Drawing Breath

Pranayama is the 4th Limb of Yoga, meaning extend and stretch life force through the breath. The "Drawing Breath" workshop will introduce 5 breathing techniques, or pranayama, that can be used to calm and focus our mind, using use paints, pens, pencils, crayons, chalk, or markers to visualize your breath on paper. By drawing short or long lines, circular or angular, using shades of color or not, we can match lines to our breath. This workshop was recorded during a live virtual event.

Transcript

It's my pleasure to be here with you today.

In drawing breath,

We are going to use our breath to allow us to go inward and use our movement to watch that breath show up for us on paper.

A little bit about meditation,

Many of you here may already have your own practice.

It may be something that you've done for quite a while.

It may be something that you're brand new to.

If you already have a practice and you kind of know what flow works for you,

Then please at any time just feel free to bring that in and just,

You know,

Be a part of this sangha of people,

Of all of us here together.

But feel free to incorporate your own rhythm.

And for those of you who are new to meditation,

Fantastic.

I'm so happy that you're here.

Meditation can seem a little overwhelming to some people.

And what we're going to do today is we're just going to break it down into hopefully little bite-sized steps that you can begin to create,

Use to create that deeper awareness within.

Meditation is not having thoughts.

That's a common misconception.

I get a lot where people say,

I can't calm my mind down.

I have way too many thoughts.

And that's okay.

That's what we do.

We have human physiology and it is the very nature of the mind to be drawn toward thought.

But the good news is,

The really good news is it's also the nature of the mind to be drawn toward silence.

In today's kind of very,

Very busy high productivity,

High engagement life,

The access to that inner silence is is really covered up.

And so meditation truly is just the beginning of the process of going deeper.

And as your meditation practice develops or as you're exploring it,

I'm confident that you are going to come across something,

Whether it's a technique or something that someone says.

You are going to come across some process that gives you that deep remembering.

Because where we're going in meditation is not somewhere that you've never been.

It is absolutely something that you've experienced before.

It is going,

You know,

A lot of times we take a look at presence as a really great tool to meditate upon.

Presence as being here in this present moment.

We'll do a lot of that today as we put our breath on paper.

But as we seek that deeper silence,

We want to go here at presence.

We want to become aware of our thoughts because those are not going to go away.

Those will continue.

And then we want to try to find access and that's where those processes come into place.

Find what works for us to allow us to drop just a little bit deeper.

And as you cultivate that,

People have many,

Many,

Many different experiences.

It can be soothing.

It can be calming.

It can be alarming.

It can be like,

What is what is this really,

Really deep space?

It can also bring up a lot of emotion.

And all those are really great signs that you are meditating correctly.

The process of going inward truly just releases years of accumulated stress.

And that's where things get really fantastic with science today and how we can validate these physiological benefits that come from meditation.

You know,

Again,

I think we have a really great group of people joining us here.

So the word is out.

Meditation is phenomenal.

It is an incredible life tool to not only help you catch your breath,

To not only help you become more aware of your patterns of thinking,

But it's also allowing you to go to that deeper place where the body can find rest.

It can release stress.

And when your body can begin to release stress,

What you put in that space is phenomenal.

What you put more in that space is more of who you are,

Is more of who you are becoming.

And so,

Take a quick,

You know,

Google search and you see like,

You know,

Who meditates.

It's phenomenal.

People understand more and more,

Again,

Because of the validation of science that shows what happens in the brain when we try to take it offline a little bit.

What happens to the blood pressure,

Anxiety,

Depression,

All of those things come down.

The ability to think more clearly,

Have greater mental focus,

Those all increase.

And it comes from a place of stillness,

Of deep rest.

That's where it's born.

So,

The reduction of accumulated stress that happens to us while we're meditating is a gentle,

Easy process.

When you go deep and you start to have thoughts,

That's okay.

That's normal.

That's release.

When you go deep and you have that kind of like startled,

Like,

Oh,

I don't understand this quiet place,

That's normal.

That physiological response that you feel is a normal response.

When you go deep and you may have emotions that come up,

That is a really,

Truly beautiful experience because it is an emotion that is rising to the surface so that it can create space for more things.

It doesn't mean you have to give up those emotions if you're not done with them,

But you can let it breathe a little bit,

Let new things come in.

