This is a meditation on the mechanics of your breath.
To get started,
I'll give you a couple of options for how to set yourself up for this practice because the position of your body and your orientation to gravity will influence the shape of your breath.
You can try this practice seated,
Standing,
Or lying on the ground.
Know that if you're seated or standing,
Your body is working to keep you upright and all your postural muscles will be engaged.
Some of these muscles wrap around your abdomen,
Some thread into your ribs.
They influence the shape of your spine,
So of course when they're engaged,
This also influences the shape of your breath.
If you'd like to try this practice lying on the ground,
You could be on your back or on a side.
If you're on your back,
Maybe try a constructive rest,
So that's knees bent,
Feet wide,
Soles on the floor,
Let the knees fall together.
If you're on your side,
Take the time to support yourself.
Put a pillow between the knees,
Get a blanket to support your head.
You could also use your arm as a pillow.
Lying on the ground,
Your postural muscles can relax.
Notice how your body and breath adapt to the floor.
Okay,
You've made your choice.
We're set up.
Let's begin by observing your natural breath.
How do you know you're breathing?
Where do you feel it?
Maybe you sense the breath more in the front,
Or the back body,
Or the sides.
As you observe your breath,
You may notice that you change it.
So okay,
What opinions do you have about your breath,
Or maybe how you think you should be breathing?
Notice those thoughts too.
You don't need to push them away,
But rather than acting on them or willing yourself to breathe in a certain way,
Try to stay with your natural breath and get curious about how your body wants to breathe in this moment.
You might note the length of the inhales and the exhales,
Or the pauses between those inhales and exhales.
Where do you notice restriction?
Where do you feel ease?
As you continue to observe your breath,
Let's talk about what's happening.
Think of this as a guided tour of your breath.
We often think of breathing as pulling air into the body and pushing it out,
But really it's an act of changing shape.
The primary muscle,
The engine of your breath,
Is the diaphragm.
The diaphragm divides the two main cavities of your torso.
It's a flat muscle.
It looks like a parachute or a jellyfish.
The diaphragm has attachments as high as the pericardium,
That's the connective tissue that surrounds your heart,
And as low as the lumbar spine,
About at the level of your navel.
Above it,
This thoracic cavity holds the heart and the lungs.
You can put a hand on your heart.
Below the diaphragm,
The abdominal cavity holds all your other organs,
The liver,
The stomach,
The kidneys,
The intestines,
The spleen.
Maybe you put a hand on your belly.
Bring your attention to that upper space,
The expansion of your ribs.
When you inhale,
The diaphragm contracts down and the thoracic cavity stretches like an accordion,
Allowing oxygen to flood the lungs.
This shift in shape changes the air pressure in the lungs.
You create space,
The pressure drops,
And air from the outside rushes into that vacuum.
When you exhale,
The space shrinks,
The pressure rises,
And the air rushes back out into the atmosphere.
So there's this constant balancing,
A dynamic equilibrium between your lungs and the atmosphere.
Or as Leslie Kamenoff and Amy Matthews write,
You create space and the world fills you.
The fifth limb of yoga is pranayama,
Or harnessing the breath.
Patanjali explains that pranayama prepares us for deeper states of consciousness by eliminating the distinction between the internal and the external.
When we look at the mechanics of our breath,
We can see that atmosphere and interior are a continuation of one another.
You create space and the world fills you.
Now shift your attention to your belly and experiment with sending your breath into your belly.
Create this lower space three-dimensionally,
Front,
Back,
Sides,
And sense it contract three-dimensionally as well as you exhale,
Letting the breath massage your organs.
Notice how your body responds to sending the breath into your belly.
There's no right or wrong answer to this,
Just your lived experience in this moment.
And know too that you can always return to your natural breath if this belly breathing doesn't serve you,
Or you can take a few recovery breaths whenever you want if you want to take a break.
Whenever you decide,
Sense into the pressure on the lower organs as you inhale.
With your exhale,
Notice the belly soften back.
When you inhale,
Remember the diaphragm contracts down and presses on the abdominal cavity.
The lower organs are not compressible,
And so the abdominal cavity responds like a squeezed water balloon,
Pushing the belly outward.
The movement of the belly subtly pulls the low spine forward and back.
With your inhale,
The belly falls forward,
Tugging the spine into a gentle sway.
With your exhale,
The belly draws back toward the spine,
And you may feel the lumbar curve lengthen a little bit.
More subtly still,
As the spine moves,
The vertebrae rock on their discs.
If you're not there already,
Return to your natural breath,
And notice if and how it has changed since you started this practice.
As we come to a close,
Return to that first question I asked you.
How do you know you're breathing?
Where do you feel it?
And now what do you feel most sensitized to?
Where are the points of constriction?
And where is there space for ease?
Again,
Just observe.
No need to change it.
Let the body breathe itself.
We've come to the end of this meditation.
You're welcome to stay with your breath for as long as you like.
Thank you for sharing your practice.
Peace.
