Breath. Sustaining, life-giving, energizing, cleansing, fulfilling breath!!! We need it to oxygenate the blood. When breath flows through vocal chords we use it to sing and speak. We communicate what’s going on inside of us and we use it to let people know who we really are, bits of our soul. Slow breath calms. Fast breath stimulates. As we take in air, our diaphragm moves up and down massaging the internal organs. The diaphragm engages and relaxes as our lungs expand and contract.
When feeling an emotion the breath tells us before anything else. When there is indecision the breath waffles a bit. When someone holds back heaps of verbal bile, the breath holds too. The breath releases when there is a shift in a person’s consciousness or experience. Breath changes when we feel physical and emotional pain. Breath never lies, and no breath is exactly the same.
When feeling an emotion the breath tells us before anything else. When there is indecision the breath waffles a bit. When someone holds back heaps of verbal bile, the breath holds too. The breath releases when there is a shift in a person’s consciousness or experience. Breath changes when we feel physical and emotional pain. Breath never lies, and no breath is exactly the same.
Breath is our direct connection with our environment and all that lies outside of our physical selves. We take in part of the external environment into our bodies and we expel what we don’t need into the outside world. This relationship with our environment is intimate and deserves respect.
Breath mirrors. This connection with the outside world also includes our interactions with others. When someone is experiencing grief in front of us our breath hastens with theirs. Likewise, we mirror in our breath those expressing anger or physical suffering. When we watch an infant’s breath while sleeping we immediately relax our own breath a bit. Imagine if we tried to match another’s breathing when we greet? Just allowing our breath to entrain with theirs? What would happen?
The way we breathe expresses the way we feel. The deepest, richest breaths help us fully feel our human emotional experience. Shallow breaths keep us from knowing our emotional, physical and spiritual selves. Breathing deeply and fully lifts depression and helps us integrate qualities such as courage and honesty. Perhaps this is why so many spiritual and religious traditions involve focusing on breath in meditation or prayer? Even chanting involves how we experience breath.
What I do everyday in my office is work on necks and shoulders and chests that are hypertonic and tense from shallow, stressed-out chest breathing. Most of us don’t want to feel our hardened, busy-ness laden lives, either. We are harsh towards others and they are harsh towards us and we don’t want to feel this and reflect as we go through our frenetic, consuming lives.
Toddlers are the ones that have this whole breathing thing down. When we watch toddlers run around and play they take really relaxed breaths into their bellies. You don’t see a toddler walking around with tense uptight shoulders and only breathing into their chests and trying to hold their stomachs flat……….. THEY JUST BREATHE!
Breath mirrors. This connection with the outside world also includes our interactions with others. When someone is experiencing grief in front of us our breath hastens with theirs. Likewise, we mirror in our breath those expressing anger or physical suffering. When we watch an infant’s breath while sleeping we immediately relax our own breath a bit. Imagine if we tried to match another’s breathing when we greet? Just allowing our breath to entrain with theirs? What would happen?
The way we breathe expresses the way we feel. The deepest, richest breaths help us fully feel our human emotional experience. Shallow breaths keep us from knowing our emotional, physical and spiritual selves. Breathing deeply and fully lifts depression and helps us integrate qualities such as courage and honesty. Perhaps this is why so many spiritual and religious traditions involve focusing on breath in meditation or prayer? Even chanting involves how we experience breath.
What I do everyday in my office is work on necks and shoulders and chests that are hypertonic and tense from shallow, stressed-out chest breathing. Most of us don’t want to feel our hardened, busy-ness laden lives, either. We are harsh towards others and they are harsh towards us and we don’t want to feel this and reflect as we go through our frenetic, consuming lives.
Toddlers are the ones that have this whole breathing thing down. When we watch toddlers run around and play they take really relaxed breaths into their bellies. You don’t see a toddler walking around with tense uptight shoulders and only breathing into their chests and trying to hold their stomachs flat……….. THEY JUST BREATHE!
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