And so that's really truly what meditation is.

And it's a lot of fun to work with people to help them kind of cultivate what works best for them.

And so,

As we go through the techniques today,

I ask you to just keep kind of three overarching things in mind.

And I'll try to cue you as much as possible as we go through this.

When we find our place,

Our space of stillness,

Or let's start with presence,

We're here.

We're kind of in that concentration mode where we're taking in the present moment.

The present moment underneath that is stillness.

Underneath that is you,

Your unique special self.

When we are going in to find that deeper space,

Keep in mind these three things.

These are kind of three overarching types of paths,

So to speak,

To get into that space.

And typically,

You're one of these.

It can vary and you can flow in and out of them.

But one type is breath,

One type is movement,

And one type is just simply an energy awareness or being.

And so,

Breath,

If you're a person that connects first with breath,

Then today's exercise,

All of today's exercises will really be useful.

But just remember that drawing your attention to your breath,

When you pay attention,

Just putting your attention on your breath automatically puts you in the present moment.

So you're there.

For some people,

That's distracting.

For some people,

That added attention to breath is distracting.

So for those people,

They can take a look at movement.

And so today we'll do a couple of techniques that introduce our hands,

But we'll also,

Of course,

Use our art tools and we can connect with movement there.

So if you're feeling like,

Where am I trying to go,

Just put your attention on the physical motion.

And the third person,

You may be kind of distracted with both of those.

Drawing your attention to your breath distracts you or kind of pulls you away.

Drawing your attention to your movement pulls you away.

And so for that type of person,

Just let those go.

And typically,

This type of person just has a,

You know,

They can kind of find that access to stillness just by letting it,

Letting it come forth instead of kind of digging around for it.

So I don't think I mentioned,

As I go through these things,

Please leave questions in the chat.

I won't address them throughout the workshop,

But at the end,

I'll leave about five minutes.

We'll go through some of the questions.

And of course,

Please just feel free to contact me if you have any further questions about anything,

Questions or experiences that you're you're having.

If you have any experiences that you want to share in the chat,

Part of working with a group of people,

Even if we're all here virtually,

Is kind of just that energy bouncing off of each other.

And quite commonly,

Someone asks a question and it's a question for a few other people.

It's the same question.

So please feel free to share questions,

Ask questions or share any experiences because again,

We're all just trying to figure out how we can get quieter and it is through this finding that quietness that we really tap into our own unique magic and special,

Special light that sounds a little bit hokey and meditation-like,

Finding your magic.

But I'll let your own experiences kind of help you clarify what that means as your meditation practice deepens,

You create space for new things and truly,

Truly I'm positive you will see some great things show up for you.

So let's do a quick check-in with supplies.

I have just a pad here.

I've got some watercolors.

I am not an artist at all.

And so what I hope that you have in front of you is pens,

Crayons,

Markers.

You can have an easel,

A notepad,

The back of a piece of mail.

Just take this moment to learn a few techniques that you will be able to take into your practical day to connect with yourself and I hope that you give yourself this time in this workshop to explore that movement of your writing utensil on the paper that you have in front of you.

So I will guide us through five different breathing techniques.

Again,

The breathing techniques are just going to be a way,

Kind of the vehicle,

To that quieter space.

I'll guide you as much as possible.

Cue you on the breath.

Cue you on what you're putting on paper.

But don't let my cues hold you back.

This is your experience so please just take it wherever it takes you.

And so the first breathing technique that I want to introduce is we are not going to use the paper just yet so put those down for just a moment.

And I want to bring this technique in so that we can just draw ourself in.

It's called alternate nostril breath and if you're already familiar with it you know what to do.

If this is your first time,

I'm going to talk you through and then you join at any time.

I'll cue for a minute or so and then I will stop talking and I'll let you do that for a couple of more minutes.

Again,

We just want to take kind of the energy of the morning and use that to go with it.

So let's start by just bringing your right hand up.

Place your right thumb on your right nostril.

Take a big inhale into the left nostril.

Close the left nostril off and exhale through the right nostril.

Inhale through the right nostril.

Close it off and exhale through the left nostril.

Inhale through the left nostril.

Close it off and exhale through the right nostril.

And then go ahead and continue.

If it feels good for you,

You can close your eyes and just let that breath come into your awareness.

