Box Breathing With The I Ching

This meditation blends the gentle rhythm of box breathing with the timeless wisdom of the yin–yang symbol. As you breathe evenly in all four parts of the cycle, you’ll be guided to visualise the flow of light and dark, expansion and rest, within yourself. Together, these practices calm a busy mind, soothe turbulent emotions, and invite your body into a state of deep relaxation and harmony.

Transcript

Welcome to this meditation entitled Box Breathing with the I Ching. In this meditation we're going to combine the power of box breathing to calm and focus the mind and the emotions with the power of the yin yang symbol from the I Ching. The two intertwined tails of black or yin or female energy and white male active expansive energy. While I introduce what we'll be focusing on in this meditation I encourage you to get comfortable to be in a space where you're completely relaxed whether you are seated or lying down and as I'm sharing I encourage you to make that space of absolute comfort for your body and for this time. Making sure that you are free of distractions and that you just have this little special time to be focused on your center and on your well-being. Box breathing is a powerful technique of using the breath to calm and focus the mind and to still those fraught emotions and our exhausted bodies as we make our way through life. We can visualize this box breathing journey as being a square where we start at the bottom of the box and we breathe in for four counts going up breathing in and then we hold that breath for four counts going across the top and then we breathe out for four counts coming down and then we hold that out breath of four counts coming back. We repeat that again and we combine that with a very similar idea of the cycle the energy of expansion and contraction using the yin yang symbol. Yang energy the white male expansive energy is the in-breath drawing in vital energy the white into every aspect of our being. The black or the yin energy is female is the darkness is the holding is the contraction and we use that for the out-breath as we release and empty ourselves out of the energy in the out-breath. When we work with the yin yang in this way we visualize the start of the breath starting at the tail breathing in at the tail of the white of the yang energy male until we reach the fullness of yang the bulb of yang and we hold our breath for four and then we breathe out we start the tail of the yin the black female energy as our out-breath reaches its fullness the bulb of the black and we hold our breath for four counts before coming back in at the tail of the yang the white tail and to repeat the process again. The yin yang symbol shows the interplay between the active expansive forces within us and the contractive focusing forces within us the male and the female. It is a visual picture that demonstrates the movement of the earth around the sun a full year depicted in a visual form a complete cycle and so too is this a powerful symbol for us to use when we consider the powerful role of breathing as our life force just as the sun is the life force of our solar system. As we prepare for meditation now that you are comfortable let us do some good preparation to put us into the right space for the meditation journey. Let's start by focusing on relaxing our whole body. Let's start with the toes and as you focus on your toes feel them releasing all tension and becoming really really heavy from the toes into your feet heavy and relaxed into your ankles into your calves heavy and relaxed and your knees and thighs heavy and relaxed into your pelvis groin abdomen up through your ribs through up your back heavy and relaxed. Now to your fingertips into your hands and wrists heavy and relaxed forearms elbows upper arms heavy and relaxed into your shoulders joining up with the rest of the body across the chest heavy and relaxed into your throat and chin and cheeks heavy and relaxed into your nose and brow and eyes heavy and relaxed into your scalp across the top of your head round the back across your ears the back of the neck heavy and relaxed whole body is deeply deeply relaxed now visualize the color silver shimmering light or rippling mirror surrounding and sealing your entire energy body your aura your body your space with a beautiful protective bubble of light that only the highest and the best may flow through you in this process that you are absolutely protected energetically completely private and in your own space and let us begin let's start with some simple box breathing just to get us flowing in the process breathe in the counts of four hold four breathe out four counts and hold four let's do that together breathe in two three four hold two three four breathe out two three four and hold two three four breathe in two three four and hold two three four breathe out two three four and hold two three four and again breathe in two three four and hold two three four breathe out two three four and hold two three four and now just let your breath flow in normal patterns relaxing even further as we now add in the visualization of the yin yang and the journey around the circle of light to take our box breathing to the next level i'll take you through some guided circles and then you'll have your own time and space to continue that breathing or to work in meditation tuning into the flows through you into maintaining a beautifully focused state of mind let's start with the tip of the white breathe in white two three four hold white two three four breathe out black two three four hold black two three four breathe in yang two three four hold yang two three four breathe out yin two three four hold yin two three four breathe in white two three four hold white two three four breathe out black two three four hold black two three four breathe in yang two three four hold yang two three four breathe out yin two three four hold in two three four breathe in white two three four hold white two three four breathe out black two three four hold black two three four breathe in yang two three four hold yang two three four breathe out yin two three four hold in two three four keep going as you visualize the flow of the breathing flowing through you the yin and the yang the power of expansion and contraction as the white and the black and the in and the out flow through you now it's time to slowly and gently come back out of this meditation taking with you the focus and the peace the clarity that is inherently within you at all times it just requires sometimes a little tool like this to help you find it again as we let go of the meditation and the power of breath and the yin yang symbol to bring peace and healing i will count us back in multiples of four by four as we've just been through starting at 16 and as i count back come back into the room more fully back into your body more presently 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 and 1 wiggle your fingers and toes lovely deep breath as you release this moment knowing you can always come back come back to that meditative space to reconnect and realign in the midst of life and all that it brings us every day thank you for being here with me and well done on working through a powerful meditation