Hi,
My name is Michelle Joy,
And this meditation is a breathing meditation using a technique called three-dimensional breathing,
Which I learned during my studies in contemporary Pilates.
So making yourself comfortable either sitting or laying down and tuning into your breath.
Just noticing where the breath enters and exits from.
Feel the movement in your chest and taking note of how it feels,
If it's an effort or if it's relaxed,
How deep is the breath,
Not making any judgments,
Just being aware of how your breath is.
And then taking in a nice big deep breath and letting go of the exhalation.
Just allowing any thoughts to drift by in your mind.
They can come and go as they please.
We're just going to be focusing in on the breath,
Bringing our awareness inwards and noting that we've got one hand placed on the front of our chest and one hand placed on the back of our chest on our back.
If you like and you feel comfortable enough,
You may even be able to reach one hand to the back and one hand forward resting on your chest or just one of your hands resting on your chest.
As you breathe in,
I want you to imagine or have a sense that you are pushing those hands away from each other.
So the hand that's at the front of the chest as you inhale,
You feel as if or you imagine that the breath or the rib cage is pushing that hand away with the inhalation.
And then it softens on the exhalation.
Same with your hand on your back or your imaginary hand on your back.
On the inhalation,
Those two hands are separating away from each other.
The chest is pushing those hands away.
And then on the exhalation,
They just soften back down and relax and the hands come closer together.
For a couple more cycles,
Breathing into those hands,
Pushing them away.
Each time that you inhale,
See if you can move those hands further apart.
And on the exhalation,
Really let go of that breath.
Expanding on the inhalation and relaxing with a nice long exhalation.
And going again.
Expand that a little bit more.
And relax a little bit deeper.
Just going with the rhythm of breath that feels comfortable for you.
So not worrying about counting the breath,
But more about expanding the breath,
Expanding the inhalation and letting go of the exhalation completely.
And now moving your awareness to the side of your rib cage.
So if you like,
You can place your hands on the outside of your ribs.
Or you can just imagine that there's hands on the outside,
Possibly just underneath your armpits.
And then breathing into these spots.
So either imagining those hands are just underneath your armpits on your rib cage,
On the sides,
Or actually placing your hands there.
And once again,
Just feeling those hands separate from one another.
On the inhalation and on the exhalation,
You just completely let go and relax.
And those hands come in closer.
Still increasing that breath.
And letting go,
Relaxing more into the exhalation.
Imagine that when you're breathing into the sides of your rib cage,
It's not just up underneath your armpits,
But it's all the way down the rib cage.
So you're doing that length in your breath all the way through your chest,
All the way through those ribs,
Breathing out sideways.
If your arms were laying next to you or relaxed next to you,
That rib cage is pushing those arms away from you.
And relaxing on that exhalation.
Relaxing on this direction for a little bit longer with a couple more breaths.
And then moving your awareness down to your lowest ribs.
So once again,
You can place your hands on your lowest ribs if you would like.
Maybe one hand on your lowest ribs or your upper tummy.
And one hand on your collarbones,
Just below your throat.
So just imagining that there's hands there or placing your hands there.
And so now we're going to get some length into our breath.
So imagining that when you inhale,
You're breathing all the way down to your last ribs as well as up to your collarbones.
So you feel that space elongating,
Lengthening on the inhalation.
And once again,
Softening and relaxing on the exhalation.
So keeping with that direction,
Getting that length in your breath.
You could even visualize that the air is coming into your spine and it's lengthening that spine.
You can go beyond the rib cage if you want to.
And the inhalation can go throughout the whole spine,
Down to your tailbone,
Up to the base of your skull on the inhalation,
And then just softening back down on the exhalation.
Nice long exhale.
Focusing on that lengthening.
Finding more expansion to the breath and more relaxation to the exhale.
A couple more cycles.
Feeling your shoulders rise and fall.
Feel that breath.
Feel your lungs and have that lengthening sensation through your torso,
Through your chest,
Through your rib cage,
Through your spine.
And softening and relaxing on the exhalation.
And now we're going to add in all three directions together.
So on the inhalation,
I want you to breathe into the front,
Back,
Sides,
Top and bottom of your rib cage.
Breathing in and then completely letting go of the exhalation.
So breathing in as deep as you would like and really letting go of that exhalation.
So we're breathing into the front,
Back,
The sides,
All the way to the top of the collarbones,
All the way to the bottom of those rib cages.
And feeling that breath going beyond that.
Expanding beyond your chest,
Beyond your ribs.
Inhaling to the whole of the spine,
Your whole chest,
And releasing and relaxing from there.
And if you want to,
You can visualize that there's two soft bands.
One underneath your armpits around the front of your chest,
Sides and back.
So a nice soft band.
And then another one is around your lowest ribs or your upper tummy,
Your abdominal area.
And you're trying to expand those bands as evenly as possible.
So on the inhalation,
You're trying to get a 360 even pressure of inhalation and an even relaxation of those bands coming together and the chest relaxing.
Keep that going.
Another visualization that helps you to come into this three-dimensional breathing,
Accessing both of your lungs,
Promoting relaxation within the mind and the body,
Increasing the stability in your shoulders.
The full breath in this type of breathing,
You're massaging your internal organs as well.
See if you can make it an effortless breath,
Both in and out,
While still keeping with the three-dimensional breathing concept.
So breathing into the front,
The back,
The sides,
The top and the bottom,
And all the spaces in between.
Expanding beyond the chest,
Beyond the spine.
And then letting go of any visualization and just bringing your focus to the present moment,
Relaxing the breath and coming into your own cycle and just tuning into how your body feels right now.
How's your breath feel?
How's your body feel?
And then when you're ready,
You can open your eyes with your toes and your fingers.
