🫁 Day 9 - Leaky Lungs — When You Can’t Breathe Through the Grief

Welcome to Respiratory Storms in the leaky body series

Grief is a chronic ache — some days feel lighter than others but the pain of loss never fully fades. Over time, we grow softer toward the memories, more tender with the good times. And in it all, our lungs — the sacred holders of breath and grief — carry what words often cannot.

Do you ever feel like you can’t get a full breath?
Does anxiety sit like a rock on your chest?

You may not be “short of breath.”
You might be long in unexpressed sorrow.

“Grief lives in the lungs. So does freedom.” — Dee 🌿

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🧠 Somatic Signs of Leaky Lungs

• Shallow breathing or frequent sighing
• Chest tightness with no physical reason
• Breathlessness even when calm
• Asthma-like flares during stress
• Upper back tension or heart palpitations

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💬 Where Peace Leaks from the Lungs

• Grief that was never voiced or honoured
• Losses dismissed with “just move on”
• Breathing in trauma environments — mould, abuse, chaos
• Panic attacks that start with chest tightness
• Holding your breath to “keep it together”

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🌪️ What Causes These Wounds

• Unwept grief
• Chronic stress suppressing deep breath
• Childhood breath-holding — hiding, freezing
• Trauma stored in the lungs
• Never learning how to exhale

🩺 Often misdiagnosed as:
Asthma • Panic disorder • COPD • Anxiety • Long Covid

👉 But sometimes the real story is: Your breath stopped with your heartbreak

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🌿 Healing the Lungs — Gate of Grief and Aliveness

🧘‍♀️ De-Stress Tip: Try 4-7-8 breathing — inhale 4, hold 7, exhale 8
🌱 De-Tox Tip: Sip mullein or use lung-supporting herbs in tea or steam
🌀 De-Freeze Tip: Tap gently on your chest and say, “I’m allowed to let go”
🌙 Sleep Tip: Lie on your side and breathe into your back ribs
📦 Declutter Tip: Burn a bay leaf while naming a grief you’re ready to release
🥬 De-Bloat Tip: Sip peppermint tea — it supports both breath and belly

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💥 From My Heart

My lungs were full of old grief.
But I didn’t know — because I never cried. Not really.
I held my breath through loss, pretending I was fine.
But fine is a cage.
And grief needs breath to leave.

Now I exhale with tears and laugh that shakes my belly.
And my lungs — they thank me.

You don’t need to be okay right now.
You just need to breathe.

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💛 Ever feel short of breath… for no reason?

You might be full of unprocessed grief
And that’s okay. It’s not forever

🫁 Your lungs deserve to exhale. Your grief deserves to leave
🫁 Reply and tell me — what are you holding in your chest that needs to leave with your next breath?