Belly2Belly: Partnered Breathing Meditation (My Own Love)
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.
Transcript
So,
This first part of the practice,
The landing,
Noticing if you're already holding any tension in your body,
And if so,
How can you make some micro adjustments to maybe pull your chin into your chest and create a little bit more space behind your neck,
Or lay your legs on the ground and let your hips soften,
Or bring your hands to the side so there isn't the tension to even hold your arms up on your body.
See how you can create some micro movements that allow a deeper relaxation,
A softening.
At every point in this practice,
At every point where you come to a choice point or a decision,
The path to travel is always,
What would relax my body more right now?
Take that path.
And we're going to start the breathing process.
The breathing that I'm inviting you into in belly to belly is a circular,
Continual breath,
Meaning you don't ever stop breathing in this practice.
And we're breathing by taking deep breaths in through the nose,
So you can begin to practice that now,
However your breathing has been,
Making just a subtle shift so that you can breathe in through your nose.
And as you breathe in through your nose,
Follow all of those little oxygen molecules as if each one contained a magnifying glass or a camera,
And you could feel every inch as you ride this river of breath in through your nose,
All the way down into your belly,
Filling your belly completely,
And then your mid torso,
And then your chest.
And the exhale is simply a let go.
And as you let go,
There is a subtle sigh or a sound,
Something that starts to activate your vocal cords.
And that sound flows effortlessly out of your mouth,
So it's essential in this practice that your mouth is open,
That your jaw is loose and relaxed,
That your tongue is fat,
That your face relaxes,
Your cheekbones,
Your forehead,
Your nostrils,
All of the facial structures,
Even your ear lobes are relaxing.
Deep breath in through the nose,
Riding the river of breath all the way down,
Filling the body,
And on the exhale,
Letting out a sound from your open mouth.
So the first pillar of the belly to belly practice is deep breaths.
The second pillar is sound on every exhale.
And the third is synchronization.
We're synchronizing our breath with either our partners and or with the entire room.
This seems like a partnered practice,
But it's actually a group practice.
So even if you're practicing alone,
Your practice partner shifts and becomes the group field.
Sometimes in this practice,
What prevents people from dropping more fully into the synchronization is that their breath and their partner's breath are at different depths.
So I'm going to offer you a little invitation in case that happens to you,
A way to find the meeting point.
And the way you can do that is by counting.
And so you'll take around a four to five second inhale through the nose,
And you'll do around a six to seven second exhale through the mouth.
And this way we can find a rhythm together.
So we're going to try that all together at once now.
Deep breath in through the nose,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
And exhale through the mouth with sound,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
And inhale through the nose,
Two,
Three,
Four.
And exhale through the mouth with sound,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
And inhale through the nose,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
And exhale through the mouth with sound,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Amazing.
We're just going to continue just like that.
Just keep that rhythm.
If anything,
We're going to increase the sound about 25% more.
So letting the sound be so loud that it vibrates your core,
That it vibrates through your chest and through your throat.
And you start to give yourself an internal massage in this way.
Continuous breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound.
And we're going to start our meditation today in this self-practice.
We're going to start with where there's still tension.
So doing a little body scan as you continue breathing and feel into the tension point that you're holding right now in your body,
Whatever part of your body is carrying the most tension.
And if you can,
You can place your hands there if it's accessible with your hands,
Placing your hands where you're holding the most tension right now.
And then right there,
We're going to breathe into that tension point.
And on the exhale,
Make a sound from the tension point.
So breathing in,
And as you breathe in,
Breathing into the tension point where your hands are making contact with your body.
And as you breathe out,
Give that tension point a sound.
Let it sing,
Let it have a voice.
Open your throat and let the tension vibrate on the exhale.
Deep breath into this tension in through your nose,
And on the exhale through the mouth,
Giving that point a sound.
And continue,
Deep breath into the tension point,
And on the exhale,
Giving it a sound.
If a new tension point arises,
You can switch,
But if it feels better to stay with this one,
Just stay here.
Keep breathing in.
As you breathe in,
Fully feel this stuckness,
This contraction,
This density,
However it occurs to you,
Fully feel this body part,
This muscular structure.
And we're giving it more and more sound,
More and more space,
Letting the breath flow through.