Feeling the air as it enters the nostril,

Connecting all the way until it becomes an exhale.

And let yourself feel the air as it exhales through your nostril.

Again,

It's okay to experience thought here.

Activity continues as you move inward.

The first step in any time you sit is to take that motion inward.

And today we're going to let the breath take us in as far as we can go.

And then as you exhale,

You're just bringing that deeper awareness out with you.

As you continue here,

If focusing on the breath is distracting,

Bring your attention to your fingers.

As you alternate the breath,

Just connect.

Connect with the fingers touching your nostril,

The joints and the fingers as they move from side to side.

As any mental activity rises,

Whether it's thought,

Emotion,

Images,

When you remember to come back to breath,

Just let yourself come naturally back.

It's okay to experience whatever comes up.

And then if you're the third type where paying attention to breath is distracting or movement,

Just release those.

Keep moving with the nostril,

Alternate nostril.

Keep breathing,

But just drop the awareness and see if that lets you kind of feel some relief.

Again,

You're still having thoughts and everything's here.

And for some of you,

For many of you,

That may be the main experience is why won't these thoughts leave?

But the typical cycle of a meditation is about 20 minutes and so when you close your eyes,

You may not find that stillness until the 18th minute.

And so today we may not go very deep in our meditation,

But you have some tools that you can use to practice.

And we get to see our breath on paper.

So go ahead and open your eyes slowly.

And as we move toward the second breathing technique,

We're now just taking that movement from the nostrils and we're going to draw.

So the second breath is called belly breath.

So you still have your writing and drawing equipment close by,

But let's not take it on just yet.

Let's start with putting your left hand or your right hand,

Whichever one you are not going to draw with.

Place that hand on your belly and then let's start with just,

First of all,

Start with your natural breath.

So your natural breathing rhythm and see if you're feeling any movement in your belly.

Oftentimes we are not because we're breathing from our chest instead of our belly and the breath from the chest is kind of everybody's go-to,

But it's not our natural breathing rhythm.

If you look at a baby,

You see their bellies rising and falling as they inhale and exhale and that's our normal breathing rhythm.

This breath from the chest is a result of needing to like have this high adrenaline so we could run from from tigers back in the day,

But today it propels us into really phenomenal productivity.

So we don't want to lose our productivity just because we're calming our inside,

But by breathing from your belly you can release some of that extra activity,

That extra energy around thoughts or deadlines or to-do's.

So hand on belly and now go ahead and intentionally draw your inhale.

As you inhale,

You want to push push your belly out.

Inhale,

Feel the belly expand and as you exhale you feel the belly naturally fall.

Let yourself be here for a couple of minutes.

I'm going to go ahead and join you here.

So again you can close your eyes if that feels good for you.

Some people don't like to close their eyes.

It's a not a comfortable feeling and so keep them open.

You can keep your eyes open for your entire meditation.

If you're having a difficult time and paying attention to the breath is distracting,

Then just focus on your belly moving out.

As you inhale,

The belly falls.

As you exhale,

You can open your eyes.

Then go ahead and open your eyes slowly and let's move into some drawing.

Bring your writing or paint instruments close by.

We're going to keep that belly breath.

So have your your instruments close by where you can keep one hand on your belly and then get yourself loaded with the crayon,

Paint and just begin to let the breath lead the movement of the hand.

So as you inhale,

Connect with the paper.

As you exhale,

Let the line flow.

As you inhale and exhale,

Putting your first lines on paper.

I'm just seeing our breath show up as a line.

There's no right or wrong thing to be doing here.

You can watch the lines rise on the inhale,

Fall on the exhale.

Sometimes I like to just draw circles.

So I'm inhaling the circle up and exhaling the circle down.

Just let your marks on paper match the breath that you are practicing on the belly.

So this is a lot of activity happening here.

So if it's kind of keeping you caught up in action and you're not really finding any stillness,

It just takes a little bit.

We're just kind of connecting a lot of different parts.

Just let yourself breathe deep,

Drawing your attention to your breath or attention first on your writing instrument or just release.

Release both of those and just let yourself flow.

Let yourself find presence.

As you explore on paper,

You can see what happens if you change the pace of your breath,

What happens if you breathe in a little bit faster and exhale faster.

Or if you take the breath a little bit slower.

