One of the reasons I do Clarity Breathwork regularly is to release limiting beliefs. I have found many of my limiting beliefs to be imprinted in my body, dormant and therefore inaccessible until something activates them. The more I do Clarity Breathwork, the easier it is to detect if my intuition and my gut feeling about a current situation in my present life originates from my higher guidance or from something else– like my childhood conditioning.
Another dormant childhood belief spontaneously surfaced recently while I was working out at a gym with an outdoor 25-yard-lap pool. It had been raining on and off in California for weeks and on this morning it was starting to drizzle again. The pool was warm and inviting with soft white steam rising from the blue water. As I slipped into the pool, the first light raindrops started falling, creating intricate circular patterns on the water’s surface.
The pit of my stomach tightened. I ignored the sensation, started swimming and the feeling got worse. I even felt threatened, like my life was in danger. Being in the water was not safe. I stopped swimming after one lap and looked around. The other swimmers were leisurely doing their laps. No one looked dangerous or concerned. Why did I feel so uncomfortable? Should I get out of the water?
Suddenly it came to me. In Missouri where I grew up, we never stayed in the pool when it was raining. In my mind’s eye I saw images of myself and other children frantically scrambling out of the water at the first splash of a raindrop. We were told we would certainly be hit by lightning if we hesitated for even one second. My mother was especially vigilant about keeping us from getting killed by a lightning bolt, and understandably so. My mind had totally forgotten this experience of Midwestern life, but my body obviously still remembered.
I am still surprised at how physical this imprint was and how my strongly my body reacted to a situation it had been conditioned to believe was unsafe. I had never been swimming in the rain since I was a child, so my body had not updated the survival information: it’s safe to swim in the rain in California.
Before doing Clarity Breathwork, I don’t think I would have been able to connect with my body quickly enough to understand where the dangerous feeling was coming from. As soon as I became conscious of the childhood memory, the dangerous feeling vanished and I relaxed instantly.
That morning I had a remarkably soothing and peaceful swim in the gently falling raindrops.