Deep breath again right here,
And sound.
Yeah,
And again,
We're going to do titrated sounds,
So no 0 to 100s here,
0 to 20.
Your sound is so welcome,
But we're going to titrate the sound here.
Yeah,
Give it a sound.
It's good,
But let your vocal cords warm up into the sound.
Feel that tension point again.
Open your mouth and give it a sound.
Yeah,
You can do this.
Use your own hands.
Place your hands on your own body.
If they need to move to a new tension point that becomes more alive,
You can move to a new point in the body,
And then we're going to breathe there.
We're bringing more consciousness in our body to where there's tension,
And then giving it a sound.
More consciousness,
More presence,
Increased awareness.
Where is there tension?
And give it a sound.
Beautiful.
Do about 10 more breaths here,
So allow yourself to play with the sound,
To play with the points in your body.
Explore and experiment what happens when you make different sounds,
When you allow the soundscape to change.
Perhaps the next sound carries more density or more depth.
Perhaps the sound comes through a higher pitched frequency.
Just let your body play with the sound and the movement,
Finding your tension points authentic sound.
We're not trying to make anything go away here.
We're not trying to reject any part of ourselves or exile it.
We're inviting the tension.
We're letting the tension speak.
We're giving the tension a place.
This tension is welcomed here.
It's a part of you.
It's a part of me.
It's a part of us.
We're listening to the wisdom together and our shared tension points.
Listening together to the wisdom of our shared tension points.
Deep breath into the tension and sound from the tension on the exhale.
A few more breaths here.
And you can start to soften now and let go of this connection to the tension points.
Come back to neutral and soften and feel.
And if it helps,
You can allow your hands to move to this open place,
This place in or around or on your body,
Which gives you access into openness,
Flow.
Here,
We're going to start breathing again and see what happens when we breathe right into our openness.
Taking a big,
Deep breath in through your nose into your openness and give your openness a sound on the exhale.
And we can start out soft.
And then again,
A deep breath into your openness.
And if you're having the experience where you don't feel quite open right now,
That's okay.
That's welcomed here.
But then find the place that has access to some frequency,
To some flavor.
Entertain the experiment where in your body is the most,
Even if most of you isn't.
Finding that access point to openness,
Taking a deep breath and sharing that openness through the sound on the exhale.
And on the next exhale,
I'm going to invite you to make a sound that's about 10% louder than your last exhale.
Giving that openness more of a voice here.
And another deep breath.
And on this exhale,
Make the sound 20% louder.
Another deep breath into your openness and make the sound 30% louder.
And a deep breath into your openness.
I want to hear,
What does your open body sound like?
Share that sensation.
Share that frequency into our space.
How does openness sound?
How does openness move?
How does openness harmonize?
Deep breath.
A few more breaths here.
Deep breath into your open body.
And on the exhale,
40% louder sound.
Beautiful.
Another deep breath into your openness.
Maybe it's changing,
Finding a new place in the body.
And a 50% louder sound on the exhale.
Three more breaths here into your openness again.
Deep,
Full breath.
Deep breath into this open portal.
Feeling your way again.
Just softening in and feeling.
Rolling over onto your side.
And we're going to make the transition from this being a solo practice to a partnered practice.
But before you even make those first movements,
Just feel what starts to happen in your body.
How does your nervous system respond?
Feel the connection to your openness.
Feel the connection.
Where we do that,
Just coming back to the space of your heart.
Feeling your heart.
And a gentle breath into your heart.
Starting to make these movements can just allow the body to rock.
Not moving too fast as you roll over onto your side.
And make this first moment of eye contact with your partner.
And so there's just here a first moment of eye contact.
Of seeing.
And with this eye contact,
Take a deep breath together.
And take a moment as you stare into these eyes to look deeply into the black center.
And see beyond all the superficial layers that might qualify who or what this person is.
Instead looking into that soul.
Into that timeless space.
Beyond identity.
Into the spirit.
The matter.
The essence.
Taking a moment to appreciate that seeing.
That bigger space.
That is beyond form.
And then another deep breath together.
So in this practice,
It usually physically works best if your own arm that you're lying on,
Like the side that you're lying on that arm is under your own head.
And then as it feels like it would relax your body more,
You can come closer into a physical connection.
