20 Minute Breathing & Meditation Practice

This 20 minute breathing practice is designed to help you cultivate an enjoyable daily routine that balances the nervous system, clarifies the mind and centers the heart. Three specific breathing practices are sequentially offered followed by a brief guided meditation that grounds you into your best and brightest self. No experience needed, light music is included.

Transcript

Welcome to this breathing practice.

Please find a comfortable seat with your legs uncrossed and your spine nice and tall.

We'll begin by rubbing our hands together,

Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

Shake off of your hands and start to tap right below your eyes at your cheekbones.

Once again inhaling through the nose and exhaling through your mouth.

This is a wake up point.

Stomach meridian.

And one more time.

Let your hands slide down your face,

Your neck,

All the way below the collar bones.

We'll begin to tap the collar bones here,

Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

Just continuing like that two more times.

Exhale,

Stimulating blood flow to the brain.

One more like that.

We'll go all the way down to the center of your chest,

The sternum,

And you'll tap on the sternum and maybe even with soft fist thump on your thymus,

Stimulating your immune system.

One more.

And then letting your hands slide below the breast around the ribs,

You're just going to rub at the ribcage and all the way out to the sides of your ribs.

And you'll just tap once again three times in the middle of the breath.

And then you'll just tap your hands all the way down to the back of your chest,

And then you'll tap your hands all the way down to the sides of your ribs.

And then you'll just tap once again three times,

Inhaling and exhaling.

Wonderful and then just rubbing your hands across your belly,

Making an X across from right to left,

Passing the midline a couple times here.

And you're just going to go around the back of your lower back and make a circle around your sacrum,

Both hands,

Maybe even tapping at the kidney point,

The lower back,

Down the hips,

Down the outer edges of your legs,

To your knees.

Keep breathing deeply and up through the inner thighs.

That's it.

And then we're going to sweep the arms to the sky,

Big breath.

As the hands come down,

Let them land on the top of your head,

Just pressing right into the very crown of your head.

And you're just going to begin to tap here,

Continuing to inhale through your nose,

Exhaling through your mouth.

Just start to rake your fingers across your scalp.

You might even pull the ears up a little bit.

Put your fingers into your ears,

Rub into the ears,

Make circles.

Pull down on the earlobes,

Breathing,

Massaging the back of the head and neck,

All the way down to your shoulders.

Give your shoulders a little squeeze,

Deep breath in,

And exhale to your heart.

Let your hands land,

Just pressing your hands into the very center of your heart.

Pause here.

Begin to soften your breath.

And notice how you feel already.

Just this alone is a practice that you can do before you begin your day,

Just to stimulate a little more blood flow.

Wake up the meridian system,

The energy system of your body,

Your lymphatic system,

Your immune system.

Let your hands slide down and let them rest now onto your legs,

Or if you have an armrest in your chair.

And start to slow your breath down.

We're going to do what's called breath awareness.

And very softly,

Put your attention right at the tip of your nose.

See if you can notice as you inhale,

As you exhale,

You're going to notice as you inhale,

A cooling breath trace the inner seam of your nose.

And as you exhale,

Notice a warming breath emptying you out.

A cooling breath as you inhale,

And a warming breath as you exhale.

Letting your mind rest on the sensations of your breath coming in through the tip of your nose.

Gradually start to take it in a little deeper.

Drink it in beyond your throat.

Let it move down your body,

Past your lungs,

All the way down deep in towards your belly.

See if you can keep the breath soft,

But moving in just a little bit deeper,

Noticing how you feel.

Noticing how you can slow yourself down,

Even the beating of your heart,

Just with your attention and breath.

Now we're going to add a little stimulating breath practice that in the beginning might feel almost a little harsh.

And if it is too much for you,

You back up the amount of time.

We're going to always inhale through the nose,

But with this one we'll exhale through the mouth.

Start to rock a little bit on your pelvis,

Forward and back,

Making little tilts.

You rock to the front of your sitting bones,

You'll feel an arch in your spine when you draw under your tail,

You'll feel your back round.

See if you can add a little bit up into the upper chest as you inhale,

The shoulders arch back,

The head maybe gazes up,

And as you exhale the chin draws in in the upper back rounds.

And we're going to add again a more forceful breath.

Do this just for 30 seconds.

You see how you do,

It's an inhale through the nose and an exhale through your mouth.

Here we go.

Five more seconds.

Inhale fully and just hold here.

And now exhale completely through your mouth.

And see if you can hold out the exhale just a little bit longer,

Creating a space there before your next inhalation.

And then softly deepen your breath,

Inhaling and exhaling.

And just notice how you feel.

It's a very stimulating breath,

You might even feel that cooling breath as it comes in,

It becomes almost like ice into the nostrils.

And it will over time get a little easier if you feel very light headed.

Maybe just do a little bit less or take the breath in through your mouth for a little while,

See if you can get a little more oxygen in your body.

We're going to do it again for 45 seconds.