When we meditate,

It's not keeping yourself in this really quiet,

Quiet place for 45 minutes.

It is capturing glimpses,

Glimpses of connection,

Whether it is being connected with a sound you just heard or it is being connected with pure,

Pure stillness.

Those moments of connection during meditation,

It's very common that they're brief and fleeting.

And the practice where practice comes in is the more you do it,

The more familiar you are with kind of the path to get there and the more you can learn what it feels like to extend.

I like to share with people that in some meditation practices,

It's thought that if you can hold five full breaths without having a thought,

You've reached enlightenment.

So I think that's pretty telling that,

Okay,

We're not trying to do anything really huge here.

Like if we can have almost no thought for almost a second,

Not even a whole breath,

Then we're on our way.

We're just cultivating that so that we can have moments of experiencing it longer.

And when you sit,

When you practice using these techniques,

The five techniques you see today,

You could use any one of these for a whole 20,

25 minute session.

You could even go as short as probably 15,

But 20 minutes is a really good length of time for you to experience some deeper levels of silence.

A few more lines on paper.

And then let's come back.

And we're going to learn another technique.

So this technique is called box breath.

It is a really,

Really powerful technique to regulate you.

Oftentimes we feel a little bit all over the place.

When you're feeling scattered or you just feel like there's a lot of things,

You know,

Kind of closing in,

Box breath can help regulate what the breath is doing with the physiology,

The pattern of that connection it's kind of an intentional rhythm that we bring in and then the physiology follows.

So box breath,

We're going to do a four count.

And so with this four count,

What I mean is I'll explain it first and then I'll practice with you.

We're going to take our first inhale and we're going to inhale it up or count a four and then we're going to hold our breath at the top for a count of four.

We'll exhale for a count of four and then we'll hold it at the bottom for a count of four.

So we're just creating that box with our breath.

If a four count is a little too long,

If you find strain on any of those sides of the square,

Then drop the whole thing down to three.

Inhale three,

Hold three,

Exhale three,

Hold three.

I will cue us with a four count.

I'll cue us out loud for a minute or so and then I will guide us to putting that breath on paper,

But let's just practice it before we we get to the paper.

So just let yourself settle in.

Find your relaxed state.

The shoulders relaxed,

Belly relaxed.

And on your next inhale,

Go ahead and inhale up.

And then hold your breath at the top two,

Three,

Four,

Exhale two,

Three,

Four,

Hold at the bottom two,

Three,

Four,

Inhale up two,

Three,

Four,

Hold two,

Three,

Four,

Exhale two,

Three,

Four,

And hold two,

Three,

Four.

Now I'm gonna not count.

I'll let you practice that a couple of rounds with yourself.

And after your last exhale,

Just hold for a moment and then open the eyes slowly.

Okay,

Just reach for your writing utensils.

And now we're going to practice that same breath and put your instrument on paper.

So what does that look like when you begin to add to your stroke a longer inhale?

Hold at the top and a longer exhale.

And then hold at the bottom.

Inhaling for four,

Hold at the top for four,

Exhale for four,

And hold at the bottom for four.

Again,

You can draw a new line for each breath.

You can pause as you inhale and then just draw the exhale.

Bring,

If you feel you're a little distracted,

Just bring your attention to your breath.

Release everything else.

Or breath is distracting,

Just connect with the movement on paper.

In those few moments on paper,

You are connected.

If either of those are distracting,

Just let that go.

And just let your drawing flow.

Don't worry about breath.

As the design starts to take shape on your paper,

You might see if thoughts are coming along with the design,

Having a thought that shows up as a self-critic,

Having a thought that is the artist and it really wants to turn this line into an ocean.

What's coming up with thought?

Meditation truly allows us to begin,

Become more aware of our our thought patterns and the power of thought is just incredible.

And as most of you know,

We have these same thoughts every single day.

I think it's like 80 or 90 percent of the thoughts we have today are the thoughts we had yesterday.

Meditation begins to create a little spot of awareness where we're not just caught up in thought and we're reacting to thought,

But we can see it even if it's packed in with a whole bunch of other thoughts because you have a busy mind.

But you can begin to see like that's the exact same thing I've been doing for a while.

Because the thing with thought is when you have that thought today,

One of the thoughts that you've had all this time,

When it shows up for you today,

The thought shows up at the exact place you left it.

