Breathwork
Living gratefully today, I appreciate warm blankets, comfortable pillows, and a cozy place to sleep each night. I give thanks for the ongoing challenge of getting to know myself more fully, and tuning in more readily to my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
I am a work in progress. Practice makes progress possible. Right now, I am in the middle of a “14-Day Mastering Breathwork Challenge” made available through the Insight Timer meditation app. I don’'t plan on mastering anything anytime soon, but I can tell you that after Day 8, I am already more aware and committed to the simple act of breathing.
We breathe, on average, over 22,000 times a day. Most of the time, I am totally unaware of this life-giving process. We do it automatically, and many of us do it unencumbered. It is not surprising that something so significant to our existence can also be so vital to our sense of health, presence, and level of calm.
Breathwork simply means using various breathing techniques and exercises intentionally. The goal can be to simply relax and focus. Or it can be to open up emotional pathways long shuttered and do some healing and forgiving. And everything in between. These first eight days of practice have each been 10-15 minutes in length and included techniques such as box breathing, dragon’s breath, cooling breath, bees breath, and lion’s breath.
I have found some more difficult than others. There have been emotions, both welcome and unwelcome, that have surfaced. But I have found each session meaningful, and insightful, and several have left me with a level of calm and peace that I find very helpful at the beginning of my day.
The Insight Timer app is free, or with added features for a small annual fee. I encourage you to take a look. You will find hundreds of teachers who provide meditation tracks of all lengths on a myriad of topics. I have been using the app regularly for a couple of years and have found favorite teachers and impactful tracks I return to.
This breathwork challenge is one I am grateful to be taking. It may or may not be something you wish to try. At the very least, can you and I agree that we will each try to pay attention to our breathing a few times today?
One of the simple exercises I sometimes do is to put one or both of my hands on my heart, feel my own warmth, take a few easy and deeper breaths in and out, and feel the life in my body. Profound connections to myself and the world around me that provides the air I breathe. Precious air. Precious breaths.
