Meditations & Exercises

Box Breathing

Due to the overwhelming pain of their experience, targets of narcissistic abuse often lose awareness of their bodies. They tighten their muscles, and their breathing grows shallow. In doing so, they are able to push down and dissociate from their suffering.

However, this comes at a cost. If you are unaware of how you are feeling, you remain uninformed on how you should respond. Furthermore, you remain high-strung and stressed, which compromises your immune system, makes you prone to sickness, and wears down your resolve to fight.

The answer is to establish a constant practice of deep, calm breathing. Box Breathing allows you to regulate and reawaken your breath, relax your muscles, and power up your immune function. It reduces cortisol and stress, brings you to a state of calm awakedness, and anchors you within.

Box breathing will also bring your repressed emotions into focus, which at first will be challenging. However, by knowing what you are feeling, and being able to calmly observe those emotions, you are finally able to respond from an empowered, grounded and calm place.

The practice is simple:

• Inhale slowly over the span of 4 seconds.
• Hold your breath for 4 seconds.
• Exhale slowly over the span of 4 seconds.
• Hold your breath for 4 seconds.
• Repeat the cycle.

Do this daily, or twice daily, for as long as you need. Five minutes is a good place to start.

There are many box breathing apps available on your mobile app store which allow you to customise the intervals to your needs. Or you can start with the above video on Youtube.

Wim Hof Breathing

Wim Hof, known as ‘The Iceman’ for his ability to withstand icy temperatures, is a Dutch extreme athlete who preaches cold exposure and advanced breathing to attain higher states of consciousness and healing.

The basic idea behind his breathing method is to flood your body with oxygen with rapid in and out breathing, breathing out fully at the end, then holding your breath and allowing the remaining oxygen in your blood to circulate for as long as possible. This raises your vitality, red...