Would you agree that day to day life is getting more and more demanding and fast paced?
As humans we are expected to know more, learn more, and do more in shorter and shorter time frames. We are asked to react instantly to a constantly changing world.
You only have to watch the news to see that people seem to be getting frustrated and more fearful than before. In modern day life many people are in pain physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We are even stressing about stress and the collective ability to bounce back from day to day difficulties seems to be reducing.
One in five Australians have taken time off work in the past 12 months because they felt stressed, anxious, or depressed and it is estimated in any one year, around 1 million Australian adults have depression, and over 2 million have anxiety. (Beyond Blue)
Breath as a resource
Your breathing is a highly under-utilised resource that you carry around with you all day every day which can help you to manage daily stresses, feelings of anxiety and symptoms of depression.
If you were to check in with your own breathing right now what would you notice? Are you breathing from your chest, from you belly or are you even holding your breath?
The way you breathe:
•fosters clear or confused thinking
•makes us excited or calm
•tense or relaxed
•worsens or improves every health condition possible
As a resource your breath is a major source of energy and is responsible for releasing 70% of toxins from your body. The trouble is most of us only breathe about 1 litre of our 7 litre lung capacity (15%) limiting our potential for creating energy and releasing toxins. It’s like operating a combustion engine in your car with a blocked air filter.
Breathing involves two phases – inspiration (inhale) and expiration (exhale) and can be controlled in two ways. We all breathe involuntarily, called metabolic control – it just happens. Through a mechanical and physical process involving our lungs and diaphragm we don’t have to consciously think about it.
The cool think about our breathing though, is it is one of the only processes in our body that we can voluntarily change. We can apply behavioural control and regulate our breathing voluntarily. That means that we can change our state of being through the use of our breath at any point in time and moment to moment
We can breathe to move from being confused, stressed and tense to a state that brings about clear thinking, calm, relaxation and improved health.
Breathwork is an umbrella term which encompasses a variety of breathing techniques utilised individually and in groups, to cultivate self-awareness and the enhancement of physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual well-being.
The term “Breathwork” currently means a whole heap of things to people depending on your own point of reference. When I am explaining Breathwork to people I refer to Breathwork using 3 broad categories.
Futile or Ineffective Breathing
“What do you mean Breathwork, I already know how to breathe!” is a common response when introducing Breathwork. What I have named futile or ineffective breathing is the type of breathing that we all know how to do involuntarily. Usually high in the chest, restrained, blocked or with periods of holding your breath. Most people are not even aware of how they breathe and are definitely not using it as a tool to manage their day.
Breath is life.
Without breathing we last only a few minutes before it affects our brain function and ultimately our life force. Ineffective breathing restricts your full breath and you are robbing yourself of breathing a full and fruitful life.
This is what the American poet and Pulitzer prize winner, Mary Oliver meant when she said - "Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?"
Think of how you go about your day ….. how many times a day do you hold your breath?
Conscious Breathing
Using your breath to bring about conscious living is not new. Breath awareness or conscious breathing has been the basis of yogic traditions, meditations, mindfulness and sports for thousands of years.For the novice, conscious breathing can be as simple as becoming more aware of how you are breathing in any moment. Becoming aware of how your emotional responses to experiences are reflected in your involuntary response of your breath, and then deciding to change it.
Things like consciously moving:
•from short, sharp breathing when you are being frustrated in traffic to taking a deep breath to bring yourself into a state of acceptance because you can’t do anything about it;
•from high in the chest breathing when becoming anxious or overwhelmed to making the exhale longer than the inhale to bring yourself into a state of being more calm; or
•from holding your breath because you are concentrating at the computer or are waiting with tense expectation for something to happen to actually taking a deep breath out to relieve the tension and help you think better.
We are not just heads on sticks!
Consciously being aware of your breath brings you back into the present moment and connects the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual parts of yourself, bringing them back into alignment.
