Hi there,
This is Courtney,
Also known as Self-Care Creature,
And this is meant to be a very simple exercise to help bring you back into your natural breathing mechanism and check in with whatever rhythm your body may be in in this moment.
This is great for quelling anxiety,
For bringing you back to your baseline.
It's also great to help with digestion before or after a meal,
Pauses during the day,
Whatever you need.
Take what resonates,
Leave the rest,
Let's dive in.
Go ahead and settle in wherever you are,
Feeling your sits bones or your feet on the ground,
Just noticing your points of contact with the earth,
However that may be.
And you can choose to have your arms at your side,
Resting in your lap,
Or if you're comfortable,
I encourage you to have a hand on belly,
Hand on chest or heart space so that you can really begin to feel into these rhythms of your body.
And just breathe,
You're just breathing,
There's no wrong way to breathe.
Go ahead and just notice the rhythm of your body at this time as you exhale and you inhale.
And as you begin noticing the rhythms of your breath,
Without trying to change anything right away,
Invitation to begin letting the jaw separate,
Let the tongue find its neutral space in the mouth,
Perhaps towards the center,
Gently pressing up through the crown of the head,
Letting the shoulders roll back.
And from here we'll begin striving to tap into this natural breathing rhythm.
If possible,
When you inhale,
Can you encourage the belly to expand?
And as you exhale,
Feel the belly coming towards the low spine.
We're inhaling,
Air is coming into the internal organs,
Belly expands,
Maybe the rib cage,
Maybe the heart space.
Exhale all that air out,
Feeling that gentle release,
The contraction as the air is exiting,
Belly may come towards the low spine.
You're welcome to continue just simply breathing in this way.
You may notice sometimes that when you inhale,
The belly sucks in,
And when you exhale,
The belly releases.
That is normal,
That is natural too,
But it's not the natural breathing mechanism,
Which is why we're here.
Just validating again,
There's no wrong way to breathe.
You're just noticing the rhythms of your body and trying to shift into how breathing was designed by nature.
For the last few moments here,
As it resonates,
Let's try the wave breath.
That is when you inhale,
Feeling the belly expand,
The ribs,
The heart space,
Maybe even feeling into the backs of the shoulder blades.
As you exhale,
Releasing through the shoulders,
The chest,
Down through the ribs,
And lastly feeling all that air exiting,
The belly comes towards low spine.
As soon as the inhale comes again,
We're expanding in the belly,
Up through the rib cage,
Through the heart space,
Through the shoulder blades.
And as soon as that exhale comes,
Releasing through the shoulders,
The chest,
The ribs,
And all the way out through the belly.
Go ahead and try this at your own pace for a few rounds,
Checking in with that neutral space of the face,
Once again,
Releasing the jaw,
The tongue,
The brow line,
Let the eyes settle.
Over time,
Perhaps you begin to actually feel a sensory shift within your body as you switch into a parasympathetic state,
A more restful,
Aware state.
I hope this helps you in whatever way was needed.
Stay with it as long as you like.
Thanks for tuning in.