So if we're spending 80 percent of our time on thoughts that I've been having for a while,

It's no wonder that some of them are just this like,

You know,

Cyclical process of,

Wow okay I'm right back here again with the same thing,

Whether it's a thing you want or an experience you are having in life.

It can kind of be that loop.

And so meditation,

It just begins to untangle things.

And the great thing is there's nothing you have to do here.

There's no work that has to be done.

We don't do these practices so you can really get in there and clean up everything.

We do these practices so you just become aware and then your natural tendency to kind of be drawn toward expansion,

Which is inside every single person.

It clears things up.

It cleans things up.

The physiology of the mind and the body is truly phenomenal and so these are techniques that just help help us clean up that process just a little bit more.

New ways maybe for many of us.

And so again it comes back to that direct experience.

I hope you have are able to learn some of these techniques that you can use.

And then when you are kind of exploring your habitual thinking,

See if you can start to make progress on any of these simply through awareness,

Simply through realizing,

Wow this is something that either I can put it into or I can see why it's in a loop because of x,

Y,

Or z.

Again nothing to do.

Those kind of awarenesses,

They come up absolutely naturally.

There's no nothing that you have to do here.

So again please ask questions.

I haven't looked at the chat or anything but I hope that you will reach out to me if you do have questions.

And again if there are any over there I'll answer them when we finish up.

And so the fourth technique is called Ujjayi which is kind of translates into victorious breath.

It's used in a lot of yoga classes like physical asana classes.

So if you've been in a class and you hear this like really loud exhale,

That's this breath.

It's also kind of in the west called ocean breath or dog snore breath and it can be a little kind of clunky to start if you've never done it before.

And certainly if you are in a yoga class and you hear it and you don't know you know how to how to practice it,

It can be you may not feel comfortable trying it out there.

So no sound is on so you can try it here.

I'll introduce it and again just let whatever sounds happen for you,

Let them happen.

As we begin to practice it again it can be a little hard to to refine.

So I'll demonstrate and then I'll talk a little bit more about some cues on it.

I'm taking a big inhale here.

I don't know how much that translates virtually but hopefully you hear it's not just a loud exhale.

That's a loud exhale.

This one is for me it feels like I'm scratching the back of my throat with my breath.

Like I can feel the breath kind of moving.

It's kind of like a little growl there with that one that's kind of stepping over that's kind of pushing too hard.

So if you've got some little growling or grunting going on that's okay you're just you're finding that um that little sweet spot there where you take your big inhale.

Again kind of resembles an ocean sound or your sweet little dog snoring.

So just play with it and even just after a few breaths I expect that you'll feel some heat building and so that's why this breath is common in yoga asana practice and it builds that heat.

So when we're physically moving our body we want to to build a little heat.

I just wanted to introduce it to you here because it is really a powerful breath and it can be used again.

All of these breaths I talked earlier about you know maybe you could incorporate one and try it as a meditation but truly all of these breaths could be used throughout the day.

You can bring it in for a mindful minute connect with yourself and truck on.

You can do it in the traffic um you know certainly before bed or right upon waking is really really powerful.

When we wake we kind of wake up with this you know fresh connection to the day and you know we don't always feel like that sometimes we feel a little beat up when we wake up.

So bringing in just a minute of one of these breathing techniques can shake up shake up where you might start for the day.

So go ahead and continue with that deeply jolly breath and bring bring it back to paper.

We'll do this for a couple more minutes as you explore breathing on paper.

Letting the lines match your breath or just letting the rhythm of your movement match the rhythm of your breath.

It doesn't a stroke doesn't have to match an inhale or an exhale you can just flow with this kind of beat of your breath.

Back to those earlier techniques we talked about if the breath if putting your attention on your breath is not helpful put your attention on your hand holding your instrument touching this paper.

Take another minute or so here.

As you're connecting with your breath I hope you're you know if you have different colors hope you're exploring with those.

Just again any mindful attention to breath or movement is what we're shooting for today.

