Breath For Self-Awareness

Breath awareness can support our journey towards self awareness and today's practice is a perfect example of this.

By gently encouraging balance in our breathing pattern we can see the nuances of our nervous system- where the challenges lie within our body that our cognitive thinking chooses to ignore.

In this way, a daily breath practice is a wonderful way of accepting what is and allowing truth over fiction to be our North Star for the day.

Transcript

Welcome.

We offer these meditations freely and your donations make a real difference.

So thank you.

So we're going to take a seat.

You can of course lie down if it's uncomfortable to sit up.

We're going to do some gentle breath practice this morning.

So be sure that you're comfortable and that you're warm.

Maybe have a drink to hand in case you get thirsty.

And see if you can get your hips higher than your knees ideally in whichever position you're sitting in.

And we have a theme for the month.

The theme is prosperous.

And I find it quite curious the way that prosperous or it's sort of the shadow of prosperous is lack or scarcity.

How that shows up in your breath.

As someone who has asthma I'm very familiar with the feeling of not being able to breathe.

It's probably why I have learned all these breath practices.

And the story of lack and scarcity for myself is probably the biggest story of one of the biggest stories of my personal narrative.

So they very much go hand in hand for me.

The asthma,

The shortness of breath and the belief that there's not enough and it won't be okay.

So I think that these concepts,

These ideas that we play with each month as a theme,

They show up in the body.

They're not just cognitive ideas.

The breath is a way of reading your nervous system because your nervous system and your breath are so closely entangled with each other.

You will know that from any time you've ever felt nervous and your breath definitely changes or excited when you're very excited.

Or if you're with the partner of your dreams you can't even find your breath.

So your nervous system and your breath are real allies.

They dance together.

And today our breath is going to be about harmony,

So bringing balance.

And as always with the breath practice I'm going to make suggestions.

And you can decide for yourself if you're going to do them or not.

You can choose to just come back to square breathing at any time.

We'll start with square breathing so everyone's got that as their baseline.

And you can return to that at any point.

And when I began doing breath practices I trained with a gentleman called Ayanga who was based in Mysore in India.

And I often fled the room.

And I was in the room because I found it so hard to do breath practices.

I would get so triggered and panic attacky.

And so I think you know I was coming from a mindset of I have to do this a certain way.

There's a right way and there's a wrong way.

And that was too much for me.

So what I've learned or what I've adapted to is the belief that there's no right way or wrong way.

And there's no getting out.

So it's all just a game,

An exploration,

A curiosity.

I wonder what I'll find today.

I wonder where my breath will take me today.

I wonder.

I wonder what is there,

What's lying there beneath the surface of my very busy cognitive thought.

If I drop into my breath what will I find?

So my invitation is to you to do the same.

To not get tangled up in this is the right way,

This is the wrong way.

To go very gently and inquisitively and let's see what we find.

So ideally the spine is straight and the shoulders are away from the ears.

The tongue is resting up in the roof of the mouth.

That allows the jaw and the mouth and the teeth to soften.

You might have your eyelids down or you might just be glancing down at the floor,

Dropping the gaze.

Let's tune in for a moment to our sense of hearing.

Noticing the sounds that are furthest away.

So without giving them a label of a good sound or a bad sound we're just watching,

Curious.

And then coming to your sense of hearing as it comes closer to your body,

Maybe you can hear your breath.

So the breath is through the nose.

A jai breath is a system where the throat is gently contracted so that the breath becomes audible,

You can hear it but it's not forced and it's not always audible.

But certainly there is sensation,

You can feel the breath moving through the throat.

It's almost like a gentle snore.

So my suggestion is to drop into ujjayi breath.

Super calming breath practice.

And as you can hear your breath through ujjayi,

Maybe you're inclined to let the breath slow down.

And deepen.

So the inhale becomes all the deeper,

The exhale becomes all the deeper.

And we'll bring some gentle movement in by circling the head.

Just exploring how it feels in your neck and your shoulders this morning.

A slow movement with full presence,

You're really aware of sensations,

You're really aware of the feeling of the breath.

A slow movement with full presence,

You're really aware of sensation.

And then changing directions.

And then circling shoulders,

Inhaling as they come up.

Exhaling as they travel down.

And the ripple effect of those circles can be felt in the spine,

In the chest,

In the heart.

Perhaps the elbows come up in circle too.

And then full arm extensions.

If you have the space.

Nice breath in as the arms come up.

And coming round and down as you breathe out.

You can adapt this any way you like,

Add any riddles.

In fact,

Whilst we're here,

Let's inhale and take our arms up overhead and catch hold of elbows because the diaphragm loves this.

So arms are overhead,

You're holding on to either elbow,

Drawing the elbows apart,

But pulling the hands towards one another.

And as you breathe in,

Let the tummy expand.

And as you breathe out,

Drawing the tummy back towards the spine.

Possibly you can hear your IJ breath here.

And then dropping your arms down,

Resting your hands on your knees,

Circling the heart,

Sensing and feeling the lower back.

And switching directions.

Coming back to center,

Resting hands in your lap.

