Breath

Breathing is something we do unconsciously, it is not something we spend much time thinking about. When we do think of breathing, we think of bringing oxygen into our body, we take a breath, the focus is on the inhalation when we have not really exhaled.  We have become out of touch with our breath. We take short shallow breaths, which get even more shallow as we become stressed and need our breath the most. Many of us breathe backwards.

Yes… backwards, I see this so often when I am teaching. So first things first…

 The mechanics of breathing:

There are two cavities in the body, the abdominal cavity and the thoracic cavity separated by the diaphragm. To exhale the diaphragm relaxes, the air is pushed out of the lungs. During the inhale, the diaphragm moves down, expanding the belly outwards. The volume of the lungs is increases, and the chest lifts.   The pressure within the lungs is less than that of the pressure outside of the body. Our inhalation is actually air being pushed into the body to equalise air pressure.

What if we were to focus on the exhale breath, letting go?

 What if we were receiving a breath as we inhaled, instead of taking one?

There is a spaciousness to exhaling. There is a continuous sense of abundance in receiving a breath. It feels effortless to take long luxurious breaths.

 But why… ?

Breath Creates Movement.

As we breathe, our body moves. This aids the circulation of fluids, such as blood, lymph and cerebrospinal fluids within the body, particularly against gravity.

Emotions and beliefs are stored within the connective tissue throughout the body; the slight movement created as we breathe helps to release trapped energy.

Breathing to Scan the Body

As we breathe our brain scans the frequencies of the body. Everything vibrates, something dense like bone will vibrate at a lower frequency than blood, and chakras will vibrate at a higher frequency, in fact each has its own frequency.

As we inhale the brain scans the body from the lowest to the highest frequencies, as we exhale the brain scans from the highest to the lowest. During each breath cycle the brain scans to see if any frequencies within the body are malfunctioning, and if there are the body will activate a healing process. The capacity to fully scan all the frequencies is dependant on how well we breathe.

Breathing OUT

When we breathe out fully, we are able to process and release emotions, we are able to let go of our attachments and desires. Lack is the realm of desire. When we are not able to fully exhale, there is a sense of mistrust, will there be enough breath. We get stuck in a world of scarcity.

Breathing IN

When we inhale completely we are comfortable connecting to our emotions, and our mental process, we can get in touch with our deeper feelings. When we are not able to fully inhale, we can become depressed and life feels very hard.

 Qi, Prana

Our life force, or our vitality is inhaled on the breath. When we breathe fully, deeply we draw more qi, our body is able to store what it does not use. When our prana is depleted we loose our spark.

The Mind follows the Breath

 Count to ten and breath… there is a reason for this old saying.

Our breath can become shallow when we feel upset or stressed and we get caught up in a whirl of thoughts, jumbled together so we are unable to think clearly.

When we breathe slowly, deeply we have clarity of thought. The breath slows the mind.