Belly2Belly: Partnered Breathing Meditation (Our Sound)

This is a guided Belly2Belly practice- a relational breathing meditation that begins with yourself and gently opens into connection with another.

Find a warm, comfortable place to lie down and let yourself arrive. This practice unfolds in two phases: first, lying on your back, breathing with yourself; then, when invited, coming into gentle contact with your partner.

At its core, Belly2Belly is simple. Using the four tools of: breath, sound, movement, and touch. We slow down and meet what’s here, just as we are.

The three pillars are: breathing deeply into your belly, making a sound on every exhale, and synchronizing your breath and sound with your partner. As you relax into them, tension dissolves, presence grows, and your body remembers safety and trust.

There’s no way to do it wrong. Simply allow yourself to breathe. Let the sound, the breath, and the touch lead you home- into connection, belonging, and love.

This partnered practice opens into an emergent space.

Transcript

There are three main elements to the belly to belly practice.

The first is taking a deep breath in through the nose,

And by a deep breath,

I mean that you fully inhalate on the inhale,

Breathing in through the nose,

And the breath travels all the way down to the bottom pelvic bowl of your body.

So if you imagine the way a water balloon fills with water,

When you open the faucet,

The water goes to the bottom of the balloon,

And it slowly fills until it gets to the top.

The breath should fill the body in the same way as you breathe in through the nose,

Fully inhalate and your belly starts to expand out,

And then your mid-torso expands out,

And then your ribcage expands out,

And finally that fullness reaches the top of your neck,

And when your body is completely full on the inhale,

You simply let go.

All the efforting is on the inhale,

The exhale is a surrender.

So breathing in through the nose,

Filling starting from the bottom of the belly all the way up to the chest,

And ribcage,

And neck,

And on the exhale,

You simply let go.

And as I guide this,

You can just start doing this,

Start incorporating these elements into your practice.

This is your practice today.

I'll tell you the most,

How you can get the most out of it,

And you can choose,

You can create your own adventure for how deeply you'd like to take the medicine.

That first element is deep breath in through the nose.

The second foundational element to belly to belly is that every single exhale gets a sound,

And it's a sound that minimally activates your vocal cords,

Minimally.

Maximally,

Your entire torso vibrates on the exhale,

And you can start out by just allowing a slow,

Soft sigh or release,

So that you hear your own voice,

That you feel the vibration of your vocal cords through your throat and neck.

And just allow a slow,

Progressive build of sound and vibration.

Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound on the exhale.

Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound on the exhale.

Mouth with sound on the exhale.

Full breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound on every exhale.

It's beautiful to start by listening to your own unique sound,

Turning up the volume on your ears as your body and nervous system speak to you,

Through you.

And then the next element,

The third foundational aspect of belly to belly is synchronization.

So opening the listening of your ears and listening for the sound of your partner and allowing your breath and their breath to synchronize.

Sometimes we have different depths of our breathing capacity.

When we partner with particular people,

Someone naturally has a longer exhale and someone naturally has a shorter exhale.

And so I'll give you an invitation of a place where you can meet in the middle if you find that your breaths are hard to synchronize.

And that would be to take a four to five second inhale through the nose and seven to eight second exhale through the mouth with sound.

A four to five second inhale through the nose and a six,

Seven,

Eight second exhale through the mouth with sound.

And usually in that,

There is a delicious meeting point of rhythmic entrainment through breath,

Sound,

And synchronization with our partner.

Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound.

Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound.

Another really beautiful element and invitation I'd like to invite in is that of incorporating with and aligning with more of the body.

So I'm going to invite you to bring your hands to your hearts and to not be passive with your touch,

But be active with your touch,

Meaning that as your hands make contact with your chest,

That your hands are feeling,

That you open up the feeling receptors in the palms of your hands and actively engage with the space of your chest,

Of your heart.

Whether that means holding with more density or lightness or movement or stillness,

Finding your way to invite and incorporate present touch,

That present touch with present active breath.

