Hello and welcome to the session,
I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable,
You can close down your eyes if you wish and take some deep slow breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth,
And with each breath just allow yourself to acknowledge and release any physical,
Mental or energetic blockages along with anything else that might distract you from this session,
For the next few minutes all you need to do is breathe and be here to receive the session,
Now as your body calms and your mind begins to settle just take a moment to set an intention for this session,
May this session ground me in presence,
Focus my mind and open me to the guidance,
Clarity and insight this practice holds for me today,
May it bring me closer to embodying my highest self,
Okay so well done,
Today we're going to be looking at the quality of calm as a way to access the self in relation to internal family systems,
And the way we will be approaching calmness is through breath work,
The basic idea being that by slowing down the breath we're helping to regulate our nervous system and calm the mind,
The mind and the body are deeply interconnected and if you find yourself with a racing body,
Tension,
Heart rate or just in a stuck thought,
High emotionality,
A bit dysregulated or in other words not in the sense of the self,
You can access calm by breathing and particularly by breathing slower,
If we slow down the breath we activate a parasympathetic nervous system,
This is the part of the body that helps you to relax,
To calm down,
To rest,
The mind looks at how fast you are breathing,
Recognizes that you are breathing slowly and starts to activate the parasympathetic nervous system,
Calming you down,
There are many different to breath work,
We're going to try one today,
But the principle of breath work is just to simply slow down the breath,
Let's try it now,
Notice you're breathing and on your next exhale take a slow deep breath,
In through the nose and out through the mouth,
And just slow down the inhale and exhale,
And just begin to repeat this process,
Slowing the inhale,
Slowing the exhale,
Just breathing a bit slower than you were before,
We don't want this practice to be forced,
And I'll give you a more prescriptive approach to breath work known as box breathing,
That I quite like and other people quite like,
But there's a little bit of a risk with box breathing or four seven eight breathing or any of the other practices that people suggest for breath work,
That they become a source of tension,
You worry that you're not doing it right or that you mistime the breath,
And rather than calming you down it creates tension,
And we might forget that the overarching principle of breath work is to slow down the breath and to calm ourselves down,
So keep taking slow deep breaths,
In through the nose and out through the mouth,
As we continue with this session we're going to be looking at the principle of presence,
Being present with ourself,
Being in the here and now,
The breath anchors us to the here and now,
And the breath is a good point of focus to help us connect to the present moment,
The self is in the present moment,
The breath is in the present moment,
The self is in the breath,
So take another slow deep breath,
In through the nose and out through the mouth,
And just feel whatever sensations arise,
In the body,
In the nose,
In the mouth,
Just allow yourself to be fully here for the next breath that comes,
Well done,
So a more formal form of breath work is known as box breathing or square breathing,
Like I said before some people really gravitate to a count based breath work system,
But for others it puts them off,
So I invite you to be curious about this practice,
I invite you to try it,
But if you find that it's adding tension rather than releasing it,
Let it go and just go back to breathing a little bit slower than you were and that will give you the calmness they were aiming for in this session,
To do square breathing also known as box breathing,
You breathe in,
Hold,
Breathe out and hold,
With each one taking four seconds,
So you breathe in for four,
Hold for four,
Out for four and hold for four,
And for the next minute we're going to sit and do one minute of box breathing together,
Let's give it a try,
Breathe in,
Hold,
Breathe out,
Breathe out,
Came,
So how'd you go with that one,
Like I said the purpose of breath work,
At least for what we're doing with here,
Is to calm the body and calm the mind,
And if you like the square breathing or you don't,
That's okay,
You find an approach that works for you,
I invite you to bring a sense of calm into your day,
Perhaps by adding a slow calm breath as you enter or leave a room,
Or maybe a minute before you change activities,
Or perhaps even if you notice yourself feeling overwhelmed or upset or angry or physically tense or dysregulated,
Just adding a little bit of breath into that space,
Slowing down the breath,
Thereby creating calm in the mind and the body,
The idea of calmness as a way in to access the self cannot be understated,
If you are not calm,
You are not in the sense of self,
That's the simple truth of it,
If you are agitated,
If you are ruminating,
If you're anxious,
If you're overwhelmed,
You're not in the here and now,
You're not in the present moment,
You are not calm,
You are not in the self,
So I invite you throughout the rest of your day and moving forward,
If you notice yourself in any state that isn't calm,
Just slow down the breathing until you are,
Try it,
So let's take one more slow calm breath in through the nose and out through the mouth,
And as we open our eyes and move our bodies and come to the end of the session,
I just want to remind you that if you have any questions you'd like to ask about calmness or breathwork or internal family systems in general,
Let me know,
You can do so in the classroom and I'll see you in the next session.
