Video: Breathing to Infuse Your Life With Presence

How do you feel when the universe has a different timeline from what you expected?

Anxious? Frustrated? 

This breath practice YouTube video will help you stay present. Use mindful breathing to embrace calm in the present moment. 

When we have an expected timeline for completing our to-do list, or our rest... and the universe has a different timeline, it can be agitating and frustrating to feel like we're not in control. 

That agitation can activate our sympathetic nervous systems, leaving us feeling anxious and disconnected from the present. We may feel out of step, and find ourselves holding our breath in or out, as if trying to grasp on to the passage of time. 

Creative productivity can be a pleasurable state of nervous system activation, until that urge to control creeps in. In this practice you'll use a series of breath patterns to explore pacing and presence, and sync up your nervous system so it feels in rhythm with what's most important.

https://youtu.be/b0I_jGZagSg

You'll set a steady and sustainable pace that anchors you.

• We start with a check in to not only get a baseline, but also to develop presence. 
• Explore your relationship with your body, your mind, and your breath before embarking on a breathing journey to infuse whatever you are doing with present moment awareness.
• Explore segmented breath patterns to harness the power of prana to dispel both agitation and exhaustion.
• Culminate with Sama Vritti, or balanced breathing, to help you find a sustainable state of energized calm to carry you through your day, at your just-right pace.

Transcript:

What's most true? What's most important? Whatever it is that we have a certain timeline for, and the universe has a different timeline. It can be agitating and frustrating to feel like we're not in control of the timeline.

I'm going to invite you to use breath as a way to explore pacing.

We start with a check in to not only get a baseline, but also to develop presence.

Checking in with your relationship with your body.

In your own way, say hi to your body. Maybe you do it with presence or awareness or with touch or with movement, but in some way, um, ask.

How are you feeling, body? How can I best support you?

And then, do that with your mind. What is the quality of the relationship you're having with your mind right now?

If without judgment you were to quantify, like, is your mind moving fast or slow? Is your mind focused or more diffuse?

And the other ways that you can gain more granular awareness of present relationship with your mind.[00:02:00]

And then your relationship with your breath.

Your breath is just as much a tool for your consciousness to use as your mind or your body.

Just as essential for survival and well being.

So without trying to change anything, what is the quality that you're observing in your breath?

Now, if your hands are free, reach them out and up. Breathe in. Breathe out, hands together, and down through center to your heart. We'll do that again.[00:03:00]

And this time you can join me in an OM if you'd like to. OM.

Pause for a moment and consider, what is most important, and distill that into something that's going to help you stay connected to what's most true. What's most important right now?

Okay, then please relax your hands. If you'd like to roll your shoulders, go ahead. If you'd like to roll your head a little, or yawn, or rock your pelvis a little. Preparing for a comfortable seat. And if your comfortable seat is one where [00:04:00] you're lying down or standing, that is fine.

Okay, please look around your space and find something visually that is a cue for what's most important.

Return to being present with this body,

this mind,

this breath.

We're going to play with breath pacing.

When we feel like we're rushing through, that things aren't happening at the pace we're hoping for, for some of us it could be recovery, or rest, or tasks. Whatever it is that we have a certain timeline [00:05:00] for, and the universe has a different timeline. It can be agitating and frustrating to feel like we're not in control of the timeline.

We're going to play around with different breath patterns.

I'm going to invite you to start with a more rapid breath: three part inhale, long Slow exhale through your mouth. You're breaking your breath into three even sniffs.

Locate those separate sniffs in your body by breathing low, then middle, then upper lungs.

You can try it. If that feels like a lot, or you get too much in your head, just do sniff, sniff, sniff, right? And don't worry about where you're locating them. But if it's interesting to you or helpful to you, you can imagine breathing low for one third, middle for the second third, and then upper lungs without straining or stressing your neck for the final third.

And then you [00:06:00] exhale in a long, slow sigh. At the end of that exhale you can imagine your waist drawing in, wrapping your muscles around your spine to get the last bit of breath out.

Alright. So let's try it.

Now remember you're not breathing out in between each of those three sniffs. It's one third, second third, final third.

Find your own rhythm.

Now I'm going to invite you to pause at the top. Before finding that long, slow sigh. You decide for how long you pause at the top. Don't strain. [00:08:00]

If you find your shoulders or neck bunching up, see if you can start that breath lower.

Alright, now, finally, we'll take those three sniffs to get to the top. Pause at the top. After your exhale, you'll pause at the end with all the breath out.

And then just allow whatever wants to happen, to happen. So there might be like a physiological sigh that happens or a yawn or something that comes from after holding that breath out for a moment.

Then return to a natural breath. Yeah, [00:09:00] let the yawns happen.

We're gonna try a long and slow inhale. Starting very low. Long, smooth, slow inhale, pause at the top.

And then see if you can step down your exhale in three parts.

Slowly inhale. Pause at the top, just the [00:10:00] amount that's comfortable. When you exhale, three distinct, separate thirds.

It's a long, slow, smooth inhale. Pause at the top. EXhale a third of your breath and pause. Exhale the next third of your breath and pause. And then the final third to really get the last bit. 

One more round like that.

And if, at the end of this round, you'd like to pause at the bottom with your breath fully out briefly, to notice what arises, be curious, and allow the breath to come in in the way that it most wants to. There might be a shudder, or a flutter, or a yawn. There might even be a roar or a gasp.

Take a little while to return to a natural breath. Invite you to check in with those relationships again. Tracking changes without seeking any particular outcome.

This body right here as it is right now.

Check in with your mind.

And finally, your connection with your breath.

When we're trying to wake up, we often will take a longer inhale, shorter exhale. When we're trying to go to sleep, we'll also often take a shorter Inhale, longer exhale. This helps to balance nervous system towards sympathetic or parasympathetic.

The samma vritti, the even inhale and exhale can help us to develop, energetic calm. So that we can get through the pace of our lives without being overly activated or exhausted. That's it. Does that sound like what you need today?

If you [00:13:00] like alternate nostril breathing, you can add that in. It can help us work with the nadis, the energetic pathways along the central channel. So if you like that and you don't have any sinus things going on right now that would prevent you from breathing through one nostril or the other, you can certainly do it. You would inhale left, exhale right, inhale right, and exhale left.

You switch your hand after each inhale. So if you're doing that, great. What I still want you to focus on is finding a balance between inhale and exhale.

And finding that place where your body feels balanced, feels calm. Your mind is not getting sleepy or agitated. And that the breath is even on the inhale and exhale. Now if you'd like to add a short pause at the top, and a short pause at the bottom, that you're comfortable with, [00:14:00] go ahead.

I'm not telling you what the count is, because it's really individual. I want you to find one that you're able to sustain.

Two minutes.

You can keep the breath going, please check in with your body, any tension that may have arisen. And your mind.

These are all tools to support your consciousness.

And what's most important.

Let's finish. Final round. [00:17:00]

When you feel complete with it, relax. Return to a natural breath and move any way your body wants to move.

I invite you to look again at that object that helps you to stay connected to what is most important that is already there in your space.

And use that as an anchor when you start to find the to do list or the anxiety or whatever it is that's pulling you away from your center. When that happens, it's gonna happen, use that object as an anchor to return you to, Oh yeah, this is why. This is why we're doing all this stuff. And this is how I can return to presence in this moment, so that I can soak up the most appreciation from [00:18:00] this activity, from what it is that I'm choosing to do with this one wild and precious life.

Stay present.

Bring a hand to your heart. Take a deep breath in. big sigh out.

Ommm, shantI, shantI, shanti. Ommm.

Thank you.