16 Jan Six Sides of the Breath
When people have had a difficult life they get used to shortening and contracting their breath.
The breath can get tangled up in the whole slew of thoughts and feelings and reactions to others that are going on almost constantly.
It can be hard to turn the attention inside to notice the breath – right now – in this moment.
The breath can be a great control valve that is often used unconsciously. When we learn to use the breath consciously we have a way to turn up emotions or internal experience or we can turn the dial down decreasing the amount of experience we have inside.
If you train yourself to use that control valve to your advantage you don’t have to be afraid of being flooded by overwhelming and disturbing emotions.
You’ll have the capacity to take a small amount of feeling in, controlling the valve, keeping the rest at bay.
This small practice is about learning to make the control conscious so you can live in your body more comfortably.
What you’ll find is that you can use your breath to slow down what’s overwhelming or if you feel too much is going on you can use the breath to keep things at bay.
Let’s try a bit of breath awareness together. Some people find it helpful to close their eyes and allow their inner mind to be clear as they listen to the audio and try the practice. See what’s right for you as you listen.
Click on the link below and the audio will load.
Someone wrote me the following comment about the audio
Thank you for sharing this with me.
I like it alot. It made focusing on the breath more interesting and easier to engage in.
I am wondering if you might add a few statements after the practice about how to use it
when you do start to feel overwhelmed by something that is happening.
It’s a wonderful question.
When something overwhelming is happening, or has happened it’s natural for our attention to be drawn toward and into the distraction. The more emotional/physiological charge the more easily we get lost.
This practice is one of many to train the mind to focus – to stabilize. So when something is overwhelming we can practice bringing our mind to the simple mechanics of the breath.
Exploring the six sides of the breath is a way to engage the mind by having a task to focus on. The more closely we can follow the breath and notice every little fascinating thing that occurs as we breathe the more we stabilize the mind. The more that happens the more the overwhelm will recede and have less emotional charge.