Exploring The Breath

In this breathing meditation, we'll explore the breath and practice different types of mindful breathing techniques. If you're new to breathwork this will be a gentle introduction to it, and if you're a pranayama pro it's a great chance to play with and deepen into your existing tools. We'll practice different rhythms and shapes of breath (including box, triangle, and circle) and use the breath to send healing signals to different parts of the body.

Transcript

Today,

We're going to be exploring the breath,

Really deepening into mindful breathing.

And so we'll just start by taking a few nice,

Big belly breaths.

So imagine that this is the biggest breath that you have taken all day and just take a nice,

Big breath in through the nose,

Fill up your entire belly,

Your chest,

Just the whole abdomen,

And you can give a big sigh out.

We'll do a couple more of those,

A nice,

Big,

Broad inhale,

Filling up the entire chest,

The entire belly,

And a nice,

Big exhale.

And one more,

Biggest breath,

The most air that you can bring in and give to yourself.

And then a nice,

Big exhale,

And you can savor that exhale and just let it be nice and slow.

You can let your breath kind of settle and come to a comfortable rhythm.

The breath is probably the most accessible tool to us to use to change how we feel.

And I remember learning from someone once that the breaths we take now determine how we feel 20 minutes from now because of the time it takes for the body to react and for the oxygen to travel through the system.

So that's a nice reminder that,

You know,

Taking some conscious breaths,

It can help us feel good immediately in the moment,

But there's also a little bit of a delayed response.

So I try to keep that in mind if I'm doing a breathing practice to just kind of let them settle and know that it is a practice.

So today we're going to be trying out different breathing techniques and kind of rhythms.

So we'll start with one of my favorites,

Which is an inhale through the nose for a count of four and an exhale through the nose for a count of six.

So I'll kind of count us on the first few and then allow you to continue at your own pace.

So when ready,

We'll inhale two,

Three,

Four,

Exhale two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Inhale two,

Three,

Four,

Exhale two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

And you can continue at your own pace.

A really nice and easy way to send some biofeedback to the body to help it relax is by making our exhale longer than our inhale.

And so that's what this count of four inhaling and count of six exhaling,

Kind of just deepening into that exhale,

Connecting with a really nice balance of heart rate variability.

So we can just continue at that count for a little bit.

Yeah,

That's good.

Great.

So we're going to play a little bit more now and the next exercise we're going to do is called box breathing.

It's a box because it's kind of like each count is like a line that we're drawing.

And so in box breathing,

We're going to inhale for a count of four,

Hold for a count of four,

Exhale for a count of four,

And hold at the bottom for a count of four.

So it's kind of like creating a square or a box where each side is a count of four.

And if that particular count doesn't work for you,

You can modify it to whatever is comfortable.

We don't want to get out of breath in our breathing exercises.

So there's flexibility,

Just listen to your body.

I'll start us off with the first few cycles.

So when you're ready,

Inhale 2,

3,

4,

Hold 2,

3,

4,

Exhale 2,

3,

4,

Hold 2,

3,

4,

Inhale 2,

3,

4,

Hold 2,

3,

4,

Exhale 2,

3,

4,

Hold 2,

3,

4.

So this is,

We can continue our box breathing and this is a pretty regimented breathing style.

And sometimes I find it difficult to breathe in this way,

Like exact counts.

It's like trying to fit,

Fit the breath into a structure,

Like trying to put water into a container and it can be,

I've,

I've found it,

I often find it uncomfortable,

But it's a little bit like,

I guess it's kind of like exercise or exercising the breath or building a muscle or making it,

We're using it in different ways.

And so that way,

When we let go of the structure and we return to our natural breath,

It comes a little bit easier and it's a little bit fuller and stronger.

So you can just kind of sink into this rhythm of the box breath.

Notice how your body responds to it.

Is it in resistance?

Is it finding the rhythm?

Is it tensing up near the ends of the holding counts?

We're going to transition to triangle breathing.

And so triangle has three sides.

So we're going to,

For this style,

We're going to inhale for a count of four,

Exhale for a count of four and hold for a count of four.

So it's like a,

What is that called?

An equilateral triangle.

All sides are the same length.

So when we're ready,

We'll inhale two,

Three,

Four,

Exhale two,

Three,

Four,

Hold two,

Three,

Four,

Inhale two,

Three,

Four,

Exhale two,

Three,

Four,

Hold two,

Three,

Four.

And you can continue at your own pace.

One of the nice things about incorporating these spaces in the breath,

These points at the top or bottom of the breath where we're holding,

Is it just kind of creates this quiet,

Still space where we're not really doing anything.

We are just holding.

