Don’t Underestimate the Power of the Breath.
Wednesday 22nd June 2011
99.9% of Yoga comes from the breath, after all 100% of life comes from the breath but how many times do you actually stop to notice how important the breath is to you as a being? be honest, you take it for granted, we all do.
’ Breathing is the most important thing in your life, everything else can wait ’ a wonderful quote I repeat daily in my own life taken from Barefoot doctors school for warriors, but that’s me, I breathe because I’m reminded daily as a Yogi that it’s something I must do, I’m a breathing teacher, I teach people to breathe, it sounds crazy but its true it’s what I tend to categorise myself as on those days when I’m asked for a job title:)
Anyway back to it. I’ve noticed more often than not through out my years of teaching that people DON’T breathe but they still manage to stay alive (well kind of) and standing on two feet, it baffles me how they manage it. Today I taught a group of people who were suffering from depression, One man came to the class for the first time after attempting to commit suicide just a few weeks ago, he spent five minutes in the class and when I began the specific Yoga breathing techniques (known as pranayama) he had to leave the room with his carer due to the onset of a panic attack all because he was confronted with having to breathe and relax. This is extreme but not uncommon. When you think about it it’s pretty hard to believe that our ‘life force’ our ‘Prana’ our ‘Chi’ whatever you want to call it can be so detached from our being that it becomes so alien to us it eventually does us more harm than good, so here’s a simple task:
A vital task that can change your life and certainly your mood in less than 3 minutes:
Today take ten long slow deep breaths, in through the nose and out. Expand your abdomen like a large balloon as you inhale and allow it to gently deflate as you exhale. Take your in breath from the tips of you toes to the crown of your head. Take your out breath from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes. Allow the feelings of expansion to fill your whole being on the inhale and allow the feeling of gentle contraction and relaxation as you exhale. After ten breathes notice how you feel then go and teach someone else exactly the same breathing technique, get them to pass it on and eventually together we can have the whole world breathing…….
’ Breathe for Life ‘
Namaste!