So this practice is called belly to belly for a reason.
Because in the most ideal world,
Your bellies are touching in the center.
But you don't have to do that.
You can hold hands.
You can touch knees.
But it works also great if one leg goes in between the other leg.
So your arms wrap around each other's back.
Your legs are intertwined.
And you come into this,
What we call,
Lover's embrace.
As much as that feels comfortable or accessible,
You can make micro adjustments and movements to find the best belly to belly position for you and your partner.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
And once you've kind of found that position that fits just like a glove,
It's like,
Oh,
Here,
Yeah.
I can relax into this.
You can close your eyes.
But if you haven't found that yet,
Keep making some micro movements and adjustments so that you really,
Like,
This is the epitome of both holding and being held simultaneously.
It should feel really good.
And once you've dropped into the body position or the structures that make it work,
You can close your eyes.
And this is where the rhythmic,
Synchronized breathing becomes most important.
So you and your partner right now are just dropping into a shared breath together.
Deep breaths together in through your nose for about four to five seconds and out through the mouth for about six to seven seconds.
And every exhale gets a sound or a sigh that's carried by a vibration.
Deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth with sound.
Yeah.
Deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth with sound.
And in this practice,
The sound on the exhale is how we communicate love.
It's like the river of love that's running through.
It's the relational river.
So I'm going to invite you to continue to make this sound and be sure that the sound is loud enough that your partner can hear.
This is how we find the shared rhythmic breath together.
Sinking up.
Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound.
There's nothing else to do right now other than breathe and sound.
And merging so completely with this frequency of sound that you really,
You become the sound.
It's like your awareness is riding on sound.
And turning up the volume on your ears to listen,
To take in the sound of your partner,
To take in your own sound.
That there is a sound.
And as you're in this contact,
As you're in this connection,
Feeling your heart,
But also feeling your connection to the heart of your partner.
There's a shared heart field here.
My heart and your heart,
Shared heart field.
And taking a deep breath into that shared heart field and then give that shared heart field a sound.
Taking a deep breath into this shared heart field where my heart and your heart are in a shared space.
The relational meeting point of our two hearts coming into contact here and giving that a sound.
And is there any movement or adjustment that would support you to relax even deeper right now?
Allow your body to make that micro adjustment,
Whether it's moving an arm or repositioning your head to be as relaxed as possible.
Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with sound.
And together taking a deep breath into your hearts with a sound from your hearts on the exhale.
And a deep breath into your bellies with a sound from your bellies on the exhale.
And a deep breath all the way down into your root,
Your base riding the river of breath all the way down and give it a sound on the exhale.
And each of us are longing to hear what are the words that your heart is most longing to hear.
Right now.
Heart is most longing to hear right now.
And then taking a deep breath into your heart.
In a moment I'm going to invite us into a sharing round.
So just however deeply you've gone into the breath,
Just taking a moment to start to float back up to the surface of your own awareness.
And find if you're not already a position where you can stay here,
But you can also see your partner where you can take in their face and share.
Yeah,
So making eye contact now gently,
Softly opening your eyes.
And as you open your eyes,
I invite you to see your partner as if they were you.
As you look at this face,
See your own reflection back.
And if you're the person lying on your right side,
If you're lying on your right side,
I'll invite you to share first.
If you're lying on the left side,
You're just going to receive,
Silently receive the words into your heart.
Person on the right,
The words that you're going to share for the next minute are as if you were speaking to yourself.
If you were speaking to yourself,
Share with this person the words that you're most longing to hear.
So as if you could speak to yourself right now,
Your partner becomes you,
And you become the words you're most longing to hear.
You can even start by saying your own name,
Like,
Rachel,
I love you.
Whatever those words that your heart is most longing to hear,
Person on the right,
You'll have one minute to share them with your partner.
You can begin.
As if you were speaking to yourself.
Starting to wrap up your share.
Letting the words fade away,
And then closing your eyes and dropping back into the breath as you feel the impact of either having been the person who shared or been the person who received the share.
And as you feel that impact,
Take a deep breath into your heart and let out a sound from your heart on the exhale.
And then a deep breath into your belly and a sound from your belly on the exhale.
And a deep breath into your root and a sound from your root and your base on the exhale.
Partner who shared that round,
Just feeling into the impact of having heard those words that you most long to hear.
