Dear Mukunda,
I am seeking you advice on a client i saw recently as a one to one, he has a long history of anxiety and hyperventilation. He has learnt to control it over the years in his waking hours with sustained gentle practice of what he calls diaghramatic breathing with restriction in the throat, when i observed he was doing 3 part breath with ujjaye. His problems he says are at night, if he has not maintained a continous practice during the day due to cat napping he says the hyperventalation returns at night when the breath is not under his concious control, as if the body has adopted this as a habitual pattern. Upon waking he is lightheaded and feels peculiar.
Also he has been experiencing tremours and muscle spasms, he showed me a video of this, which he says started occuring during his daily controlled breathing, they appeared like kriyas, i explained this to him.
He has recently began to feel tension internally a feeling of build up of pain in perineum and anal region and inceased pressure in the lower bowel after sustained periods of relaxed breathing, which he believes has led to haemorroids, and appeared fearful that he may be causing himself damage and need to stop useing the coping mechanism of controlled breathing.
[I]I asked him to be really sure that his controlled breathing is maintained as a completly relaxed wave breath[/I] through the body.
I suggested various practices , deep relaxation with concious awareness of the relaxed breath.
Open eye meditation to try tratak using awareness of breath, as he said he can no longer do his T.M meditation as he falls asleep.
To work with awareness of prana intially using yoni mudra over lower chackras.
He wanted very gentle physical movements as he is very sensitive to stretchs so am giving him the joint freeing series.
Have you any thoughts or advice ?
He does not have any medical disorder or disease and told me before i approached the subject that he fet psycotherapy would’nt help him as he feels its a habitual pattern in his body that he needs to reverse.
Thankyou again for your guidance.
My advice is to seek spiritual guidance with him present. see if he will permit spiritual guidance from you or me. if not will he seek his own spiritual guide and nature in some other form? Let us consider that the kriya pattern is a kriya perhaps it is kapalabhati or bastrika. by having him practice the pranayama that it most resembles in a sattvic way, it may purify what is obstructing his spiritual vision of his life. Kriyas are intended to take us to the higher koshas mostly what is needed here is reachign spiritual guidance and insight - 4th and 5th koshas. can you offer assistance as a spiritual mentor to see how the illness is a sign of spiritual awakening ; the lessening of stress is sought via the pathway of the dis-ease. seek sattvic ease and naturally arising of prana. Give the 5 pranayamas for relief of pain once you have practiced them for 30 days. i will send them to you they must be learned directly from me so shakti prana can be given to you to empower your help for him. jai gurudev. mukunda
Has he had a sleep apnea test? I recommend he go to a sleep center to rule out sleep apnea too. It is possible that he stops breathing during the night and may need pressurized ozygen while he sleeps.