Hello and welcome to this short,
Calming breathwork practice to help with anxiety and stress.
Find a comfortable posture of practice.
You could be seated,
You could choose a laying down posture,
Whatever it is that allows your body to be nice and relaxed.
Choose a position and posture that works for you,
That helps you to be comfortable.
Settle in,
Being really generous with your weight.
Feel a heaviness enter your body as you sink down.
The more you soften,
The more you allow your weight to sink down into the earth,
Into the supports below you.
The more that you feel those supports rising up to meet you,
To hold you.
In whichever posture or position you've chosen,
See if you can bring equal weight to both sides of your body.
Maybe you need to move and shift your hips a little bit,
Perhaps you roll your shoulders back and down.
Lengthen through the spine and tuck the chin.
Soften into your body.
And when you feel ready,
You can close your eyes and turn your focus inward.
Start to pay attention now to your breath.
Watch as the breath flows in and out of the body.
Without needing to change or alter it in any way,
Allow the breath to simply be.
Be the witness.
Notice how deep your breath is.
Do you feel the breath coming all the way into your chest and down into your belly?
Or do you find that the breath gets stuck or stalled somewhere?
As you breathe out,
Do you release completely?
Do you feel a softening?
Or does it feel as though something is holding on,
As though there is a tightness or constriction in the body?
Allow the breath to show you,
To reveal to you where you might be holding stress.
Where there might be tension within the body.
And now start to extend the breath slightly.
So breathe in through your nose,
Nice and slow.
Breathe out through your mouth.
Let it be easy.
Breathe in through your nose.
Count to three or four.
Exhale out your mouth and match the count.
Breathe in,
Lengthen a little bit more.
Exhale out to the same length.
Find a rhythm that works for you.
Long inhale,
Long slow exhale.
Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.
As you breathe in through your nose,
Feel the breath fill your chest and then move down into your abdomen and fill and expand your belly.
As you exhale out your mouth,
Soften the belly.
Soften the chest,
Let the shoulders drop.
Repeat this,
Inhale through the nose,
Expand the chest,
Expand the belly.
Exhale soften the belly,
Soften the chest.
Good,
Keep moving with the breath.
Noticing the ease that enters your body as you begin to deepen your breath.
More that you place your attention and focus on the breath and the slower that you allow the breath to be,
The more softness and ease that we invite into the body.
As we watch and witness the breath,
It naturally responds.
It naturally moves back to a flow,
A rhythm that is supportive,
That is calming.
Keep watching the breath,
Paying attention,
Witnessing.
There's any sense of anxiety or stress still remaining in the body.
Where you find yourself being caught up in thought,
Stress,
Anxiety of the mind.
Return your focus to the breath.
Extend the inhale and extend the exhale.
Just a few minutes of deep breathing helps to completely reset the nervous system.
Bringing us back into presence,
Back into embodiment.
And gives us an opportunity to look at things through fresh eyes.
Welcoming in calmness,
Ease.
Be gentle with yourself.
Let the anxiety and stress show up.
Simply an opportunity,
An invitation to return to presence.
Use the breath.
Now before we close the practice,
I invite you to set an intention for the rest of your day.
What is it that you are choosing as you step into your day?
Or if you're listening to this at the end of the day,
What is it that you are choosing for the dream time?
Breathe with it.
Focus on your heart space as you continue to breathe deeply.
And offer yourself gratitude.
The energy of thankfulness,
The energy of completion.
And release the breath.
Allow your breath to be natural.
Starting to feel into the edges of your body.
Feeling the weight of your body on the earth and that earth rising up to meet you,
To support you.
Perhaps visualizing the space around you,
The colors,
The shapes,
The forms.
And when you feel ready,
If you so choose,
You can open your eyes and step into the rest of your day.
Thank you for practicing with me today.
Much love and many blessings.