With our modern lifestyle many people operate entirely from their head with endless “to do “ lists, being rushed from gym, to drop children off, to work, to pick children up, sports, groceries, phone calls, messages, sleep (maybe) and then doing it all over again the next day. Exhausting!
In the midst of all that we don’t pay much attention to our emotional, physical and spiritual well-being which ultimately affects the way we think, what we believe and our state of well-being. We become so worried and concentrated on the next thing that we forget to live in the moment.
Techniques such as yoga, mindfulness and many meditations that utilise conscious breathing as part of their practice are a useful way to start to get to know your Self and bring yourself back into living in the present.
Conscious Connected Breathing
The Australian Breathwork Association describes conscious connected breathing as:
a profoundly effective breathing technique and therapeutic process that activates the body’s natural healing, promotes self-exploration and self-awareness, offers a path to conscious personal transformation.
Based on the premise that every experience we have in life from pure joy to absolute trauma (and everything in between) is held in our body at the cellular level.
The trouble is we have been conditioned by Western culture to bury our emotions and not to get “emotional”. Society favours being logical, talking it through and leading with our head instead of our heart.
What happens when you suppress your emotions?
Unfortunately, our emotions just don’t go away, instead they get pushed down into the unconscious and get stored in our bodies as negative energy. They hang around there until something triggers the memory and out they come again.
Often we have an experience come into our awareness which has some sort of emotional response and instead of accepting and noticing the emotion we choose to make it wrong, push it down and judge it. If we do this often enough we end up on a self-defeating cycle which in some cases can lead to unwanted repeated behaviours, self-sabotage and addictions.
Research further suggests that suppressing emotions is associated with high rates of heart disease, autoimmune disorders, ulcers, and gastrointestinal health complications. Suppressing emotions increases the stress hormone which in turn can lower immunity and increase toxic thinking patterns which can ultimately lead to increased risk of diabetes, aggression, anxiety and depression.
How do you break the cycle?
The good news is that you can break the self-defeating cycle.
Emotions are after all part of the human experience. It is largely what does make us human and all emotions have a role and a reason for being. For instance, we are designed to cry when we are happy and joyful and also cry when we are sad, in pain or in fear. Crying is the body’s way of releasing the emotion and moving through it rather than holding on and suppressing. There are benefits To cry or not to cry - weakness or genuine strength?
Conscious Connected Breathing is a simple and powerful therapeutic breathing technique that bypasses what you are consciously aware of to activate and shift what is stored in your body’s cellular memory. It efficiently accesses the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels of being to clear out unwanted and stuck emotional mass held in the body that has been suppressed from past trauma or hurts. Trained Breathwork professionals can facilitate the Breathwork sessions with groups or in an individual setting.
Conscious Connected Breathing (Breathwork) is also known as Rebirthing Breathwork, Holotropic Breathwork or Transformational Breathwork.
Go for more life!
In summary, incorporating Breathwork into your life is a step towards going for more life. Whether you start with just noticing more how you breathe, incorporate conscious breathing into your life, or work with a Professional Breathwork Practitioner to support you to release past trauma using conscious connected breathing you will find benefits in forming a relationship with your own breath.
What is the next move in going for more life?
1. Practice Breath Awareness
Notice how you breathe and how your breath changes as you go through your day
2. Incorporate conscious breathing
Join a yoga or meditation class to support you to use your breath to become more centred and in alignment with the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts of your Self.
3. Seek out Breathwork (Conscious Connected Breathing)
Delve deeper and clear trauma and past hurts so that you can get off the self-defeating cycle and move forward in life.
Where you start will depend on where you are up to, your willingness and readiness to take the step that is right for you.
If you do nothing else … JUST BREATHE!
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Jennylee
Taylor is Conscious Living Coach and
Breathwork
Practitioner supporting and
empowering you to be great managers of your world through reducing stress and
overwhelm, and balancing life so you can enjoy loving relationships,
contentment now and financial security in your future.
Jennylee supports people to break through personal emotional and mindset
barriers so you can be the best you in the world and achieve your goals.
Would you like more info? Feel free to contact me for a chat