Playing In The Waves Of Our Breath With Pranayama.

This practice is a gentle approach to traditional pranayama techniques for cultivating balance within the subtle energy of the body. My invitation is for you to stay curious, to explore the practice and to know when to take a rest. Each day we move between the energy of doing and the energy of being - can we play in the waves of these currents and experience this moment as it is?

Transcript

So once we take our time to get ourselves settled, We're going to be doing a breath practice. So if you've got a cold or you're congested, Then you might need to get some tissues or you might just use the practice to observe your breathing. It might be full of hay fever. That's a thing right now. Anyway, If your airways are feeling congested, Just do what you need to do. And breath practices are incredibly powerful in the sucklest way. So if at any time you feel uncomfortable, If you're not enjoying it, If it doesn't feel right for you, Just come back to witnessing your breath. There's no gold prize at the end for the person who did it perfectly. This is about curiosity more than anything else. How am I feeling this morning? What's here for me? That's really the inquiry. Breath practices and life force coexist. And today we're going to be doing an alternate nostril breath where we guide the breath from one side to the other. We breathe in through one nostril, We breathe out of the other and then reverse. And the teachings are that this moves the subtle energy through feminine side of the body and the masculine side of the body so that they can balance each other out. They can both be welcome here. When I use masculine and that's not a gender, I'm describing it's an energy. Masculine being the doing and feminine the being. So we're balancing out our clear action with our clear presence. Okay, So hopefully you're settled. You want your spine to be straight if possible. So whether you're lying down or sitting, See if you can get your spine to be a little taller. And we'll begin just by breathing through the nose. As you breathe through your nose, Let the breath move down through the throat and very gently contract the throat so that it's almost like a snore. Becomes slightly audible as the breath moves through the throat. This is called an Ujjayi breath, The breath of kings. It warms everything up, Warms up the pathways of our breathing. As you practice Ujjayi, Just make contact with ground. Feel your seat. Feel the floor through your heels. And trust the space enough for you to be a little heavier. And then notice how it is as you expand your breath. So we're going into the place of deliberately changing the way we breathe. So letting the breath become deeper and longer. And just notice what's here for you as you deepen your breathing. Where does your mind take you to? How is your breath feeling? We'll start to feel into the pattern of the breathing. So we're just going to inhale and hold and then exhale. We're not going to do alternate nostril breath yet. So just feeling how it is to inhale. I don't know, Maybe for four, Maybe for six, Maybe for some eight. And then hold for double that length of time. So if you inhaled for four, Holding for eight. If you inhaled for six, Holding for 12. And if you inhale for eight, Holding for 16. Then when you've reached the end of your hold, Exhaling, Either for six, Sorry, Four, Six or eight. So the hold is double the length of the inhale and the exhale. And there's no hold at the end of the exhale. So you just go straight back in to the next inhale. Noticing to how it is for the inhale and the exhale to match each other with length. How's that feeling for you? Or is there one that wants to be way bigger than the other? And then letting that practice go and just noticing how you're feeling. The breath is free to do what it wants. And then we're going to do three rounds of breathing in through the right, Holding for twice the length and exhaling out of the left. And then breathing in through the right, Holding for double the length of time, Exhaling through the left, Then inhaling through the right, Holding and exhaling through the left. So just three rounds of that. Now with the alternate nostril part, You can either bring your hands up towards your face and just curl in your middle finger and your index finger and gently place the tip of your thumb and the tip of your ring finger either side of your nose. Or you can just visualize moving the breath from one side to the other. Okay, So it's quite nice to begin with a nice exhale out of the left nostril just as like a cleaning of the palate. So just breathing out of the left nostril quite a sort of snorty exhale. And then we'll begin the practice inhaling through the right nostril. Maybe it's four, Maybe it's six, Maybe it's eight. Holding as you squeeze both nostrils for double the length. When you're ready, Exhaling out of the left nostril. Maybe it's four, Maybe it's six, Maybe it's eight. Straight across to the right nostril. And we go again. And then we go third time in through the right. Holding for double. Exhaling through the left. And now we switch sides. So we inhale through the left. We hold for double. And when you're ready, You exhale through the right. Inhaling through the left. Hold it for double. Exhaling through the right. Third time, Inhaling to the left. Holding for double. When you're ready, Exhaling through the right. And bringing your hands down into your lap. And letting letting things settle, Noticing how you feel. Breath can go any which way at once. Left to its own devices, How does it feel to breathe? What's the feeling tone within your body? And we're going to move into the full Nadi Shadana practice. I know most of you know it well, But just as a recap, Again, The hand comes back up. Middle and index finger curls so that the tip of the thumb and the tip of the ring finger can just rest either side of the nose. We're not pinching the nose so hard that you can't breathe through the nose. We're literally just resting pressure points either side of the nostrils. Okay, And then the position actually of the pads of the fingers is kind of beneath the bridge of the nose. So you're not on a really fleshy tip. And you're not right up where the nose is very solid. You're at the bridge where the two meet. And for this practice, We're going to take it into a more circular shape. So you're going to inhale through the right, Hold for double, Exhale through the left and then inhale through the left. Hold for double and exhale through the right. Inhale through the right. Hold for double. Exhale through the left. Inhale through the left. Hold for double and exhale through the right. So if you were to make that shape a painting, It would be the painting of a rainbow or a bridge. Go from one side, We hold, We exhale the other side, We inhale that same side, We hold, We exhale the other side. We're going to do that for 10 minutes. So you can play around with the ratios, Either four, Six, Eight, Maybe some of you 10. And anytime it becomes uncomfortable or agitating, You know, It's working with your nervous system. So if it's pushing too hard into your nervous system, Just bring your hands down into your lap and let your breath return to something more comfortable. Enjoy your practice. You might pause the practice, Bring your hands back down into your lap. Finish that circuit that you're on. Bring your awareness into your body to fully notice the residue of the practice. How does it feel to breathe now that you have all the room or the space for the breath to breathe you? How does it feel to be breathed? Softening the muscles of the face into an almost smile, Allowing that softness to ripple down through the shoulders, The elbows and the palms. Allowing the pelvis to be heavy and the feet heavy on the floor. Just noticing the ground. It can be easy to take it all a bit too seriously. It's just interesting. How's your nervous system doing this morning? How's your breathing? Was one nostril clearer than the other? Did they both feel pretty equal? There are currents within our breathing system that change. In a healthy adult, It's usually about 45 minutes of dominance through one nostril and then a switch, A period of time where it switches. And then 40 minutes, 45 minutes with the other nostril dominant. So these currents are part of the body. It's like we're playing in the waves when we meet our breath with a pranayama practice. And so offering the fruits of our practice always to ourselves, To each other and to all beings. Namaste. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy your day.