do something terrible to other people, etc.
Knowing all these jokes, I was afraid of what might happen when the tetany started. Tetany is an involuntary painful contraction of muscles, popularly people describe it as “twisting arms and legs.” Sometimes it is long and unpleasant, sometimes it is not long and they do not particularly concentrate on it. But these sensations show that the holotropic process has begun, and it is not completely under the control of the body.
When I took the risk to restore the holotrope a few weeks ago, I lay down and mentally prepared myself for the fuck. And then I stood up eight more times and checked to see if I would step on another participant if I jumped up with the thought “may I throw myself out the window”, and finally started to breathe. But then she suddenly discovered an amazing thing. My body relaxed. And with it – and consciousness. And with every breath, the black horror of me came out and became clear. I became a part of what was happening, I became a part of the world. Many agree, and this coincides with my observations, that the most valuable feeling in the psychedelic experience is experiencing oneself as part of something whole. A very important part.
And this time I felt again that without me the world is a picture without a puzzle in the very middle. Without me, this picture is ruined. It is not whole, not finished. Without me, it’s just a blank. But this is an explanation from the mind, and the experience is something like “I am necessary” in the most beautiful sense of the word. And that I, as I am right now, is the perfect “is” in the world. And the breath during the “holotrope” showed me this again. In general, breathing is sometimes the only thing that remains in a person – as long as he can inhale, everything is not over yet.
It turned out that breathing simply reconnected me to the world. And with my essence. And it was not scary. The body simply fell into its element, into its rhythm, as if into the appropriate place of existence.
Since then, there has been no hint of panic attacks. There was something else. I understood the reason for the onset of panic attacks. and it turned out to be not at all what I had sinned against before. I wrote about the reasons and meanings here (https://www.daratherapy.top/en/panic-attacks-psychotic-episode-anxiety-disorder/), and I will tell about my personal story someday, if the stars align.
I was once again convinced that breath can do everything. So when I want things to change, and then fear that things will change, I breathe. And everything changes.
