The breath is the link between mind and body, soul and body, earth and body. Your breath is a direct indication of where you are mentally, physically and emotionally. The breath is such an invaluable tool that it used for diagnosis in several Eastern medical traditions that have been practiced as far back as 3000 BC.
Fundamentally, we can change our “condition”, our perspective, heal and release imbedded emotions by changing our breath and our relationship to our breath. The capacity to transform the mental, physical and emotional components by simply addressing the breath is a core principle of the science of breath work.
How deep is your breath? Are you conscious of it? Do you clutch for air at your clavicle when you think about certain things? Can you fill your belly full with a breath? Do you have a hard time catching your breath or retrieving the breath in the depth of your belly? How long has it been since you really acknowledged the powerhouse that is breath?
Deep breath deep life, shallow breath shallow life.
At the base of our diaphragm, where those deep breaths travel to and where the deep breath must be retrieved from, is where trapped energy pockets of trauma, emotions and unresolved memories are stored. This is place where deep and often unacknowledged emotions are, they hide like little bats in the back of a cave.
The Maori have a technique using pressure to release the toxicities in this spot of the diaphragm and breath work can help to release them as well. The breath allows more for the emotions of these toxic experiences to release. So how do your start working with the breath, working with it so you can achieve its full hearing potential?
Here is a simple exercise to get you started.
Set a time for 10-15 minutes. And for 3 weeks, breath in 1-2-3-4-5 and out 1-2-3-4-5, you can count in your head to five as you adjust to this process. You can have your eyes focused in a downward gaze, or keep them closed. Try it both ways and see what feels like a deeper process for you. For ten to fifteen minutes every day just be with your breath.
Keep it simple, allow the breath to be the powerful archeologist that it is. The breath is a powerful miner and will dig up what needs to be addressed.
See what emotions come forward. What thoughts, memories and unaddressed components come up. Do you notice you are comfortable or uncomfortable while doing this exercise? Do you feel a need to add something else-? does your mind need distractions of music or wanting to add something else to the exercise? does your ego say this is too simple?
Acknowledge all of these thoughts, honor them … but keep it simple. 10-15 minutes a day – breath in and out.
Just let go and give it a try.
Happy Breath Mining!