breath

Practice Giving and Receiving

Guided Meditation Recording (8m10s)

As social animals, giving and receiving are a daily part of life. We need each other for mental, emotional and physical support – on a daily basis, and those needs can sometimes be challenging to have and support. Often times we develop habits where one is easier than the other. Many of us are better at giving and others are better at receiving. It’s not so often that we feel equally comfortable with both. And that can change depending on the people we’re with and situations we’re in. Sometimes it just feels easier to do one and not the other.

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Embodied Breath Practice

(14 min Guided Meditation Recording)

This meditation is adapted a Will Johnson practice he calls The Breath of the Unfolding Fern. You can listen to the entire Urban Retreat, and enjoy his magnificent teachings here: https://www.embodiment.net/audios. As he says, it is a very “deeply body-oriented approach to sitting meditation.” I love it.

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3 Minute Yoga: Back and Knee Flexibility

(video 2:45) We also worked on back and knee flexibility.

Here are a few quick yoga exercises that you can do to regain flexibility in your back and knees.

Here is how I see these exercises working best for your body: If you have back or knee issues, for each movement only bend or stretch as far as feels good. If you do these exercises with out straining yourself (stopping your bend or stretch BEFORE it hurts) you will allow your body (muscles and joints) to relax and loosen. You will find that as we repeat each exercise you will naturally be able to bend or stretch a tiny bit more each time, eventually regaining your natural flexibility in that area. Celebrate each centimeter of improved flexibility!

If instead you push your body into the pain zone as you do these movements, your muscles will tense up to protect your body. You will not relax or loosen, and you will not regain flexibility. You will remain stiff. At best you will keep your injuries in place and at worst you could injure yourself more.

Of course, you may not agree with me, and you are welcome to use these exercises in the way is best for you. Whatever you do, enjoy being bendy!

 

What I Do in Crisis (3): Progressive Breathing

(Video: 4:35min) When we’re really stressed our nervous system goes into ‘fight or flight’ mode & we start breathing fast & shallow. One nice way to help our system relax is to deepen our breathing.

If I’m really stressed, I can’t do that. I’m too overwhelmed to change my breathing. I will usually take a mindful breath , observing my (fast!) breathing & then when I’m a bit calmer I can play with my breath.

Progressive breathing starts with noticing my breath as it is and then inviting the next breath to be just a little bit longer & deeper. Just a tiny bit. I invite the next breath to again, be a tiny bit longer and I keep doing that bit by bit, until I’m taking much deeper breaths.

With this simple, subtle method, I gently encourage my nervous system to settle down pretty quickly.

Try it out & get good at it when you’re calm so that you already know how to do it when stress hits. As one client said, ‘build your parachute before you jump.’