Quieting the mind learning access to a potential quiet space doesn't mean you are giving up your edge and you are cultivating that deeper deeper awareness for lack of a better word consciousness stillness and the really phenomenal thing about science today and you know for the past couple of decades really we've been able to validate what what this means for us as as beings as human bodies as family you know people leading families or working in companies what does this mean for what does this do for us and again and again it doesn't take your edge off to get quiet what the science and what the brain scans show us is brain waves come online during meditation that really are markers of reduced depression reduced anxiety when you can find that space of transcending thought even for just a moment the brain waves that come online are clarity our focus and when you can find that quiet space where there's no activity or very little activity coherence begins to occur in the brain that is not present when you're engaged in activity and so when we try to stay busy and we knock out those to-do lists that's fantastic we're in this world we we're here to create to produce but when we can go and approach those things with having spent some time in quiet we bring that coherence with us that is what I hope you're learning today is a few techniques to practice that and bring that into your lives so the final breath is called Satali and Satali is a cooling breath so I'd like to do this after that Ujjayi where we were building heat hopefully you know you may be experienced a little bit of that even just after a few breaths Satali is cooling so we're just countering that energetic action of the previous breath and now we're going to bring in some cooling sensations so there's two ways you can do it I'll introduce both and then I'll do it with you for a couple of rounds we'll paint and then we'll move into some questions before we end so Satali you want to start with making an O with your mouth if possible from here stick your tongue out and curl the sides up about three quarters of an inch and then you're going to inhale if the curl time doesn't curl that's okay you just keep the lips and an O and you feel the cool breath enter close your mouth and exhale just a natural exhale however if it's if it's if it's allowed or forceful or deep let yourself just naturally exhale after you practice that Satali cooling breath let me see if you can't feel that coolness entering not only the mouth but into the body if you've had your eyes closed you can go ahead and start to put some things on paper you can keep your eyes closed as you paint too or draw you can release that Satali if you want and just spend a few more moments with your drawing turning to your natural breath and just observing what is the quality of your natural breath is it fast slow a little bit of both you and be find yourself a little too far off in thought or intention to spraying yourself gently back whenever it feels right for you just take a few more breaths to finish up with your drawing and just take a few quiet breaths here together if you're finished with your drawing just let your hands fall to your lap softening your body your shoulders your face staying here just a few more breaths before you get into the rest of your day or the rest of your weekend and then slowly began to open the eyes okay well I'm gonna pop over here to chat and looks like we have a couple of questions and if should best breathing and be exclusively through the nose so I think that is it best to breathe in and out of your nose that's a great question and breathing in and out of the news kind of affords that regulation piece where we're trying to kind of bring some balance if if you are kind of experiencing and a lot of stress that you're either aware of or even that you're not aware of something that you may notice is big deep exhales so you're either you're trying to meditate or paint or but you notice like exhales with the mouth open that's just a really powerful way to to kind of express that stress out of the body and so it's nothing to be concerned about if you see yourself doing that breath on your own but it can certainly be helpful if you sit in meditation to practice a couple of those big deep inhales and loud exhale kind of making that sound whether it's a loud breath or even with that ujahi dog snore breath sound is is kind of the vehicle that stress releases from and so it's that vibrational expression free removing from the body so I'm outside of that once you are settled in to you know if you're going to sit for 15 minutes or so it is best if possible to breathe in and out of your nose with your mouth closed I should even say best it is um that's the place to start try to breathe in and out of your nose with the mouth closed and if that is just not going to work for you then keep the mouth open and then that was Joan this is Dara the dog breath makes me light-headed which means I'm not balancing intake without take but can't seem to balance it is there a trick um you know the trick would be probably to start with you know maybe if if you can't balance the intake with the outtake yeah just try to shorten it sounds like probably what you're doing is the intake is is longer than the outtake and so probably leading to some lightheadedness there so maybe just back off of the inhale a little bit inhale up for like two beats it's okay with if if the breath is not equal here so you can inhale for two beats and exhale for four it doesn't have to be equal so play around with kind of that ratio it may be the opposite for you it may be that you want to inhale for four and exhale for two so just play around with it and know that your experience is exactly perfect and please reach out to me I've got my contact information in there and and so if you have any other questions about anything I would be happy to answer any of your specific practice questions or challenges all right well I don't think we have any more questions we have just another minute or so before the morning ends thank you all so so much for joining me this morning thank you to the momentary and Blake Street for bringing this Sunday reset to our community certainly can can be a benefit for many many of us right now so thank you for bringing us together thank you all have a wonderful rest of your day