Awaken Your Breath – Day 5 Of 7 | Dancing With The Back Body

A 7-day exploratory, workshop-style series designed to help you freshly meet your breath. This is Day 5. Today, we’ll explore the back body - the shadow side, the part of ourselves we’re not able to see so clearly. How might breath move and dance along the back of your body? There will be the option of using the back of a chair, a wall, the floor, or even the arms, as somatic feedback in this practice.

If traditional breathwork has ever felt tricky or intimidating, this series is for curious explorers like you. We’ll approach the breath with intrigue, ease, and a sense of play.

Each track is short, easy to return to, and ready whenever your breath feels shy, or quietly waiting and wanting to be noticed.

What sensations did you notice in your body as you breathed today?

Transcript

Hello luxurious breathers, Welcome. Today is day five of this little mini series designed to sprinkle in some ways for you to meet your breath, Reconnect with full and expansive breathing and allow your breath to really support your well-being. In today's mini practice we'll explore back body breathing. So as you settle in and arrive, Can you feel, Sense, Experience anything in this shadow side, The back of your body? Without my back resting up against a wall or chair or my mattress, Being in stillness I find it quite challenging to really feel and sense the back body. But as I make little micro movements through the shoulders, Doming through the upper back, Letting the shoulders take up a little more space behind me, I start to bring a greater sense of awareness to this space where our breath wants to dance and travel. So for this exploration you can use something as somatic feedback, Whether it's a wall, The back of a chair, The floor if you're lying down, Whatever it is. You might nestle the shoulders into that feedback, Noticing muscles that are switching on, Places that feel sticky, Noticing that weight and compression between your back and whatever it is you are leaning on or softening down into. And if you're like me and there is just the space of the air behind me, Hold on to opposite wrists behind your back so that the forearms and the hands gift you some of that somatic feedback. Letting your awareness really drop down into that place of connection between your back and whatever you are leaning on, Softening down into, Maybe even pressing the forearms a little more into the back. And for a few rounds, However many rounds of breath feels useful and natural today, Allowing your breath in to expand your back more fully into that feedback of the hands or the chair or the floor, The wall, Whatever it is. No need to effort to force, To strain, Letting a gentle breath in blossom from the inside out and releasing your breath in any way through the nose, The mouth, Your choice. For me, I noticed this sense of the front body expanding and opening as my back body expands more fully into my arms resting on my back. And so the whole body is cooperating, Opening up this oscillation, This reminder that breath is movement. The more open my body is, The more space there is. Maybe at times where you are rushing or hurrying, Ruminating about something that hasn't happened yet. What might it be like to breathe into the back? Let your back body breathing draw you back to presence, To this moment. Letting your explorations go whenever you feel ready. Maybe turning up the corners of the mouth just a little. Thanking yourself for sharing this practice. And hope you join us for day six, Where we'll integrate some movement and breath. But for now, Breathe well.