Throughout our lives we receive experiences that affect our development, our personality, attitudes, goals and perceptions of ourselves and the world. Most situations, especially stressful and traumatic ones, are recorded in our body, often forming clamps that do not allow energy to flow freely. And since the body has already recorded a certain reaction to a certain external influence, it is easier for it to reproduce it. The body and psyche believe that “since I survived in that situation, it means it was a winning strategy” - and repeats the same reactions over and over again, developing a habit. But I think you are here precisely because you want to become more free. I'm right? The first and most accessible tool, simple and therefore very effective, I would call conscious breathing. Awareness is a more complex, but also essential step. These two processes - breathing and awareness - help each other. Firstly, when you feel that you are in a repeating situation and are giving out reactions that are already familiar to you, the very first thing you need to do in order to somehow turn on awareness is to start breathing consciously. Breathe differently, namely deeply and calmly. You can breathe deeply, you can breathe with your stomach, or both, completely filling them with air and even exhaling with sound. You will say, well, we already knew that, even our grandmothers advise breathing and counting to 10, but who has actually tried to do this responsibly? When we begin to breathe, we begin to observe ourselves and the situation from the outside, from the position of an observer (this is our inner adult). This helps answer the questions: “What is happening? Why am I doing this?” “Why am I behaving this way? Why do I need these feelings?” “What is hidden BEHIND this and why am I doing this?” “What is my benefit?” Secondly, at this moment it would also be good to lower your attention into the body and notice which muscles or areas are tense. Then we begin to breathe into them or with them. This can be done in different ways, do it the way that is most convenient for you. I either direct all my attention to the clamp and continue to breathe, or I imagine as if this area has a nose and how it breathes through it, feeling cold when inhaling and warm when exhaling (just like our normal nose). This helps to slowly remove the shackles of clamps and, accordingly, previous reactions and choose a more harmonious or advantageous behavior strategy for a given situation. And even if the first time you don’t have time to quickly select a strategy, feel it, then at least go a level deeper and see maybe the root of this situation or the “role-playing game” that has turned on. But it may also happen that the emotions that overwhelm us do not recede, then You can use one more tactic, which I will talk about in the next entry. There are super-strong emotions (I call them hysteria in myself), why they are “over” - usually because they are not adequate to the situation or the words that hooked and served as a catalyst . This may hint that we experienced trauma associated with this feeling, thought or condition at some time ago. Let me give you an example: “I often had quarrels with my partner when I felt uninteresting. He could innocently make fun of me, thus only showing his love, and I perceived this as an insult or humiliation. Only later did the realization dawn on me: I connected these feelings with a biographical event, when my mother left me, a baby, with my grandmother, and she went to Kyiv to take a test. One day, when she returned, I didn’t even recognize her and was scared of her - probably then I felt unnecessary (uninteresting), abandoned." And now this pain manifests itself in other situations, and some images, words, emotions of others are only a “bar code” by which the psyche remembers those feelings. Thus, when you at least realize the inadequacy and the possibility of a post-traumatic reaction, this allows you to accept yourself, your behavior and emotions more, and choose them, or at least choose - to lash out at your partner or tell him.