Having them be spoken,
Have a voice,
Have a life.
And person who received,
Just feeling how it felt in your own heart to have received those words.
And we're going to swap roles now of speaker and listener.
And when you open your eyes,
The person lying on the left will now be looking at themselves.
So person on the left,
Opening your eyes,
Meeting your partner's eyes and seeing yourself before you.
Dropping back into your heart and connecting with the words you're most longing to hear right now.
And you'll take the next minute to share them.
Again,
Even maybe saying your own name.
Rachel,
I see you.
Whatever those words are,
You can begin.
And starting to round off the words.
Closing your eyes and dropping back into sound to integrate.
Taking a deep breath into your hearts together with a sound from your hearts on the exhale.
And a deep breath into your bellies together with a sound from your bellies on the exhale.
And a deep breath all the way down into your roots together with a sound from your root,
From your base on the exhale.
And feel the impact.
If you were the one who just shared,
Just let that impact,
That ripple,
That reverberation.
Allow yourself to feel it fully.
Those are my words.
Those are the words my heart is longing to hear.
And if you were the partner receiving,
Feel the impact of having received those words.
And as you continue breathing and sounding and feeling the impact,
I invite you to just allow whatever movement impulses come to allow yourself to move with them.
So if it feels like a new position or it feels like a tighter squeeze or it feels like a different kind of touch between you,
Just allow your authentic movement impulses to guide you right now without words.
You can also stay in stillness.
Maybe your heart now is inspired to give something to your partner,
A certain kind of touch.
Maybe you want to offer a massage or you want to lay on top of each other or whatever that impulse is,
Just allow yourself to follow it without words.
We'll stay in the silence and just let the bodies move.
Five minutes of unobstructed,
Uncontained allowance.
Follow the river.
Where is the river taking you?
Trust your impulses.
Trust your body.
Trust the wisdom.
Trust yourself to move.
I'm just going to ask that the words,
To let the words go.
Cleverly disguised as you.
Keep breathing in through the nose,
And out through the mouth with sound on each exhale.
And letting the sound direct the movement.
Letting that river of breath be the pulse,
The flow,
The guide into the movement that's next.
As it guides you to the next motion or movement,
Be softening back into stillness.
And as you soften into stillness,
Allowing the breath to turn inside out.
So all of that extroverted energy pulls back down and into your own body.
And it's as if your cells and the atoms in your cells become brighter.
Brighter.
You can feel more of yourself.
And listen.
Listen in through the empty space.
And here in the silence and the emptiness.
Feeling that empty space.
And allowing your body to be breathed by that empty space.
And then slowly just allowing whatever subtle movements want to start to happen as you gently begin this journey back into your own space.
Perhaps giving your partner a gentle squeeze and release.
And coming back into the position where we started the practice on your back in your own space.
Slowly rolling over onto your back.
Into your own space.
Slowly and silently rolling over onto your back.
Into your own space.
And letting yourself feel this new form.
Feeling this new body.
Feeling this new moment.
Feeling what's new and different.
Checking in,
For example,
With those tension points when we started the practice.
Have they moved or changed?
Checking in with this open part of your body.
Your openness.
What's new and different about your openness?
Taking a deep breath into your own beautiful heart.
And letting out a sound from your own heart on the exhale.
And again,
A deep breath into your heart.
With a sound from your heart on the exhale.
One more deeper breath into your heart.
And a little louder sound from your heart on the exhale.
And then a deep breath into your belly.
And again,
A sound from your belly.
Another deep breath.
Deep,
Full belly expansion on the inhale.
And on the exhale,
The sound of your belly.
One more bigger,
Deeper,
Fuller breath into your belly.
With a sound from your belly.
And now,
Going a little bit darker and a little bit deeper down to your root,
Your base.
Big,
Deep breath into your base.
With a sound,
An authentic sound from your base on the exhale.
And again,
Deep breath into your root,
Into your base.
Sound from your base on the exhale.
And one final,
Deeper,
Fuller breath all the way down into the base.
And allow your body to stretch or move in whatever way feels natural right now.
And we're going to slowly make our way into a seated circle on the mattresses.
So just keep letting your body move or stretch and move and stretch until you find yourself in a seated group circle.
