"Just breathe."

Two little words. One simple instruction. "Just breathe."

How hard could that possibly be? We breathe every single day, without even thinking. Our body keeps us alive whilst we're busy creating and living a life.

Why would "just breathe" be a treatment option for a medical condition?

I pondered this for years. Medical practitioners kept telling me to breathe, as if this was the underlying issue to my complex medical history and that it would fix everything.

Breathing was the solution to stopping my chronic, relentless, acute pain.

Breathing was the solution to fixing my chronic, relentless and acute fatigue.

Breathing was the solution to fixing my haemorrhaging.

Breathing was the solution to fixing my hyperactive pelvic floor.

Just breathe.

I even had a few medical practitioners become frustrated or laugh when I couldn't breathe.

The instructions were always the same: just breathe in through your nose, expand your ribs with your breath, hold the breath for 3 seconds then exhale. Simple, right?

Not so simple for me and I felt so stupid - who doesn't know how to breathe properly? Why couldn't I control where my breath went? Did I miss a fundamental skill as a child?

To be clear, breathing will not cure any of my chronic illnesses; shocking, right? I bet you didn't see that one coming!

I've been a bit of a yogi for about 6 years and breathwork was always something I was working on. I thought I had a pretty good handle on breathing, but turns out my body doesn't breathe properly. I have had so many surgeries and so much damage to my body with monthly procedures done without pain prevention, many procedures done under anesthetic but not a surgery, so much damage done to my body from the plethora of medications I was on. "Just breathing" is not going to fix any of these problems, yet it became the only treatment offered to me after a long 8 years of searching for help.

I finally met someone who explained to me about why breathwork was something I should focus on daily; she explained that my body is in constant "fight or flight mode;" for those who know me well, you know there's not one part of me that would take flight - every day my body was at war with itself, so I started having shallow breath from a fear-based pain response. My body was so accustomed to painful inputs that normal daily tasks became painful as my body just started to assume the worst. I couldn't even be comforted by my husband or doggos, no cuddles that I so desperately wanted, because my body immediately assumed it was probably going to hurt so she got ahead of it.

This practitioner explained why, but still didn't explain how to breathe properly.

I finally found someone who could teach me how to breathe; even better, she did physio on my ribs to start working my muscles so that my lungs had room to move when I inhaled. I learned how to move my breath down to different areas. For the longest time I couldn't breathe directly into my lungs, but this medical practitioner told me that's fine, breathe deep and low because the breath would start to push my pelvic floor back down (since the "elevator" is stuck on the roof and does not ever visit the ground floor.) Breathing down to my core then helped me direct the breath into my ribs.

I still have to work on my breath daily; it truly does not come naturally to me.

Every day my body is still in fight mode, so breathing feels like a round in the ring.

Breathing has helped in some ways.

Breathing helps me to not have a panic attack when a pain flare comes.

Breathing helps me to calm my body down, so on one of my better days my body actually gets a tiny respite from our daily situation.

Breathing makes my feel better mentally; oxygen in the brain really helps.

I cannot express enough how much breathing does not do.

No matter how much work I put into my health now, the damage is irreversible and we have no idea how much worse I'll get, or where there's room for improvement. I will never not be in pain. I'll never have my full mobility back. My body will never be "good for its age."

"Just breathing" will not change much for me.

Breathing simply helps shape my day.

Breathing is something we all take for granted. One of my favourite Les Mills BodyBalance releases (#84) has one of my favourite phrases that grounds me: "be grateful for the gift that is our breath."

I am in pain.

I am so very fatigued to my core.

My resolve has been tested almost beyond my ability to handle it.

Yet, I'm still breathing.

Whilst there is still breath in my body, I will keep working on myself.

"Just breathe."