Breathwork For Emotional Balance

Welcome to Glow Yoga San Francisco.

My name is Natasha and I am your host.

In today's episode,

I want to share with you the tools I use to find emotional balance.

Whenever I experience pain,

Loss,

Injustice,

The world is a chaos,

Something happens in my professional or private life that puts me down,

Affects my sleep,

My productivity.

I use these tools to get myself out.

This is how we prevent violence towards others,

Harmful behaviors towards ourselves,

Posting hateful things on social media,

Negative reviews on Yelp,

Scratching excess cars,

You name it.

This is how we promote peace,

Health,

And justice in the world by learning to self-regulate,

Down-regulate,

And not act or speak while we are emotionally unbalanced.

I used to be really affected by all of the drama in my personal life,

All of the injustice that I see in the world,

And even the way people behave out.

Nowadays,

I'm taking on the advice of RBG and instead of raising my voice or my heart rate,

I just raise my eyebrows.

And I love this phrase.

If ever I see something crazy or someone's acting the way I wouldn't,

I just say,

Wow,

That's the craziest shit I've seen the whole day.

So hopefully after this episode,

Using all of the tools and changing the lens of your scene,

Perceiving,

You will be able to also take on that phrase.

If you're in conversation that you disagree with,

Or if someone's driving like a maniac,

You just raise your brow and move on with your life.

Please brace yourselves.

We'll talk about what are our emotions,

How to recognize we are in emotional imbalance,

And how to reframe the situations that are out of our control.

And then we'll try a breathing exercise and actually change our physiological response and soothe our nervous system back to center.

I'm so proud of you for your desire to take charge of your life,

Find a better way of being of relating.

I love reminding myself the way I relate to the issue is the issue.

Look at how I relate,

How I judge the situation to find a way back to my centered selves.

As we're growing up,

We're learning to behave in the particular ways.

And by doing so,

We're creating this unconscious book of rules of how people should behave,

Act,

Speak,

Vote,

Dress,

Drive,

You name it.

We always compare the people's action behavior situations to our own internal book of rules.

And the more we're willing to let go of those rules and to burn that book and accept that the world is made of destruction and creation and has nothing to do with you,

The more serenity,

Peace,

And calm you will experience.

If you look at nature that has nothing to do with humans,

There are a lot of creation and destruction that coexist.

So how can we stay graceful?

Remember what's important and create least amount of harm while we're going through all the ebbs and flows of this human experience.

Let's spend a couple of minutes honoring and understanding our emotions.

Even though our emotions are valid and have a right to exist,

Sometimes they kind of derail us from our path,

From our soul's path,

From our professional personal path.

How do emotions make us do all that stuff?

Emotions are actually physiological response that our body creates to actual events that are happening right now,

Or our thoughts about the past or future events.

Did you hear the thoughts about past and future events?

The actual emotional response that go through our nervous system,

Like our heart rate changes,

Our voice rises,

That usually doesn't last more than two minutes.

If you ever watch National Geographic shows,

You have seen a gazelle being chased down and scrunched by a lion,

Making an escape,

And just two minutes later simply grazing the grass like nothing has happened.

So the emotional response that we have is designed by nature to keep us alive and safe,

Raising our heart rates,

Shutting down all the systems so we can escape and make our way to survival.

But then our thinking about past events or worrying about the future events can make that physiological response happen over and over again as long as we live.

So our past experiences,

All of our projects,

Stress,

And even television,

Keeping our nervous system in this emotional disturbance without us even realizing it.

So it's really important to have simple daily practices that down regulate our nervous system so we can safely graze the grass,

Digest,

And be effective without any harmful behaviors.

I also find it interesting that we often don't even know when we're emotionally disturbed,

When we're in emotional arousal,

That emotions is what stands in our way to reach our full potential.

Usually emotional arousal feels like a heart rate is up,

You feel like your stomach is churning,

It's kind of tightening up,

Your facial expressions change,

Usually frown,

Or you want to make a jerky move,

Say something snarky,

All the f-words,

Or you should,

How dare.

You want to go post something on social media about it or do something harmful,

Revenge.

Those are the kind of easier way to see our emotional unevenness and there's also unconscious ways like trying to soothe ourselves with alcohol or any medications,

Shopping,

Eating,

Anything that will make us feel better right now,

Also a sign of emotional unevenness disturbance.

And here I would love to appreciate and honor the science of psychology and groundbreaking work on trauma which is so important to work with the professionals so we can stop those damaging effects of rumination and keeping our body feeling unsafe.

So please love yourself,

Work with the professionals,

Doing the breathing exercises is a complementary but having a professional therapist work is essential.

And the most important thing I want to communicate here in this episode is that we need to learn not to act during emotional arousal.

We do not speak,

We do not call anyone,

We do not complain that creates rumination,

We do not act,

We do not hit anyone,

We do not say anything,

We do not shop,

We do not eat,

We learn to feel the emotion,

We learn to respect,

We learn to respect the emotion,

We let the emotion affect us,

Move through us.

Crying is an amazing way to release your emotion if you have frustration or anger.

A great way to release that is to stomp your feet into the ground.

Let's try it right now.

You can come up to stands,

Make the fists,

And stomp your feet out to the ground for 10-20 seconds,

However long you need to feel better,

Not to let that emotion stay within you.

Move it out.

Imagine that your nervous system is like a circuit and you want to move that thing through.

