Breath Surfing

This meditation is a guided visualization for timing breaths with a four-second inhalation, a two-second hold, and a six-second exhalation. Sounds of two sets of eleven rounds of 4,2,6 breathing are timed with wave sounds. Total breathwork time is approximately five minutes.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Dr.

Brett Wade.

Welcome to my meditation called breath surfing.

If you've never breath surfed before,

Don't worry,

I'm here to be your guide through this session.

We're going to have great fun,

And I hope by the end you feel incredibly relaxed and look forward to doing this once again.

For this surf session,

I recommend that you're sitting,

Perhaps sitting in a chair,

Or sitting on the floor.

Just something that respects the natural curves of your spine.

Have your hands in a symmetrical position,

Whatever your left hand is doing,

Your right hand is doing.

And same with your legs,

That might be crossed,

Or it just might be with your feet flat on the floor.

Hopefully you can find a space where you won't be disturbed for the next 15 minutes or so.

And if you're ready,

Begin to close your eyes or have a downward,

Defocused gaze.

Now let's imagine a perfect day at the ocean.

We're on the beach.

Your feet are dug into the warm sand.

And the sun,

As it caresses your body,

Is warm but not too hot.

There's a gentle breeze blowing across your body which helps to keep you just a little bit cool.

Notice beside you is a surfboard,

And it's stuck in the sand.

Notice all the details on this surfboard.

Notice its height.

Notice the shape,

The contours and the colour.

Now look out into the ocean.

Notice the beautiful waves as they're coming towards the shore.

Since the sun is just beginning to set,

There's a beautiful orange glow.

And in fact with each wave we can see that wonderful orange glow almost right through the translucent wave.

Notice that these waves as they come towards the shore are perfect in terms of their height and perfect in terms of their spacing just right for breath surfing.

This is a very rare occurrence and perfect for this day.

If you were to count how often each wave runs up onto the shore,

You would notice that it comes up about every 10 to 20 times a minute.

And that's about how often you breathe.

Alright let's take our surfboards and put it underneath our arms and let's start to walk out into the ocean.

As you walk out into the ocean you notice that beautiful temperature of the ocean as it rises up about to the level of your knees.

It's refreshing,

Warm,

Not too cool.

Now as that smile begins to take over your face,

Let's run with that surfboard and jump onto our bellies and begin to paddle.

As we start to paddle out towards these wonderful waves,

We're going to duck under each wave and our goal is to get out to a place beyond where the waves are breaking.

Notice this crystal clear water as you paddle.

You and I are paddling side by side and all that we can hear right now is the sound of the ocean and the gentle waves behind us.

We'll continue to duck under a few more waves as we continue to paddle out.

Now that we've come far enough out,

Paddling over those beautiful waves and ducking under some of them,

It's time to enjoy the efforts of that paddling.

We're going to start breath surfing.

We've come to this place behind the waves and as we turn our surfboards back and sit on them,

We can look towards the beach and see those sets of waves perfectly spaced,

Perfect height as they make their way towards the shore.

Now get ready to follow me as I teach you how to breath surf.

Before I get going,

I want you to know that breath surfing is all about counting the waves,

Counting your breaths.

We're going to take four seconds as we paddle up to get up on top of that wave.

That'll be our inhalation,

Paddling to the top of the wave for four seconds and then we're going to hold our breath for two seconds as we make this vigorous jump onto our surfboard,

Landing on our feet and then exhale as we ride down the waves for six seconds.

So once again,

That'll be four seconds up,

Inhaling up the wave as we paddle up it,

Holding as we jump onto our boards for two seconds and then exhale on the way down for six seconds.

That'll be our out breath.

Okay,

When you're ready,

Watch me catch the first one and then we'll do it together.

Here we go.

Paddling up one,

Two,

Three,

Four and hold the breath,

Jump onto the board.

One,

Two and yes,

Exhale one,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

Riding that wave all the way back down.

That was great.

Now I want you to do that one with me.

Here we go.

Just to remind you,

We're going to paddle up as we inhale for four seconds,

Jumping on our board,

Holding for two seconds and exhaling as we ride that wave down for six seconds.

Here we go.

Let's do it together.

Here's the perfect wave and paddle up one,

Inhaling two,

Three,

Four,

Hold your breath,

Jump onto the board.

One,

Two,

Exhale and ride it down.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five and six.

That was great.

Now let's keep going.

From this point on,

You're going to time your inhalation,

Riding the wave up for four seconds,

Holding for two and exhale,

Ride that wave down.

And I want you to do it with the timing and the sound of the waves.

These waves are perfectly timed for a four,

Two,

Six breath,

Four inhalation,

Two hold and six exhalation.

I'm going to leave you now to do this on your own.

Four,

Two,

Six.

And when you're ready,

Begin.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

All right,

You're doing just great.

Keep it up.

We're going to just do a few more sessions.

Again,

Riding that wave up,

Paddling four,

Three,

Two,

One.

And jumping on the board,

Holding for two,

One,

Two.

And let's ride that wave down.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

And a few more minutes on your own.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight.

Now as we finish up our breath surfing,

We'll just take this final opportunity to ride the wave.

Let's ride that wave on our bellies back into the shore,

Just like we started on our bellies.

Using that wonderful final wave,

Just bringing us closer into the shore,

And you can see the sand beneath you starting to get shallow.

And just notice yourself gently stepping off of your surfboard,

Just popping it underneath your arm as you make your way back towards the sand.

And then turning around and once again just gazing out into that beautiful ocean with those wonderful waves that you've just breath surfed.

The sun is setting low,

It's a beautiful sunset.

Just take a final minute here to practice on land your four-two-six breathing.

It's been my pleasure to be out here breath surfing with you today,

And I look forward to joining you back on the waves again sometime very soon.

Peacefully,

Brett.

Reviews

Fun 🤩

Loved it! Could really feel all those emotions from surfing and being at the beach 🙏🏽