Hello my friends,
Thank you for joining me for this guided meditation.
Today we will be working on the breath of fire.
This pranayama exercise involves the technique of exhaling forcefully.
So with that in mind,
If you have any pets nearby that could get excited by this sound,
You may want to find somewhere to practice that is free of these distractions.
It also may be a good time to grab a tissue in case this breathing style causes you to clear your nasal passages.
The focus for this practice is on the rhythm of the breath.
Your concentration will be on the breathing pattern,
Not necessarily the length of the breath.
We will be exhaling forcefully and inhaling passively,
Keeping our abdominal muscles contracted.
For this I like to place my hand on my abdominals when I begin so I can feel those muscles engaged during the practice.
So feel free to place your hand there now and begin contracting your abdominals,
Imagining you're drawing your belly button in and up with your muscles.
While we hold this muscle contraction,
We're going to repeatedly exhale through the nose forcefully.
Imagine you are outside carrying something heavy between your hands,
Engaging your abs to help you with the heavy load,
And a tiny fly buzzes up your nostril.
The blast of air you'll exhale out of your nose will blow the tiny fly away by a few inches.
That's the force we're looking for in our exhale here.
When we exhale in this way,
The air draws back in passively and we exhale again forcefully as that fly is trying to come back toward our nose.
Keeping that pattern of forceful exhale and passive inhale,
We are going to continue in this way for the next 30 seconds.
30 seconds as we inhale,
We're going to return to our normal breathing pattern now.
How did that breathing exercise make you feel?
Just notice.
Now let's try to go for a little longer.
You may notice that the pattern of your breath changes as my breath may have started slow and then I developed a rhythm becoming quicker and more automatic.
You may notice this for yourself like a roller coaster of sensation as your energy builds and peaks,
Then begins dropping down into a deeper state of calm and relaxation.
You can continue working on this breath with me as long as you'd like.
The longer we are able to practice this technique,
The more calming we will feel at the end.
So I encourage you to come back to this practice whenever you need to push the reset button on your brain and promote a sense of calm and clarity.
So we'll go ahead and continue our breathing exercise here,
Starting with an inhale.
You can continue breathing in this way for as long as you'd like on your own,
Focusing on that abdominal constriction and the force of your exhale,
Letting the inhale come passively.
