Breath For Our World

In this talk, Ali explores the breath as a living connection between ourselves and the world around us.

Moving beyond the personal and interpersonal, this reflection looks at how every breath is shaped by trees, oceans, soil, weather, and place — reminding us that breathing is a shared exchange with the natural world.

Through gentle awareness of breath and environment, this episode invites a sense of belonging, grounding, and care — not driven by guilt or fear, but by relationship. A quiet reminder that we are participants in the living world, shaped by it as much as we shape it.
One breath at a time.

Transcript

Hey and welcome to episode 6 can you believe it in my series about the breath I'm Ali Mills and we have got here today and today we will be talking about the breath and the environment our world our planet yeah and just to recap we've gone through this journey about how the breath can help support our well-being quietening the mind softening the body helping it work more efficiently we've looked at the science behind this and last week we spoke a little bit about how our breath can help with our relationships and it's time now to widen that lens all even further beyond the personal beyond the interpersonal we're now looking at our breath in relationship with the world Wow because our breath doesn't end at the body does it every inhale connects us to the environment we are living in the air we breathe is shaped by the trees and the oceans and the soil and the weather and the place that we're in the breath breath is actually a shared exchange between us and the world I don't know if you ever thought of it like that we take in oxygen that has been produced by our beautiful planet are by our beautiful living world and then every breath out we offer something back with every exhale and this happens all the time and quite often we do not take any notice of it I mean I know for a long time I didn't and so when we slow the breath we often become more aware of where we are you know that mindfulness of oh there's a tree there's a flower there's a bird noticing the temperature of the air and the quality of the light and the sounds around us and when we slow down and slow the breath we can begin to experience that we are not separate I don't know I don't know if you've ever taken a walk in a forest or a woods and you've kind of gone in feeling all tense and agitated and as you move through the nature regulates us just as the breath does and this is because nature is us we're not separate from it open spaces and beautiful environments can calm the nervous system and things like natural rhythms like the sea for instance they can help steady us and there is no bad weather yeah the wind the water and the earth you know offers cues for our safety and our continuity and when we think like this it's not as abstract as maybe when I first said breath for environment we could begin to kind of contemplate like yeah this is all part of us our bodies have actually evolved in relationship with the natural world and quite often they are screaming for their natural this connection to that the natural world to be more abundant in everything that we're doing because when we spend time outside breathing more slowly we you can really begin to feel that earthy groundedness ah and you don't need to understand why and in this awareness there's this capacity for everything to soften that much deeper when we feel connected we tend to act with more care rather than a place of guilt or fear but from a place of true relationship with our world kindness towards the planet doesn't begin with big gestures it begins with simply noticing noticing the air the ground beneath us the life that supports each breath and when we notice from this place small choices begin to matter we pause and in that pause and noticing that no longer are we separate we can say okay let's reduce harm where we can our precious planet let's not hurt our planet anymore we begin to listen more closely to the environment that we move through the breath really can help remind us and bring us back to the the truth that we are participants in this cycle and we are not separate observers you know we might have the power of the mind but that doesn't make us sort of just visual participants like the the land is just something to be kind of taken for granted we really are shaped by this world as much as we shape it so when we breathe with awareness we are not just supporting ourselves we're going that bit deeper and when we can remember how precious our planet is that we belong here and we belong to something much bigger than we can often contemplate I hope that there's kind of made sense you know this remembering this remembering that this earth is our home maybe can trigger one small act of kindness to the earth for ourselves for each other and the planet that we all share one breath at a time okay so thank you for listening to this episode a little bit shorter than the most but yeah remembering that this planet is home all right lots of love namaste and bye for now