Hi,
And welcome to Pressing Pause.
I'm your host,
Raye Louise,
And today's session will be a guided three-part breath practice.
So take a moment to set your seat,
To get steady and comfortable,
And join me.
So as you settle into your seat,
Just maybe taking a moment to let your weight rock a little bit from side to side,
From front to back,
Just finding your way toward the center of your seat,
The center of your body.
You might let the shoulders shrug up to the ears and roll down onto your back a few times,
Just freeing up a little bit of space,
Releasing a little bit of tension across the neck and the chest so that you can begin to elongate your posture,
Feeling the spine radiating both downward into the earth and upward through the crown of your head.
And in this tallest,
Longest version of yourself right now,
Just beginning by taking a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth,
Just letting out a sigh.
We'll take that maybe two or three more times,
Breathing in and just letting out a sigh.
And again,
Just clearing out the body.
And at the bottom of that breath,
Just let the body breathe naturally again for a moment.
And we'll take one or even both if you like,
Both hands to the chest.
And just beginning to tune your attention into the feeling of breathing in and around your chest.
For the first few moments,
You don't need to do anything to the breath.
You need to interfere with it in any way.
Just seeing if you can tune in to the sensations here to this subtle rise and fall of your chest as your body breathes in and breathes out.
Whether the breathing in your chest feels slow or fast,
Easy or labored,
Just giving it a moment,
Giving it your attention as it is.
When you feel ready,
Keeping the hands and the attention here around your chest,
Around your heart space,
Might start to focus some deeper breaths into your chest,
Breathing in and filling up the hands,
Filling up the chest space.
Breathing out and letting the chest soften and settle back toward the center of the body.
And so just take a few more breaths like that into your chest,
Filling up and softening the chest back into the body as you exhale.
Filling the chest and letting it empty out.
Just take two or three more right here in your chest.
Feeling maybe even challenging a little bit the full capacity of your chest to take breath in and to release.
And last breath here into your chest.
And at the end of this exhale,
Really emptying out,
Just letting the arms drop again,
Letting the hands rest in your lap and letting the breath just fall back into its natural pace for a moment.
And as you let go of handling the breath,
You might then take your hands one or both to the rib cage,
Maybe at the sides of your rib cage,
Or you might take one hand to your solar plex and one hand just to your lower back ribs,
Whatever feels comfortable for your shoulders here.
And as you place your hands on your rib cage,
Bring your awareness to it.
Noticing once again,
Just the sensations of your body breathing in this place.
Noticing the subtle stretch and release.
The subtle movement of your rib cage with each in breath and out breath.
When you feel ready,
Again,
You might start to invite some deeper breaths,
This time down into your rib cage,
Breathing in and filling up your rib cage.
Exhaling and just feeling the rib cage soften back into the body.
Again,
Breathing in,
Feeling that stretch outward.
Exhaling and feeling the whole rib cage soften and settle.
So see if you could take a few more breaths here,
Feeling and tuning in to the movement of your rib cage.
Feeling your in breath expand you front to back,
Side to side.
Feeling your out breaths invite a little softening,
A little ease into the body.
One more deep,
Deep breath here into your rib cage.
And all the way out,
Really emptying.
The bottom of that breath again,
Just let the arms drop.
And for a few moments,
Let your breathing just settle back into its own rhythm.
When you feel ready,
You might bring one or both hands down to your abdomen.
Just tuning your attention down into the belly.
And seeing if you can feel the subtle waves of the belly moving as your body breathes.
Just a little bit of rise and fall.
The abdomen making space and relaxing back into itself.
Breath by breath.
And when you feel ready,
Just as you've done before in the chest and the rib cage,
Start to invite some deeper breaths,
This time down into your abdomen,
As if you could breathe right into your belly,
Inhaling and letting it expand.
As you exhale,
Feeling how the abdomen softens and relaxes.
Taking a few more breaths,
Just feeling and envisioning that.
Breathing down into your belly,
Filling up.
Exhaling and emptying out.
Exhaling on the sensations of breathing in your abdomen.
One more deep,
Deep breath here into your belly.
Emptying all the way out.
We're going to keep this deep breath going and add on to it.
So taking one hand to the chest,
Leaving one hand on the abdomen.
Empty your next breath all the way out.
This time as you breathe in,
Filling the abdomen,
Filling your rib cage,
Filling your chest.
As you exhale,
Slowly emptying all the way out.
We're going to take that again,
Breathing in three parts.
Inhaling belly,
Rib cage,
Chest,
Exhaling and emptying all the way out.
Inhaling into the belly,
Filling the rib cage,
Filling the chest.
Exhale the whole torso softening back into itself.
Then again,
Inhaling belly,
Rib cage,
Chest,
Exhaling all the way out.
Inhaling belly,
Rib cage,
Chest,
Exhaling and emptying out.
Take a few more of those,
Just breathing at your own pace.
Feeling the breath move through the whole torso.
Feeling the breathing expanding the body from the root to the crown and feeling the whole torso soften back into ease on your exhales.
Take two or three more on your own.
Trying not to bring the effort and the imagination of these breaths too much into the muscles of your face.
Just keeping a soft face.
One more full breath with your whole body.
Breathing all the way out and then again letting the arms rest.
Just letting the body return to its natural breath.
Taking a moment here just to notice the impact that this has had on you.
To notice where there has been a little space created.
Where there's been a little softening.
Where there's maybe a little more warmth.
Just how it feels to slow down and invite this opening up from your inside.
And if this has felt useful to you today,
Just remembering that you can stop and return to this at any moment of your day.
That your breath is with you everywhere you go.
Thank you for joining me today.
