Welcome back everyone to the seventh day of Nalu Mind the Flow.
Thank you for joining and thank you for being here if it's your first time.
Welcome and if you are returning then welcome back.
I'm grateful to have folks joining today or any day.
Each day we'll have a little bit different mindfulness and meditation activity and keep bringing just a little bit at a time so you're welcome to join for one day or many.
For the past six days Nalu has been exploring their breathing,
They've been exploring the sensations of the breathing,
The sound of the breathing,
The touch of the breath on the body and they started to notice what the breath feels like at the top of the breath and at the bottom of the breath.
And so today Nalu starts to wonder what happens if I take control of my breathing?
Can I change my disposition?
Can I change my position?
Can I change the way I'm perceiving things if I take a little bit of control of the breath?
So up until this point Nalu's been really interested in what's naturally happening with the breath and today they decide let's take a little bit of control of the breath here and there and see how that feels.
So for today you're welcome to have your eyes opened or your eyes closed at your preference.
We're just going to be experimenting with a few deep breaths and then letting the breath return to normal and then I'll come back on the mic and we'll have a couple more deep breaths and then let the breath return to normal following along with Nalu's experiment.
So you're welcome to sit back,
Get into a comfy position,
You might have your eyes opened or closed and then we're just going to go ahead and we're just going to press all of the air out of the body.
So we're going to exhale,
Exhale,
Exhale,
Maybe through the mouth or the nose or both and just push all of the air out and then let the inhale happen naturally.
So just inhale,
Nice deep inhale as deep as you'd like and then just go ahead and just let the air flow out naturally out of the body.
And then another deep inhale,
Breathing the air in nice and deep,
Take a bigger inhale than you did last time,
Let the air come into the body and then just a nice exhale,
Let all of the air out,
Empty the lungs,
Get the old stale air out from the bottom of the body there and then inhale.
And a couple more times like that on your own,
Just go ahead and inhale deeply and exhale deeply just a couple more times and then just we'll be letting the,
We'll be letting the breath return back to normal after a few intentional deep inhales and exhales.
And then letting the breath return to normal for a few breaths as we sit quietly together.
And just noticing the breath as it goes in,
Noticing the breath as it goes out and maybe taking stock of how today might be different than other days because we've just had a little bit of breath control before that.
And Nalu notices after they've taken a few deep breaths that there might be some other things happening with the body.
They might have the urge to sneeze or maybe there's a burp or something that comes out of them and that's totally okay.
That's all body natural processes and that's a natural physiological response to taking a few deep breaths and filling the air,
Filling the lungs with air and oxygen.
And Nalu is noticing the very natural breathing that's occurring as the air goes into the body and the air goes out of the body.
They're noticing the sensations that they've been experiencing over the past several days during their practice and noticing and observing.
And they're going to decide to take one more set of deep breaths together so we can follow along with a nice big inhale.
And a nice long exhale to let all of the air come out of the body,
Pressing all the air out,
Maybe pressing in from the diaphragm or the lungs.
And then taking a nice big inhale.
And then exhaling again,
All of the air out of the body.
So just maybe causing the body to experience a little bit deeper breathing and maybe putting some attention on the breath before we let it go back to the natural breathing and maybe this can help us bring some deeper observation into the breath.
And just now noticing after a couple of deep inhales and exhales,
Just noticing how the breath returns back to normal,
Seemingly on its own accord,
And begins to breathe itself and to breathe us naturally by itself.
And Nalu's noticing after taking some deep breaths and then returning the breath to the natural state,
They kind of have the desire to maybe take a stretch or maybe move the body a little bit and adjust their posture and this is a very natural reaction to kind of taking in that deep oxygen and you might notice that your frame or your torso is in a different position than feels natural and so you might adjust by maybe,
You know,
Stretching the neck a little bit or opening up the chest a little bit as that air moves in and out,
It kind of inspires the body to take action and that's totally natural if you're feeling those urges.
So now is the time to do it,
Just opening up a little bit and letting more space for that oxygen to come into the body and that carbon dioxide to leave out and taking with it all of our toxins and all of the stuff we don't need.
And here on day seven of Nalu's journey,
They realize that they've been kind of really concentrating and observing for about a week and trying to maybe start to think about how they might apply some of these techniques into their daily life,
Like how might they start to use these processes during the day and so Nalu's resolved to maybe take a deep breath here and here and again,
Now and again during the day and maybe they can use that deep breathing to sort of set the tone and relax themselves a little bit before maybe before a meeting or before a conversation that they might want to have with somebody.
So just practicing taking in that deep breath and letting that breath go out as a natural process and a natural way to sort of relax the body and bring in fresh air and fresh oxygen.
So thank you for coming to today,
To Nalu's journey on day seven.
We're going to start to talk about how we integrate some of these practices into our daily lives and we're going to join Nalu for several more experiences along the way,
Maybe getting into a little bit more of work with the breathing and then into some sensations and that sort of thing.
So I hope you'll come back for another day and I look forward to seeing you.
Thank you for being here today.
