Whole Body Breathing

This classic breathing and meditation practice—paired with some gentle movement to start—invites you to experience yourself as integrated, whole, complete, and completely present. In other words, it's good medicine to pair with modern life, and just under 20 minutes. I hope it's the perfect companion to your day.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Paige.

This week's embodied meditation is a whole body breathing practice,

Which is essentially a practice of experiencing yourself as integrated,

Whole,

Complete,

And completely present.

We'll start in any comfortable sitting position.

You can be cross-legged on the floor.

You can be sitting in a chair.

Make yourself comfortable,

And we'll get started.

The psychologist and teacher Rick Hansen,

Who specializes in meditation and neuroscience,

Describes how whole body awareness,

Which this classic meditation practice invites,

Stimulates the brain's lateral networks,

Especially the right brain,

Which,

Among other things,

Is responsible for intuition,

Creativity,

Insight,

And holistic thinking.

Whole body awareness strengthens these parts of the brain,

So it's easier to move into a place of a present-moment awareness.

We're less caught up in worrying,

Planning,

Analyzing.

Maybe we have more of a sense of experience as a whole versus the spotlight of your attention,

As he calls it,

Skittering around.

And interestingly,

As our attention becomes less like a laser and more wide and whole,

Our perspective in general can broaden,

And we may take life a little less personally.

Before we move to the breathing practice,

Let's do some general movements so we can get the breath flowing through more and more of the body.

That way,

It becomes more of a direct agent of healing,

Almost massaging and melting any areas of tension or stress that it touches as it moves through.

Let's begin with some shoulder rolls.

As you inhale,

You can move your shoulders,

The heads of your shoulders,

Forward and right up to your ears.

Give them a little squeeze.

Maybe open your mouth and sigh as you exhale and roll your shoulders around back and down.

Two more like that.

Inhale forward and up with your shoulders.

Maybe a little sighing release as you exhale and move your shoulders around back and down.

And once more,

Inhale forward and up with the shoulders,

A little squeeze.

Open your mouth,

Sigh your shoulders around back and down.

Moving from there on into the body,

Drop your chin to your chest.

Let your left ear circle over toward the left shoulder.

Let your chin move back toward your chest.

Let your right ear circle over toward your right shoulder and move through a few more of these half neck rolls.

Exhale,

Dropping the chin to the chest.

Inhale,

Rolling the left ear over to the left.

Exhale chin to your chest.

Inhale right ear,

Drifting and rolling over to the right.

One more time each side on your own,

Half neck roll,

Moving into the body.

And from here,

Let's start to move into the center section of the body,

The torso.

So your attention can drift down to the rib cage and as you inhale,

Circle your ribs way over to the right and back.

And as you exhale,

Let them swirl to the left and forward.

Again,

Inhale,

Whole cage of the ribs circles over to the right and back.

And exhale,

Swinging to the left and forward.

One more time like that.

Inhale right and back.

Exhale left and forward.

Three times the other direction as you inhale,

The whole torso circles to the left and back.

Exhale right and forward.

Inhale swirling the rib cage left and back.

Exhale right and forward.

One more like that.

Inhale left and back.

Exhale right and forward.

And come all the way back through center.

And from here,

Stretch your legs out.

If you've been sitting with your legs crossed,

Just uncross them,

Stretch them out.

If you're in a chair,

Simply lengthen them in whatever way works for the shape that you're in.

And then begin to circle your ankles.

Just some slow swirling movements in the joints of the ankles.

You might stretch through the toes.

Stretch into the webbing in between each toe.

Circle your ankles around the other way.

If you slow that down a bit,

You could feel the threading action of the circling maybe move up into the calves,

Even the upper parts of the legs.

And then as you're ready,

Come back into a comfortable seat.

You could recross your legs the other way or sit in another position.

And then interlace your hands.

You can interlace them right in front of the chest.

And then press the interlaced palms forward.

So the fingers are interlaced.

You're pressing the palms forward and getting a little bit of a stretch through the palms,

The wrists,

The tendons of the forearms.

And from here,

You could let one wrist angle itself forward,

Kind of pressing it forward with the other drawing back.

And then switch the other wrist presses forward a little bit,

Fingers still interlaced,

Opposite wrist drawing back a bit.

Do that one more time each side,

Stretching into the palms,

The webbing in between the fingers,

The wrists and the forearms.

And then release the interlace of your fingers and give your wrists a little bit of a swirl around one direction and the other.

And let your arms rest again.

Hands can be in your lap,

On your thighs,

By your sides.

Let's move from here into the breathing practice.