So we'll take some breaths together now into our hearts,

And I invite you to allow your presence to ride on the oxygen molecules as they enter in through your nose and travel down into the space of your heart and chest and light up your heart on the inhale through the present touch of the palms of your hands.

And then give that awareness of where breath and body meet.

Give it a sound on the exhale,

So deep breath into your heart.

Another big,

Deep breath into your heart with a sound from your heart on the exhale.

Big,

Deep,

Full breath riding present moment awareness through each oxygenated blood cell into your heart and a sound from your heart,

Allowing that same present touch of your hands to make the journey from your heart to your belly,

Bringing your hands to your belly and inviting present touch to the space of your belly wherever you feel you need it now.

It's great if you're wearing a belt and you want to take the belt off so there's less restriction on your belly.

You're so invited to do that.

We want full movement,

Full flexibility,

Full capacity for softening in and around,

Bringing your hands possibly somewhere around your navel,

Your belly button,

And again,

Letting the hands be present.

This isn't passive touch,

Allowing the touch to either contain some level of density or movement or stillness,

Turning up the feeling receptors in your hands.

Again,

We're matching and meeting conscious,

Connected breath with a tuned,

Alive,

Present touch,

Taking a deep breath into your belly,

Filling your belly to capacity with air and on the exhale,

Allowing a authentic sound from your belly.

Deep,

Full breath in through the nose,

All the way down into your belly,

Allowing your belly to fill to capacity and where breath and touch meet,

Give that meeting point a sound on the exhale.

One more time,

Deep,

Full breath in through the nose,

All the way down into your belly,

And where breath and touch meet,

Allow an authentic sound on the exhale.

Beautiful,

And allowing your hands now to move from the space of your belly down to your root of your body,

Which is the base of your core.

Could be your hips,

Could be your genitals,

Somewhere for you that signals the base of your core and allow your hands to be active there,

Meaning inviting more presence,

More conscious,

Connected breath,

More awareness.

And of course,

This is the place that is furthest away,

And so if you'd like,

What you can do to increase awareness is squeeze and release your pelvic floor,

The same muscle that you pee with,

Squeeze and release and pump some blood flow in and around your base.

Squeeze and release your pelvic floor to activate blood flow in your base.

This,

Where you feel that blood flow and circulation,

This is where your breath is journeying down to,

Inviting more breath and touch and sound from your base on the exhale.

Deep breath all the way down into your base,

And sound from your base on the exhale.

Deep,

Full breath in through the nose,

Riding the river of breath all the way down into your base and letting a sound from your base on the exhale.

Let's do this one more time and allow it to be the loudest sound you've made yet.

Deep,

Full breath in through the nose,

All the way down into your base and full sound,

From heart to belly to base.

Relax.

We make this sequence of breaths,

Descending down,

Relax.

We go down and in to open and relax.

We descend down and in to open and receive.

Through this relaxed,

Softened system,

We can listen,

Attune,

And receive more.

In a moment,

We're going to transition this practice to go from a solo practice to a partnered practice.

So just take a moment to feel that transition before it even happens,

To feel the spaces in you that open or contract or soften or brace themselves in preparation for making physical connection.

And however connected you feel to yourself right now,

My invitation is,

Can you stay this connected to self as you slowly make the journey to roll over onto your side and come into physical connection with your partner?

In that transition to not lose any of yourself,

To not leave any of yourself behind,

To invite all of you to bring and to stay in this self-connected place without going into a full merge and leaving of yourself into contact with your partner.

Deep breath.

And so you can begin that journey,

Slowly staying connected to breath and sound and rolling over onto your side and start to take small micro-movements and adjustments into physical contact.

It could initially look like just knees touching or hands holding,

And it could come into a full embrace with your legs intertwined and hands or arms wrapped around so that your hand is placed on the back of your partner's heart.

It usually works best in this practice if your own arm is under your own head on the side that you're lying on.

But take your time now and explore and experiment with coming into physical contact.

If you'd like to make eye contact,

You can,

But it's not required.

Every invitation in this practice that you take,

The result should be that it relaxes your body more.

So at every choice point of do I come closer together,

Ask yourself,

Will this relax my body more?