Okay,

Arching and rounding your back as you move with your breath.

Here we go.

And begin.

Five more seconds.

Five more seconds.

Inhale fully.

Hold for a moment.

And exhale completely.

Hold it out at the end of the exhale.

Relax.

No tension.

See if you can let the prana land as you feel your energy descend like sand in an hourglass around yourself.

Beautiful and inhale.

Deep breath.

Exhale.

Notice how you feel.

Now you can continue with those types of breathing,

The more stimulating breath.

That was 45 seconds.

Start to work your way up to a minute.

That was two rounds.

You can give yourself one more round or we're going to begin moving towards an alternate nostril breathing.

You can always pause the recording if you're doing more of the other breath.

If not,

You're going to pick up your right hand and with your right thumb close the right nostril only.

And with the last two fingers ringing pinky,

We're just going to lightly land on the left nostril and move any separation if you need to to get more air in at the septum as you inhale through the left side only.

Close off the left side and open the right and exhale completely.

Inhale right side.

Close off the right and exhale left.

Now as you inhale through the left side,

Let your awareness descend all the way down to the base of your spine.

Close off the left as you exhale right.

Let your awareness rise up through the crown of your head.

Inhale awareness descends.

Right side only close and exhale left side only awareness rising up.

Repeat inhale left.

This time hold here close both nostrils.

Awareness is still rooted at the base of your spine.

Open up the right exhale awareness rising through the crown of your head.

One more time inhale right.

Close the right and hold.

Your awareness is down in the base of the spine.

Open up the left and exhale.

Inhale left.

Ground and hold.

Continuing to root yourself.

Rooting to let your spine rise taller.

Relax into the hold and open up the right.

Go right into it right side.

Hold it again without squeezing too hard.

Without creating too much tension.

Awareness is low.

And open the left.

Now let your hands release.

Let your awareness rise back up to the very center of your head.

Space between your brow.

Notice how the sinuses maybe feel a little more open.

And then let your attention once again rest at the very tip of your nose.

See if you can feel that all the way up to the third eye.

Center of your head.

And that warming breath as you exhale.

Inhaling a nice soft breath but let it travel into the very center of your head.

Exhaling your pineal gland.

Exhale and back out.

This time as you inhale and your awareness draws in,

Your breath get even softer and let your awareness hover right in the very center of your head.

Eyes are soft.

Visualize from the center of your head,

You're in a straight line to the central channel of your body all the way to the base of your spine into the crown of your head.

You're right in the very center of your body.

Like an elevator,

Let your attention start to descend.

And as it lowers,

Feel muscles of your body soften.

Let your awareness drop in a little deeper.

And visualize as you move down to the very base of your spine that you can send an energetic grounding cord down below your seat into the earth just like a tree descending its roots further down.

Just notice that as you move down,

Gravity is helping and you can let go and let yourself surrender downward as though the earth is pulling on you in the very center,

That magnetic core of the earth magnet.

As you hook into the center of the earth,

There's a sensation of letting go of releasing the old,

Discomfort in your body,

Physical,

Mental,

Emotional,

Allowing yourself to release the earth,

Absorb whatever is no longer serving you.

And keeping that sensation of connecting downward,

Releasing,

Start to use your breath and awareness to rise up that very center line of your body.

Like an elevator,

You rise back up all the way up to the very crown of your head and beyond.

Like a flower reaching for sunlight,

Keep growing,

Widening,

Stretching,

Feeling as though the sun is a magnetic force pulling you upward and allowing yourself to drink in the light and the life force energy of the universe itself.

Let it pour in to your body as light,

The crown of your head.

Let it fill you completely.

You tie your head and skull,

Neck and shoulders,

Front of the abdomen,

Back,

Sides,

Down your arms,

Into your hands,

Lower abdomen,

Pelvis,

Legs,

Down to the feet,

Just color your body in light.

Feeling this flow within you,

The movements within you,

The gift of being connected to both earth and sky,

Your body receiving and releasing.

Letting your awareness once again settle a little further down,

Perhaps it's in the very center of your heart.

You might even place your hands on your heart.

Imprinting this feeling,

Recognizing the intention that you place in this moment will ripple out into the rest of your day,

Into the field around you as a blessing for all beings.

If you'd like to stay with meditation,

The natural mantra of the breath is so as you inhale,

As you exhale.

Stay in your meditation as long as you'd like.

Imprint your day with that intention,

I am that,

Whatever that may be for you today,

It helps you to be the very best version of yourself.

If you'd like to finish,

Reach the arms to the sky,

Big gathering breath in,

Hands come together and all the way down to the center of your heart once again.

Finish here with three grounding breaths,

Inhale through the nose,

Exhale through the mouth.

One more.

And as you bow into the light of your heart,

You can even allow your whole body to bow and bend and touch the earth itself with your self time as you arise back up once again,

Hands to the heart.

May this practice be to the benefit of all beings.

Namaste.