“Eventually, we find ourselves as adults, trying to have creative, balanced, abundant lives and careers, but our actions repeatedly sabotage these goals.”
SEVERAL YEARS AGO now, I found myself spiralling towards burnout. Two deeply ingrained patterns emerged as the root cause. The first was a constant drive for achievement in order to feel deserving of love. This insatiable need to prove my worth through accomplishments left me exhausted. The second was a profound longing for tenderness, yet an inability to admit or seek it. In fact, instead of fostering connection, I often behaved in ways that ensured my independence.
These patterns weren’t just mental or emotional habits; they were imprinted in my body. This is why they played out unconsciously and why, despite wanting to slow down, or have more connection with people, I often took actions that brought about the exact opposite!
Such patterns, or coping mechanisms, are common. Many of us with a strong desire for self-awareness and spiritual growth find ourselves in similar predicaments. We strive to understand the roots of our unhelpful patterns, only to feel frustrated and defeated when our efforts seem to backfire. We scrutinize our actions, wondering what's wrong with us, and repeatedly find ourselves stuck in the same self-defeating cycles.
The challenge lies in the fact that these patterns are embodied; they live in our muscles, our posture, our breath. They’re not easily dismantled through conversation alone. In fact, talking about our issues can often introduce an element of shame, which only serves to tighten the grip of these patterns. This is because the feeling of shame causes us to constrict, clench, and close down, further entrenching the very behaviours we wish to change.
IN MY HEALING journey, I’ve navigated these patterns through breathwork and connecting with nature. When we work through something like needing achievement to feel deserving of love – which might manifest in habits of overworking, as well as a critical mind that’s never satisfied – it helps to recognise them as ‘coping mechanisms’. This means such behaviours developed as responses to early life challenges, like having busy or unavailable parents. We ‘coped’ by doing well and achieving to gain their attention. The trouble is, these patterns work until they don’t. Eventually, we find ourselves as adults, trying to have creative, balanced, abundant lives and careers, but our actions repeatedly sabotage these goals.
My mechanism of overworking started with the fear of being discovered as inadequate.
Both my parents and teachers had high expectations of me that I constantly feared I wouldn’t meet. I’d go through periods of deep terror, which showed up as a tight clenching in my heart and a tendency to hold my breath, particularly around exam time. When I received good grades, I’d think THANK GOD! Yet my parents would give a mere sniff, telling me they knew I’d do well.
This lukewarm response was deeply wounding for me. It taught me my needs (for a grand celebration) couldn’t be met. I felt as if I’d escaped a horrifying disaster and always carried some sense I deserved to be hailed as a hero. This was why, later in life, I was still working like a madwoman – wanting that heroic celebration, yet doomed to find an indifferent audience: I was trying to break free from my pattern by reenacting the very bahaviour that was perpetuating it.
IF YOU FIND yourself constantly missing out on what you truly want, it’s a strong indication your heart chakra is out of balance. Embracing the element of air can be hugely healing for this.
Imagine a vacuum: air is drawn out of a sealed chamber, creating a pressure difference that causes a suction effect. Any leaks can reduce the effectiveness of the vacuum. When the energy centre in our heart is out of balance, we’re either unable to draw in the dreams we want, or we can only vacuum up situations we don’t truly desire.
Before I discovered breathwork, I was a defective vacuum cleaner – perpetually sucking up more work, more ways to achieve, unable to draw in tenderness. Despite knowing about this pattern, I was unable to stop. Not only was I trapped in a cycle, I was also harshly judging myself for that.
Understanding the mechanics of my situation wasn’t enough – I needed to shift the very rhythm of my body and breath, by working with the element of air, to truly heal the vacuum.
THIS WEEK’S WORKSHOP centres on the theme of ‘Receiving and Giving’, offering a powerful opportunity to identify where our patterns have created unwanted or wounded vacuums in our lives and how we can redirect the flow.
You might crave a more spacious workday, less hustle, a slower pace. Perhaps you long for more love, intimacy, and tenderness in your life. Maybe you seek greater financial rewards for your work, or wish to give advice without being ignored or having it thrown back in your face.
When I began to breathe through my coping mechanisms, I introduced a new rhythm to my body. I changed the airflow.
WE OFTEN GRIP our hearts due to early experiences of unmet needs. We deal with rejection by tending to the place where we feel the pain most acutely. My second pattern – longing for tenderness but struggling to admit it – stemmed from childhood rejection. Remember the terrified schoolgirl with a clenched heart? I closed off my heart to the pain, convincing myself I didn’t need softness. In fact, I was afraid to let in what my heart was yearning for.