And we'll notice the length of the inhale,

Then notice the length of the exhale for yourself.

And we'll notice the part between the breath,

So at the end of your next inhale,

Pausing with the lungs full,

Just resting there and then exhaling,

Emptying the lungs and then finding the pores when the lungs are empty and resting there.

The four-part breath.

So my invitation is that anytime you find the breath practice too much,

Come back to this four-stage breath.

And then we can start to get playful.

So let's take our hands on top of our knees,

Palms turned upwards.

And as you inhale,

You're going to take the right palm up,

Just lifting it up in front of you.

And then turning the palm as you hold with the lungs full,

And then exhaling as the palm comes down.

It's almost like the palm coming down is pushing the air out of your lungs.

And then holding with the lungs empty as you turn the palm down by your knee.

And then inhale to begin the next cycle.

And we'll keep going like that.

You might start to recognize the nuances of your own breath pattern.

One of those four stages might feel much more comfortable than the others.

One might feel more challenging,

Or they might feel a lovely harmonious balance between all four.

And we're not going to get tangled up in judging it.

We're just curious.

And then bringing your hands into your lap to see how your breath responds as you give it space.

We're going to take a circular alternate nostril practice.

We'll do five in each direction.

So for this practice,

You're going to bring your hand up in front of your face,

Your index finger,

Sorry,

Your ring finger and your thumb resting either side of your nostrils.

If you just feel the tissue of your nose,

You'll find there's a bridge there where the tissue is still soft.

You're not in the solidity of bone.

You're in the softness of cartilage.

And if you gently pinch there,

But not so hard that you can't breathe through your nose,

You still can breathe through your nose,

But it's harder.

And we'll just play with lifting the thumb and then closing it,

Then lifting the ring finger and closing.

So you get to experience how your thumb is moving.

And then you get to experience how you're channeling the breath from one nostril to the other.

So for this first breath practice,

We're going to inhale through the right nostril.

We're going to pinch and hold,

And then we're going to exhale through the left nostril.

And then we're going to inhale through the right nostril,

Pinch and hold,

Exhale left.

So it becomes a circular movement.

We'll do five rounds.

And I will obviously be counting.

The hold will be roughly twice the length of the inhale and the exhale.

I'll be counting,

But you can overrule at any time.

Okay,

So exhale out through the left nostril to begin.

Pinch both nostrils.

Inhale right.

Inhale right.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale right.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale right.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale right.

Hold.

Inhale left.

Inhale right.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale left.

Okay,

Inhaling left.

Hold.

Exhale right.

Inhale left.

Hold.

Exhale right.

Inhale left.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale left.

Exhale right.

Inhale left.

Hold.

Exhale right.

Inhale left.

Hold.

Exhale right.

And bringing your hands to your lap,

Let your breath adapt and adjust,

Returning to its natural place.

And we're going to do a more traditional alternate nostril breath.

This time,

Instead of doing circular,

We're kind of doing rainbow,

So we go up and over up and down.

And I'm going to talk through the first five rounds,

And then I'll go silent and you can just continue the practice.

That gives you space to be able to adapt the lengths of the breath to suit you.

And as ever,

We're trying not to fall down the rabbit hole of,

Oh,

I'm getting this right,

Or I'm getting this wrong.

We're much more in the space of,

I want to be able to do this,

And I want to do this,

And we're much more in the space of,

I wonder,

Let's be curious,

Let's see what happens.

And any time you need to,

Just come back to the four stage breath.

You can lie down at any time.

They're deceptively powerful,

These breath practices.

Okay,

So bringing your hand up to your nose again,

Just as we did before,

Unless you want to do this as a visualization,

Which is also open to you,

You can keep your hands in your lap and you can visualize the breath instead of channeling it physically with your hand.

It's up to you.

Both are great.

So make your choice.

If you are taking your arm up,

Your hand up,

Just watch your shoulder,

Because often,

Accidentally,

They crawl their way up towards your ears and it doesn't feel great in the neck.

So try and keep spacious.

Elbows pointing down,

Shoulders dropping away from the ears.

And we'll begin by exhaling out of the left nostril.

Inhaling right nostril.

Hold.

Hold.

Exhale left nostril.

Inhale left nostril.

Hold.

Hold.

Exhale right nostril.

Inhale right nostril.

Hold.

Exhale left nostril.

Inhale left nostril.

Hold.

Exhale right nostril.

Inhale right nostril.

Hold.

Hold.

Exhale left nostril.

Inhale left nostril.

Hold.

Exhale right nostril.

Inhale right nostril.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale left.

Hold.

Exhale right.

Inhale right.

Hold.

Exhale left.

Inhale left.

Hold.

Exhale right.

Continue at your own pace for three more minutes.

Anytime you need to you can lie down.

Let your breath just come back to its natural place if that's what you'd rather.

So so so so and then releasing the practice letting the breath just do its thing sensing how the exhale dissolves all around you and how the inhale resources deep within recognition of how it feels to be in this body of yours right now and bringing hands to heart dropping chin to chest offering the fruits of our practice to all beings so our personal well-being becomes collective namaste