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Breathing is for Living
This comment seems almost redundant. In fact, how could we live if we were not breathing? And at the same time, it is a fact that we don’t always pay attention to this life-giving mechanism on which we are so dependent.
I have spoken about the vital link that we have with our breath, and with our breathing before. It seems appropriate to revisit it here now.
Every day, I talk with people who are struggling to find a corner of peace within the frantic nature of their lives. So many of them feel that they are barely hanging on. I am noticing as well that many of us are holding ourselves in a rigorous vice-like stasis, bracing ourselves for the unknown hammer of change to fall on our heads. (I wrote about this in my last blog entry “2012, Apocalypse Or Not”)
This static existence precludes a lot of moments of spontaneous creativity and joy. It precludes moments in which we can truly relax with all that is naturally occurring around us. When we keep ourselves rigid with fear, we don’t let in the things and the tools that we have to help us cope with what we think we are afraid of.
The breath is a perfect example of a tool available to us, which we don’t always acknowledge or employ to foster our own well being.
I teach clients to the use the breath to remind them that there is a peaceful space available within, from which they can easily hear the voice of intuition, the voice of truth that is expressed through their deepest and most transparent nature. If you study yoga, you are taught that the way in which you breathe determines the way in which you live your life. The air around us is literally filled with the energy of existence and creation, prana, which is life giving, life favouring, life restoring. As we breathe this air in and out, we tap into the collective creation of all of existence!
Through the breath, we can have an immediate experience of being at peace with and at one with the moment. Our creativity and openness to the moment is not usually held back when the breath is flowing easily.
Take a moment to consider breath, your breath, as an instrument of focus and change. Are you holding yourself in rigid stasis? Are you afraid to move or breathe because you won’t be safe if something changes?
Throughout my newsletters and website are many offerings in the form of meditations and exercises related to breathing. Try one – you might find the words to lift your awareness of the breath to a renewed place of practice and excitement.
In my next entry, I will begin to describe the ways in which we can work with our breath to achieve peace, relieve stress, create healing for ourselves and others, and ride the tumult of change. The breath can be our most powerful ally in creating a gentle change in perspective.
And as always, have fun with it!
With Love and Blessings,
Anatara
[tags]Breathe, life-giving mechanism, energy, exercises related breathing, restorative[/tags]