And it's really,

It's like a calm in between the breaths.

And it's also prepares us to receive the next breath.

So there's this phrase of like,

We take a breath,

But we actually can just receive it.

It's like giving it to ourselves and it can be really easy.

And so that's what's,

What's nice about those pauses.

And you can just notice what exists for you in those pauses.

So now we'll,

We'll transition to,

We're going to move from our triangle breathing.

And now we're going to breathe in a circle,

Circle breathing.

This is one of my favorites.

So we're going to inhale.

Let's see,

We'll inhale for a count of five,

And then there's going to be no pause in between our inhale or exhale.

So we're going to inhale for five and immediately exhale for five.

And you can just kind of try with this to get the,

Let the inhale immediately transition to the exhale and see how smooth you can make that transition so that it's just one constant.

It's like a constant cycle of breath.

So inhale for five and exhale for five.

So when you're ready,

We'll inhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Exhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

Inhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

Exhale,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five.

And you can continue at your own pace.

If it feels comfortable to do shorter breaths or longer breaths,

Just make your inhale and your exhale even.

You might notice any difference here of having a continuous breath and not having any space between the inhale and exhale.

It's kind of like this constant movement or continuous flow,

Almost like waves in the ocean that rise and fall.

You can just kind of sense that movement and flow in your physical body in a way that mimics the breath.

So now we'll just kind of,

We'll open it up a bit.

We'll just kind of do one more breathing exercise in this style,

And I'll just let you pick,

You know,

If there's one of these that you liked the most,

Or if you want to play with a different pattern of breathing and do some kind of combination of them,

Just kind of explore and see what your body feels like,

Feels attracted to doing with your breath.

You can,

Yeah,

You can kind of make any shape if you want to do a trapezoid breathing or a star-shaped breathing,

Just kind of pick a technique or a pattern that feels good for you right now.

The only thing I would avoid is,

I would avoid making your inhale longer than your exhale because then you'll hyperventilate.

So either equal or longer exhales than inhales,

But yeah,

See what shape your breath wants to be and just practice that for a little bit.

Really nice.

And we're going to,

We're going to practice one more exercise with our breath and we're going to kind of involve the rest of the body a little bit.

So you can lay your breath,

Kind of come to a natural state.

You don't have to pay attention to it.

You can just kind of let it settle and you can kind of give your breath a color and pick a color that feels really healing for today or your favorite color or a color that you want to bring into wherever you're going after this meditation.

And just,

We're going to trace that color in the body,

Just in our mind's eye.

So with your eyes closed,

As you breathe in,

Just kind of send your breath and that color into your throat.

So as you breathe in,

Kind of watch and sense that breath really touching all of the parts of your throat.

You can watch your throat fill in with that color as you breathe in,

And you can release that color as you breathe out.

Now you can send that color and that breath into your chest,

Filling in the whole chest,

Bringing it in and then releasing it really easily.

And now bring that,

Send that breath and that color to your belly as you breathe in,

Watch it fill in your whole belly,

Your whole diaphragm,

All of your organs in your belly,

And then let it go.

This is kind of like a breath massage.

And now practice sending the breath and that color all the way down to your feet and your toes.

You could send your breath all the way down,

Just watch it fill in,

Watch all of your legs and your feet and your toes fill in with that color.

And you can notice,

Are you taking a bigger breath or can you send it all the way to your toes and take a normal size or a small size breath.

Now you can send your breath and your color to the back part of your body,

You can choose your lower back or middle back or your upper back,

Whatever,

Or your entire back,

Whatever feels good.

Watch it and feel it kind of fill in with your color,

With your inhale,

Creating more space in that back body,

And then let it go,

Almost like we're using our breath to clear out that space,

Like rinsing it,

Rinsing it and wringing it out.

And now try sending that breath and that color all the way to your hands,

To your hands and your fingertips.

And now you can let your breath and your color,

As you inhale,

Let it fill up your whole head and your entire brain,

Really sending that healing color to your brain and all that oxygen to the brain.

And you could just watch your head get real big with your color,

Your healing color and your inhale.

And again,

Wringing it out as you exhale,

Good job.

And with our last few big breaths here,

Let's take a couple of nice,

Big inhales,

Send that healing color throughout your entire body and watch it fill in your entire space and let it go.

A couple more big breaths here and let it go,

Great job.

When you're ready,

You can come back to a nice,

Easy breathing,

You can wiggle,

You can give some jazz hands and you can come on back.

Reviews

That was so cool! And very centering. My mind was busy with counting the breaths, so very little wandering mind. Many thanks! ☮️💖🙏🖖🪷🕉