244 the rice diet renewal
stress and emotional pain. The breath work allows the body
to process the emotions, which, in turn, allowed Kimberly to
mentally process the events of her trauma and assimilate
information that she hadn ’ t been able to before.
When Kimberly would have a mental fl ashback to one of
her traumatic events, that image released a series of reactions.
First, the image triggered a negative and violent reaction in
her central and autonomic nervous system. This caused her
breathing to become labored and restricted. The muscles and
organs of her body tightened and reacted in a fi ght - or - fl ight
response. This gave her mind and body the illusion that she
was back in that same situation.
At this point, I helped Kimberly to open her breathing pat-
tern, which freed the negative charge of emotion, which then
created a series of positive effects. For example, after a series
of sessions, Kimberly could mentally remember the traumatic
incident without having any violent emotional reaction to it.
Simply said, she was able to think about the post - traumatic
images as being in the past, without having the experience of
being overtaken by crippling emotions. And thus, the trauma
was assimilated by the body and nervous system and no lon-
ger threatened her state of well - being. This healing allowed
Kimberly to experience liberation and freedom from negative
psychological, behavioral, physiological, and emotional issues
that in the past would have crippled and debilitated her life.
Our respiration has other purposes than keeping us alive.
Our respiration helps our bodies to process and dispel nega-
tive emotional pain, rather than having that negative emotional
charge held by the muscles and organs of our bodies. Although
many of us are taught to intellectualize our pain and bury it,
instead of feeling it and processing it, we can change this
habit and allow our breath to do what it naturally can do — to
give us life.For many years, Kimberly was living a personal hell that many of
us will never have to face. She is an inspiration to us all — that we