Hi and welcome to your nervous system breath work somatic experience practice.
This practice will be done in a seat so please find that now and it doesn't matter if you're in a supported chair or if you're sitting up in your bed but do try and find a comfortable seat.
We will start with the eyes open and what I'd like for you to do is identify something that you can see in front of yourself and it might be the wall in front of you and then identify something that is behind you and you'll have to turn around to do that so don't just think oh I know there's a wall behind me turn around and look and identify it and then look to your left and identify something you can see to your left and then look to your right and see something you can identify to your right and it doesn't matter if it's the wall in front the wall to side the wall behind but it can be a little more poetic if you wish and then I'd like for you to identify something that you can hear it might be simply the sound of my voice or the audio you might hear some beautiful sounds outside and then identify something that you can feel and it might be the temperature of your room against your skin or an item of clothing against your skin identify something that you can smell and if you can't smell anything in the space that you're in or maybe if you don't particularly like the smell identify your favorite smell and then go ahead and do the same for taste so if there's not a taste in your mouth identify your favorite taste and then you can go ahead and close down your eyes we're going to bring our fingertips towards the forehead and very very gently start to tap that area and you can do all the finger pads at the same time or maybe one at a time almost like you were kind of playing the piano and just be really really gentle here be really really gentle with yourself I'm just going to tap gently on the forehead let's tap all the way down so past the outer eye and then down towards the jaw and tap on your jaw again pressure might be a little stronger here maybe just a little stronger just tapping to the jaw and releasing your hands down towards your lap somewhere comfortable take an inhalation here and it doesn't need to be the best inhale you've ever taken but just notice your inhale and as you do that gently lift your shoulders up towards your ears and as you exhale any exhales good with control set your shoulders back down let's do that two more times so inhale lift the shoulders up with control and as you exhale with control set the shoulders down and we'll do that just one more time inhale shoulders rise and exhale lower your shoulders and now you can kind of nestle your hands into any comfortable position it might feel nice to almost kind of like hold your own hand we'll come into three rounds of that vowel sound voo for that encouragement of a parasympathetic nervous system response so what I'll ask you to do is take a deeper and fuller inhalation a tiny little pause at the top and then your out breath will be audible with sound and it will sound a little like this and we'll do that three times so take this deeper and fuller inhalation tiny little pause at the top and then that audible voo exhale to release and let it go so three rounds in total you probably have about two more take your time with it just feeling into the power of three that really solid and strong number once you've taken that third exhale maybe you took a fourth one and that's fine find your ujjayi breath let it be really soft and really gentle now if you're unfamiliar with what ujjayi is all you have to do is inhale and exhale through your nose and feel for your breath moving over your throat so you can turn this into the quietest softest most gentlest ujjayi breath you could possibly imagine I'll guide you through some really gentle breathing patterns where we simply work on lengthening the out breath and ratio to the in breath the inhale will remain a constant the same and what I'd like for you to do is really feel for that inhale stemming from your diaphragm and you can think of your diaphragm as the underbelly of your ribs so as you inhale imagine that space expanding and then then let the inhale continue to move upwards and outwards so I'll count you through and we'll just do a few rounds of each inhale deeply for four three two one exhale six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale eight seven six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale eight seven six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale eight seven six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale ten nine eight seven six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale ten nine eight seven six five four three two one inhale four three two one exhale ten nine eight seven six five four three two one just gently release the counting of your breath and even your ujjayi breath and observing any subtle or not so subtle shifts and changes to your body your being and you might stay here for a little while just in observation when you feel ready you can flicker your eyes open and come back into your surroundings that you identified earlier and you can keep coming back to this practice at any time you want to set or reset your nervous system
