Expanded Breath
This simple body and breath awareness meditation focuses on exploring through our physical body to create more space for a fuller and expansive breath. You'll start with a body scan expanding from a simple three-part breath to a full upper body breath. Box breathing, followed by breath retentions will expand the breath further by creating space from the inside out.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome back.
For today's practice you can either position yourself in a comfortable seat or you can lay down on your back.
If you are seated you can either sit on the floor and cross like a position.
And I advise having something underneath your hips like a bolster,
Cushion or a couple of blankets just so that way your spine is supported.
And if you're sitting on a chair,
Have something underneath your hips to support them as well.
If you are laying down,
I advise having something underneath your head like a folded up blanket or a pillow just so that way your neck is supported.
And just in case if you get cold,
Have a warm blanket nearby.
Also if you are laying down,
Start with your knees bent in 90 degree angles and with your feet flat on the floor.
And you can either have your feet hips distance apart or slightly wider than your hips.
Once you have found your pose,
Allow yourself to either close your eyes or soften your gaze.
Just take a moment to recognize the environment and physical space around you.
Widen all five of your senses.
Noticing sound within your room or outside of your room.
Noticing any lingering tastes in your mouth.
Any smells.
Notice any visions or colors within the blank space of your eyelids or if your eyes are open,
Just notice the space that you're looking at.
And feel maybe the air quality around you or feel the touch points that you have with the floor or your clothing along your skin.
And once you've had a moment to recognize all of these sense objects,
On your next inhale,
Allow your attention to turn inwards.
And just for these first few breaths,
Just simply notice your breath as it is.
Notice the natural expansion of your body.
Notice what is expanding.
And then with each exhale,
Notice your body closing off and notice what spaces soften or become heavy.
Maybe even envision the breath,
The air particles coming into your nose,
Moving down through your throat and into your lungs.
Notice the quality of your breath.
How full is your breath?
Does the breath have a temperature or a texture that you can notice?
And maybe you even notice a difference between the texture,
Temperature,
And quality of the inhale in comparison to the exhale.
And then moving your attention from your breath to your physical body,
Just simply notice sensation throughout.
Notice any places where you feel sore or tight,
Holding onto tension.
Notice the places that are soft and a little bit more relaxed and calm.
And then turn your attention to your headspace.
Notice thoughts coming in and out.
Maybe even ask yourself the question,
How am I feeling today?
How are my thoughts feeling today?
Is the traffic a little bit more jammed,
Like rush hour?
Or is the traffic moving a little bit more smoothly,
With ease?
And know that any answers that you have to these questions,
They are neither right nor wrong.
They're just simply observation,
Something for you to be a little bit more aware and observant of.
And then wherever you are,
Allow yourself to take a smooth,
Slow,
Controlled deep breath in all the way to the very top of your lungs.
And then exhale,
Sigh it out through your mouth.
And then inhale all the way to the top.
Pause at the top and just notice any tension building.
See if you can gather any physical tension here.
And then with the next exhale,
Let it all go.
And then take one more deep inhale all the way to the very top.
Pause at the top,
Again noticing tension and sensation.
Any stressful thoughts or any anxiety,
Allow yourself to let it go with this next breath.
And then from here,
Place both hands over your belly.
One hand on the space below your navel and one hand on the space above your navel.
And then as you take these next couple of breaths,
Breathe fully down into your belly area.
Breathing into your hands,
Feeling them expand outwards.
And then as you exhale,
Just feel them naturally float and fall towards the center of your spine.
Full breaths down,
Down,
Down into your belly,
Even feeling it into your pelvic floor.
And then exhaling,
Letting your belly slowly hug towards the middle of your spine.
And just take a few breaths here.
And then from here,
Move your hands to your ribcage with your right hand on your right ribs,
Left hand on your left ribs.
And then as you inhale,
Focus your attention here as you feel your ribcage expand,
Not only front,
But also outwards and even back.
And then as you exhale,
Just feel your hands move towards your spine as your ribcage closes in.
Inhale,
Expanding outwards,
Front and back.
And then exhale,
Slowly letting your ribcage fall.
And just stick with this for a couple of breaths.
And then move your hands to your chest,
Your right hand on top of your right chest,
Left hand on top of your left chest.
And have your fingertips situated at your collarbones with your right fingertips on your right and your left fingertips on your left.
And then breathe into the space of your chest and your hands and feel your collarbones rise up towards your chin as you inhale.
And feel your collarbones close and your chest empty as you exhale.
Stick with your breath here in your chest.
And then move your hands to your shoulder heads.
So you can either take each hand to the same shoulder with your elbows out,
Or if that is too uncomfortable,
Each hand to the opposite shoulder.
And then as you breathe,
Breathe into the space of your shoulders.
Feel your shoulders expand not only outwards,
But also feel your shoulder heads lightly hover away from your chest towards your ears.
And then exhale,
Feel them slowly float down towards your chest.
Now if you're seated,
Move your hands to your low back with either your hands in fists or the backs of your hands touching your low back.