You want to let it come up,

Fall down,

And be clear afterwards.

And then use the breathing exercise from this episode or any other for that matter to reconnect with your calm center.

And then once we found our center itself then we take action.

And we go ahead and post on Facebook and Twitter.

I'm joking.

I don't know,

I don't do it,

But maybe if it helps.

We establish boundaries,

We find solutions to prevent those things from happening in the future.

We call the senators,

We vote.

We do whatever it is that needs to be done for the greatest good of all.

And always,

Always,

Always ask for professional help.

If you feel you are stuck in some situations that you cannot find a way out,

Please love yourself enough to ask for help.

I can talk on this subject forever.

I want to share all of the tools that helped me deal with life's difficulties and I'll try to share more in every episode.

But here let's begin with the breathing exercise.

The breathing exercise we'll learn today is called Chandra Badana.

It's a lunar breathing.

I love using it because it soothes my nervous system down,

It organizes my mind.

There's a simple task for your mind and body to do for the next two minutes.

I love using it for two to five minutes and come out of it in a completely different state of mind.

I will guide you here using your right hand and right index finger,

But you can use whatever you have.

Take a comfortable seat or even better stand up if you're feeling you've been sitting a long time.

Let the energy move.

Bring your left palm underneath of your right elbow so you can support that right arm in the air and your right fingers will be next to your face.

We'll be inhaling through the left nostril and exhaling to the right nostril the whole time.

Make your inhales and exhales as long as you can and there will be a pause between inhale and exhale to switch your finger from one nostril to another using the right index finger or one finger to keep switching the nostril.

Let's try.

Let's close the right nostril using the right index finger.

Inhale through the left.

Relax your eyes.

Relax your shoulders.

Switch your finger as you hold in the breath.

Exhale through the right nostril.

Relax your eyes.

Relax your shoulders.

Switch your finger.

Inhale through the left nostril.

Expand your belly.

Expand your chest cavity.

Hold on top.

Switch your finger.

Relax your eyes and shoulders.

Exhale through the right nostril.

Don't rush.

Exhale all the air out.

Squeeze your belly.

Squeeze your pelvic muscles.

Switch your finger to the right.

Inhale through the left nostril starting from the belly.

Relax your pelvic floor.

Expand your low ribs and then your chest.

On top of the inhale,

Hold the breath.

Switch your finger.

Relax your eyes.

Relax your shoulders.

Close the left nostril.

Exhale through the right.

Switch your finger.

Keep going.

So knowing that you have all the tools to soothe yourself down to a calm state right here,

Right now.

As you progress with this breathing exercise,

I like to think of the moon moving around my body and clearing all the psychic debris,

All the disturbances,

All the thoughts,

Past,

Future,

Like your own satellite clearing the energy,

Uncording you from all the worries,

Past,

Future that holds you down.

So think of the moon moving from the left shoulder.

As you inhale,

It moves down towards underneath of you and as you exhale,

The moon rises around your right side,

Goes over your head.

As you exhale,

Moon goes up.

As you inhale,

The moon goes from the left ear side to the left hip over underneath of you.

As you inhale,

The moon goes down and as you exhale,

The moon rises on the right side,

Over your head and then to move the moon down on the left side,

You have to inhale through the left nostril.

It rises up on the right side as you start exhaling.

Move your chin up,

Relax your eyes,

Let your heart lift,

Soften your shoulders.

As you need to inhale,

You feel that the moon is moving on the left side around you downwards,

Drawing the moon down to the belly and to the hips.

And as you exhale,

You feel that the moon is on the right side.

As you exhale into the right nostril,

The moon is rising up over on the right side and you feel calm and clear.

Open skies.

Not one thought is disturbing your emotional state.

If visualizing the moon is challenging as you begin this practice,

It's okay.

Just focus on your fingers,

The left,

The right,

The belly,

The pelvic floor,

Keeping your eyes relaxed,

Heart and mind.

As you inhale,

You feel that the moon is moving on the left side,

Your shoulders,

The left,

The right,

The belly,

The pelvic floor,

Keeping your eyes relaxed,

Hearts open,

Chin up to the horizon.

You're doing great.

A few more breaths on your own.

And then slowly release your hands down.

Notice how you feel.

Bring your hand onto your heart.

Feel this calm,

Beautiful heart is beating within and say,

I am here,

Centered,

Grounded,

And calm.

I have all the inner resources to overcome any challenges.

I love,

Forgive,

And accept myself and others 100%.

This is your center for healing,

For love,

Forgiveness,

And compassion.

Think of few things you're grateful for and smile,

Let your whole body feel that gratitude.

Open your eyes.

Take a deep inhale and release.

Notice how you feel.

Thank you so much for doing this practice.

Each one of us can be much more effective at spreading peace and justice when we act from that centered and grounded place.

And I honor you.

I don't remember where I've read it.

Maybe it's not Han.

But it's said that in the biggest storm,

When hundreds of people on the boat freaking out,

Making the boat to sink,

One centered,

Calm person can save the whole boat.

So thank you.

Thank you so much for doing this with me,

Trying holistic self-care that has no side effects.

Remember that consistency is key here.

Grateful for you and so very proud of you taking good care of what you have been given as a gift.

Remember that healing is application of love and care to all the places that hurt.

Sending you love,

Peace,

And health from one and only San Francisco.

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Add a link to it.

This will help other people find this podcast and hopefully start feeling better.

Until next time.