ARE YOU BREATHING?

I started my journey as a mother at the tender age of 21. What could I have possibly known to be allowed in charge of another life? Anxiety and anger were my two main emotions. There was a sprinkling of joy but it became difficult to recognize in my exhaustion of a new baby while trying to finish up my degrees at university and all at a confusing age where I wasn’t even quite sure of who I was.

A former mentor told me that if I was breathing, I was doing alright.  

That simplicity slightly enraged me. 

Nothing felt right. It felt like I was being sucked into a black hole of chaos and bringing this new little person along for the journey. Now this person, who clearly didn’t get it and thought that breathing was the answer? Charles Manson breathes… and he is clearly not doing it right. 

Platitudes tended to set me off. I wanted more understanding, not spiritual bypassing statements. 

With the roll of my eyes off I went on my own learning adventure. 

For several years my studies solely focused on the effect of oxygen on our brains and the potential for learning performance enhancement. I had no idea the depth of connection that would come when I started to learn and apply energy healing with the physical power of breath. 

I began to understand more fully that if one is simply breathing, the opportunity for change exists. 

The breath can aid the process of pain, and regulate our stress and emotions. We heal the mind-body-energy connection through breath which becomes fragmented throughout our emotional responses to the events of the day. 

The deeper the breath, the more exchange of the noxious by-products happens in our lungs (regular breathing is only exchanging 10%. Meaning 90% in our body is usually stale) increasing our cognitive functions (our brains are 1/50 of our body’s weight but needs ⅕ of our oxygen intake!). 

I want to share with you four breathing techniques to help your body process a wave of emotion. These are not to rid you of the emotion but the stress hormone that floods our systems. In mindfulness, we use emotion as a catalyst for growth and change not something to dispose of.

These exercises are not ones we would do in meditation, like the bodyscan. They are for afterward when you are experiencing them in everyday life, or in a coaching session. First noting when and where you are feeling the cascade of emotions. Practice the breathwork techniques then after a period of doing nothing, use your discernment on if you need to create change on the inside or outside.

For simplicity’s sake, I have paired them with generalized emotions that are common to the human experience: Joy, Anger, Sadness, & Anxiety. 

Click on the titles to see a specific video tutorial of each breathwork

Anger Breathwork:

1. If you can touch the place you are feeling the emotion

2. Create a tunnel with the mouth

3. Using the diaphragm breathe in through the mouth tunnel

4. Release through the nose

5. Repeat min of 5 times or until the emotional flood slows down. 

Anxiety Breathwork:

1. If you can touch the place you are feeling the emotion

2. Using only the nose and both the chest and diaphragm 

3. Breathe in for a count of 2

4. Out for a count of 5

5. Hold for a count of 3

6. Repeat for 5 cycles or until the emotional flood slows down. 

Sadness Breathwork:

Do not do it if you are also experiencing anxiety - it will only exacerbate the anxiety. Also do not do this if you are pregnant, have a serious heart condition, or just had surgery within the last month on the front of your trunk - you might feel dizziness, that is ok. 

1. If you can touch the place you are feeling the emotion

2. Using the chest and diaphragm

3. Inhale through the nose raising up your chest and head

4. Exhale through the mouth collapsing the chest and head

5. Do this for 30 seconds (slowly increase to 1 - 2 minutes)

6. Inhale normally through the nose and release with the “weeee” sound through the mouth for a count of 8.

7. 3 cycles of normal inhale and exhale to bring back a regulated breath. 

Joy Breathwork:

I find that this technique is often overlooked. But if we want to heal that ancestral brain we need to use our mindfulness to draw attention to the happy moments, signifying that they are important and worth remembering. 

1. If you can place your hand on where you are feeling the joy, and breath in deeply through your nose using both the chest and diaphragm. 

2. Release through your mouth.

3. Smile and take a memory photo.

These techniques were not where I started back when I only could feel mass anxiety and anger, they were too much for me to remember and apply in daily life. 

I started by recognizing the physical changes that indicated an emotion going off inside of me and then took three deep breaths and slowly exhaled each one. Time with an experienced guide showed me how to unpack and slow my thoughts down enough to apply various breathwork. Each breath encourages me that I have the opportunity for change and connection, my learning journey is ongoing.

Are you ready to start a journey of changing the score of suffering that your body is keeping? Book your Mind+Body Immersion sessions with me today and let’s begin together.