Blog 262 – Using Meditation and Yoga to Leave The Pit, Part 3 – 26 May 2025

In Blog 261 I talked about the value of yoga as a tool in helping me to meditate and the circumstances in which I began to do yoga.  When I combined meditation with yoga, I found that my brain started to get rid of the rubbish that constantly filled it up.  As the rubbish started to disappear, the constant cloud of sadness started to ease.

Sadness is contagious – and it has a definite attraction.  In a weird sense, there is a sick enjoyment that we get from being sad.  It is not that anyone wants to be sad, but when we are in the Pit and feeling really bad, there is a tiny part of us that wants to stay in the Pit.  This is probably the same part of us that whispers in out ear that we are in the Pit because we deserve to be in the Pit.  This voice whispers we don’t need to leave the Pit of Depression because we are there for the very good reason that we deserve to be in the Pit.

Ignore the siren call claiming you deserve to be in the Pit.  The idea that you are there because you deserve to be there is just more rubbish cluttering up your brain.

You are in the Pit because something bad has happened to you.  This something bad has triggered your body to manufacture a whole bunch of chemicals and those chemicals have given you a bad dose of the blues.

In this Blog, I will continue to talk about yoga, its usefulness in meditation and how I have used yoga and meditation to help me leave the Pit.

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Continue to drink these words deeply inside you.

My purpose is to give hope to those who have lost hope. Without hope, we remain lost in the Shadow Lands.

I even want to give hope to the cancer ghosters who completely abandoned Margaret and me when we so desperately needed love and understanding.

I want all of you to be filled with hope.

Once again I say there is no padlock on what you think is the cell in which you think you are locked.

There is no cell and there is no lock.

Walk away from the cell you think you are in.  It does not exist.

Even the cancer ghosters can and should walk away from their non existent cells. 

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When I was in Western Australia in 2011, I visited a spot called Monkey Mia on the coast of Shark Bay.  Something the travel brochures no longer tell you is that when the dolphins started to swim in to the shore to visit humans, they paid special attention to children – especially children who were sick.  The dolphins sensed that the children were sick and tried to comfort them.

Creatures that are completely different from humans tried to comfort sick humans – and some of the time, we do not have the energy to comfort members of our own species who are relatives who are sick.  We all – including cancer ghosters - have much to  learn from dolphins.

I took these two photos on 17 March 2011.

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Some of the rugged desert country in the north of Western Australia.  The whole of Europe could be placed inside of Western Australia and Western Australia is only about 1/3^rd of the total land area of Australia.  Photo taken 18 March 2011.

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 I slept in the tent in the foreground of this photo when I drove through Western Australia.  I took this photo on 19 March 2011 in Karijini National Park.  I had left Exmouth at 8.20 am and drove 710 kilometres before finding a place to camp in Karijini National Park.  Compared to the countryside I drove through, Karijini was an oasis of greenery - and Karijini was devoid of creeks or rivers or rain.

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This was the advice given by the Park Rangers at Karijini to park visitors.  Dingoes are native Australian dogs.  They look so cute, but they attack and kill children if they are hungry.

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After my “breath attack” episode when I came close to death while already in hospital on the night of Tuesday 4 May and Wednesday 5 May 2021, it became clear to me that I really needed to take steps to improve my lung capacity and my ability to breathe.

My lung capacity was measured in July 2021 when I was hospitalised for the third time.  It was 42% of normal capacity – and I was giving everything I had to try and make the testing gear show I was still breathing.

Increasing my lung capacity meant I had to focus on my breathing and focusing on the breath is one of the features of yoga that distinguishes it from normal exercise in the gym.

Before I did even the simplest yoga movement, I breathed in as deeply as I possibly could.

Once I had filled my lungs with as much air as I could get in, I counted in my head.

I started with a count of 6; that was the maximum count I could hold my breath for.

When I finished the count, I breathed as much air out of my lungs as I could.

I then held my breath for another count of 6 before I drew in more air.

as my lung capacity got better, I increased my count to 30.

This very simple exercise trained my brain to focus on my breathing.

While I was focusing on the breathing, there was not much room left inside my head for the rubbish to swirl around in there.

Gradually, I got better at breathing.

My lung capacity started to improve and my current lung capacity is now 115% of normal capacity.  I also started squeezing out of my brain, the constant river of worry because my wife had cancer and was dying.

While Margaret was so very ill and dying, I was not able to climb out of the Pit, but I was able to stop myself being overwhelmed by it.  Because the Pit did not overwhelm me, I avoided becoming a permanent resident of the Shadow Lands.

The same techniques will help you too.

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I will tell you more tomorrow.