You can stay sitting if that's comfortable.

If you'd rather lie down,

Feel free to do that.

We'll begin by breathing into the chest and then include larger and larger regions of the body until we take it as a whole.

Begin to feel your breath in your chest.

Slowly noticing the rise and fall,

Maybe the slight bit of expansion as you inhale,

Gathering back in as you exhale,

Allowing your attention just for now to be gently focused on how the breath is moving and feeling in your chest.

From there,

Begin to expand your awareness just slightly so that in addition to the chest,

You take in the whole belly breathing.

So those expansions may feel like they stretch all the way down into the low belly.

And as you release your exhales,

You might notice a little bit of a gathering and maybe even a gentle hugging in of the belly.

You're not directing that,

Just noticing it.

Continue to feel your chest and your belly breathing.

Now allow yourself to also take in the back body,

Absorbing these inhales and releasing the exhales.

Chest,

Belly,

Back body,

Expanding gently on the inhales and releasing,

Maybe even relaxing on the exhales.

And torso breathing.

As you continue this awareness,

Let yourself also take in any sensation of the throat and the sides and the back of the neck as you breathe.

Torso breathing,

Breath also touching into the throat,

The sides and the back of the neck.

Extend your awareness even a bit further now to take in the sensations of your face as you breathe.

Maybe the sides of the head,

The back of the skull,

The whole globe of your head in addition to the torso and the throat and the neck,

Sensations of the head as you breathe.

When you feel breath moving into your shoulders,

Your arms and your hands.

With just the gentle light of your awareness,

How do these parts of the body receive and release the breath?

Now your entire upper body all together breathing.

Torso,

Throat,

Neck,

Head,

Shoulders,

Arms and hands,

Entire upper body breathing.

Let your awareness now take in sensations in your hips as you breathe.

Your deep low back,

Hips and low back responding to the breath.

As your attention drifts on down the body,

Is there even some subtle sensation in your legs as you breathe?

When you sense breath moving all the way down into the legs,

Still registering subtly sensation in the hips and the low back,

Sensation in the legs as you breathe.

Then perhaps allowing your awareness to travel all the way down to your feet.

As in your feet receiving oxygenated blood as you breathe.

Now taking in the whole lower half of your body,

Hips,

Low back,

Legs and feet breathing.

Breathing the upper body,

Lower body and upper body receiving and releasing breath until you rest in the sensation of your whole body breathing.

Whole body breathing,

Less individual ingredients tasting the whole experience.

Single unified experience of the body breathing.

Whole and present breathing,

Resting into this rather than going after it.

A receptive sense of breath coming to you.

Receiving it,

Receiving much more than chasing it down.

Breathing out and into the experience of your whole body breathing.

Increasingly absorbed in the sensation of breath moving through your body as a whole unified experience.

Just another moment here,

The breath,

The body and the mind unified in a shared experience that feels perhaps wide,

Expansive,

All encompassing and restful.

Preparing from here to very slowly move into what's next for you.

If you run into times when you feel your attention is scattered or maybe volleying between rerunning the past and worrying about the future,

Try taking a breath or two into your whole body.

See if just that short,

Simple reset makes any kind of a difference.

Thank you so much for making this time for yourself and I'll be with you again soon.

Reviews

Lovely combination of gentle movement and breath work. Thank you Paige!

I am preparing for a hip replacement surgery tomorrow. Paige’s voice is immensely calming and this was very helpful to reduce my anxiety and to just feel better in my body. Thank you very much!

Well done as always. Thank you for your service ❤️

I loved this. My whole being relaxed. And I continue this awareness. Thank you.

Fabulous concept, very well guided. I feel centered and calm and Happy to have a new wellness tool in my toolbox. Thanks so much

Amazing....Namaste

Thank you for this wonderful meditation.

I really enjoy your practice together with Reiki make a great meditation when you make it for a longer time 40 min! Thanks

This was really good! Had some difficulty following what to do with my hands and arms; so, will do again!
Thanks!

This is an excellent way to reset at any time. Paige keeps a calming rate during meditation. I highly recommend and appreciate this offering.

Thank you Paige for this great session. Enjoyed it tremendously. 🙏

Great guidance at a good pace. Very effective. Thanks!

Wonderful sitting with you. Namaste!

I really enjoyed this. Thank you. 🙏❤️

Excellent body awakening... soothing!

Thank u for this beautiful meditation
I felt my whole body breathing which I have not felt before!
Blessings of gratitude and abundance 🙏

Perfect body breath meditation. Love the music, the pacing, your voice and the overall tone. Will become a regular for me. Thank you.