And if the answer is yes,

Explore and experiment with making that movement.

You can always change your mind and take a step back or out of the practice.

But there's a minimum invitation for some level of physical contact.

So if you're not in any physical contact with your partner,

Minimally reach out a hand and hold hands in the middle,

Or reach out a knee or a foot and let your legs find contact.

This physical contact mixed and partnered with breath synchronization is the linking up and syncing up of nervous systems.

This is the ingredients for this organismic consciousness.

You can move slow.

You should move slow.

And explore and experiment with more and more contact.

And I would say you can keep your eyes open as long as you feel that your body isn't fully relaxed and open.

But as soon as your body feels like,

Yeah,

This is the point,

You can close your eyes and come back to yourself.

But if you and your partner still have eyes open,

Keep making micro adjustments to the body contact.

In fact,

You're welcome to make micro adjustments throughout the entirety of this practice.

Real world,

Our animal bodies are able to navigate this transition.

What we're doing in this practice is just letting nature be itself,

Express itself,

Reveal itself.

To allow the nature,

The meat flower that you are,

To naturally express itself.

And once you've come into that physical connection that fits just right,

Feels like a glove,

Your hand just fits in there perfectly.

You can drop back down and into the breath.

Finding a conscious,

Connected breath in synchronization with your partner.

Perhaps placing your hand on their back.

If your hand is in contact with your partner,

Taking three deep breaths into your hearts together with a sound from your hearts on the exhale.

And after those three deep breaths with sound into your hearts together,

Descending down a little deeper,

Riding the river of breath as we spiral down to the belly.

And if you'd like,

You can place your hand on the mid-back of your partner.

And here,

Taking three deep breaths into your bellies together with a sound from your bellies on the exhale.

Beautiful if your bellies can find this way to kiss and meet in the middle.

This practice is called belly to belly.

After all,

It's for a reason.

Deep breath into your belly,

The sound from your belly on the exhale.

Full breath in through the nose,

Riding the river of breath all the way down to your belly as it bulges out and fills with breath.

And on the exhale,

Allowing this sound from your belly as it meets the sound of your partner.

And again,

Deep,

Full breath in through the nose,

Riding the river of breath all the way down to your belly and sound together from your bellies on the exhale.

And just allow whatever happens.

Sometimes there's ripples of impact in the body.

Just continue to allow your body to soften,

To relax,

To open,

To receive,

To let whatever energy and formation wants to move through.

Just creating an open,

Open vessel,

Open space for whatever wants to move through.

Opening up our collective capacity to allow whatever wants to descend down and move through.

And we're going to descend down another ring,

Another layer into the base together.

You can place your hand possibly on the side of your partner's hip or on their sacrum bone to signal the base,

To signal the root of the body.

And then taking a big,

Deep breath,

Inviting the breath all the way down into your base together.

Opening up the listening on your ears and listening for that sound from the base on the exhale.

Deep,

Full breath in through the nose,

Down to the base,

Down to the hips,

Down to the root,

Down as deep as you can feel and give it a sound.

What does your base sound like?

Another big,

Deep,

Full breath all the way down to your base.

Yeah,

There we go.

Usually a more dense sound.

Usually that sound on the base that comes sounds a little different than those other centers.

Take a big,

Full,

Deep breath.

Feel your base.

Feel your life force,

Your creativity,

Your sense of home,

And give it a sound on the exhale.

And you can allow the hands now to find a neutral resting position on your partner's body,

Wherever it is that they'd like to naturally fall.

And we're going to deepen into the practice of shared breath and sound.

Deep,

Full breaths together in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound,

Allowing the full body to be active and engaged.

And as you continue to make this sound on the exhale,

Have an invitation for your meditation,

Which is to listen for the third sound.

There's your sound on the exhale,

Your partner's sound on the exhale.

And when we find this coherent resonance,

There's a third sound that our two unique frequencies can make together.

Beautiful.

I already hear it in the space.

So listening for that third sound,

My sound,

Your sound,

Our sound.

Ah.

Increasing the volume,

Taking deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Listening for that third sound.

Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth,

Finding that coherent resonant frequency where my body and your body meet.

The meeting point of body and sound is this resonance.

Is this a tuned expression?

And it can't or it shouldn't,

And it doesn't have to sound the same every time.

You can also play with the sound,

Play with that harmonic attunement.

Try a higher frequency of sound or a lower,

Denser sound.

Perhaps your body's readjust and move,

Just allowing that emergent impulse.

You don't have to do anything.

You can complete on this right now,

But maybe there's movement.

From the movement to readjust or move.

Riding the river of breath and opening up for this tuned connection together.

Alone today,

All of the invitations I'm making,

You can still do with yourself.

Everything that's done in partnership can be done alone.

Keep breathing,

Sounding,

Feeling.

You are your best practice partner.

A few more breaths here as we meditate on our shared sound.

Our shared resonance,

That frequency of where you and I meet and become a we.

My sound and your sound,

And what is our sound?

The sound when these two bodies meet and merge and incorporate a conscious,

Connected breath.

What is the unique frequency of this symphony,

Of the band that is us?

You are a little mini instrument together.

Are you playing the flute or the drums or the guitar?

What is your unique symphonic harmony and frequency as a collective being together?

It doesn't have to sound any particular way.

It's your unique sound.

A few more moments here to deepen the practice or complete the practice.

Deep breath into your heart together.

Deep breath into your belly together.

With the sound from your belly on the exhale.

Deep breath all the way down into your root and base together.

Sound from your base on the exhale.

And just allowing,

If there's been any efforting,

Allowing that to fade as your body softens,

To receive.

In a moment,

I'm going to invite you into a brief sharing with your partner.

We've taken a little journey down and we kind of swim to the bottom of the ocean floor in this practice.

And it's important to come back up to the surface in moments and take another breath.

So we're in that transition of coming up to the surface for air.

To practice putting words on our experience,

To name our internal awareness and invite more relational connection in through truth.

The truth of what it's like to be you right now.

The truth of what it feels like to be you on the inside.

The more authentic your share as you share,

The greater possibility for connection and attunement.

For some of you,

You'll be in a very somatic state of deep connection to your own body.

You're so welcome to share that.

Invite your partner in,

Paint the picture of what it feels like to be you on the inside.

Other people might be completely in the relational connection,

Feeling so much of the impact of this body that you're in contact with.

Other people could be feeling some disconnection or out or I'm not getting it.

That's welcome here too.

Possibly you're on like a psychedelic journey and you're seeing fractals and colors and mirrors.

Whatever it is that you're in contact with,

I invite you to share that.

But first,

Let's take a deep breath together.

Person lying on the right side,

If you're the one lying on the right side,

You'll share first.

For one minute,

I invite you to share and invite your partner in.

You can keep your eyes closed if you'd like,

Or you can open them.

The question is,

What does it feel like to be you on the inside?

Person on the right,

You can begin.

So there's one partner speaking and one partner listening,

And you're sharing the truth of what it feels like to be you on the inside.

Wrapping up that first share and taking a deep breath into your hearts together.

And then a deep breath into your bellies together.

And then a deep breath all the way down into your roots together.

And now we're going to swap roles of speaker and listener.

So partner who's lying on the left side,

It's your turn to share.

Inviting your partner in and sharing with them,

What does it feel like to be you on the inside?

Second person,

You can begin.

And slowly allowing the words to fade and dropping back into the breath together.

Taking a deep breath into your hearts together.

Sound from your hearts on the exhale.

And a deep breath into your bellies together.

Sound from your bellies on the exhale.

And one more big deep breath into your roots together.

Sound from your root on the exhale.

And taking a final moment here with this partner to just savor whatever is here.

And as you're still in physical relational contact,

Accessing whatever level of gratitude is alive in you.

Gratitude for this partner.

Gratitude for the perfection of this reflection,

This mirror.

Gratitude also for yourself,

For bringing yourself here.

And then very slowly,

As slowly as you entered into this partnership,

Slowly rolling back over onto your back in your own space.

Slowly rolling back over into your own space.

