A short case reflection on motivation, grief, and why breathwork must be sequenced correctly.

A client said to me recently,

“Things are going well… but I feel heavy.”

He described sluggishness.
Low motivation.
Back pain from a significant injury.
Time off work for the next week.
A few more beers at night than usual.
And some unexpected news — a close friend had just lost her mother.

After we’d unpacked how he’d been feeling, I asked him:

“What would you like to get from today?”

He was clear.

“Motivation. And maybe a breathwork technique I can use when I need it.”

That was his intention.

And honestly, the breath coach in me immediately thought of an energising pattern.

A short, activating protocol.
Increase arousal.
Shift physiology.
Create momentum.

It would have worked.

A state shift.

But something didn’t sit right.

I felt the intuition to go a bit deeper.

We’ve been working together for more than six months. The anxiety that once ran his nervous system is now almost entirely gone. He’s more regulated, more grounded, more capable of staying present than when we began.

This didn’t feel like someone who couldn’t access motivation.

It felt like someone holding something.

And perhaps using other strategies — like alcohol — to keep it at bay.

The loudest signal in the room wasn’t his lack of drive.

It was his back.

That was the most salient thing in his system.

So we started there.

I guided him into his breath.
Oriented him to the room.
To the chair beneath him.
To my voice.

We worked gently with the tension in his back. Not trying to fix it, but inviting it to soften. Reducing the guarding. Letting the breath create space. Offering suggestions that supported safety rather than force.

Gradually, his breathing slowed. His shoulders dropped. The tightness eased.

The pain reduced from a seven to a three.

Only then did I bring him toward the heaviness.

“Stay with it,” I said. “Just notice what’s there.”

At first it was vague.

But I could see in his facial expression that something was moving.

I anchored him back to his breath and reassured him he could come back to me at any point — but to see if he could allow the breath to gently reveal what was underneath.

Sadness surfaced.
Then shock.
Then tears — quiet, steady tears.

Nothing dramatic. No catharsis.

Just grounded processing.

I asked him how it felt to cry.

He paused.

“Lighter.”

A small smile appeared.

I asked what made him smile.

“It’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to feel this.”

“Why not before?”

“Because men don’t cry.”

There it was.

Not a motivation deficit.

A rule.

As we stayed with that, more context emerged.

His father was ex-army. We spoke briefly about generational differences, about culture, about how emotional expression was shaped historically.

Then he shared something else.

Growing up, he was always called “the sensitive one.”

It wasn’t said with cruelty.
But it shaped him.

I could see in his demeanour that there was pride there — but also caution.

Sensitivity became something slightly outside the masculine template he had absorbed. Something to tone down.

I asked him what “sensitive” meant.

“Empathetic. Caring.”

There was the opening.

An opportunity for a perceptual update.

I asked how it felt to be empathetic and caring toward his grieving friend.

He straightened slightly.

“A better man.”

I asked him to say it again.

“A better man.”

His posture shifted as he spoke it. Spine taller. Chest open. Breath fuller.

I asked him to show me how a “better man” would breathe.

He moved into a steady, nasal, expansive breath.

“How does it feel to be a better man?”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Motivated.”

The very thing he came for.

We hadn’t stimulated it.
We hadn’t manufactured it.
We hadn’t overridden anything.

We had removed what was compressing it.

Only then did we return to his original request.

Now we introduced an energising breath pattern — as a better, motivated man.

Rhythmic. Structured. Intentional.

Not to create motivation from scratch —
but to amplify and anchor what had already emerged.

I asked him to sit upright.
To breathe with strength.
To repeat internally, “A better man.”
To notice where motivation lived in his body.

We linked breath to meaning.

Now he has a technique.

But more importantly, he has understanding.

If I had given him the energising breathwork at the beginning, he might have left feeling temporarily activated — but still heavy underneath.

Instead, he left lighter.

And with a way back to motivation that is rooted in alignment, not avoidance.

Sometimes heaviness isn’t low energy.

Sometimes it’s contained emotion.

And when the nervous system is stable enough to feel safely, that containment can soften.

When suppression dissolves, energy returns.

Not because we forced it.

But because it was there all along.

Sometimes what we call “lack of motivation” isn’t a deficit.
It’s something waiting to be acknowledged.

And when the system feels safe enough to feel — energy often returns naturally.