Asthma is often a stranger to both children and adults living with it. It is a chronic condition that causes difficulty breathing, wheezing, tightness in the chest and coughing. It interferes with everyday life and prevents people from fully enjoying their lives. What is behind asthma? Although the causes are complex, understanding the background to the condition holds the key to control and cure.
In this article, we will explore asthma through the prism of the AEQ method, which argues that asthma is more than just chronic inflammation of the airways; it is also the body's response to repressed emotions, unexpressed anger and chronic tension.
Imagine a child sitting at a table, his hands clenched into fists, his face tense, but no sound coming out. He is angry, but he cannot express his anger. Instead, his body creates its own language - the language of asthma. As the child grows up, he can learn how to express his feelings, but the pattern is already ingrained.
A common cause of childhood asthma is growing up in a highly stressful, toxic environment. The child feels pressures he or she does not understand and is unable to resist them. The child's body is not yet mature enough to express anger, fear and rage in mature body language. Instead, it responds in the only way available to it - by repressing feelings, tensing muscles and failing to breathe.
This causes the muscles of the neck, shoulders and chest to tighten, making it impossible to breathe properly. In this way, the body stops its authentic response and protects itself from the consequences. As the child grows older, this pattern of behaviour becomes consolidated as a chronic asthma condition.
But the child is not the only one facing stress. Often he or she comes from a family where relationships are strained and unsatisfactory, toxic. Parents live in their own disagreements and traumas, which the child feels even though he or she does not understand them. His asthma is thus a way of keeping him connected to them, while retaining his authenticity, which he would otherwise show through anger and fear.
When the asthmatic feels anger rising up within him that could lead to an outburst, the subconscious intervenes. It contracts the muscles around the chest, neck and shoulders and makes breathing impossible. This stops tension and aggression. Thus, because he does not express what he feels inside himself to the environment and change the attitude of the environment towards him, he remains helpless and develops a chronic reaction from an acute one, and develops asthma.
The situation appears to be calm, but in reality it is a suppression of the spontaneous response. The subconscious does not want an outburst of anger that would endanger survival or relationships. It protects both the person and the environment, but in a way that has long-lasting consequences. This shows how deep the causes of asthma go - into the immediate family and into family patterns that are passed down through generations.
The AEQ method focuses on becoming aware of and changing automatic emotional responses and bodily tensions. According to the AEQ method, asthma is the body's response to suppressed authenticity and anger. Like the sea reflecting tranquility in calm weather, the airways can reflect inner peace or inner chaos.
Imagine a child facing an environment that represses him - an environment that does not acknowledge or even punishes the expression of anger. The child learns that it is safer to be silent, and his protest becomes anchored in his body, in the muscles surrounding his chest. When these muscles become chronically tense, they restrict breathing and thus create a sense of security that is illusionary. The child creates a chronic armour that protects him from the toxicity of the environment in which he lives, but it also protects the environment from what he has inside him-a volcano of emotions that he or she should not, cannot or does not know how to express. This pattern can be passed on from generation to generation, not through genes, but through learned behaviour and reactions.
When a child enters adolescence, things change. Adolescence is like springtime, bringing new possibilities. Understanding the role of sensory-motor amnesia (SMA) in asthma is crucial. SMA allows the use of alternative ways of expressing strong emotions, such as sport, music or other activities, which allow for the release and channeling of aggression in a way that does not cause a negative environmental response. However, this can lead to a dependence on these activities, which can lead to problems and injuries and make asthma management more difficult.
The AEQ method teaches that to truly resolve asthma, it is necessary to understand and accept your anger. This requires the emotional maturity not only to recognise and express our anger, but also to use it constructively to change the environment that has put us in this state.
AEQ breathing is a technique that is taught in the AEQ method process. It is a slow, conscious breathing that helps to release muscle tension and increase awareness of one's own body. As the asthmatic begins to breathe more efficiently and reduces chronic shrinking, the production of vital energy increases, and with it the level of aggressive emotions that were previously suppressed. He feels and senses more what he is like inside and what kind of environment he lives in. This can be very uncomfortable, but it is the key to getting rid of asthma.
In the process of learning AEQ breathing, it is important that the client learns to understand and respond correctly to his subconscious patterns. For example, coughing, sneezing, itching may occur during AEQ breathing exercises as a defensive reaction by the body to maintain old patterns and prevent change. The AEQ method therefore teaches the importance of slowly and gradually changing these patterns, with an emphasis on mindfulness of how the exercises affect us and our environment.
Through AEQ breathing and understanding AEQ attitudes, asthmatics can learn to manage their emotions in a healthier way, which can help them manage or even overcome their asthma. The AEQ method suggests not only physical exercises, but also the mental and emotional work needed to identify and change deep-rooted patterns.
Once the asthmatic begins to understand and accept his reactions and how they affect his relationship with his environment, he can begin to work on increasing his emotional maturity. This enables him to react in a healthier and more constructive way, which can lead to a permanent resolution of asthma.
The role of the AEQ teacher is to help the client understand how their body communicates through their breathing and how altered breathing can affect their emotional state. The emotional distress that can occur during the process of learning to breathe more correctly is a normal part of the process and can lead to greater relaxation and a reduction in asthma symptoms.
An asthmatic learning AEQ breathing must be prepared to face his or her anger and transform it into something that can be used constructively in his or her life. This requires courage, perseverance and a willingness to change. The AEQ method is a journey towards greater self-awareness, emotional maturity and, ultimately, freedom of breath and movement.
We can conclude that asthma according to the AEQ method is not only a respiratory problem, but also a reflection of our inner state and the way we cope with life. The realisation that we can influence asthma by changing our emotional responses and releasing physical tensions is the key to a deeper understanding of the disease and its treatment. When we find a balance between body and mind, we can also find a way to breathe easier and live a more fulfilled life.
Jani Brajkovič
AEQ Method Level 2 teacher, AEQ Breathing Level 2 teacher, AEQ Method Level 3 student 2/6
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