This pattern stayed with me through my twenties and my thirties. By forty, I’d stopped feeling my heart altogether.
We all have unconscious ‘holding patterns’ in our body – ways of clenching, gripping, tensing, or crushing. This constant tension exhausts us. No amount of sleep can fully restore the energy we expend holding these patterns.
OUR COPING MECHANISMS shape how we hold our bodies and influence our breath. For years, I watched myself – overworking, fearing tenderness – and tried to talk myself into a better way of being. I journaled, I worked with Life Coaches, I went on meditation retreats. Gradually, I became more self-aware. I left a relationship that wasn’t serving me, landed a brilliant job as the assistant director of a writers’ retreat, adopted healthy eating and exercising habits. But in the background, I kept overworking, and struggled to feel any kind of self-love or tenderness.
Breathwork finally broke these patterns.
Ironically, my first encounter with breathwork didn’t interest me at all! The session was offered on a retreat I was on, but it sounded pointless. Why go to a class to breathe? I fell asleep instead.
The second time, I zoned out, preoccupied with work – funnily enough. The third time, I had a massive coughing fit. The fourth time, scarred by the previous coughing fit, I didn’t bother to follow any of the instructions.
Then, I caught myself.
As someone who works in personal development, I recognised ‘resistance’. I didn’t know why I was avoiding breathwork, but was honest enough to admit that I was avoiding it. I promised myself that next time, I would go all in.
So, I did.
It was a thirty-minute Holotropic breathwork session followed by an ecstatic dance. During the breathwork I saw a chubby, angelic face staring at me and couldn’t stop laughing. For the rest of the night I danced, laughed and felt my body more relaxed, flexible and open than ever before.
IT’S COMMON TO have an unconscious resistance to breathwork because it introduces new rhythms into the body, disrupting our natural tendency towards homeostasis.
Homeostasis is the body’s natural state of balance. The body and mind have a comfort zone where they feel safe and secure. Any deviation from this – even if beneficial – can be met with resistance.
I yearned for a healthier way of working, to feel deserving of love, and to receive tenderness. Yet I clung to my coping mechanisms, resisting new sensations and experiences.
Thankfully, I had just enough self-awareness to recognise this resistance!
In the early months of regular breathwork practice, before I began my practitioner training, there were two, powerful threads to my journey. The first was release: I let go of the stored stress and trauma in my body through shaking, trembling, crying, and even screaming.
The second thread was infinite joy. Slowly, my breathwork sessions took me to a world where I felt full and open. I felt myself dissolve, becoming one with the entire galaxy. Often a gorgeous, magical eye appeared in my mind. I knew it was the ‘Eye of Love’ (don’t ask me how!) and would lie in a state of utter bliss as this eye gazed at me, bathing me in endless, sweet adoration!
ON THURSDAY, WE will explore the element of air and the heart, delving into the theme of ‘Receiving and Giving’ to address the coping mechanisms and holding patterns creating unwanted vacuums in our life.
As well as helping with ways that we learnt to gain love through our behaviour, working with the element of air can help address issues such as a fear of rejection, which is often formed from experiences of reaching out, or offering, that weren’t met in ways that felt good, so we hardened over in our heart area to protect from the pain of that.
Please scroll if you want more information, and to reserve your spot.
As always, wishing you creative contentment.
Gabriela, tree goddess.
Offerings
In this section you’ll be able to hear about my offerings and events.
JOIN ME FOR my next online workshop - ‘Journaling, Breathwork and Nature Healing to Transform your Creative Process’ - on Thursday 20th June at 6.30pm.
This month we’re exploring the element of AIR and the theme of ‘Receiving and Giving’. Working with this element can enrich our creative projects and lead to deeper levels of self love.
As a subscriber to Wild Muse, you can receive 20% off by using the code Wild01 at checkout.
WATCH MY LATEST YouTube Interviews with NATURE WRITER and BOTANIST Amanda Tuke, as well as HISTORICAL FICTION WRITER Sean Lusk.
We chatted about how rejections are a necessary part of writing features and can provide valuable feedback for improvement.
We also discussed how connecting with nature is accessible, even in urban environments, and can bring joy and a sense of discovery. Starting with small steps, such as keeping a nature diary or using apps to identify plants and birds, can deepen our connection with nature.
We discussed the importance of finding joy in the act of writing, and how to engage in activities that reignite your love for writing.
Sean shared how leaving gaps in the narrative allows readers to engage with the story and make their own interpretations as well as ways to immerse yourself in research to create a complete emotional world in your writing.