And if you were laying down on the floor,
Just take your awareness to the entirety of your back,
Noticing all the touch points that you have with the floor.
And then as you take your next inhale,
Breathe down into the space of your low back and feel the rest of your back body expand.
And then exhale,
Feel your back body slowly move towards the center of your spine.
So if your hands are on your low back,
Feel the breath move into your hands first and then let the breath ripple up towards the back of your shoulder blades.
And if you're on the floor,
Just feel your back press down to the floor and notice how that makes the rest of your body expand upwards.
And just stick with your awareness here on your back body for the next couple of breaths.
And then wherever you are,
Now take your hands to your pelvis.
Let each hand go to each hip and find the head of your femurs.
It's a little bony protrusion at the creases of your hips.
And then once you've found that space,
Breathe deep down into your hands that are resting along your pelvis.
And then as you exhale,
Notice your pelvis becoming heavier.
If you're on your back,
Feel your sacrum press down into the floor.
And if you're in a seat,
Feel your sitting bones reach down into the earth.
And then allow your hands to rest if you're on your back resting by your sides.
If you're in a seat,
Just letting your hands rest on your knees or your lap.
And for the next minute or so,
Take slow deep breaths,
Breathing into all the areas of the body that we explored.
So breathing down into your pelvis,
Into your belly,
Ribcage,
Chest,
Shoulders,
And into your back body.
And then exhale,
Feeling all of those parts of your body melt and hug towards the center of your spine as your pelvis rests further down into the floor.
So breathing into all 360 degrees of your torso.
And then wherever you are,
Take a slow breath in through your nose.
Pause at the top and just feel all of that expanded space within you.
Keeping your lips sealed out through your nose.
As you pause at the bottom,
Feel the empty space.
And then inhale for the count of 4.
3,
2,
1,
Pause 4.
3,
2,
1,
Exhale 4.
3,
2,
1,
Pause 4.
3,
2,
Inhale 4.
Pause 4.
Exhale 4.
Pause 4.
Inhale 4.
Pause 4.
Exhale 4.
Pause 4.
Inhale for 5.
4,
3,
2,
1,
Pause 5.
4,
3,
2,
1,
Exhale 5.
Pause 5.
Inhale 5.
Pause 5.
Exhale 5.
Pause 5.
Inhale 5.
Pause 5.
Exhale 5.
Pause 5.
Inhale 6.
5,
4,
3,
2,
1,
Pause 6.
Exhale 6.
Pause 6.
Inhale 6.
Pause 6.
Exhale 6.
Pause 6.
Inhale 6.
Pause 6.
Exhale 6.
Pause 6.
Inhale 6.
Pause 6.
Exhale 6.
Inhale 6.
Pause 6.
Exhale 6.
Exhale all the way to the bottom.
At the bottom hold,
Find a soft and gentle hold of the breath out.
And then expand and invite a breath in.
Pause at the top and hold.
Maybe take a mental sip of air in.
And then exhale all the way to the bottom.
Pause at the bottom.
Just a gentle and light hold of the breath out.
And then slow breath in.
Pause at the top.
Notice sensation.
Witness sensation.
And then exhale all the way to the bottom.
When you reach the bottom,
Hold.
Maybe take another pump of air out mentally.
Hold as long as you can and then move into the exhale to the top.
And then you'll pause at the top.
And then when you're ready,
You'll exhale.
Pause at the bottom.
And just for the next minute or so,
Move through these breath retentions.
Holding at the top and bottom and slowly breathing in and out.
And as you're doing this,
Find your edge of sensation in the holds.
And not doing it to the point where you're struggling to hold the breath,
But only to that point where sensation starts to creep in.
And then you allow the breath to release or come in.
And as you continue to do this work on finding those edges and allowing yourself to soften through those edges.
.
.
.
.
After your next exhale,
Pause there and hold.
And then when you're ready,
Take a slow breath in.
Open your mouth and let it go with a sigh.
And then just take a moment to observe how you feel.
Notice the internal space of your body.
Notice the traffic of thoughts.
And notice how your breath feels.
And for the next couple of minutes of this practice,
You can either continue to stay in a seated meditation.
Or you can move onto your back and transition into Shavasana.
If you are already on your back,
Go ahead and extend your legs long out in front of you.
And maybe even place something underneath your knees.
And if you have that blanket to place over your body,
Place that over yourself.
But for the next few moments of your day,
Just simply allow yourself to rest within this expanded space that you've created in your body.
If you need something to do,
Then simply do a countdown of your breath.
Starting at 30,
Just say a simple mantra of,
I am breathing in,
30.
I am breathing out,
30.
I am breathing in,
29.
I am breathing out,
29.
And just continue to count down.
If you lose your place,
Return back to 30.
And if before the time is up,
You finish your count,
Just continue to be in that expanded space.
Thank you.
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4.8 (11)
Recent Reviews
Marcus
July 11, 2023
such a gratifying and insightful breathwork practice. expanding the breath really took a patience that I acknowledge is required in my waking life. grateful to be reminded of the power of patience through breathwork 😌🙏🏾.