And here in your own space,

Taking a moment to feel your own beautiful body,

All the places where you've been touched by your partner,

Where you can perhaps still feel them inside of you.

And the places that are uniquely yours,

That were here before the practice and will be here after the practice.

That unique soul essence that is you.

And into your own beautiful body,

Take a deep breath into your heart with a sound from your heart on the exhale.

And a deep breath into your own beautiful belly with a sound from your belly on the exhale.

And one more big,

Deep breath all the way down into your root,

Your base with a sound on the exhale.

So I'm going to share what's going to happen next.

We're going to enter into a bit of an emergent space.

And the primary invitation or requirement is that there's no talking.

But I'll invite us to begin,

If you'd like,

As one group body.

So for us all to move up towards the front,

In the middle,

In physical contact,

Breathing and sounding as one group.

And then you can just allow your body to find its way.

We'll let the sound field play into our group field.

And you can allow yourself to either connect,

To stand and dance,

To move,

To stretch,

To be in stillness.

Whatever it is that your body needs right now,

Without any words.

So you can slowly move towards this front center area as we come into a group kind of cuddle puddle together.

And then from there,

We'll use breath and sound and see what journey it wants to take us on as a group.

If you'd like to be with more physical contact,

It's good to come more towards the center.

If you'd like a little bit less physical contact,

You're invited to stay on the outsides.

Just making sure you're not in an uncomfortable holding position.

Yeah,

Beautiful.

So right there,

Now just starting to kind of cozy in,

Creating one group.

Being sure that wherever you are,

You can also get out of it.

So if at some point your body wants to move into the space,

You have the freedom to do that.

And here it's important that we move slow and that we're relationally attuned to the bodies around us.

So just bringing your body over,

Crawling is very appropriate.

Crawling and melting the way over to the group body.

Cozying in.

So beautiful.

If you don't mind bringing your pair over,

Even if you want to stay in your partnership,

To just come over and plug your partnership in so we can circulate that energy through.

This is a tribal practice and we want all the body's information and energy circulating through,

Even if just your toes are touching.

Yeah,

So beautiful.

So beautiful.

This is meant to be a nourishing,

Nourishing practice.

Coming in,

Plugging in.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

And the maximum value of this practice comes when there's one shared breath together that we dip into.

So with each exhale now,

Making a sound loud enough that the bodies around you can hear.

That's usually how we're able to sync up with greater accuracy and see if we can find our way into that one shared breath together.

Deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound.

Deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound on each exhale.

And seeing if we can find with more precision that exact moment when the group breath inhalates together and that exact moment when the exhale releases and the group breathes out together and entering into that shared we sound.

Feeling the meeting point of all the contact and connection of the bodies around you.

And in this group practice,

My invitation is to on vibration.

Taking a deep breath in and on the exhale,

Making a sound so loud it vibrates your entire core on the exhale.

And then using that vibration as the inquiry for your meditation.

Vibrating your vibrating body and the vibration of all the bodies around you.

Making any micro adjustments you need to make to keep softening,

Opening,

And receiving the medicine.

And if at any time you feel complete with this group belly to belly,

You can get up and move or dance or stretch.

Follow the pulse of aliveness.

Follow the flow of permission and freedom into exactly what wants to happen.

There is nothing you have to do here.

Deep breath.

This is a great moment to allow your awareness to expand out beyond the borders of your own skin,

Allowing in the nourishment.

So much nourishment is here.

Are you open to receive it?

Are you open for this tribal love field to touch your heart,

To give you everything you need and more?

There's so much love here.

Deep breath into our group.

I'm going to invite you to stretch and move your body in whatever way feels natural right now.

And you're going to keep stretching and keep moving until you magically end up in a closing circle.

We're going to make one big closing circle together,

Seated.

So keep moving,

Slow stretching.

I know it's so hard.

It's so hard.

How do I do it?

Slow,

Sluggish movement,

Like one big blob that's expanding.

Yeah,

Just allow your body to crawl or stretch or move.

Yeah,

Keep moving,

Keep stretching.

Don't stop breathing.